Is the Fix to Your Marketing Just… Sounding Like a Human Again? with Rachel Allen

Rachel Allen (00:03.143)
Hello, I’m Rachel Allen, I run Bolt from the Blue Copywriting, and I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Karen.

Karin Conroy (00:15.022)
Thank you for being here, Rachel. This is gonna be a good one. We are talking about neuroscience and kind of how we connect as humans. And the title for today’s show is, the fix to your marketing just sounding like a human again? Which I feel like that’s sort of a broad question and there’s a lot of places we can go with this. But let’s start with why this matters, especially for lawyers and

Why can’t lawyers just start with the way that they kind of usually want to kind of introduce themselves, which is like, I am a lawyer that does this kind of law in this city. Here’s my phone number.

Rachel Allen (00:50.813)
Yeah, I do get this question a lot from the attorneys that I work with and I get it, right? Because who wants to do the song and dance of like, I do this, let me entertain you also I can do your taxes, you know, like nobody wants that.

Great.

Karin Conroy (01:08.194)
That’s it. It’s the song and dance issue that people see as just fluff and sort of unnecessary fluff. But I feel like you don’t think it’s unnecessary.

Rachel Allen (01:11.445)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (01:16.337)
Well, you know, as much as I like, I resonate because I’m the same way, right? I’m like, I do words hire me. But the reason that it’s important to have that more human touch, especially in more high context industries, especially law, right, is because no one really understands what attorneys do, the way that attorneys do it. They might not even know what kind of attorney they need. Right. There’s some that are pretty obvious, right? If you need like a defense attorney, you know that if you need a slip and fall lawyer, you know that. But

Karin Conroy (01:25.462)
Yeah. Yes.

Karin Conroy (01:33.857)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (01:41.612)
Right.

Rachel Allen (01:42.247)
when it comes to more complicated things, know, estate, &A, that kind of thing, people might not actually know that it’s you they need. So they can’t just like Google you and get to you directly. The other thing is people are almost never at their like very best when they need an attorney. It’s usually something is a bit stressful or something’s going on. And so they need to know if they actually want to be in a room with you, if you’re the kind of person that they can trust, that they can understand.

Karin Conroy (01:59.416)
Right.

Karin Conroy (02:05.805)
Right.

Rachel Allen (02:11.899)
and that when things do go badly wrong, they’re not gonna feel even worse because they have to call you and talk to you on top of it, you know?

Karin Conroy (02:25.248)
Yes. So I have a story about this, and long time listeners will have possibly heard this story before, but years ago I was working with a criminal defense attorney and they had just left, they were a prosecutor right before this and they decided they were going to start their own thing and they, and they were started really like gung ho and they wanted to use these images of police tape.

Rachel Allen (02:50.809)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (02:54.806)
and handcuffs on the front of their website. And I had these long conversations where I said, this is not what anybody wants to see. They don’t want to be reminded of these dark, dark moments. They want to believe that you are going to get them to the other side of that. And they didn’t listen to me. The reason I tell this story is they were, they did not last very long as opposed to they came to me because

Rachel Allen (03:07.454)
no.

Karin Conroy (03:22.174)
of a competitor that literally was down the street doing the same thing. And she was also a former prosecutor, but her messaging was around, I know what’s at stake and I understand what’s at stake in your life. And it was a, you know, a list of different things based on sort of their geographic area. For example, there was a, you know, a high immigrant population. potentially your green card is at stake, things like that. And she illustrated

Rachel Allen (03:27.741)
Mmm.

Rachel Allen (03:40.283)
Mm. Right.

Karin Conroy (03:51.882)
these dark topics in a way that she understood and she is going to get them to the other side of that. And you can guess which lawyer is still in business, which one went back to being a prosecutor. So I feel like visually we can understand that. But when it comes to the words, people just feel like, you know, it’s just X, Y, Z. It’s just fill in the blank, right?

Rachel Allen (03:54.033)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (03:58.183)
Well, right.

Rachel Allen (04:04.859)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (04:10.993)
Right. And I think a lot of people… sorry, go ahead.

Karin Conroy (04:18.808)
So how do you, yeah, sorry. I was just gonna kind of lead you towards that, but how do you kind of illustrate the importance of those words and how do you do that?

Rachel Allen (04:24.967)
So I think the first thing I do is to reframe it. So I think people see marketing as a performance a lot of times and like no one enjoys that, right? Especially that’s not your job. You’re not an actor, you’re an attorney. And instead I reframe it as a conversation and it’s one where you can speak as you speak to people. You don’t have to like put on a sales voice or sound super marketingy or whatever. You know, if that’s what you enjoy, I’ve had, I’ve worked with attorneys who went viral on TikTok and they loved.

Karin Conroy (04:40.054)
Yes. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (04:53.981)
all the lingo and the, you know, LOL bestie type stuff. But if that’s not you, don’t do it. And because it just feels unnatural, right? It’s terrible when someone’s doing that. You can hear the like coming out of my mouth as I say it, because I do not talk like that. You can.

Karin Conroy (05:06.504)
Yes! Yes, yes.

Right. Yeah. I have a middle schooler and it has been my job this summer to use all of her language in a very cringe way. And she hates it more than anything and which fuels me, of course, but it’s, it’s like that. I wouldn’t do that in a professional setting. But it’s like that where you’re trying to like pick up your middle schoolers language and they just sit there and they’re just like, she’s like cowering in the corner. Like, please stop.

Rachel Allen (05:15.887)
Yes. Right.

Rachel Allen (05:22.415)
Exactly.

Rachel Allen (05:30.363)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (05:35.453)
You

and you’re like, bet fam.

Karin Conroy (05:47.018)
Yeah, exactly! like six, seven. I don’t even know what it means, but I just keep using it!

Rachel Allen (05:49.02)
Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Allen (05:55.004)
No, yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:59.006)
So sorry, like I feel like I interrupted there, but we were talking about kind of like how to have that sort of human overlay or maybe not as an overlay. I like this idea that you don’t have to have that performative language that you are describing. I feel like that’s a really good way of explaining it.

Rachel Allen (06:02.877)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (06:09.894)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (06:14.013)
Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, I see this in other industries as well. Something that I say to my clients all the time is I see people treat like content versus sales differently. And so maybe the content sounds like them. Maybe they’ve made a ton of guides. Maybe they’ve got great emails, but then it’s like friend, friend, friend. And then we get to the sales page and it’s like, buy my thing or I’m going to burn your house down. Like, that’s terrible. No one enjoys that. They get so serious, right? It gets all salesy and like weird. So like what?

Karin Conroy (06:29.025)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (06:41.789)
I say this sentence and everybody hates it every time, just bear through the pain with me. I say all copy is sales copy. And I don’t mean that in a Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, always been closing type of thing. I just mean that it’s all part of the same conversation, right? So you can get to your sales page and still sound exactly like you. I like to, with attorneys especially, encourage them to speak like they would on an intake call.

Karin Conroy (06:43.318)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Karin Conroy (07:04.022)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (07:07.586)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (07:07.601)
You know, when you’re speaking to someone, when they first come to you and they’re explaining their problem, you’re probably not not like, hello, I am an estate lawyer in Sacramento. You’re like, no, tell me what’s going on, you know.

Rachel Allen (07:22.694)
Right?

Karin Conroy (07:24.022)
Yes, it’s so true. Like I’m laughing because it’s true. And I’ve had these experiences where, especially when I have like a new client and we’re having that initial call and I land on their website and I’m just kind of like checking out kind of what they’re doing and they have a certain tone. And then we get on the call and I’m like, who are you? Where did you come from? You know, and it’s like, why there should not be that disconnect? And imagine how

Rachel Allen (07:29.657)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (07:36.701)
Mmm.

Right, right.

Rachel Allen (07:47.323)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (07:51.244)
disturbing that is for your potential clients where they’ve been somewhat sold. They’re kind of this warm lead and they’ve been somewhat sold on your website because for sure they visited your website before your call. And maybe they have it up in front of them while you’re talking and they’re looking at different things that you have said on the website. And this they’re assuming is coming from you, even if you’ve hired someone to put that copy together. And then in the phone call,

Rachel Allen (08:01.629)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (08:09.031)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (08:15.215)
right.

Karin Conroy (08:17.58)
God forbid you’re saying something entirely different, but at the very least, your tone doesn’t line up.

Rachel Allen (08:17.809)
Right. It’s so disconcerting and it leads to this huge amount of cognitive dissonance where people, even if they want to trust you, they’re just like, something just feels off. It’s that like feeling when they get on the phone with you, which is not what you want for someone hiring you.

Karin Conroy (08:31.5)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (08:41.838)
Exactly. And visually, because I tend to kind of come back to the visual side of things, that’s just sort of where I’m at in my core. But the equivalent I can think of is like if you use a stock photo for your bio picture, like all of a sudden they’re like, wait, where’s the where’s the other guy? You know, who are you? And like you are very handsome. You almost looked like a model on your website. now like I’m talking to somebody that is not that person.

Rachel Allen (08:48.974)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (08:54.973)
Right!

hahahahah

right.

Karin Conroy (09:11.818)
Like it’s that weird. And once again, we laugh because it’s so true. But imagine if your language and your copy wasn’t lining up in the same way that you visually were. Like that would be weird. And it gets to this idea of trust, which, you know, this is where this is the conversation we talk about with lawyers and strategy and copy all the time. The key word is trust. And so how do we

Rachel Allen (09:18.033)
right?

Rachel Allen (09:36.733)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (09:39.244)
So obviously those things would erode the trust and you would just instantly just feel like, ugh, like back away, back away. This is weird. I’m, you know. So how do you then use this in a good way to then build the trust? How do you do this in the right way so that you are demonstrating trustworthy kind of behavior?

Rachel Allen (09:39.782)
right.

Rachel Allen (09:54.631)
Yeah. So a couple things. think the first is to actually sound like yourself as much as you can. I know it’s hard when you are used to writing briefs and you’re used to like speaking in that legalese type of thing. But if you can sort of set that part of your brain aside and think about how you are when you speak to your friends or when you’re speaking to clients on intake, that’s about the tone that you want to hit because like you are a person, people can get to know you. There’s something to hold onto there.

The other thing that really builds trust is if you can actually speak in the terms that your clients use or your potential clients use. So the example I always pull out because it’s one of the best headlines I have ever seen and I wish I wrote it. It was like on a billboard somewhere in Mississippi and it was for a law firm and it just said, it can’t hurt to call. And I was like, that is so smart because that is exactly what people say.

Right? Right before that’s what your good friend says when you’re like, wait, should I like, mean, like, should I call a lawyer? And they’re like, I mean, it couldn’t hurt to call. Like, that’s exactly how somebody speaks. And that’s a huge trust builder because then it feels like you’re in their mind.

Karin Conroy (10:48.174)
That’s so good! Yes!

Karin Conroy (10:58.764)
Yeah, what? Right. Yes.

Karin Conroy (11:08.386)
I was just gonna say, it’s like you just got inside their head because even if it’s not them and a friend, it’s them and the voice in their head. And they’re kind of having that conversation. Did you know that some people don’t have a voice in their head? I just saw this recently to have like a slight tangent, but there’s some people that don’t have a constant conversation with themselves. And I’m like, what?

Rachel Allen (11:10.02)
Exactly.

Rachel Allen (11:15.183)
I… yeah.

Yeah.

Rachel Allen (11:22.523)
I recently learned that too, and I was like, that can’t be the case. Like how, but how.

Rachel Allen (11:32.315)
Right? I’m like, I’ve got like my internal, internal monologue, like constant internal radio station happening. Like, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot going on in here.

Karin Conroy (11:32.494)
Right. I’m like, that sounds really quiet. My voice, my voice is loud. I feel like it’s many voices, like to sound a little bit unhinged. There’s a whole team in there.

Rachel Allen (11:46.031)
Yeah, exactly. Like we have a conversation.

Rachel Allen (11:52.091)
right now.

Rachel Allen (11:58.939)
Yeah!

Karin Conroy (11:59.962)
And there’s, like you said, it does sound like there’s a radio station, there’s some music going, and there’s like a whole group of voices in there. I cannot even imagine what that would be like. So, but that is amazing. And another example that just popped in my head as you were describing that is my own strategy, which is…

Rachel Allen (12:02.969)
Exactly. Yeah, same.

Rachel Allen (12:16.013)
Mm. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:23.02)
to use legal language on, like legal sounding language on my website because my audience is lawyers. So I work with lawyers and so I assume that the majority of the people who are on my site, who I wanna speak with are lawyers. So I have a lot of language around legally sounding things. We have these kind of take, kind of where we go back and take the podcast and have a repeat.

Rachel Allen (12:23.929)
Yes. Ugh.

Rachel Allen (12:32.413)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (12:38.374)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (12:49.552)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:50.958)
And it’s called the Council of Cast Chambers because we’re kind of having a revisit of the… So anyway, I have a lot of examples where we’re using legally sounding words to appeal to lawyers. it’s these slight sort of hints that you’re in the right place. The other example I use a lot is like a hotel. If you walk into a hotel and you are assuming that it’s gonna be a very high-end…

Rachel Allen (12:57.467)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (13:07.441)
Mmm.

Rachel Allen (13:16.253)
Yeah. Right. You’re like, no, I would prefer to supply my own bed bugs. No, thank you. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (13:18.146)
hotel and then they tell you it’s like $69 a night, you’re going to feel weird. You’re going to be like, what’s happening? What is happening in the kitchen? Yes. One, every time I use that example, bed bugs comes up and it’s like, that is, that is that kind of cognitive dissonance that you’re talking about where, it’s not lining up and people instantly go, ew. And they walk away and they’re picturing something to the equivalent of bed bugs.

Rachel Allen (13:28.934)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (13:33.415)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (13:38.448)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (13:42.427)
Yes. Yeah, very much no. And I love as soon as I started researching, you know, to come on your podcast, I saw your copy and I was like, that is smart. The way that you speak to those. Yeah. Legal terms like marketing co-counsel. And I want to unpack it a little bit because it’s not just like signaling like, I get you. The thing that it shows people, even if they don’t consciously recognize this is one, I understand you, but two, I am in like gracious enough.

Karin Conroy (13:47.552)
And that’s what you don’t want. So, yeah.

Karin Conroy (13:58.818)
Thank you!

Karin Conroy (14:03.317)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (14:11.217)
to meet you in your world instead of making you come to mind and understand me.

Karin Conroy (14:19.221)
Yes!

I love that. That makes so much more sense. And let’s just go back to you as a lawyer and speaking to your clients and imagine they’re in these difficult places. Even if you’re a business lawyer, they’re coming to you not just because they want to like hang out and get coffee. They’re coming to you because they probably have some difficult situations that maybe aren’t quite so personal and emotional, but no matter what, it’s difficult and they need a lawyer. So to…

meet them in their world as opposed to sitting on your high horse in this sort of ivory tower and making them like walk through jump through hoops to meet you in your land. It is such a different feeling. And that’s kind of where we’re going with all of this, right?

Rachel Allen (15:01.265)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (15:04.913)
Yeah, absolutely. I’m fortunate in that I don’t normally have to speak to my business attorney, but the reason that I work with him is because he like, every time he answers the phone, he’s like, hey, and he talks to me like a normal person and he makes my problems go away. So I can call him and be like, Andy, everything’s bad. And he’s like, it’s okay, I’ve got you.

Karin Conroy (15:11.788)
Yeah, I love that.

Karin Conroy (15:24.245)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (15:29.27)
Yeah, yes. And this is what every client is looking for from their lawyer. No matter what the topic is, no matter how personal and huge it is, it’s the I’ve got you.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let’s talk about how this neuroscience stuff works and how these principles can help these lawyers really improve their copy and maybe some sort of like before and after or good examples and kind of versions where it wasn’t quite there and it sounded like it might be okay and then we did XYZ and this changed everything.

Rachel Allen (16:08.049)
Yeah. all right. So I could talk about this for like 75 hours because I love the neuroscience side of things, but exactly. I’ll stick with just two things.

Karin Conroy (16:18.83)
It’s a Shor podcast, Okay.

Rachel Allen (16:21.157)
So the two things that I like, the foundation things that I want everyone to understand about the neuroscience of communication. One is that we are so much more alike in what we care about than we are different. So one thing clients often say to me is like, I’m not a mind reader. How could I possibly know what these people want? Like, I don’t want to go out and do a big survey where I ask all these people, it sounds like total pain, blah, blah. And I’m like, sure. But turns out you’re a person too.

and research shows. know, shocking. Sorry to break the news to you, but yeah, that’s where you’re at.

Karin Conroy (16:57.152)
Last time I checked.

Rachel Allen (16:58.773)
But, yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:03.854)
You know, in most cartoons where the lawyer comes in, are usually some sort of, they are not a person. So yes, okay.

Rachel Allen (17:04.016)
Right, right. And I’m like, you know, I empathize. And also, unfortunately, that’s still where we’re at right now. But so there’s a professor named Dr. Jonathan Hades at UVA, I believe, but he did research on the motivations, the things that motivate us. And he did it across, you know, thousands of people, cultures all over the world. And it really comes down to about the same six levers.

Karin Conroy (17:18.296)
hate you.

Rachel Allen (17:29.565)
And I can find a link to the studies in the show notes if you want. But if you look at them, yeah.

Yeah. No, no, no, go.

Karin Conroy (17:40.876)
I love this, but yeah, I’ve seen this and I’m sorry to interrupt because we do have a slight lag. So apologies for that, but I’ve seen this and it’s so good because I think what people think of when they think of these motivations is that Maslow’s hierarchy. And that’s not what we’re talking about.

Rachel Allen (17:51.737)
yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, it’s so it’s more of like if you picture like an audio slider, you know, you can like move the dials up and down. So the six dials are all the same, but people exist at different points on the spectrum in them. And there things like fairness, you know, like how important is it to you that everything is fair? Or another one is purity. Like, does it really matter to you that things are pure? Would you prefer to mix things up? And so they’re very baseline things that anyone can understand.

Karin Conroy (18:13.367)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (18:21.455)
And so if you can think about the mix that your clients have, that’s a great place to start for copy. And that gives you that insight without actually having to speak to them.

Karin Conroy (18:35.308)
Yes. And once again, to go back to this idea that you’re meeting them in their world. like once you start dialing it in, all of a sudden, this isn’t just a minor change because when I, so let me just, you know, go way back in the beginning, when I first started my agency, I was writing on the lawyerist and I was advertising websites for $975.

Rachel Allen (18:35.644)
Right.

Rachel Allen (18:54.461)
Mmm.

Karin Conroy (18:59.776)
And this was many, many, many, many, many years ago, the websites, first of all, I don’t just do website projects and second of all, they are not $975. So like, don’t try to say, don’t take this out of context and say that I offer websites for $975. So, but that was the messaging. It was price-based, it was just numbers and it was pulling in this, that kind of a client that was, you know, price-based, this bottom.

Rachel Allen (19:02.386)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (19:06.844)
you

Karin Conroy (19:29.24)
feeder level kind of client. And when I went through the pain and suffering of making that total strategic change, which is a more complicated change to make midstream when you’ve got a business already going versus just starting in the right place. The kind of phone calls I was having, it was like shockingly different, the kind of people that I was talking to, as opposed to the sort of micromanagement.

red flag, red flag, red flag versus people who I was like, we could be friends. Like I would hang out with you and go get coffee. Like you are cool. You know? So let’s talk about like where, where do you look at your marketing copy and do sort of like, you know, the word audit comes to mind, but how do you look at it and evaluate if it’s headed in that wrong direction and you’re appealing to the wrong clients? And then

Rachel Allen (19:58.887)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (20:12.957)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (20:25.265)
Yeah. So I think the first thing that I recommend people do is look at what you’re incentivizing. So you just gave a great example. You are incentivizing people to look for the lowest cost because that’s how, that’s what the main point of your messaging was. In the case of the lawyer you spoke about earlier, she’s incentivizing people who look for a high trust relationship, which is something that’s like much more enjoyable for everyone involved. So I would say start by looking at what you’re incentivizing.

Karin Conroy (20:26.53)
How do you kind of evaluate what needs to change?

Karin Conroy (20:41.279)
Yes.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (20:50.378)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (20:52.399)
And then go through page by page and just see does anything sound like you would actually say it out of your face? Or does it only sound like it makes sense in writing?

Karin Conroy (20:54.196)
my gosh, I love that.

Rachel Allen (21:05.245)
Yeah, exactly. Yes, please.

Karin Conroy (21:06.498)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (21:10.292)
or like the chat GPT wrote it. Should we spend a minute talking about what happens when you use chat? I didn’t even need to finish that sentence. Let’s talk about like how that erodes your message and the trust and the all of that. And let’s just spend a minute on AI.

Rachel Allen (21:23.579)
Yeah. So I’ll start by saying that I’m not anti AI by any means. I think it’s a very useful tool for what it can do. I think it is relentlessly overhyped for things that it cannot do. so the, when it comes to, know, using it for your marketing copy, I recommend that you treat it like a marketing intern because that is about the level that it can work at. And so it’s the same thing as if you’ve had somebody come in and they’re fresh out of college and they are so well-meaning, but they’re just not very good yet.

Karin Conroy (21:36.717)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (21:40.308)
Right? Yeah.

Karin Conroy (21:51.597)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (21:53.061)
And they can provide you with some sort of baseline something that you can then edit. But like, you don’t want to give the intern your website. So I would look at it that way. And then also the warning that I just give people is that, you know, legislation is still ongoing. We’re figuring out how this is going to work out. But thus far, courts are coming down on the side of if chat GBT creates it for you, you cannot own the intellectual property to it.

Karin Conroy (21:58.988)
Right.

Karin Conroy (22:06.967)
Right.

Rachel Allen (22:17.189)
So especially if you’re like writing books or like course material or content, you have to be so careful with that because like it is heartbreaking to do all of that and then not be able to own the IP.

Karin Conroy (22:23.575)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (22:30.171)
Right.

Karin Conroy (22:32.974)
Right, even if you didn’t really do it, if chat GPT or whatever, know, whichever one you’re using, Claw, Gemini, know, Perplexity, whatever one you’re using, you’re gonna say, did it. And it feels like the way it talks to you, it feels very personal. It feels like you are doing it. But let’s just take a moment and let’s recognize where it’s coming from. It’s probably coming from your neighbor down the street who spent two years and thousands of dollars putting this content together.

Rachel Allen (22:42.373)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (22:52.305)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (23:02.666)
So there are some serious legal implications. So where do you draw that line? Where do you, so you said that like, if you kind of take it realistically, like it’s an intern, where would you draw that line? Let’s say you’re putting together website content, what would you feel like would be a good use of some version of an LLM AI? And then where would you draw the line where like, now the human needs to come in?

Rachel Allen (23:23.313)
Yeah. I think it’s good for brainstorming. I think it’s great as a thought partner, great for coming up with topics, but you don’t want it to elaborate. I would say the furthest I would take it is have it give you an outline that you then fill out or you hire someone to fill out. Because anything after that, it just gets so sticky with ownership and IP. frankly, it’s not, I mean, I know it doesn’t take that much time, but it’s just not worth it because you’re cheapening your brand and losing your brand equity.

Karin Conroy (23:44.94)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (23:52.049)
because it’s just people can tell. And when they look at it, they’re like, but like you can’t afford to hire a marketer. Okay. I don’t know how, if I want to trust you with a lawyer.

Karin Conroy (23:58.092)
Yeah. Yes.

Karin Conroy (24:06.974)
Yes. Yeah. It’s like, imagine you are walking through Neiman Marcus and you see some beautiful something and it’s in a box because I want to have some words on there. But, and you look at it you’re like, this is amazing. This is some, you know, very high-end thing. And then you look at the language on the box and it’s misspelled or it’s got bad grammar. And all of a sudden it’s like,

Rachel Allen (24:14.066)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (24:25.916)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (24:31.846)
Right.

Karin Conroy (24:34.676)
what is this doing in Neiman Marcus? Like it just, once again, we’re back to the cognitive dissonance thing where you’re backing away slowly because you’re imagining the bed bugs.

Rachel Allen (24:40.593)
Yes, yes, very much so. And in this case, mean, especially, I love that you speak to like misspellings because, know, misspellings, mistakes, hallucinations, all the things that AI does, what that is telling people or, you know, even again, if they’re not thinking about it consciously, they’re like, wait, did this person like cheat on the bar? Like, do they actually know what they’re doing?

Karin Conroy (24:52.386)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (25:01.92)
yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:02.066)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine you did that in a doctor’s office and you’re like thinking, ew, ew, like gross. I don’t want you even touching my body. Like, I don’t know what, where, did you do med school in the Caribbean somewhere? Absolutely not. All of a sudden, like your trust and confidence in their skills and ability are gone. And in one little moment where

Rachel Allen (25:05.277)
You

Right.

Rachel Allen (25:12.957)
Right

Rachel Allen (25:31.077)
Right. Right, because then I’m assuming you’re going to use that to do my briefs too. And I’m like, well, that’s great. Now I have to read my own brief to make sure everything’s okay.

Karin Conroy (25:31.554)
Like all of sudden they realize, this was AI and that’s awful. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (25:42.301)
Right, Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:45.998)
Or maybe I should just do it myself, because I’ve got chetchy PT too. What is the point of you? This totally erodes any need for you as the lawyer. Okay, so let’s come back to, where should we go next? we talk about the book review? I feel like this is kind of a nice little lull. Maybe we should come to the book review section.

Rachel Allen (25:54.78)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (26:05.596)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:13.546)
If you haven’t noticed, we have a whole book review library section on the website where every one of our guests has given a book review and we’ve got a whole lot, like a whole variety of different kinds of business books, all kinds. So go in there and then you can look at the books and sort them by topic too. So if you’re looking at email marketing and we had an episode about email marketing.

You can see related books on that topic. So take a look at that. But Rachel, what’s the book that you wanted to recommend for the audience today?

Rachel Allen (26:41.709)
the book I’m recommending is called The Crux and it’s by Richard Rummelt and I’ve been fangirling over it ever since I picked up about a month ago. it’s actually not… yeah, I’m so excited about it. So it’s actually a book about strategy. It’s not about marketing specifically, but this guy is a strategist who works with, know, Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies to figure out solutions to really weird problems. And in the book, he goes through the

Karin Conroy (26:55.531)
What is this? Because this is a new one to me.

Rachel Allen (27:11.547)
the methodology he uses to create these strategies and importantly, and this is what like really grabbed me in it. He goes through what a strategy is not. And I see this all the time with businesses, right? So he’s like a strategy. Okay. So a strategy is not a goal. It’s not where you want to get to. It’s not an aspiration. It’s not a quarterly projection. It is a, how does he phrase it? Let me get it exactly right. A strategy is a set of

Karin Conroy (27:14.053)
I love it.

Karin Conroy (27:25.774)
what is it not?

Rachel Allen (27:41.341)
policies and actions designed to solve one specific problem.

Karin Conroy (27:52.464)
so how is that not a goal? Cause like when you said that I was like, I feel like many, many, I’ve probably used it as kind of interchangeable. How is it different from a goal?

Rachel Allen (27:56.093)
Yeah. So a goal would be like, I want to get 500 new clients by the end of next year. Whereas a strategy is I’m going to do A, B and C to solve the problem of currently not having those 500 clients.

Karin Conroy (28:08.408)
Okay.

Rachel Allen (28:11.771)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:15.858)
Interesting. So it’s the plan that is somewhat tied to a goal, but separate from the goal. Got it. Okay.

Rachel Allen (28:16.251)
Right. Right, right, it’s getting you to the solution of a problem.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:26.794)
Nice. Okay. So what else does he talk about in terms of like how strategies work? Cause I love strategy.

Rachel Allen (28:27.719)
Yeah. Same. So, you know, as the title might suggest, he says the most important part of any strategy is the crux, right? Because a lot of times, especially when you’re working in industries like we do and like he does, we have these very like tangled, complex, multi-layer problems. And so his argument is that if you can get to like the middle of all of that, it’s like the one knot that when you un-pull it, the rest of it sort of falls apart. So that’s what he calls the crux. And like getting to the crux of the problem.

Karin Conroy (28:42.369)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (28:49.741)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (28:57.518)
Yes, I love that. Okay, so how does that? That’s amazing because I will often say like, when we’re, I feel like at that point, I haven’t read this book, but I feel like I can feel that point. And will be especially a lot of times I see this happen with a logo, where a logo is so much more complicated than a lot of people give it credit for.

Rachel Allen (28:58.063)
is how you solve it. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (29:10.396)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:26.978)
because it’s tiny, tiny changes that make a big impact. And then those impacts ripple out into all of your design choices after that. And so people get to a point where they’re frustrated and they feel like it’s taking too long and this should be a 10 minute project and blah, know, wherever their brain takes them with, you the logo process, but that’s always, almost always, the point when we’re this close to it.

Like we’re, you know, like maybe one iteration away from the perfect answer that usually it almost makes a sound like it clicks. And it just like, all of a sudden it’s just like, that’s it. That’s, you know, it all just came together and we had all these pieces and all these thoughts and all this whatever. And, but it’s that moment before that where a lot of people will give up.

And they’re like, it’s too hard, it’s too difficult, this isn’t happening. A laundry list of reasons why I’m gonna just give up. And if they just pushed a little and went to that next version, it’s there, it’s right there. You’ve already done all this work. It’s not like step one, you’re at step like 12.

Rachel Allen (30:38.683)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I.

Karin Conroy (30:46.452)
I mean, do you notice this also with like your campaigns and the kind of content and the work that you’re doing that like when you get to that point, it’s like you can just feel it.

Rachel Allen (30:52.623)
Yes, absolutely. Like you described as a click and I’m like, yes, it feels like when you’re at the chiropractor and something like snaps back into place and you’re like, yeah, that was it. And I absolutely, I absolutely see that with marketing strategy too, right? Because I think people either overcomplicated or they’re like, well, this has to be hard and I don’t want to like build a spreadsheet around it. And I’m like, don’t, you know, you want to solve, like look at the specific problem.

Karin Conroy (31:07.054)
There it is. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (31:13.005)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (31:18.491)
you want to solve and then work from there. And that doesn’t require a spreadsheet, although you can create one if you like.

Karin Conroy (31:20.044)
Right. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (31:25.501)
Same.

Karin Conroy (31:30.326)
I do love spreadsheets as much of a kind of design visual person. I love the spreadsheets, but I feel like they can be visual. yeah. Awesome. Okay. So the book is The Crux by Richard Rummelt. I wrote it down and I can’t totally read what I wrote, but is that the right last name? Okay. Awesome. We will, that will be on the show page linked. And there’s also, that book will be in the library as well. Okay.

Rachel Allen (31:33.851)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Rachel Allen (31:43.421)
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:00.086)
So what else can people figure out? I keep kind of going back in my head to what you were saying earlier about that sort of cringe attempt to perform. How can people, how can we get to that sort of authentic voice? And I know people use this word, it’s so overused, but how can you find that balance between figuring out your voice and then not,

Rachel Allen (32:05.341)
Mmm.

Rachel Allen (32:28.401)
Yeah. So I come at it from two sides, right? So on the one side, thinking about your own voice, I talk about what I call coffee shop language. So it’s like, would you actually say those words to someone if you were having coffee with them? If so, probably on the right track. If not, then maybe you should look at that again. And then another sort of way that I can help people get into this is something I call 4AM language. So people…

Karin Conroy (32:29.079)
going too far where you’re kind of getting into that cringe world.

Karin Conroy (32:44.557)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (32:56.387)
get into industry jargon and I’ll just like pick on coaches because I love them so much. every coach is like, I help you. I’m going to empower you to become your most empowered self. And I’m like, has anyone woken up at four in the morning and been like, man, if I could just become my most empowered self, everything would be great. It’s like, well, no, of course not. Right.

Karin Conroy (33:06.871)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (33:18.993)
Yeah. Right. I’m so empowered.

Karin Conroy (33:19.05)
right or or like got to the other side of it and felt woke up and felt like I am empowered today.

Rachel Allen (33:26.021)
Right. But like if you think like what they’re really saying there is like, you know, things can’t go on like this. Something has to change. Like I hate feeling this. Like why is every why is my life like this? How did I start living this life? And so if you can speak to that in your copy with people that I mean, that’s authentic human stuff. Right. I mean, thinking about it just in the context of attorneys. Again, no one is like I would like to find a highly rated attorney who can assist me with mergers and acquisitions. Like, no, that’s you know.

Karin Conroy (33:30.325)
Dorky.

Karin Conroy (33:40.086)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (33:45.347)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:51.296)
Yes.

Rachel Allen (33:55.387)
robot speak. But what people do think is something along the lines of like, man, I built this from scratch and I love this company so much and I want it to be successful and I need to make sure people don’t completely destroy me in this agreement. need somebody who can have my back.

Karin Conroy (34:00.726)
Right.

Karin Conroy (34:16.674)
Yes.

Yes, yeah, 100%. I feel like people get caught up in this idea of what they should say. You they see a lot of repetitive things on social media, of course, where it’s like, they’re all talking about X, Y, Z. Maybe I should be talking about that too. And it’s like, that has nothing to do with your love firm.

Rachel Allen (34:20.312)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Rachel Allen (34:32.765)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (34:43.016)
Like, and that has, it’s, it’s none of your business. I saw somebody describing that the other day where it’s like, just let, allow that to be none of your business. That is not related to what you’re talking about. And there is going to be one of those voices in your head that’s, you know, saying, you should be doing that too. Like you could make a video about, you know, whatever it is that we’re talking about. And maybe you should talk about that too. But you know, I don’t know. I just feel like.

Rachel Allen (34:47.548)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (35:12.6)
people get going down the wrong path and that’s when it starts to get really cringy.

Rachel Allen (35:13.947)
Right, no, absolutely. And that’s where you see like lawyers speaking to other lawyers speaking to other lawyers. And it’s like, well, those aren’t your clients, you know? Like if you’re doing the same thing that every other person is doing, sure, you’re showing that you spend time on the internet, but there’s no real connection to your clients there.

Karin Conroy (35:32.716)
Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, and there is that other voice too, where it’s like, I feel like this maybe happens in younger lawyers, where it’s like, the voice is saying, what does this client want to hear from me? And so I’m gonna give them this lawyer words and this lawyer language, because this is what I should sound like. Like when I went to law school and I had this vision of what it would look like and sound like,

Rachel Allen (35:45.053)
Mmm.

Right.

Rachel Allen (35:51.517)
Right.

Karin Conroy (36:01.962)
it should sound like a whole bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. And so I’m just gonna like vomit all of that out at my client. Yeah. But to go back, well, actually let’s talk about what people should do after they listen to this episode because what I was gonna say is to go back to that example where, you know, in the beginning you were talking about like, imagine what your client wants to hear. What was the example on the billboard that you had?

Rachel Allen (36:03.133)
Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Rachel Allen (36:24.733)
It was, it couldn’t hurt to call.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (36:34.214)
Yes. Yeah. Let’s go back to that because that is, that’s what people want to hear. That’s the voice in their head thinking about whether they’re going to call you. But so Rachel, what is the first thing people should do after listening to this episode and actually thinking through everything you’ve talked about? What should they sit down and actually do in terms of, you know, all of this kind of human centered messaging? What should they do?

Rachel Allen (36:37.723)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (36:58.137)
I think the first thing is to look at your calls to action on your website and see if they actually sound like what your client says right before they get in contact with you. If it is a giant wall of text and then call for an appointment, it’s probably not it. You want something to where people feel like they can easily understand who you are, why they should work with you specifically, and that you understand the emotional truth that they’re going through, even if that’s not something like they don’t have to be in some sort of crisis.

Karin Conroy (37:19.479)
Right.

Rachel Allen (37:27.611)
But going back to our business example, they’re like, no, like I’m, you know, I’m not like anxious, anxious about this, but I need to know that somebody has my back. So if you can get to that core desire of your clients, that will change everything about your copy.

Karin Conroy (37:33.741)
Right.

Karin Conroy (37:41.185)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (37:47.852)
What would that sound like? What would those calls to action sound like? Let’s just say it’s a business attorney and that core desire, they’re on the website. So obviously they’ve got some need and what would it sound like? I mean, obviously the bad example is call now or learn more or some super generic thing, but what would it sound like if you’re actually conveying that thought that you were describing right before they clicked?

Rachel Allen (37:48.785)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Allen (38:02.404)
Right, right.

Rachel Allen (38:13.489)
I think I would say it exactly like that. I am here to have your back. That is my one and only job. And I would love to do that for you. And then you have the call here or whatever after that, because you do want that very directive call to action, because this is another neuroscience thing. When we get to end of things, if we don’t know exactly what to do next, we just sort of go away. So you do want like call now, click here, blah, blah, blah, send me an email, whatever. But yeah, I think it’s just like.

Karin Conroy (38:27.275)
Nice.

Karin Conroy (38:40.204)
Right. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (38:41.245)
Tell them directly, I get this. You know, I understand you. I am here for it.

Karin Conroy (38:52.588)
I’ve done this before, I’ve got it. It’s the description, the explanation that I was describing earlier of the attorney who talks about the, I know what’s at stake and I’ve done this before and I understand, I get it. But as opposed to if you need this legal form, like, I know how to fill out legal forms.

Rachel Allen (38:59.335)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (39:02.875)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Allen (39:09.947)
Right, right.

Rachel Allen (39:16.282)
Right.

Karin Conroy (39:22.926)
Yeah, awesome. Rachel Allen, thank you so much for being here. Rachel is, gosh, Rachel, can you tell me the name of your company again? Because I did not write it down. This has just been one of those days. Normally I do that and I apologize for that.

Rachel Allen (39:31.613)
No, you’re totally fine. So it’s Bolt from the Blue Copywriting.

Hahaha

Karin Conroy (39:43.52)
Yes, I knew that. was so good. Okay, Rachel Allen Bolt from The Blue Copywriting. Thank you so much for being here. I feel like this was so interesting and I feel like we’ve like embedded these little ideas and thoughts in people’s brains in terms of how to think about this differently. Like don’t just do the default and don’t just go to AI. Like maybe use it in sparing moments here and there, but we need to have that human element and it’s not just because

It sounds woo woo, there’s actual neuroscience behind it that leads to your bottom line. It’s not just, you know, it feels good. It leads to more successful outcomes and your clients feeling like you’ve got them as opposed to them feeling like, I don’t know. Maybe. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

Rachel Allen (40:26.449)
Yeah.

Rachel Allen (40:32.88)
thank you. It has been such a pleasure.