Karin Conroy (00:02.294)
Before we jump in, if building authority and visibility is a priority for your law firm, and it should be, we are running something called the Authority Tour. It’s this really cool new thing that you probably have never heard of where we take control of getting you on podcasts and building your authority kind of in an old school, somewhat PR type way. So you can learn more about that at conroycreativecouncil.com slash authority dash tour. So today.

Today’s episode, we are talking about email marketing with Tanya Brody and email marketing for law firms isn’t dead, but it definitely has changed. AI has made it easier than ever to send content and I use content in kind of air quotes and newsletters are faster, campaigns are automated, thought leadership can be generated in seconds and I’ve got thought leadership in air quotes as well. But the real question is, has your…

Tanya Brody (00:56.308)
You

Karin Conroy (01:00.124)
email strategy become better or is it just busier? Are you just adding to the noise? So in this world where every firm can produce instant content and just throw out a bunch of slog, authority does not come from volume. It comes from clarity, positioning, perspective, all those things that we’ve been talking about for years and years before AI was ever a thing. So today the uncomfortable question is,

is AI killing your law firm’s marketing strategy. So Tanya, thank you for being here. You are officially one of our collaborators. This is a new thing that I’ve added to the podcast where there’s certain people where we just keep going back to that content and you’ve got this great expertise and this focus on email marketing. And so we’re gonna come back and talk about this again. The last episode was almost two years ago.

Tanya Brody (01:49.998)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (01:55.498)
which I feel like this is a cool moment to kind of go back, talk about what has changed, talk about where the world is now in terms of email marketing. And let’s first start with this idea of it being oversaturated and content is just like drinking from a fire hose. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (02:13.902)
my goodness, so much AI Slop out there, of all kinds. mean, like literally of all kinds. It is so easy to create something that you just don’t know what’s real anymore. I mean, it feels insane. It was so funny. I actually wrote an email newsletter about AI Slop for my newsletter and I found this awesome cartoon.

Karin Conroy (02:31.827)
Right.

Tanya Brody (02:42.368)
And it was, you know, like the cartoon was, you know, these people going, I love this. This is awesome. And then six months later, this is AI slop. I can’t stand it. And it’s like, you, you can’t tell the difference, you know? And it’s like, it’s whether it’s original or not. mean, sometimes you can tell it’s different because like Jesus shrimp doesn’t exist. That was actually one of the examples I used is someone decided that they wanted to make a shrimp that looked like Jesus. And it’s just weird.

Karin Conroy (02:51.358)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tanya Brody (03:11.8)
Thank heavens that does not exist. That’s just scary. But, you know, it, when we can’t trust what ever is in front of us, cause we literally don’t know whether it’s true or not, it makes it harder for everyone. I mean, especially for lawyers because, you kind of rely on trust cause someone is literally in some cases entrusting their lives to you.

Karin Conroy (03:32.361)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (03:40.716)
their livelihoods, that whatever. mean, you guys, you are a very, we need to be able to trust the law and lawyers. So the more garbage that’s out there saying weird stuff, the harder your jobs are. Let’s be honest.

Karin Conroy (03:58.654)
Yeah, 100%. I feel like this idea of trust is not really valued as much as it should be when it comes to the legal industry. And when I think of, I kind of picture these piles of kind of brand value that like a law firm has built over time. And it’s almost like little grains of sand. And then eventually you have this sort of sand dune and you’ve put effort into.

putting every grain of sand into that dune to build your trust, every little case, every interaction, every moment that you’ve been out in the community building your career in your law firm. And then here comes AI. It can be used in a good way, but it also could just be like a giant hurricane that just wipes away your entire sand dune of trust, right?

Tanya Brody (04:52.172)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (04:54.068)
I think we have this, I’ve read a lot of articles recently about this idea of a trust recession and this idea that when I’m looking at content now, I’m glancing and I’m looking for, I’m glancing through, kind of scanning through, looking for dashes, looking to see like those signs of AI that we all are starting to become familiar with. like kind of phrases that don’t quite make sense or don’t.

Tanya Brody (04:59.937)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (05:19.104)
quite seem human. It’s sort of hard to define, but I feel like that’s where we’re at and people don’t understand the potential risks of this AI garbage.

Tanya Brody (05:30.956)
So here’s the problem is that AI is designed to write. I mean, when I read it, it looks like an 11th grade essay. It’s technically perfect, but it’s so bland that you can’t, it’s like, why am I reading this? This is boring. And even now, mean, even with when people are literally adding their personality,

Karin Conroy (05:41.351)
Right. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:48.404)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:52.459)
Right.

Tanya Brody (06:00.63)
to AI, it’s still, I mean, I have several people in my email writing accountability group, which is literally where business owners get to write together, to write together their emails every week. And I then review everything and I know they’re using AI. They’re telling me they use AI. Did you use Claude or Gemini or Chat GPT this week? Cause they all do things differently. Honestly.

Karin Conroy (06:02.655)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (06:29.952)
I can still go through and say, all right, would you actually say that? That does not sound like something you would say. And they go, you know, no, I really, I wouldn’t. And I, you know, I just, can scan and just go, okay, this is, this is the part you wrote. This is the part AI wrote. You need to go through and make this sound more like you. And it’s not like a huge rewrite. Sometimes it’s literally just changing phrases. So it sounds more human.

Karin Conroy (06:33.856)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (06:50.656)
Right.

Karin Conroy (06:56.084)
Yeah. So at the end of the day, is that saving them any time? Because it sounds like if you are going through and they have to keep rewriting and revising, they could have just written it themselves from the beginning and not had these like, you know, numbers of revisions. And, you know, I’m sure that you’re not sitting there timing how much all this stuff takes, but do you think it’s actually saving them any time at the end?

Tanya Brody (07:23.544)
So yes and no. First of all, even if you write your email personally, I still review and I still suggest edits. It doesn’t matter. I I edit my own stuff too. It’s just like what I do, that’s my job. That’s why people are paying me for this group. But I think what it does is it gets through writer’s block for a lot of people, which is really important. And some of it is also it

Karin Conroy (07:31.124)
Yeah, right. Right.

Yeah. Right.

Karin Conroy (07:47.253)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (07:52.588)
gives people the freedom to say things that they might not have said otherwise and to see it on the paper and go, yes, I want to say that, or no, I don’t want to say that. And I think that’s important. are, AI is a good tool. It is not an end product. That is my biggest problem with the way AI has been marketing right now. It’s being marketed as just let AI do it. It’s like, no, do not let AI do it.

Karin Conroy (08:01.109)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:06.954)
Right. Yes.

Karin Conroy (08:17.494)
Yeah, right. Right.

Tanya Brody (08:21.41)
Have you heard about the experiment where it was actually anthropic? Let AI run a vending machine. And I put air vending machine. my God, it’s so funny. So they actually built an experiment in-house, like in their office. And they let a version of Claude, because they are the people who create Claude, run an AI vending machine was basically like a little, an iPad, like a tablet that would let you people, you know.

Karin Conroy (08:28.637)
No, I haven’t heard this one.

Tanya Brody (08:50.764)
pay for things, and then a refrigerator that had standard things. And first of all, it started just giving stuff away for free because you could, like, I guess the funniest thing is when it was in an anthropics office, was, they just started ordering weird stuff because they could order anything. sometimes it was like weird snacks or whatever. Eventually someone decided they wanted to order tungsten cubes.

Karin Conroy (08:55.444)
Okay.

Tanya Brody (09:20.438)
as in tungsten, the element metal. And it’s like, why is this in my budget? a human would look at this and go, please give me a justification for this. The AI just ordered it.

Karin Conroy (09:26.619)
What?

Karin Conroy (09:34.391)
You did.

Right. And then you go back to AI and you ask, okay, why are we doing this? And I always love it when AI is like, my bad. Like that was, you are right in questioning that. Yeah. And I think I love this idea of kind of finding that line. So I want to be clear from the start that we are not saying, despite the title about is AI killing your email strategy, despite that title,

Tanya Brody (09:45.452)
Yeah, I’m so glad you caught that.

Tanya Brody (09:51.885)
It’s.

Tanya Brody (09:57.006)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (10:05.458)
I use AI, I’m sure you do. like you said a few minutes ago, there’s some good structural tool-based things that you can use it for. I love the idea of thinking of it as getting you over that writer’s block. I use it a lot for sort of like outline type things. Like give me a starting point, give me some structure for this. I had it like reorganize a whole file structure on stuff and I was like.

Tanya Brody (10:07.192)
Mm-hmm, I do.

Tanya Brody (10:24.547)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (10:31.444)
this is great, you know? Like there’s files here I wouldn’t have thought of and this helps me keep things organized, stuff like that where I’m like, okay, this isn’t gonna ruin anything if I have the wrong file in here. So, you know, to make it clear from the beginning, we are not like anti-AI, but there is a line here and there’s a line between where the AI should stop and where the human should take over.

Tanya Brody (10:41.379)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (10:59.318)
And so let’s talk a little bit more about that. because I feel like I’ve had a lot of conversations and every time I talk about it, it’s different. And there isn’t like a very clear, like, you know, black and white definition of this. But how do you help people find that kind of stopping point?

Tanya Brody (10:59.395)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (11:20.834)
So a friend of mine who’s also a copywriter, Steve Moore, likes to refer to this as the human in the loop. I because there always should be, mean, you know, in that same way that you have a manager in the loop in most businesses, there should be a human in the loop. You know, there should be someone going, is this what we really want? You know? And I think that it’s the place that it needs to stop is where the humanity comes in.

Karin Conroy (11:27.38)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:36.703)
Right.

Tanya Brody (11:50.574)
Again, you’re lawyers, you are dealing with human beings. You are not representing bots. Yet. And I hope it never comes to that for your sake. Right? But the point is that it’s. If you are, we are all business, whether you’re B2B, B2C, I don’t care. You are still P2P, person to person. So the robots are not human yet. The robots.

Karin Conroy (11:56.874)
Yeah. gosh. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (12:19.582)
still can’t human well. They don’t get it. they also, they can just be so easily fooled. So easily. mean, as part of that experiment that I was telling you about with the AI vending machine, yeah, Anthropic partnered with the Wall Street Journal to, you know, do this in their office. And it took one of their

Karin Conroy (12:21.566)
Yeah. Yep.

Karin Conroy (12:28.124)
Right. And manipulated. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:34.688)
The tungsten cubes.

Tanya Brody (12:46.656)
one of their reporters, like 140 interchanges through Slack to get it, to give everything away for free, like everything. Not just like, you know, having a sale on this, but literally it’s in there, you can take it. And it’s like, my God, how easy is that to manipulate?

Karin Conroy (13:03.51)
I laugh, but that’s also kind of uncomfortable because it’s like, yeah.

Tanya Brody (13:07.81)
It’s really uncomfortable. So what is AI gonna do to someone’s lawsuit? And we have all heard the horror stories of the paralegal who just used AI or the lawyer who just used AI and was literally called on the carpet and censured by a judge because it’s like, did you not actually read the law? I mean, I went.

Karin Conroy (13:13.343)
Right, right.

Karin Conroy (13:22.848)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (13:33.279)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (13:35.33)
I think I’ve told you before, I used to work for Findlaw as a copywriter, right? I had lawyers who would sit, like when we did our interviews with them over, you know, Zoom, would, it would be, I’m sitting in front of all of my books. It’s like, I’ve been ordering your books from Thompson writers since I, you know, like rocks were new. And it’s like, you people are at least two to five years behind all of the rest of us because that’s what the law does. Not because there’s anything.

Karin Conroy (13:59.86)
Yeah. Right.

Tanya Brody (14:03.734)
wrong with you as humans, but just because the law just takes so long to catch up. And therefore the way you practice law also takes a while to catch up. So

Karin Conroy (14:09.183)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (14:16.946)
so interesting because I even remember like I was in college quite a long time ago and and then grad school not quite as long ago but and I even remember at the time and I know this is even more of a conversation now that textbooks and what they’re teaching is already out of date and this changes so rapidly so that when you’re sitting in a class I have nephews who are in college and they’re sitting in class today and

Tanya Brody (14:35.054)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (14:44.35)
what they’re talking about, especially if it’s at all related to marketing, business, whatever, that’s out of date because even like the things that we read in the newspaper are relatively out of date because the things that are happening are yet to be reported on, yet to be put in a book. And by the time they do get in a book, it’ll be so, you know, ancient history. talk to me about the difference between two years ago when we were talking about

a lot about the topic of that conversation was what you’re doing wrong in email. And I just realized that both of these episodes kind of have a negative title. Yeah, exactly. Right. So, and like, what are you doing different versus two years ago? And I know that we’re talking about kind of putting these AI in as tools and things, but what’s actually changed in the way that you would

Tanya Brody (15:18.84)
Mm-hmm.

Tanya Brody (15:24.32)
I know, but the nice thing is we’re providing solutions. So it’s okay. It’s okay.

Karin Conroy (15:43.2)
think about an email campaign, an email strategy, or has it?

Tanya Brody (15:49.07)
So traditional email still works. Sending out and people still go to their inboxes. I think the things that have changed is your headlines, your subject lines need to be more grabby. They need to be more attention, getting people to focus on them because there’s so much more email. I feel like I am just, and I…

curate my inbox. It’s like, if I don’t recognize it, I delete it, I, you know, report it as spam, what have you. Even so, there is so much stuff. And a standard subject line doesn’t work anymore. It really has to be either so repetitive that people know to look for it, or it has to be something that will just

Karin Conroy (16:26.004)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:38.613)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (16:44.46)
jump out off of the screen at you and go, yes, I need to read that. I think that’s a big thing. I think the other thing is that emails have gotten shorter, which ironically enough, mine have gotten longer because I’m now writing a newsletter as opposed to just a short email. But I think that it’s something that we need to think about as people is our attention spans have got shorter.

Karin Conroy (17:00.319)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:12.661)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (17:13.644)
You know, was in a group yesterday where, you everyone’s like, I think we’re all ADHD, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I think we’re all ADHD because the algorithms have done this to us. They are distracting us from all of the things. And that’s part of the reason I love email so much is it is your inbox is still a personal relationship. Here’s the scary part.

Karin Conroy (17:18.441)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:23.03)
100%.

Karin Conroy (17:28.831)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:33.78)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (17:37.954)
They’re, mean, just now they are talking about all of these bots that are going in and reading your email for you. And I was again, in a group the other day was I was like, wait a minute, do I now have to write for the robots in my email too? Not just on my website. And yeah, now suddenly you do so that it’s how do I make sure that I read that I write for the robot so that it is willing to pass along.

Karin Conroy (18:04.767)
it gets seen at all.

Tanya Brody (18:07.862)
my email to the human. It’s like robots are becoming our gatekeepers. And that’s insane because I don’t want to talk to a robot. I want to talk to a human. It’s the same thing. It’s like when you call the helpline and you get the phone tree of doom and then you’re finally like, human, human. Yes. know, yeah. And then. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (18:09.631)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (18:21.674)
Right.

Karin Conroy (18:25.546)
yeah. Yeah. Human, please connect me. Yeah. that happens on a nearly daily basis to me, I feel like. Yeah. I was thinking while you were talking about, though, the filtering of your email, and I feel like I’m very aggressive with it also. And and also, even if I have allowed a certain email, usually email newsletter or something through.

Tanya Brody (18:36.952)
Yeah, it always.

Karin Conroy (18:55.67)
If it comes too frequently, I just get really annoyed by that as well. Even if I’m like, listen, you’re saying something okay, and I might have let you stay in my inbox, but you’re driving me nuts. So how do you, do you have a kind of recipe for that? Like what’s a common frequency and where do people start to just get super annoyed and, or is that different? how do, what do you, where do you kind of sit with that?

Tanya Brody (19:09.059)
Mm-hmm.

Tanya Brody (19:24.462)
So first of all, depends on your strategy. And I’ll just be honest. There are still email marketers out there who believe you should bombard people with emails once, twice, even sometimes three times a day. And not because you’re out to annoy people, but because that inbox is so full that you may send them 12 emails in a week and they may see three.

Karin Conroy (19:37.262)
Ugh.

Karin Conroy (19:43.933)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (19:50.42)
Yeah, but that’s really annoying. Like if I’m getting three emails a day from someone, better, every single one of them must be something I care about. Because otherwise, if I see two that I really don’t care about and then I’ve got three more the next day, I’m so like, get out of my inbox. Like stop, yeah.

Tanya Brody (19:53.858)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (20:07.746)
Yeah. Yeah. And that is common. So honestly, a lot of the people who do that are, I mean, they’re running a sale. Let’s face it. know, you, right, you are actually trying to sell something. You’re trying to get someone to click through. So you want all of those emails so that of the three that you send that day, someone might click on one. That’s fair. mean,

Karin Conroy (20:15.112)
Yeah, so they have a product usually. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:21.547)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:26.28)
Okay, yeah, I could picture that like in a Black Friday deal. Like I see that kind of stuff. my inbox just like around Black Friday, basically from November 1 on. it’s it’s really. That’s true. Yeah, it’s got worse and worse. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (20:30.189)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (20:35.214)
Yeah.

You’re kidding me, middle of October, it’s insane. Yeah, it has. The creep is a thing, but the problem is I am still very much an advocate of send that second or third email on the last day of your sale to say, no, really, we are closing now. Not because you want to annoy people, but because human beings are busy. You know what?

Karin Conroy (20:57.162)
This is it.

Tanya Brody (21:05.368)
How many times a day do you check your email? I check mine constantly because this is what I do. But a busy parent who is off running errands and taking their kids to soccer practice and band practice and all of those things, if you’re trying to sell to them, when do they slow down? 10 o’clock at night when the kids are in bed. So you send that email at 10 o’clock at night going, and they’re like, God, yes, I wanted to do this thing. Yes, here, take my money.

Karin Conroy (21:25.822)
Exactly, exactly. And they’re like, yeah, yeah. Right, right. Okay, so that’s more of a strategy if you’re more of a product based business and you’ve got that urgency and you’ve got a deadline and all of that. But I feel like for most law firms, that’s not the approach. That’s not the strategy. so, yeah.

Tanya Brody (21:35.297)
So.

Tanya Brody (21:42.453)
Right.

Tanya Brody (21:47.298)
that most law firms, that is true. And I think this is why I’m an advocate of the weekly email. And for lawyers, maybe you want to do it monthly. I mean, you guys are busy. I know how you are. But it’s also, it’s not just that you’re trying to inundate people with information. You just want to keep yourself top of mind. And maybe that weekly email is

Karin Conroy (21:53.865)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (21:57.182)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:10.974)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Tanya Brody (22:17.198)
updates on things going on in the community that are going to affect you, your reader personally. Yeah, so if there’s a I don’t know, a eminent domain thing going on in your city and it’s gonna affect everyone in the city, people wanna know about that. But there’s also just the,

Karin Conroy (22:25.268)
Right. And that you really care about. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:32.32)
changing some law.

Karin Conroy (22:36.799)
Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:41.652)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Tanya Brody (22:46.958)
I do not envy personal injury lawyers. You guys have it so hard. Because it’s like you literally have to wait till someone gets hurt to do your job. so you’re keeping, no one wants to come to you until there’s a problem. I mean, that’s true of lawyers in general, right? No one wants to come to you till there’s a problem. So how do you keep saying, hi, do you have a problem? Hi, do you have a problem? So sometimes it’s case studies. It’s like, hey, we were just in court and

Karin Conroy (22:56.029)
Right, yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:01.3)
Yeah. Right.

Karin Conroy (23:09.022)
Right, right, yeah.

Tanya Brody (23:15.746)
this weird thing came up. if you’re considering, if you’ve got this issue, this is something you need to consider. Yeah, give us a call so we can talk about it. it’s, segmentation is a really big thing, I think for email marketing and for lawyers.

Karin Conroy (23:20.34)
Yeah. Give us a call. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:31.584)
Well, that was one of my next questions. Actually, I was just kind of like looking at the things to that I wanted to talk about. And I wanted to talk about over personalization. Like, is it getting too much? Cause there’s times when I get an email and I’m like, it’s weird how many times you’re saying my name.

Tanya Brody (23:49.806)
So there’s this theory that the more times you say, I mean, like it is true that the sweetest word to any human being is their name. Cause it’s one of the first things we hear regularly from, you know, think about your parents, know, they, have a goo goo, ga ga ga, know, Karen, goo goo, ga ga ga car. You know, it’s like, yes, thank you. Okay. And that’s one of the things that we get into our heads, but at the same time there is overdoing it.

Karin Conroy (23:58.047)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:06.93)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (24:19.062)
It’s actually a sales tactic to repeatedly say someone’s name. So there are some companies, some copywriters who believe you should put someone’s name in three to four times. And it’s like, no, that’s too much. I’m good with, hey, yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:20.757)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:32.202)
That’s, yeah, that feels weird. Like I wouldn’t even as a human respond to an email. And like, if you emailed me about something, I wouldn’t put your name in like five times. I would, you know, if I’m, I’m thinking like, okay, you’re asking me, Hey, can you give me the name of some book or something? I wouldn’t be like, Tanya, the name of this book is this and Tanya, do you want it? know, like it would just be like, that just feels unnatural. Once again, we’re coming back to that.

This is not how people talk. It feels really weird.

Tanya Brody (25:03.35)
Right, right. And that’s the thing is it’s when you, when you let the, when you give AI instructions to, you know, write it like a salesperson, you know, guess what? Every, I’m sure that how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie is in every single LLM out there. And that’s what it’s going to access. And guess what? That’s where that came from. You know?

Karin Conroy (25:14.431)
Yeah.

It’s garbage.

Yes, yes, yes, 100%. Yeah. And I’ll never forget, like the first time I ever heard that idea about like the sweetest sound of is someone’s name. I feel like I was like nine and my aunt was saying it to me. So that book has been around forever. And I think everybody has, you know, kind of heard, hopefully you’ve heard it. Like there is, there are some very like fundamental truths there.

But let’s not go bonkers on it. Let’s keep it regular and human.

Tanya Brody (25:57.774)
So my description about AI, just in general, is it’s like an overeager puppy that really wants to please you. So it will do the thing, the thing that you tell it to do, and it will keep doing it. So it’s like, if you’re trying to get AI to iterate something, it’s like the puppy that’s like, I’ve got your slippers. And you’re like, thank you. I appreciate that you brought me the slippers, but I wanted my paper. And it’s like,

Karin Conroy (26:03.167)
Yeah.

Yes, totally.

Karin Conroy (26:12.938)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:19.422)
Yeah. And I just chewed them to bits. Right. Because it’s also a little bit dumb. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (26:26.86)
I’ve got your slippers. Yeah, it’s dumb. It doesn’t get it because it is still at the level of literally stringing words together. That’s what an LLM does. Are there more advanced systems that are doing crazy things that scare people? Yes, there are. I really hope no normal human beings get a hold of those because those are scary. But yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:39.23)
Right, right.

Karin Conroy (26:44.778)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:49.182)
Right, yeah. So do you have any frameworks for like using it versus not using it or any way to kind of put our brains around, you know, how do I not erode trust but also get things done a little faster?

Tanya Brody (27:06.998)
So honestly, here’s how I personally use AI. I write my own newsletter every week. I sit down and I write it all. And I do it by hand because I believe that that is how, that’s what people pay me for. Therefore, that is what I should be doing for the people who are reading me, right? I take that newsletter and I put it into AI and say, please make social media posts out of this. Cause I hate writing social media posts.

Karin Conroy (27:24.82)
Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (27:35.295)
Yes, yeah.

Tanya Brody (27:36.524)
And I have trained it to write more like me. I still read every single one of those posts and edit them because it still gets stuff wrong. I mean, it still pulls information that I don’t want it to be in there. You know, it will literally just pull out all of the salient points of my news that I’m like, no, I want people to go read the thing. Yeah. It’s like, it curiosity, give people a reason to be curious and to click through, you know, and I have to say that over and over and over. And it’s like,

Karin Conroy (27:45.599)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (27:54.428)
Right? Stop doing that. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:01.055)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (28:05.578)
It doesn’t learn unless you tell it to learn. And even then you have to tell it, go access this. So it.

Karin Conroy (28:09.61)
You have to fix it. Yeah, yeah. And even then, even so I have a whole system for this podcast. And even though I have it, have like GPT agents in there that are programmed and they’re supposed to do a certain set of things. And almost every time I’m like, what are you doing? You’re missing like go back to the instructions you’re for, you know, so it’s still like very need necessarily needs to be reviewed.

Tanya Brody (28:23.118)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (28:38.014)
And I also would say that I think social media posts are where people are going the most wrong because they just like, it feels like such a slog of work that, you know, nobody wants to do. It’s rare. Anybody is like excited to write social media posts, but that is, I feel like if there’s one place I would want to highlight that people really take an extra couple of minutes is there.

Like stop just copying and pasting your generic social media stuff. I mean, just to reiterate what you said a minute ago, you’re using it, but then you revise it over and over and over and make sure that like, you pulling out every dash? Cause I don’t, can’t use dashes as much as I love them. I can’t use them anymore.

Tanya Brody (29:23.758)
I know they are a legitimate piece of punctuation and no one wants to use them anymore because it looks like whether you’re using them legitimately or not, it looks like AI. I actually had a client who’s like, I said that to her the other day. She’s like, but can I leave this one in if I do this? Cause I like them. I’m like, I get it. But you know what? This, this is our reality now and it sucks. I hate it too. I like putting dashes in every once in while. Once in a while they’re important, but they’re so overused. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:26.59)
I love it. I know.

Yep. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:39.668)
I do too. I do too. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:49.576)
Yeah, and I think visually it makes those words stand aside. I love them. I feel like they’re much more impactful than a comma, but I take them all out now. And it’s sort of like I’ve had a sad funeral for all my emdashes.

Tanya Brody (29:58.092)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I know. And honestly, if I could do a better job of bolding things in social media posts, I’d do that instead.

Karin Conroy (30:07.348)
Right. Yeah, that’s kind of the things I use for social media, it’s not reliable. Like, you you can sometimes format it, but it doesn’t always work. so I think this is just where we’re at. And it’s more important to lean on the side of removing those things that are going to erode trust versus using an dash. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (30:12.45)
Yeah, yeah.

Nope.

Tanya Brody (30:28.684)
Yeah. But, know, and it’s silly that we’re getting down to that kind of minutiae, but the truth of the matter is the more you can be human and the more that you can show you are human. And sometimes that means owning up to your mistakes. Sometimes that means, you know, sharing the fact that, you know, your dog just died or whatever in your social media, in whatever it is you’re writing.

Karin Conroy (30:47.144)
Yeah, 100%.

Tanya Brody (30:58.082)
People go, this really isn’t AI, this is real human.

Karin Conroy (31:01.29)
Yeah, right. Because that would be really weird if you were talking about, if your AI was talking about your dog dying. Totally.

Tanya Brody (31:06.606)
Yeah, that would be very sad. Okay, to be human, I lost one of my cats on Tuesday. My newsletter, which I will be writing today, is going to be all about that. And this is why we are human. Yeah, because these things happen to us as business owners, as human beings, and we need to share this part of our lives too. It can’t all be, you know, one law cases and

Karin Conroy (31:15.382)
Karin Conroy (31:20.63)
Aww, about the cat! Yes!

Karin Conroy (31:31.337)
right.

Tanya Brody (31:35.688)
however much, you know, awards went to, yeah, and however much award went to whatever client and all of that stuff. You’ve got to bring the humanity into it too, because then people will trust you and be like, they actually care. They actually want to work with me.

Karin Conroy (31:37.416)
money you made, yeah.

Karin Conroy (31:47.626)
Right.

Karin Conroy (31:51.702)
That’s exactly it. As soon as you said the thing about your cat, I was thinking, okay, this is where her heart is right now. This is where her emotions are. This is where her real thoughts, like we’re having this sort of superficial business conversation. We’re doing the podcast, whatever. But as soon as you’re done and you kind of step away from the microphone and whatever, then this is what is going on in your life. And this is what you’re thinking about and caring about and where your emotions are, like I said.

Tanya Brody (32:14.828)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (32:21.174)
What are some other ways that people can convey that stuff? Because I also draw the line in certain personal things. I don’t talk about my kids specifically. I see people talk about that on LinkedIn, and I’m like, that’s fine for you. That’s not my thing. But what other examples do you have to retain your humanity, I guess, is the end of that question.

Tanya Brody (32:45.506)
Yeah, what volunteering work do you do? Do you coach Little League? Do you work with your local food bank? Do you do pro bono cases that you wanna talk about because they’re important to your community? That stuff, do that stuff. I have a dear friend who’s a lawyer in Minneapolis right now and she is trying to support.

Karin Conroy (32:48.787)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:01.214)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tanya Brody (33:12.046)
the other lawyers who are out there doing all of this really hard work for their clients. She’s an immigration lawyer. So I emailed her the other day, I’m like, are you okay? And she’s like, oh my God, I’ve been thinking about you. I’m trying to put together a website to get funds for these people. Can you help? I’m like, yes, count me in. Just count me in, I’m doing it. Because this is what the community needs right now. I mean, we’re both from Minneapolis, we get this. But it’s, you

Karin Conroy (33:21.342)
Yeah, really.

Karin Conroy (33:30.496)
Let’s do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:36.214)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Well.

Tanya Brody (33:41.068)
It’s stuff like that. What are the things that you are doing that is supporting your community? I think that’s the other thing to remember is you are building a community. You’re not just, you know, one and done. You’re trying to make sure that A, you’re doing a good job for your client because you want to do a good job for your client. You are building a referral network because that client is going to say, my God, you have this problem. I went to, you know,

Karin Conroy (33:49.897)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:53.6)
transactional.

Tanya Brody (34:08.834)
Josh Mo for this issue and they were amazing, you know? And you’re also being a good part of your overall community. And that gives you the benefit of being a good human. But it also means that when someone goes, I’m having this issue. Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t that friend of yours? Or wasn’t that guy who was at our community meeting or our gal who was, you know, part of the bake sale, aren’t they a lawyer?

Karin Conroy (34:36.468)
Yeah. Well, was even just thinking, sorry to interrupt, about the kind of recipe of you sending that non-email newsletter email to your friend in Minneapolis and saying, basically, are you okay? And then, you know, so taking this sort of formula, are you okay? And then your friend replies and says, I need this kind of help. And can you help? And you reply and say, yes, of course.

Tanya Brody (34:37.43)
You know, whatever it is.

Tanya Brody (34:59.662)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (35:03.296)
think about that kind of connection and the recipe for that and apply that into other scenarios. How do you reach out to your audience, your community, your potential clients, all of that and say, hey, are you okay? And not in those words, obviously, because maybe it’s not like this urgent headline news sort of situation that you’re describing, but hey, are you guys okay? And I’m here if you need help.

Tanya Brody (35:10.723)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (35:30.258)
in the following situations. You know, obviously like if your tire goes flat, you know, I don’t know how to change a tire.

Tanya Brody (35:32.387)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (35:36.968)
Right. But at the same time, you would do that to a friend, right? I mean, this is my friend. I reached out to her because she is my friend. So think about your email list as your friends. They’re your community. are, talk to them. Okay. Email, you’re all lawyers. I know you have to write legal briefs.

Karin Conroy (35:43.784)
Right. Yes.

Karin Conroy (35:54.196)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (36:04.428)
And I’ve literally had discussions with lawyers when I was writing for FIDE Law. was like, this does not sound professional enough. And I’m like, the people who are reading your website are not lawyers and they’re not going to understand all of your legal terms. They won’t get it. They’ll go somewhere else. Be conversational in your emails.

Karin Conroy (36:10.934)
Karin Conroy (36:20.342)
feel like that needs to be bolded and underlined and highlighted. The people reading your emails and your website are not lawyers. You do not have to prove your law degree in your email.

Tanya Brody (36:25.932)
Yes!

Tanya Brody (36:36.074)
And I’ll be honest, so many of you would say to me, I have to get referrals from my fellow lawyers. if I don’t, and let’s face it, that is how you guys used to do marketing. That was it, that you all referred to each other. This is not the world we live in anymore. It’s okay to let that go. But more importantly, we can write a page for referrals, send people to that page and you can be as lawyerly as you wanna be there.

Karin Conroy (36:44.766)
Yes. Yes.

Karin Conroy (36:49.428)
Yes. Yep. Right. Right. It’s hard though.

Tanya Brody (37:05.91)
when you are building your community and that literally means clients, future clients and referrals, as well as just being a good human within your community, right? In a conversational way. If you speak like a professor, that’s fine. You can do that. mean, but like, right? Like you’re having a conversation with someone and it’s just going to come off better. You’re going to feel, people are going to feel more like they’re talking to a human being.

Karin Conroy (37:27.902)
Yeah, because I-

Karin Conroy (37:33.888)
Who cares? Right.

Tanya Brody (37:34.454)
as opposed to, well, yeah, to who cares, as opposed to a lawyer who is an automaton and is just gonna go file a bunch of paperwork for them. I mean.

Karin Conroy (37:41.846)
Yes, because I’ve thought in I’ve had very many connections with very many lawyers and a lot of people that are in my community know that and like my actual physical community. And so I will be asked for referrals often from my neighbors or friends or whatever. And I’m not sitting there thinking back about, hey, who really quoted that law case study the best? It’s who am I going to give a number to?

Tanya Brody (37:58.072)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (38:11.892)
that treated me well, who I liked and I enjoyed working with, and I feel like is going to treat my neighbor friend, you know, whoever well also. It’s not about how much you know, it’s how much people feel like you care. So like, set all the lawyer-y stuff aside, that’s not it.

Tanya Brody (38:27.96)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (38:31.65)
Yeah, referrals are not who is the most effective at whatever. Referrals are who am I going to entrust with my friend, my family member, my community member’s problem? Who am I going to go in? Because remember, that comes back to you when you refer someone. I talked to that person and they were awful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, that’s not what you want.

Karin Conroy (38:40.723)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (38:44.95)
neighbor. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (38:50.71)
100%. Yep.

Karin Conroy (38:55.306)
They were so rude. They didn’t answer the phone. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Tanya Brody (39:01.28)
You want someone to come back to you as a human being, you know, and I don’t care if it’s, you know, I went to a hairdresser or I went to a store or I went into a, you stay certain product. You want someone to come back to you and say, my God, that thing you recommended. I love it. That, yeah, that is what you want. So anyone who’s going to give you a referral, that’s how you want them to

Karin Conroy (39:04.596)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (39:18.87)
was amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Karin Conroy (39:29.93)
Yeah. Yeah. And the number of times I’ve had people ask me for a referral and it’s a certain, there’s a couple key practice areas that I won’t name, but where I think back over the clients that I worked with under those practice areas and I’m like, no, I have nobody for you. I’ve worked with a lot of them and I’m doing you a favor by saying no to all of the ones that I could potentially give you phone numbers for. So, you know, I’m helping you filter out the bad ones, you know.

Tanya Brody (39:30.318)
feel when they refer you because yeah.

Tanya Brody (39:55.564)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (39:58.946)
Yeah, I’ll be honest. When we all, and when I was working at FindLog, we all had friends who had issues. We had like a chat of, hey, I’ve got a friend who has this issue. Who have you talked to lately? Who you would trust with this? Who you liked? who you liked was always in there because we may not actually have been your client, but we talk to you and we know what you’re like as your writers.

Karin Conroy (40:13.13)
Yep, right, exactly. Yes, it’s number one.

Karin Conroy (40:21.982)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. huh.

Tanya Brody (40:26.528)
So yeah, guess what? That matters too. So be human. Be a human being in all of your correspondence with other humans. If you’re going to go cite things at the judge that they’re used to that, that’s fine. But I’m sure that you guys all talk afterwards in your humans, right? Like that. Be that.

Karin Conroy (40:29.15)
Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Karin Conroy (40:38.838)
You’re right, exactly.

Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. All right, so it is time for the book review section and I know you’ve got a good one for us today. So Tanya, what is the book that you’re gonna add to our library this time?

Tanya Brody (40:49.814)
Okay. Yes.

Tanya Brody (40:55.884)
Okay, so first I have to tell you, I listened to the audio book version of this. I do not have a physical copy, but I will say I liked it so much. listened to it twice in a row. It was a really good book. I loved it. I’m like, I have to listen to this again. It’s so good. It is Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. And it is so good. It is…

Karin Conroy (41:01.109)
That’s okay.

Karin Conroy (41:05.425)
Karin Conroy (41:12.319)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (41:16.554)
I’ve read this one too, I love it. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (41:20.192)
Really, it’s talking, and honestly, I like audiobooks because I can do things while I’m listening, which is part of reason I went back and listened to it twice. it’s so good that it’s basically, it’s not talking about how to do something. It’s more like, who do I know on my network? Who do I write? Yeah.

Karin Conroy (41:27.07)
Yeah, totally.

Karin Conroy (41:42.73)
I feel like this is exactly what we were just saying about being a human. It’s not about how much you know legally and how the legal precedent is going to be set and how you’re going to tackle that case. It’s what kind of a person are you?

Tanya Brody (41:56.62)
Right. Well, one of the things that I loved about this book was one of the things they brought up is as a business person, you you want to go out and find your who’s the people that are going to help you run a better business. In fact, in this case, they discussed the fact that Dan Sullivan, who is, you know, the founder of strategic coach had his mentee, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, write the book for him because he thought he’d do a better job. Right. That’s like that he became his

Karin Conroy (42:05.888)
Yup.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (42:23.077)
my gosh, yeah.

Tanya Brody (42:25.944)
who, but they also talk about becoming the who for the people who need you. How do you become that person that everyone goes, yeah, let’s go talk to Karen. She’s the person. Right. So those are both so important. And one of the things that I always tell all of my copywriting people that I always consider as a writer is I am constantly asking the question.

Karin Conroy (42:26.591)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (42:39.22)
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Tanya Brody (42:54.722)
What’s in it for me on behalf of the people I’m to, right? Not on my, I know what’s in it for me. Why, but yeah, why should I, why should I as a consumer, this is something we all ask, why should I as a consumer of anything take my valuable time and energy and give it to you for this? Should I, why should I pay you for this? Why should I, whatever, why should I read your email?

Karin Conroy (42:59.402)
Yeah, right. Why do they care about this? Right.

Karin Conroy (43:14.794)
Yep. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (43:20.204)
That is the most important question you need to answer if you take nothing away from this conversation, that. Joe Polish, who they talk about in this book, flips it on its head and does something similar, but he says, ask the question, what’s in it for them? And that’s just as important. That helps you make yourself the who. What am I giving that really drives home

Karin Conroy (43:25.578)
Yeah. Yep.

Karin Conroy (43:37.226)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (43:49.325)
that, yeah, I’m the right person to solve your problem. Because this is where I get into my big speech about service. None of us are in business to make money. We are in business to serve. And I mean, as lawyers, literally, that is what you do. You serve people and not just warrants and whatever. Yeah, as legalists, that’s the word I was looking for, legalists. It’s been a while since I had to write for you. But yeah, but the point is, you know, it’s

Karin Conroy (43:53.258)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (43:59.488)
Right. Right?

Karin Conroy (44:04.692)
Yes, right.

Yeah, legal summons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s okay.

Tanya Brody (44:18.526)
We are here to help people solve problems. We are here to serve. And when you come at your entire business from that point of view, you become that who? Because you are being human, because you are being a kind, reliable, compassionate human being. And that is the secret sauce I wish every business in the world would just spread liberally all over everything they do.

Karin Conroy (44:21.574)
Yeah. Yep.

Karin Conroy (44:27.35)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Karin Conroy (44:44.726)
100%.

Yes.

Tanya Brody (44:48.076)
because we would just live in a better place if we did.

Karin Conroy (44:51.036)
It would, and when you describe, like you become the who, another translation of that is you become the answer. And I feel like this was a serious pivotal moment in websites for, I would say maybe six or eight years ago, maybe even a little bit more, when it went from being very transactional and very much of a brochure website to being strategic. And then you saw the word strategy everywhere and a lot of people thought they knew what that meant. But from,

Tanya Brody (44:58.094)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (45:20.778)
The way we approach it and the way that I’ve really come to believe is, it’s what you’re describing, is that the first impression should be that I understand your problem, you’re here for this certain kind of problem, and I have can solve that problem for you. I hear your problem and I can solve it, but first I hear it. And this was so different for lawyers and law firms because it was more like me, me,

sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, and we went to law school here and whatever. And people came to assume that that was just the way a website was done. And there are plenty of sites that are still done that way. And it’s not just websites, it’s your messaging in general. So it could have been the email, it could have been your social media, it could have been whatever it is that you’re presenting. We tend to kind of come back to that website and then go out from there. So that’s why I’m talking about that. But it was a huge shift in this idea of

Tanya Brody (45:58.008)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (46:18.986)
being that answer solution, being that who that you’re describing versus being so like ego driven.

Tanya Brody (46:22.562)
Mm-hmm.

Tanya Brody (46:26.54)
So I’ll tell you a secret, that’s how copywriting is done. And I came in to find law as that kind of copywriter and most of y’all didn’t know what to do with me. And my favorite lawyers were the ones who were like, yes, this is the type of website I want because they were the ones who were like, yes, I am here to serve. I mean, that is, I am here to solve your problem because that is literally what copywriting is. It has been for

Karin Conroy (46:30.858)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (46:41.558)
Wow. Yes.

Karin Conroy (46:48.394)
Yep. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (46:56.244)
Ever. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (46:56.334)
I don’t know, eons. mean, that is Ogilvy, Dan Kennedy, all of the major copywriters and advertisers for years. That is how they approach it. Eugene, why have I lost this? Yeah, it’s like this is, yes. Yes, exactly.

Karin Conroy (47:08.822)
This is just human psychology. This is how our brain works. It’s like, why do I care? What’s in there for me? Tell me what you’re solving for me. Whether it’s a toothpaste or a life-changing legal decision, I need to get buy-in to this. This is just how our brains work. This isn’t anything complicated, but I know I can just…

Tanya Brody (47:26.616)
Mm-hmm. Yum.

Karin Conroy (47:32.95)
tell in the years that you’ve been doing this, that you’ve hit that resistance in the same way where people want to go back and have that ego driven thing. And they’re like, no, no, what you’re talking about sounds a little bit weird. I, I, I’m, I’ve got a lot of fear around that. So I’m just going to sit here in the same old, same old ego driven stuff.

Tanya Brody (47:38.419)
yeah.

Tanya Brody (47:51.407)
And that’s not what sells. mean, one of my very favorite lawyers was actually here in the LA area and he was helping gang members. And, you know, I wrote the standard copy for him with compassion, because that’s the kind of guy he was. And he actually came back to me and he said, this is too smart for my clients. They’re not going to understand all of this. I’m like, thank you. I’m rewriting your entire site. You are now my favorite lawyer. Because

Karin Conroy (47:53.223)
No.

Karin Conroy (48:02.037)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (48:13.503)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Yeah, but

Tanya Brody (48:20.34)
It’s you are, you need to show that you can solve someone’s problem and you need to do it at their level. When I got divorced, I knew nothing about law. I mean, like I could go and read about it. Google was a thing at that time and it wasn’t very good. but I could go read about all of this and I was reading a lot of those websites and they all came off as so presumptuous and I didn’t understand any of them. And the, lawyers I called were the ones that

Karin Conroy (48:24.81)
Right. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (48:49.706)
actually like said, I’m here to help you. I will help you get through this. Yeah. And they explained things in English, not legalese. And that’s who you want to be. That’s why you’re, that’s how you’re going to form the community that is going to come back to you. Hopefully not divorce after divorce, but issue after issue, you know, and recommend their friends and,

Karin Conroy (48:53.93)
Yeah, yeah. And they met you where you were and like where your understanding was too. And they’re not trying to, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

Karin Conroy (49:09.268)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (49:18.862)
help you and support your law firm. And it does not matter if you are a little teeny tiny law firm of one or a huge law firm of 50 or 100, you can use the same technique because at the end of the day, you’re still facing a human across the desk who’s going, oh my God, I’ve had this horrible problem, help me. And you’re there to help them. So please keep that in mind. Keep that in mind.

Karin Conroy (49:36.874)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, I was going to ask you for the big takeaway. I feel like that’s it. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (49:47.298)
There you are. Be human.

Karin Conroy (49:50.528)
Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, like, you know, there’s some good stuff in AI, but it’s a lot of it’s not quite there yet. And the stuff that erodes your humanity is dangerous because it’s going to ruin your brand and all of that, like marketing business speak and everything. But it really is just going to like remove this element of of you and your humanity from all of it in like this really horrible way. Like, yeah. Gross.

Tanya Brody (50:18.722)
Yeah. Well, and honestly, the other reason to be human in your marketing is because people want to buy from people they know, like, and trust. And if you share that you are a human being with real emotions, they’re going to know and like you more, which is going to lead them to trust you more, you know.

Karin Conroy (50:27.412)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (50:34.247)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like there’s not enough emphasis on the no like and trust on the no part. You everybody talks about the like part and the trust and whatever, but the knowing part is what you’re describing when you talk about your cat and putting the cat in the newsletter and everything. like, I know this thing that just happened and it’s something that she cares about. And now I feel like I know what’s going on with her a little bit more. And then that leads into the other sequences, but you know, like.

Tanya Brody (50:51.148)
Mm-hmm.

Tanya Brody (51:00.547)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (51:01.726)
Stay with the no part. Like let people know you and your firm and wherever your comfort level is with all of that. But that’s the piece I feel a lot of people are missing. Yeah.

Tanya Brody (51:12.14)
Yeah. And, you know, again, P2P, we’re all dealing with person to person businesses, you guys especially. You are literally dealing with person to person and you are the intermediary between this person and the law. And the law is a scary place for most of us. So be our translator, be our advocate, be our guide through all of this so that

Karin Conroy (51:15.636)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (51:27.199)
Right.

Karin Conroy (51:36.18)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (51:38.431)
we feel like we are being taken care of and getting the best representation we can get in a situation we, yeah, that is not our specialty. I don’t want to have to go to law school to solve a problem, you know? I admire all of you for everything you have done. It was bad enough that I had to learn about the law just to become a copywriter to write for all of you. I have the greatest respect for all of you, but take that knowledge.

Karin Conroy (51:44.32)
by a person.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah. Right?

Karin Conroy (51:56.214)
But no thanks!

I hate you.

Karin Conroy (52:07.636)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That’s amazing. I feel like that is the perfect place to summarize that just like wraps it all up in a nutshell. And, I think there’s so many good takeaways in all of this, but basically make sure that if you’re considering AI or you’re like taking elements of it to kind of keep things efficient, which, you know, more power to you, but make sure that it sounds to me like when you

Tanya Brody (52:07.926)
and humanize it.

Karin Conroy (52:34.32)
use AI, it sounds like you’re doing four five plus revisions on any given thing that you’re doing. Is that right? Yeah. I feel like I probably do too. I haven’t really counted, but I can’t think of a time I’ve ever just taken the first answer and run with it. Like that’s a idea.

Tanya Brody (52:40.834)
Mm-hmm. yeah. yeah

Tanya Brody (52:50.51)
Oh no. I mean, every once in a while I’ve gotten to the point where I’m like, all right, I only need to change three words in this. actually has gotten my voice well enough that I’m willing to let this one go. But most of the time I’m in there changing things and AI is so sycophantic. It’s like, oh, I really think you made that stronger and blah, blah, It’s like, whatever. Yeah, it’s like, that’s very kind of you. If there were a way to turn that off, I would.

Karin Conroy (52:57.246)
I’ll just do it.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

C- yeah.

Karin Conroy (53:08.742)
Yes, I am. You’re so great. I love it. Yeah, stop. There is a setting in there where you can adjust the personality until it like stops. Yeah, exactly. exactly. Tanya Brody is an email marketing strategist and consultant, and she has this email marketing connection academy that you should definitely check out, especially if emails are and should be a significant part of your communication with.

Tanya Brody (53:19.478)
I totally need to do that, yeah. I don’t need my slippers, I need my paper.

Karin Conroy (53:38.59)
your list and your community and your group of whatever. It’s such a good way of marketing. And I feel like it’s very often undervalued. People kind of skim past it and they jump over to social media because it’s more visible. it’s so much social media is so much less effective. In my experience, email is so much better. Yes, please.

Tanya Brody (53:59.16)
Can I give a quick plug for email? It is actually the highest return on investment of any marketing channel out there. Because like for every dollar you put into email marketing, you can make as much as 43 back. You can’t get that from ads. You can’t get that from anywhere else. It is seriously one of the best investments you can make. And that regular email every week or every month to remind people of your existence is so valuable.

Karin Conroy (54:07.498)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (54:12.79)
Yeah!

Karin Conroy (54:17.127)
No.

Tanya Brody (54:28.587)
Because again, it means that you’re top of mind and you’re human. So, you know, I run a group where I help people write their emails every single week. I can help you too. And even if it’s not me helping you find some way to do that, find some way to insert that into your marketing scheme. So, and I strongly recommend that it is the person doing the work, whatever that is.

Karin Conroy (54:31.786)
Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (54:39.05)
Yeah. Yep.

Tanya Brody (54:55.613)
So, you know, if it’s you are the law firm, it’s you, but even if it’s like a law firm of six, rotate through all of you. Then you only have to write once every six weeks. Yeah. And.

Karin Conroy (55:03.838)
Yeah, through the actual lawyers. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s so much more value in that because you can tell if it’s like written by an assistant and it just doesn’t sound once again, it doesn’t sound authentic. It doesn’t sound human. Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like maybe we could do a whole other episode on why email marketing is kind of like people look down their nose at it or they’d want to skip past it. I don’t know why that is because it is 100 percent, especially for law firms.

Tanya Brody (55:13.921)
Yeah.

Tanya Brody (55:31.283)
yeah.

Karin Conroy (55:32.624)
way more effective, more valuable, lower cost, know, all of those things. So it’s like, what are you doing? Why aren’t you starting there? Yeah. Yeah, true. Exactly. All right. We’ll do that later. Yeah, exactly. All right. Okay. So check out Tanya. We’ll have all the links and everything on the show page, but thank you so much for being here, being one of the first collaborators. keep thinking it’s, yeah, it’s amazing. Awesome. All right. Thanks again.

Tanya Brody (55:36.907)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, trust me, that’s an entire another episode and I’d be happy to do that in another two years if you want.

Tanya Brody (55:55.241)
you’re welcome. My pleasure.