Law Firm Lead Gen Playbook with Davina Frederick

Karin Conroy (00:01.742)
Before we dive in, if you want more qualified leads without relying on referrals or showing up online 24 seven, grab our free guide, Grow Your Law From While You Sleep. It’s linked down below if you’re on YouTube or in the show notes down below. Today’s guest is Davina Frederick, a Florida attorney, actually not Florida anymore, right? Okay. Okay. An attorney, two time author.

Davina Frederick (00:21.766)
Yes, a Florida licensed attorney, even though I’ve moved.

Karin Conroy (00:28.308)
and the founder of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, where she helps women law firm owners scale to and through $1 million in revenue without burning out. That I feel like is the key right there. She’s also the host of the top ranked Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast, and she’s known for building systems that turn unpredictable referral flow into consistent, scalable client generation. If your marketing feels random,

or if you’re stuck in a referral rut, this episode gives you a clear, actionable playbook. So here we go. Let’s get into it. Davina, we have a lot to cover. We’re also gonna talk a little bit about how to have some sort of expansive thoughts around marketing and not sort of lean into the predictable, boring things that are probably leading to that sort of rut that you’re feeling. So thank you for being here to begin with.

Davina Frederick (01:20.562)
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to be back. You and I always have wonderful conversations. So I’m looking forward to this.

Karin Conroy (01:28.566)
We do, and I also wanted to mention that this is early in the year and we have this new collaborator thing and Davina is one of our first collaborators where we have this, this is going into the fourth year of this podcast and as my loyal listeners will know, we have a handful of these experts that always deliver quality conversations and content and kind of things that you can take away. And so I’ve put

these special experts into a group that we’re calling collaborators. And that way you can kind of reference back to previous episodes and we can create more of a, I guess a sub library of our content. So, so I just wanted to mention that too is that, cause that’s kind of a cool new feature that we have, but let’s get into the topic. Let’s first talk about lead generation. Cause I know you just had this awesome episode talking about your client attraction system is what you call it.

What is the deal with lead generation? Why is it so hard?

Davina Frederick (02:25.842)
Great.

You

I will tell you, so I think one of the reasons it’s so hard is first of all, we have so many more options in this day and age as lawyers, right? We don’t have to try to buy an expensive TV spot or a billboard like we used to back when I started in the 90s, right? But now it’s evolving so fast. Social media is evolving, AI is evolving, people are confused, what should I do? Should I be on social media? What do I need to do to get clients, get business?

A lot of lawyers, you know, the pain you and I share is when we hear the words, well, most of my business comes from referrals. And I want to share you a little story that I had a conversation recently with a client who has, she’s been a solo for years and now she’s interested in buying a business that is larger than hers, but we’re having to work on her mindset because she still has this solo mindset. Since she hasn’t done the work herself of growing a business, it’s really hard because

Karin Conroy (03:08.301)
Yeah.

Yes.

Davina Frederick (03:30.578)
This has worked for me for so many years. And one of those things is that all of her business comes from referrals. And so she makes a certain amount a month. And there’s a gap between what she makes and what she wants to make. And I said, OK, so the way we should think of this is our referrals get us to here. Now we’ve got a gap from where we are to where we want to be. And we need

Karin Conroy (03:32.717)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:45.197)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:53.792)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (03:59.396)
plan. We need a strategic plan. We need a system. We need something that is going to generate clients, not based on our own personal network of people and lunches and clients referring us and whatever. That’s not to say that we don’t like referrals or we don’t like people who refer businesses. Everybody does. I always enjoy it when my clients refer somebody to me and I reward it. But you have to have a system. And if you want to build a business

a law firm business that goes beyond you, like in her case, she’s wanting to buy a firm that’s beyond her. Well, we really need a systematic way of generating leads that doesn’t have to do with you personally doing your hustling. Right. And yeah, so so that’s kind of where that’s my, you know, that’s my position on referrals. think referrals are fine and referrals are great, but you cannot

Karin Conroy (04:32.331)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (04:42.284)
Right, where you’re not the bottleneck. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Davina Frederick (04:56.826)
And some people will go here, solos will go years building a business on referrals, but they’re capped. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:00.684)
Yeah, sometimes it’s the whole career. Yes, exactly. But you’re sorry to interrupt, but you were saying that she’s got a mindset thing because I know this is going to sound a little bit like, you know, the life coaching thing. And this is the part that most people want to skip over because it sounds a little woo woo. But if you skip over this part, it’s not going to work. Right? Like it’s step one.

Davina Frederick (05:23.356)
Right?

Karin Conroy (05:24.79)
So let’s talk about the mindset stuff. Let’s get into that part that is sort of the uncomfortable part for a lot of people, especially I find lawyers don’t like to talk about this part, but how do you even begin with that? Yes, okay.

Davina Frederick (05:30.822)
Yeah. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (05:36.37)
Yeah. So I’m, so I will, I want to, I’m going to share my story about this. Okay. Cause I am a real, you know, I definitely have a lawyer mindset. I was already very, you know, my head person, I get in my head, I think about things. And even though I’m a feeling person, my head always jumps in first, you know, especially with things like business, right? But I, was in a really wound tight, tied up place a few years ago, a number of years ago, and I hired a

Karin Conroy (05:50.154)
analytic. Yes.

Davina Frederick (06:04.964)
a coach myself who was really out there, man. She was really woo woo. And I was like so uncomfortable in this, right? Very much, very much all of that, right? And, but one of the things she introduced me to was access consciousness, which is a practice that is all around energy and shifting energy and that kind of thing. And one of the things that I really took away from access consciousness that I really, really liked was first of all, it, it,

Karin Conroy (06:08.046)
Yeah. I’m picturing like crystals and like, you know, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (06:23.672)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (06:33.08)
it helped me to let go of making bad decisions. This idea that I’m right or wrong, like the right or wrongness of every decision I make, I said, well, I just make a decision and then I’ll just make another decision, right? It really helped me to not be a soap type. And part of what I really liked about it was coming away with some questions and this idea of staying in the question instead of having to have all the answers, right? Because lawyers have to have

Karin Conroy (06:43.884)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (07:00.59)
I feel like, yes.

Davina Frederick (07:02.7)
all the answers to everything, even though, and just around the law, the law is too vast and too detailed for us to have the answer to every legal question. And yet we graduate law school, we think we have to be a walking, talking, know, Black’s Law dictionary, right? And, but the idea of this is asking questions like what else is possible? What else is possible I haven’t considered? What else is, what would it be like if,

Karin Conroy (07:16.514)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (07:22.892)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (07:29.682)
If I stayed in this energy versus that energy, what are the infinite possibilities? There’s so many possibilities beyond my own brain. So if I collaborated with people, what might come out of that experience? This one I absolutely love. As long as you’re in judgment instead of in choice, you will never change. So as long as you’re judging a thing.

Karin Conroy (07:41.505)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (07:54.83)
Davina Frederick (07:57.008)
you instead of being in choice, you will never change. And what’s right about this that I’m not getting? That’s a huge one. What’s right about this I’ve got getting? Because if you ever get in these places where you you feel like you’re, this is a bad thing is happening. I’ve lost a client or I’m not getting business or I feel stale or I had a bad day in court or whatever it is. What’s right about this I’m not getting? Now here’s the hard part for lawyers, for any of us really. And that is we don’t have to answer the question.

Karin Conroy (08:08.236)
You’ve decided.

Karin Conroy (08:22.541)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (08:27.138)
Davina Frederick (08:27.408)
What we’re doing is we’re just asking the question and then we are waiting to see what comes, right? What answers come and the answer may not come right away. The main answer may show up months later. I mean, I once had a client that I, she was going to renew with me and then she wound up not renewing with me and I was so disappointed and I was like, you know, what is, what’s right about this? I’m not getting, and the answer did not come until months later and it turned out that she was diagnosed.

Karin Conroy (08:30.092)
Yep. And staying there.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (08:57.064)
yeah.

Davina Frederick (08:57.176)
she didn’t know and I didn’t know that she was diagnosed with a terminal illness and she needed all of her energy focused on healing and not on her business and it completely changed her life. So sometimes things show up in a way that you just don’t have the answers, don’t have anything to do with you, right?

Karin Conroy (09:01.986)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:06.57)
Sure. Right. That have nothing to do with you. Right. Yeah. I love this. And I just want to underline a few things that I think are, like you said, these are difficult topics for lawyers and not because this is a challenge, but because this is not like an, kind of, thought, you know, challenge for you. It’s difficult because this is outside your comfort zone.

So this idea of staying in the question, and I know this is going to sound like the crystals and the essential oils and all that, but what if you took this idea towards AI instead? So let’s get into sort of tactical parts of this, because one application of what you’re talking about is taking a challenge or a question or a strategy or a thought about collaboration or whatever it may be that’s

part of your thoughts for your law firm over to AI and asking questions. And I think a lot of people start with AI assuming they know the answer or assuming it’s one of two answers. There’s a right and a wrong and whatever. How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? And they’re asking very basic just sort of factual questions like that. But what you’re talking about is to go broader with more theoretical

kind of gray area questions that could be strategic and what am I not understanding about that? But then also what I think is really important is to be okay with not having that answer. So AI could come back to you with an answer that you don’t like. And maybe you need to be okay with that. Maybe it takes a look at, for example, feed it some of your SEO numbers.

Davina Frederick (10:50.589)
You

Karin Conroy (11:00.354)
throw Google Analytics in there and you may have some topic or something you’re writing about on your blog that you love and it’s just like, you know, deep in your heart and you care about this and you ask AI, what am I not knowing? And AI is saying, nobody cares about this topic. Nobody is paying attention or the way you’ve written about it, maybe nobody cares. Maybe there’s something that you need to adjust there, you know, to be nicer.

Davina Frederick (11:19.513)
Hahaha

Karin Conroy (11:30.146)
But for whatever reason, this is not working. And you need to be open to this idea that the answer that you might want is not the answer that you’re gonna get.

Davina Frederick (11:40.316)
think the beautiful thing about AI, I think the thing that’s so interesting about it is that you’re talking about infinite possibilities, right? So, and that we, takes us out of what we know and it gives us really easy access to collective brains, right, that are behind this. And it allows us to really expand those possibilities. So whether you’re looking at your business in terms of

Karin Conroy (11:50.752)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:56.653)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:02.272)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (12:10.652)
how my business is going to grow, where I’m headed in it, or you’re looking at it terms of your marketing and saying, what is it I’m not tapping into that I need to be? And we get so caught up in our worldview. And I recently went through this little exercise and it was like, yeah, you’re really focused on your perspective and your worldview. And I’m like, when you get so caught up in an idea about something, how something should be,

Karin Conroy (12:18.765)
Yeah.

Davina Frederick (12:37.392)
what I should be doing, what I see other people doing. You I talked about this. What I see other people doing and maybe that’s what I should be doing as opposed to just, I think the great thing about AI is that we can go to it and say, you know, this is what I think I should be doing. What am I missing? What else is possible? How does it get any better than this? What other ideas have I not considered? And so we have this infinite brain, even so, even more so than the internet, like Google.

Karin Conroy (12:40.384)
Yes!

Karin Conroy (12:46.252)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (12:54.552)
Yes.

Yes.

Davina Frederick (13:04.114)
is my infinite, like I love Google and now we’ve got AI, which is even more amazing. And it was something that somewhere along the line, somebody says, what else is possible? And this is what we came up with, right? So I think how can we use it in a way that opens up our minds and gives us new, fresh ideas? One of the things I want to touch on, Carmen, because you and I had discussed this before is that

Karin Conroy (13:13.972)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Davina Frederick (13:29.33)
With AI, with the advancement of technology, now we’re seeing so many CLEs on AI and how to use it as a lawyer, and all these coaches are out there teaching AI and marketers and everything like that. And it can feel like you’re being sprayed with a fire hose. You’re being sprayed in the face with a fire hose because you’re like, cannot keep up with all of this. So this is where this mindset piece really ties into that, is saying,

Karin Conroy (13:40.269)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (13:45.353)
Yes.

Yeah, it’s too much. Yes.

Davina Frederick (13:55.726)
I don’t need to know the answers. don’t need to understand fully. I don’t need to know that this is the exact right thing I’m doing and this is wrong. I just need to say, what if, what would it look like? What would it be like if, right? If I just put this idea out there and not be afraid of making mistakes. And that’s the thing I’m always now in marketing because I was in marketing before I became an attorney and then did this. So you and I are like, always talk a chop.

Karin Conroy (14:08.973)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (14:15.831)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (14:24.149)
Right?

Davina Frederick (14:25.394)
But it’s changed so much, you know, since I was in marketing, right? And even just like the last few years, the way things have accelerated and shifted, copywriters, come from a past 11 degree in writing and started out as a copywriter. And now copywriters are going, well, how am going to survive? Because AI is writing everything, right? So we’re having to really rethink everything. And we’re definitely having to rethink what offering legal services like, what people are going to be using AI for. And so I think

Karin Conroy (14:27.298)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (14:41.964)
Yeah. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (14:55.478)
being open and willing to just say, can’t, I don’t know it all. can’t know it all. And it’s okay for me to use tools to ask questions, to talk to collaborators and ask questions to, you know, to say, I don’t know everything about this. Not my area of expertise, right?

Karin Conroy (14:57.634)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:07.736)
Right.

Karin Conroy (15:14.722)
right. And I’m going to try something and I may make a mistake. And I feel like I try not to talk about mistakes and failures in terms of marketing because it’s all data. And so even when something doesn’t, you know, totally take off and have the return on, you know, whatever we were hoping for that particular part of a campaign, it’s still information to know, OK, that’s not the path.

Davina Frederick (15:19.409)
Right.

Karin Conroy (15:42.594)
This other thing worked better. And so now we’re gonna get rid of this one. And it’s sort of like pruning a plant. Like we’re gonna cut this piece off so this other part can be stronger. And it’s not that we never should have explored that because now we have that information and we know not to do that again. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (15:51.932)
Yeah.

Davina Frederick (15:58.758)
Yeah, I’ll tell you something very interesting that just and I just started a new marketing method and it’s DM. It’s a DM strategy to DM people in my Instagram and ask them, you know, are they do they are lay a lawyer? Do they own a law firm? Are they looking to scale their firm like just ask them questions? My audience that is there following me and I’m not doing it. I’ve hired people and they’re helping me do it. I have a script. I have a method, you know all of that and.

It’s been interesting because one of the things, so you really have to be curious about things, right? Because I could be very disappointed because a lot of people who follow me are not lawyers or they do not own their law firm. They work for the government or they’re dreaming of it or they’re law students or they’re other coaches or they’re trying, right? And so it’s been such an interesting experiment because I’m getting to see

Karin Conroy (16:34.559)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:43.606)
Right. Yeah.

or they’re trying to sell you something. Yeah. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (16:56.882)
all the different types of people who are engaging with my content that I never would have known had I not started down this. Now we are getting some results from it, but we had to really prime the pump. And that marketing idea was something, oh, a couple of years ago, I could have just said, no, I’m never doing that. And yet I was open-minded to some idea that somebody had, and I was like, maybe I should try that. And it’s amazing what comes out of it.

Karin Conroy (17:07.104)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:15.712)
It’s right.

Karin Conroy (17:22.67)
Let’s try it. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (17:27.026)
I think there is that with marketing is not an exact size and it really irritates us business owners because the business owner in us is like, I’m investing in a thing and I want to return on the investment. And marketing is really challenges our feelings about that, right?

Karin Conroy (17:33.526)
It does. It does.

Karin Conroy (17:38.742)
Right, trial and error. Yeah, yeah. It does, it’s hard to see the part that doesn’t work, how can you know what’s going to work unless you try things that, like this is just part of the process. So let’s.

Davina Frederick (17:49.649)
Right.

Davina Frederick (17:57.05)
And what works for you may not work for somebody else. What works for somebody else may not work for you. That’s huge because

Karin Conroy (18:00.042)
Yes, that is huge because you look at, you know, I’ve had people look at like influencers and I’m like, they have an entirely different plan and audience and the audience wants different things, but you want to try that for a lot for my what? Why?

Davina Frederick (18:16.722)
I have a client who has gotten very successful doing a podcast and she, mean her visibility, her credibility just blew up doing this podcast. And so people, they hear that, other clients hear that and they go, well I need a podcast. I’m like, no, this is a very special set of circumstances that made this something that was so powerful for her.

Karin Conroy (18:34.21)
Let’s do it. Yeah. Yes.

Davina Frederick (18:42.352)
But you really have, when you’re looking at your marketing, you really have to take into consideration not only your audience, all those, you know, the avatar and where they hang out and all that, but also yourself. And will I do this? You and I, before we got on here, we were talking about these B-roll reels on social media and like taking videos of ourselves typing at our laptops. You know, like how many videos of that can I do? My life is kind of boring, right? But.

Karin Conroy (18:51.052)
Yes. Yeah.

how much work this is.

Ugh. Yeah. Right. Yeah, right.

Davina Frederick (19:07.984)
But I just had a video where I’m doing just something in AIM and it just like took off and I’m getting all this reaction to it. So yeah.

Karin Conroy (19:12.118)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s because you’re in it and people just it feels more authentic. And I know that’s like an overused phrase, but as opposed to using stock photos and stuff, it’s always going to do better if it’s a unique image or video of you.

Davina Frederick (19:27.996)
Yeah. And I think that can be hard for those of us that are really busy running a business. I mean, that’s one of those things, or just hate being on camera. goodness. hate, mean, like everybody will want to go to my Instagram and wealthy woman lawyer and see this because they’re going to be curious now. But my hair is, my hair does not look like this. Let me tell you that with the blowout, looks like my hair on a Sunday. So everybody can go see that. They do. They want to see, they want to know.

Karin Conroy (19:33.346)
Or just hate that stuff. Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (19:42.818)
Hahaha!

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but that’s perfect because everybody is a little nosy and they want to see that stuff. Yeah. And it just, draws that a little bit of attraction. And when we talk about lead generation, that’s what we’re talking about. How do you get attraction, especially in all this noise? Because there is so much noise now. And so people are doing all the weird stuff because they feel like, okay, I got to do the TikTok and the dancing and whatever.

But then there’s people like me that are like, uh-uh, I am, is that a hard no? Like that is not happening. So then, so then what? what’s your, what have you, right. So you’ve got this client attraction system. Is that right? I don’t know why I keep forgetting the name of it.

Davina Frederick (20:16.978)
You’re watching.

Davina Frederick (20:23.472)
Right, because you gotta do something, right?

Davina Frederick (20:30.182)
Yes. Yes. Yes. So it’s part of my, so, you know, I, I help law firm owners scale their business and that includes everything from sort of, don’t, I’m not like you are, you actually help people with their marketing. I more am coming from the strategic angle and work with my clients in scaling their firm. And that may be marketing and hiring and, documenting processes and understanding their money and all those pieces. So that’s how it’s a little bit different. So I have a system, a framework that I teach people.

Karin Conroy (20:42.466)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:54.326)
Right, the logistics and yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:59.81)
Okay.

Davina Frederick (20:59.994)
And as part of the framework, one of the things that I’ve written, can see one of my books, I’ve got two books above me. One of them is on marketing. And really the purpose of it was to help lawyers, lawyers get hit by just marketing, marketing, marketing all the time. Right. And so it was really just to give a framework for people to see this is, these are the different types of marketers. These are the different types of platforms. These are the different things. So you can make better decisions about what you choose to do and what you don’t do. And that’s really a purpose.

Karin Conroy (21:14.231)
Yes, yeah.

Davina Frederick (21:28.88)
But within my own teaching and training, the way that I approach it with my clients is they need to not only know their client intimately, know them very well, know where they hang out, all those things. They also need to know themselves well enough to know what is going on. Because most of my clients are solos who are transforming into business owners. And so it is their vision, their core values, all those things that are sort of the seed of this vision that they’re growing.

Karin Conroy (21:43.405)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (21:56.044)
Right.

Davina Frederick (21:58.406)
But we have to, as we’re growing, we have to create a system to get clients that does not rely on our personality and us being in attendance and all that. And so how do we make that transition as we grow the firm? Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:13.432)
That’s rough. And I feel like both of us, even in building our own businesses, went through that process where there’s a point when it’s all you and you’re the face and the name and the all everything, all the, you’re the HR, you are the janitorial, you are every part of that company. In order to scale and to get to those next levels that

Davina Frederick (22:20.741)
Right.

Davina Frederick (22:30.032)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Karin Conroy (22:42.51)
you know, where you were talking about this difference between that referral-based firm, which like, let’s just be honest, there’s nothing entirely wrong with that, but it’s capped because it’s, yeah.

Davina Frederick (22:53.03)
Now we love it, we love referrals because who doesn’t love for people to believe in our work and refer to us. But I think where it when comes an issue is to me, I don’t like to be dependent on the goodwill of somebody else. I appreciate them and I show my appreciation, but I do not want somebody might move to Poughkeepsie or die or lose their job and get out of this altogether or decide they don’t like me anymore, right?

Karin Conroy (23:05.802)
Yes. Right.

Karin Conroy (23:13.558)
Right, right.

Karin Conroy (23:18.871)
Right.

Davina Frederick (23:19.908)
All of those things can, if you have a handful of best referrers, that can really impact your business in a negative way. So having those good referrals is great, but we need a systematic approach to it. So we need to know, and there are a lot of different marketing methods out there, right? So there’s your website and there’s your SEO and there’s all of those things are still valid. There’s you and I were just talking about AI and Google and how that’s changing, how AI is changing Google. there’s a lot of, people are still doing public speaking.

and they’re writing books and they’re doing podcasts and all these things. And then social media is a big part of it. Do I want to be on social media? Where’s my audience? I feel like I need to be there to reach them and to be credible so that when they go look me up, I’m there, right? All that. But I also think so what whether whatever platform you’re using, you need a systematic way of doing that that doesn’t depend solely on you. So to give me my example of my DM strategy, I have

Karin Conroy (24:15.244)
on you. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (24:19.922)
somebody who is handling those DMs for me. They got a system, I gave it to them, they’re implementing that system for me, and things are getting booked on my calendar. My goal this year is to start hiring some more salespeople to do that, so it’s not me doing all that.

Karin Conroy (24:35.864)
Yeah, because if you think about like any average random Tuesday, like it is today, if you had to number one, be on this podcast, which, you know, this takes a chunk of your schedule. If you had to also be recording these social media posts and doing whatever other follow up in your marketing and then also thinking about what’s going to happen next week and planning that out and putting that that would take your entire Tuesday.

the combination of all of these pieces. And none of those is specifically revenue generating. So none of those is like an actual business meeting that is going to pay your bills.

Davina Frederick (25:04.434)
Oh, it would. It would.

Davina Frederick (25:11.248)
No, exactly.

Davina Frederick (25:18.15)
Yeah, I mean, like, like I have a whole team who does my they plan my post, they put them together, they send them to me. I do give them, you know, images of me and video of me and stuff like that. But they are I’ve been working with them long enough. They do. They know what copy they do know what hooks they know what. So that that’s a particular thing. Ads are still to me for lawyers really powerful. Google AdWords, local service ads.

Karin Conroy (25:20.877)
Right.

Karin Conroy (25:36.866)
Right. They get it done. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:43.757)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (25:47.664)
These things are powerful faucets we can turn on and off if we know what we’re doing. And that’s something definitely I think people should outsource because who wants to go learn Google? God. Right. And we didn’t. Right. Right. Well, and you don’t get you really have to get Google certified to understand it because you can’t Google how to Google, right. How to Google ads. They won’t tell you.

Karin Conroy (25:57.934)
it’s so much work. Yeah. And it changes all the time.

Karin Conroy (26:08.386)
what’s going on, yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:13.646)
Yeah. Yeah. This is like PhD level marketing stuff where it’s like, you don’t, it’s, kind of like having a tumor and thinking, I’m just going to Google how to like chop this off with like a steak knife in my kitchen. Like, come on, let’s not do that. But I wanted to add one comment because I just saw a really genius post from an SEO person I follow that you mentioned that these ads are like a faucet and their title of this post was

Davina Frederick (26:13.766)
They want you to get certified, pay them money and then they’ll show you the little insider stuff, right?

Yeah.

Davina Frederick (26:26.642)
Thank

Karin Conroy (26:42.824)
Ads are a faucet, SEO is a well. So I feel like that’s a genius way to think about how they work together and they work differently. And I don’t wanna go too deep into that idea of it, but because we’re talking about lead generation and all of that, think about them in two different ways. Ads, just turn it on and get that flow going, but don’t ignore your SEO at the same time, because you need them both.

Davina Frederick (27:07.686)
Right, absolutely. And I think that’s where what I’m talking about a system it really is about. So I sort of recommend people pick a mix is what I call it. It’s my little phrase, pick a mix. And that is I’m going to pick, you know, I might pick this traditional marketing thing and I might pick this, you know, current marketing thing, right? And so I’m going to pick three marketing avenues where I’m going to drive traffic to me. And so it’s really about driving. Right.

Karin Conroy (27:16.609)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (27:25.62)
Online. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (27:33.068)
Yes. And then stick with those and like have horse blinders. Yes.

Davina Frederick (27:37.402)
And stick with us, right? And that’s where I think a lot of lawyer, law firm owners get into trouble is they, it’s comparison items. I mean, we all do it, right? You’re seeing what other people are doing going, I love that. I should do that, right? And really when you really do analyze yourself, your law firm, the nature of your business, all that, I will say this. So one of the biggest mistakes that I see lawyers and law firms make is that

Karin Conroy (27:45.035)
Yes.

Yes.

Let’s try that. Let’s try this. Let’s try that. Right.

Davina Frederick (28:07.204)
in this market today is that we’re going to show up as these learned professionals that are above you. And that used to be something that you did in the 90s and maybe the 2000s. But this day and age, that’s not cutting it because people are going to be like, I don’t need you for information. I can go get, I mean, how many people have come into your office and said, I Googled it or I looked on chat GPT told me, right? Whether right or wrong, you can’t come at it that approach. And I think that’s where social media, social media advertising,

Karin Conroy (28:15.107)
Right.

Karin Conroy (28:29.26)
Right, yep.

Davina Frederick (28:36.828)
comes in, podcasts like this come in, you have to reveal yourself as a human being and as a person. And when you talk about that authenticity work, who is the person behind this sort of professional that we, what we really want to show up and say, listen, I’m a professional. I know all these things like what we expect of our doctors, right? But how many times have you gone to your doctor and said, listen, I looked this up, here are my symptoms. This is what I’ve got, right?

Karin Conroy (28:42.508)
Yep. Right.

Karin Conroy (28:48.663)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (28:55.67)
Right, exactly.

Karin Conroy (29:03.244)
Yeah, right.

Davina Frederick (29:04.238)
And so it’s really the same way. You can’t hide behind the CV anymore and be about this lawyer page. You’ve really got to find ways to show up so people sort of know who you are as a person and want to reach out to you, know, because they want to be around you.

Karin Conroy (29:09.889)
Exactly.

Karin Conroy (29:22.978)
Right, and how to present yourself as not being afraid of those Google answers, because I will say, I have gone to my doctor and said, listen, I’m a smart person. I am inside this body, and so I can tell you things that you don’t know about what’s happening inside this body. And I understand as a person that my knowledge ends beyond what my human existence is, and so I need your help.

with the medical side of it, but I’m gonna give you information that I need you to listen to and respect as a person coming to you, my doctor, for advice. And so I’m gonna provide some things that I need you to listen to and respect, and then you’re gonna help me with some possible answers. And I feel like…

Davina Frederick (30:09.222)
I’m going to use that script in my next doctor’s appointment.

Karin Conroy (30:12.362)
Exactly, because like I’ve had appointments, I’m sure we all have, where they, as soon as I say, I have done some research on this, they kind of like wrinkle their nose and they don’t want to hear that. And it’s like, if I came to you completely ignorant, wouldn’t you question that even more? Like I’m going to come to you informed and then ask for help. And this is the same thing with the attorneys. Like if they come to you and say, listen, I’ve done my research on chat GPT and Google and whatever, and I’m coming to you.

Davina Frederick (30:29.66)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (30:42.326)
with this idea. And I’ve had clients come to me in this same way.

Davina Frederick (30:46.374)
I was about to say, attorneys certainly will come to marketers and go, well, I know this and I know that, right? That’s just who we are, right?

Karin Conroy (30:49.854)
Yes. I don’t know. Have you had this happen to Vino where they have submitted what they call an RFP, which is a request for proposal, which is like a sort of a defense thing that people do at like defense companies. And it’s, I’ve had these big, long multi-page things and I looked at them and I just replied and I’m like, is this AI? And this is not how I do it. And do you want to have a conversation? Cause I can tell you how I do it.

Davina Frederick (31:14.93)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (31:18.274)
and there’s some valid stuff in here. There’s a couple of points here that I will say, okay, this is okay. And then there’s a bunch of garbage and we are not gonna do this. And if you’re open to that, let’s chat about this. And if you think that this is how to do it, then goodbye. So I’m open to a certain part of it and then I’m not to a bunch of other stuff. So I feel like that’s where we need to be. This is kind of coming back to where you started with this, what else is possible?

Davina Frederick (31:38.63)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (31:47.246)
As the business owner, you need to be open to this idea that people are going to come in more informed. then some of that information is not going to be right. so then you, you exactly. And so then you just overlay and say, okay, listen, I’ve done this 50 times and you need my help. And let me tell you where you’re at. Your research is okay here and here and here, but this part, no. And here’s what you’re missing.

Davina Frederick (31:54.363)
Right.

Davina Frederick (31:57.845)
Which is where you come in, you know.

Davina Frederick (32:14.512)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, as attorneys, most of us are that client for you. Like, we would be showing up going, well, I know this because we feel like, and I speak just broadly for attorneys, just having worked with attorneys, colleagues so many years and myself as one, is we kind of think we’re smarter than the average bear. If we just had enough time, we could figure out how to do everything, right? But really, truly, really, truly, they’re whole different careers. I will

Karin Conroy (32:20.877)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:33.324)
Right. Right. The whole world solve all the problems.

Davina Frederick (32:42.13)
And me with my marketing background these days, I really hire people who are, the way that I start choosing people is I started hiring people who are experts in one particular platform and saying, I’ve got this expertise, they’re an expert in this one particular platform. Because do I want to sit all day and research what are the latest trends that are going to, you know, or whatever? I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I have the time. I’ve got other things and I don’t have an interest in that.

Karin Conroy (32:58.008)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (33:04.62)
You should not have the time for that. Yeah, yeah. That should be a waste of your time. Exactly. It should be a literal waste of your time where there is, you know, I had this boss that was a micromanager and the only thing, one of the only things I took away from that experience was this phrase, highest and best use that he used to use all the time. And he’d walk through the, you know, my kind of office area where I was working with my colleagues and he’d just say that, highest and best use.

just looked to make sure that we were all basically doing the thing he wanted us to do. Yes. Right.

Davina Frederick (33:37.372)
that’s the highest and best use of your time that you’re using the highest best use of your time. you know, and one of the things so I’ve had to learn a lot. My husband works with me. He’s my business manager and the two of us have learned a lot through the years of technology and all this because we run online. Online funnels, right? And so you have to learn all the different software is all the different to understand it. Understand how it works. You have to copywriting and creative and you know that so we have a lot of knowledge, but.

It gives us great pleasure to hire other people to do those things because just because you know it doesn’t mean that, you know, what I’m looking for people who are more expert than me, who know more and can get me results, right? And I know enough to be able to intelligently have conversations about it. But that’s where the open, yeah, and to hire the right person and to fire ones who are turning out not to be right. That’s been huge. I mean, I’ve gone through a lot of people that say they can run

Karin Conroy (34:16.29)
Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (34:24.918)
and to hire the right person. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Davina Frederick (34:35.495)
ads and then they’re going get me a return on that and then the return on that is their fee, right? And I got to pay them.

Karin Conroy (34:36.92)
and then they don’t.

Karin Conroy (34:42.254)
Right. it’s, I think it’s, you know, kind of what we were getting at is we can all have that information, but the actual execution on a daily basis of that thought and plan and whatever, that is more than one person should be doing. And so yes, hire the person, know what you want, do the research, but then also know where to draw the line. Like this is the part I’m not going to do and this is what I’m hiring you to do so that it will get done.

so that I can have all these kind of things happening all at the same time while I’m also making money and being a lawyer and doing my lawyer stuff.

Davina Frederick (35:17.179)
I think, you know, when you were asking about the client attraction system, I want to say, I think it’s divided into a couple of parts. And one is, one is the vision and the strategic thinking, right? So to have a vision for the job of the law firm owner is not to abdicate that vision. You, it is your vision. You have a vision for what your law firm is. You have a vision for how you want to show up in the competitive marketplace.

how you want to be represented, how you want your other lawyers who working for you to show up. And I think coming, going to experts, if you’re looking in terms of marketing, going to experts and saying, here’s my vision. And then those experts helping you develop that strategy and then having a team of people who then can implement that strategy. So you can come with a strategy of your own, but this is where the open part comes in and saying, what if…

Karin Conroy (35:47.566)
how you’re different. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (35:56.172)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (36:09.057)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (36:10.382)
All right, me, am I open to hearing other people’s strategies? And you can still ultimately make the decision, but you don’t ever want to be the implementer of any of this stuff, right?

Karin Conroy (36:19.458)
Right, yeah, sitting there on Twitter at two in the morning, like posting a thing about a blog post.

Davina Frederick (36:22.77)
Right, right. Now I do have, I have clients who are exceptions. I have one client who is an exception to that, but she also has an influencer business. So she’s a lawyer who’s very successful. She was probably, I mean, she grew from, you know, $20,000 a month to over $2 million a year in two years working with me. And part of it is, is her social media audience, her community that she was, had grown over time, right?

Karin Conroy (36:28.824)
Yup.

Davina Frederick (36:49.764)
and 98 % of our clients now come from social media. But I think you can hold that out. That’s her vision, right? And also, yeah.

Karin Conroy (36:53.518)
And that’s part of her plan. so, right, exactly. And that’s the plan and the strategy and whatever. And it’s not just this random, I’m gonna try this on a rant, yeah.

Davina Frederick (37:05.266)
No, in her case, it’s who she is as a person. Like she’s naturally gonna do this anyway. And she just did it in a very smart way that ultimately blew up her business. But it doesn’t work for everybody. It doesn’t work for me, because I don’t go tell the stories the same way she does, right? Yeah, it’s rare. And so you can’t compare yourself to that. I should go and copy this person. Well, it’s not gonna be a thing, because it’s who she is as a person, yeah.

Karin Conroy (37:08.392)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (37:14.988)
Yeah. No, I was just going to say that’s rare. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Okay. That’s a perfect segue into the book review section. So I know you always have great books and this is going to come back to all of these things that we were talking about. We’ve covered a lot, but what is the book that you’re going to recommend for the library today?

Davina Frederick (37:45.242)
Okay, so I’m somebody who reads multiple books at once. So I have a bunch of books on taxes right now that I’m reading, which is really exciting. I thought that might be a little bit boring. So someone just referred a book to me that I’m very excited about reading. And it kind of fits into what we’ve talked about today. It’s called Bending Reality, How to Make the Impossible Probable, and it’s by Victoria Song. Bending Reality, How to Make the Impossible Probable, and it’s by Victoria Song. And so I’m…

Karin Conroy (37:49.74)
Yeah, me too.

Karin Conroy (37:53.57)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (38:07.747)
I love this.

Davina Frederick (38:15.206)
going to reveal that I have not actually read this book yet. But the reason I’m sharing this book is because I just bought it and I’m excited about reading. And I figure, you know, you guys can read it along with me and then you can, you can send me messages and let me know what you think, what you thought of the book.

Karin Conroy (38:19.214)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (38:26.664)
Yes! How fun!

Karin Conroy (38:32.866)
love this though. comes back to early in the episode when we were talking about this mindset idea and the stuff that I said early on, this is like kind of the uncomfortable piece of it. But this idea of this, thinking about the impossible and pulling that into your orbit to actually make that happen, the difference between just thinking about it and then making it happen, there’s a lot there. that, it’s kind of that gap.

Davina Frederick (38:55.622)
Yeah, well, and how this why this resonated with me is that the person recommended to me, I’m moving into a new phase in my business and it’s a phase that’s hard for me to wrap my mind around. And so she recommended this book to me and she goes, you’re going to love this because this is going to help you close that gap between between all what’s possible and, you know, like getting there. Right. So

Karin Conroy (39:07.95)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (39:14.336)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (39:19.755)
Yes.

Davina Frederick (39:20.434)
how to get myself, my energy, my mind aligned with that purpose. Because right now it feels big, it feels scary, it feels weird and uncomfortable and I don’t know anything about it, you know, all that.

Karin Conroy (39:31.438)
And when it feels that way, like you said, you’re not gonna put the energy behind it. You’re gonna kind of pull back and we all know what these to-do lists look like. This is kind of sitting there on the to-do list towards the bottom and it’s like, okay, I know that if this big idea, this thing that I’m kind of feeling unsure about, it’s there, it’s on the to-do list, but it’s just kind of sitting there and I know that I should probably spend 20 minutes today doing X, Y or Z in order to push that thing forward.

but I’m gonna find some other thing to distract myself with and it’s just not gonna get the energy, the momentum. That’s where this mindset stuff comes into play.

Davina Frederick (40:12.05)
Well, and being the person, it’s one of the things with my clients I always say, you become the person who can handle a million dollar, multimillion dollar law firm. You are not that person when you’re starting out with me because you’re making six figures maybe or a quarter million or a half million, right? And so you have to become the person because if I just handed you the keys to a million dollar law firm right now, wherever you are, or two million or three million dollar law firms, some of my clients do.

Karin Conroy (40:22.038)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (40:27.286)
Less.

Davina Frederick (40:42.086)
then you are, you would freak out because you wouldn’t know where to start. So that’s really what to me, why I’m excited about this book is because it really is about saying, okay, how do I become this? Right. And sometimes we have to work internally first, you know, or we have to do it as we’re doing. Right. We have to do the internal work and do the external work. It doesn’t all happen with just doing, doing, the external work.

Karin Conroy (40:45.858)
Yeah, you’re gonna kill it.

Karin Conroy (40:54.518)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (41:01.356)
Yes, yes.

Karin Conroy (41:07.51)
Right. Exactly. I love that. Okay. So Bending Reality by Victoria Song, we will obviously link that in the show notes on the page and in the YouTube and all that stuff, but that sounds amazing. So what’s a big takeaway that you’d like people to get from this episode? Because we’ve talked about some of the woo woo mindset, you know, thought process, but then we were also talking very specifically about, broadly about lead generation, but then how to actually do it in a way that’s

Davina Frederick (41:26.545)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (41:36.85)
realistic, but what actually works based on all of the years that we’ve been doing this.

Davina Frederick (41:41.572)
I to me, one of the biggest aha moments for my clients is when I say to them, you’re the visionary. Your number one job is not client satisfaction. Your number one job is not doing the work of a lawyer. Your number one job is not even lead generation, right? Your number one job is being the visionary for your law firm and having a vision of.

Karin Conroy (42:02.123)
Yeah.

Davina Frederick (42:07.878)
What does this law firm, what do I want it to do for me and for my clients and for my community and for my employees? What do I want? How do I want to be perceived? And to me, if you walk away realizing that your number one job is the visionary and everything else, you need to have a system, you need to have people to delegate it to, you need to have other experts you invited to help you with those different other aspects of your business. I think if you walk away with that,

you will it will be a shift in thinking for a lot of people.

Karin Conroy (42:39.16)
That’s amazing. I feel like that’s so true. It’s kind of a hard reality for some people because they feel like, you know, I personally have some control issues so I can relate to this. Yeah.

Davina Frederick (42:49.33)
It’s hard for me. It’s hard for me because I want to be, I want a certain, you know, level of execution, right? But it is, it is your vision that ultimately is, is what, I mean, you’re create, you’re a creator, you’re creating a law firm that is designed to, to serve people. And what do you want that to look like? How do you, how do you want to serve people that’s, that’s different from the way the guy down the block serves people? How do you want to show up for that?

Karin Conroy (42:55.136)
Exactly.

But it’s the way. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (43:17.398)
Yeah, and be realistic about it. Like, let’s take that whole vision and then realize what that would require on a daily basis. It would require way more than 24 hours of work. Plus we have to sleep at some point, you know? So like, let’s recognize that the amount of work is gonna take a whole team and you’re gonna have to find that team. There’s gonna be some pain. Like even in that lead generation process, we talked about how you try things that don’t work. You’re gonna hire people that don’t work also, but you’ll eventually find those people.

Davina Frederick (43:44.642)
yeah, that’s a whole separate episode that we could get into and talk about for like an hour. So yeah.

Karin Conroy (43:47.018)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But you’ll eventually get there. You’ll have your team and then you are, you know, like all those things they say about group work, it’s so much bigger than the sum of its parts. And so then you get to that level and you have that vision, but it requires all of that. It requires you kind of taking those thoughts about what’s impossible and pulling that into your reality. Amazing.

Davina Frederick (44:13.489)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (44:15.146)
Awesome, Demina, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being one of the first collaborators. I couldn’t even think of the word for a second, because it’s so new. But this was amazing. I feel like this gives people such a solid foundation and a thought about where to start in terms of thinking about scaling and what’s realistic and what they need to kind of realistically think in terms of also what’s impossible and maybe that you don’t have that answer and somebody else.

Davina Frederick (44:21.377)
Hahaha.

Karin Conroy (44:43.884)
might that you have to be open to. Thank you so much for being here.

Davina Frederick (44:46.322)
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. appreciate it. If anybody reads the book and wants to, you can DM me at wealthy woman lawyer and let me know. Say you heard this podcast and let me know what you think about the book. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (44:52.242)
yes.

Karin Conroy (44:57.386)
Let’s do it. Let’s do a little book club on bending reality. That sounds amazing. We should do that. That would be such a fun thing to do. Have a little book club and read the books. We should start that. Awesome. All right. Well, we’ll tag you in all of the, you know, whichever platform people are watching this on, we’ll tag you so that if you have read or are reading Bending Reality, make sure to reach out to Domina. That’s awesome.

Davina Frederick (45:02.288)
Yeah.

Uh-uh.

Davina Frederick (45:19.292)
Yeah.