Episode 181: Legal Marketing for New Law Firm Launches with Michele Correnti

Stephen Seckler (00:18.99)
Welcome back everybody. Just a reminder that if you're listening to Council to Council on one of the audio podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcast, you can also find us now on YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, it's nice to have you here. In my last episode, I spoke with Mike Rossi about some of the ethical and risk management issues lawyers need to think about when launching their own firms. Today we're continuing that conversation, but looking at another critical part of launching a successful practice.

How you build your brand, establish your visibility, and make sure potential clients and referral sources know you exist. Starting your own law firm can be exciting. You get to choose the work you want to do, the clients you want to serve, and the kind of practice you want to build. But hanging out your shingle doesn't automatically mean that clients will find you. And while you're busy setting up bank accounts, technology, insurance, and all the other pieces of a new practice,

You also need to think about something equally important. How you're going to build your brand and generate work. My guest today is Michelle Correnti, founder and CEO of Correnti Marketing, a boutique content and marketing and branding agency serving law firms and other professional services businesses throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Michelle founded the agency in 2018 and now leads a team that helps firms grow their brands through content marketing.

In this episode, we're going to talk about what lawyers should be doing before and after launching a firm to make sure people can actually find them. We'll discuss branding, websites, LinkedIn and social media, content marketing, referral relationships, and how to make the most of that brief period when starting a new law firm is actually news. We'll also talk about what's changed in legal marketing, including the growing role of AI and how lawyers can build visibility without turning marketing into a second full-time job.

Michelle, welcome to Council to Council.

Michele Correnti (02:17.819)
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Stephen Seckler (02:21.709)
Before we get into legal marketing, can you tell us just a little bit about your own career path and how you ended up focusing on marketing for professional service firms generally and lawyers and law firms specifically?

Michele Correnti (02:33.359)
Yeah, my career started honestly through college. I had internships at the time and I was working for professional service firms. Like a one was a janitor janitorial service company, and I fell in love with the marketing of people behind a service. product marketing has never really resonated with me, especially in like our consumer society, but having these services that are necessary that we need, that I was really drawn to that and learning about what makes the professional behind that service.

Different or how they're doing it differently. And I worked for a regional law firm for a while in-house doing their marketing. I worked with the individual attorneys, I worked with the comp the whole firm itself for with its branding and events. And I just fell in love with that side of legal services of marketing. and so about eight years ago, I started Crunchy Marketing, and our niche since day one has been law firms, but

Professional service firms is really like the sandbox that we play in. and yeah, I basically started it with the simple concept that your firm does exceptional work and we just make sure the right people know about it.

Stephen Seckler (03:43.093)
Okay, and you also had a background in photography, right?

Michele Correnti (03:45.957)
Yes. Yeah, photography was an interest of mine ever since I was a child. and I would do headshots and things for our clients today, less so than I did f prior, but we'll do brand photography and headshots for clients too. And it's definitely a part of our marketing. It's super important to have that, whether we're doing it or another photographer is, yeah.

Stephen Seckler (04:07.885)
Okay, so why don't you just broaden that? Tell us what are sort of in general all the services that you provide.

Michele Correnti (04:13.904)
Sure. So I kind of put it into two buckets. We have the branding bucket and the content marketing side. So on the branding side of things, we'll help with your messaging, your logo, your visual identity, your website. I even kind of compile SEO into that a little bit, like having your website appear on search results. And then on the content marketing side, we work with our clients on a monthly basis to do things like their social media, blog writing.

email newsletters, everything that they need to stay consistently visible so that people think of them and are they're top of mind for referrals and prospects.

Stephen Seckler (04:52.085)
I'm gonna take break the fourth wall for a second. Are you seeing like the lighting on my screen like getting lighter and darker? Because I I I don't you don't think so. Okay, 'cause there was one episode I did where there was like clouds kinda coming in and out and I realized I should have I should have pulled the shade down 'cause otherwise, anyway it looks like a horror movie. But not not really.

Michele Correnti (04:58.84)
No, I don't think so. No.

Michele Correnti (05:12.42)
I know what you mean. I also am not dealing with natural lighting right now. Yeah. Me too.

Stephen Seckler (05:15.765)
Yeah, yeah. But I like the natural. I like the natural like I mean. Okay, Jal okay, Jalko, you can get rid of all that. Let's say I'm a lawyer who has decided that six months from now I'm gonna leave my firm and launch my own practice. What should I what should I start thinking about? My brand and marketing and what should I be doing before I leave?

Michele Correnti (05:39.794)
That's great question. And it's one that we do a lot with our clients. I would say like about half of our clients are solo firms that are looking to go out on their own, whether they've already left the firm or not. But it is ideal if you have this like six-month lead time, right? Because you're working for this firm, the firm is bringing some semblance of business, assuming that they have like a brand or they're known in the community, and you're going to be

responsible for bringing in your own clients and having this brand that you need to be proud of. so when we work with a a attorney that's gonna go out on their own, we talk about a lot of things. We I A, we need to figure out like what's their messaging and their ideal client going to be because everything's gonna revolve around that ideal client. You wanna make sure that they have like a really clear message, preferably some kind of niche, because that is going to get you

More clients if you have a focus rather than being too general. So it's kind of the equivalent of like casting a wide net versus like spearfishing, for example. And then we will work with them to create their visual identity, because you want to be recognizable, you want to be consistent, you want to look professional. So we'll do things like their logo and their website. And then we'll work with them to help launch the firm. And in a perfect world, we'll continue working with them after that with their content marketing to stay consistent.

But the biggest thing is making sure you have enough time to do all of those things without it being thrown together really quickly or not really well thought of. You can always go back later, but what we like to say is like that first like 90 to 90 days to six months after you launch is really key because you're making this big announcement that you started your own firm. And then, you know, like people need to like consistently see that to be reminded that you're doing this.

This is who you're working with and this is how you can help. so yeah, that's what I would say starting with.

Stephen Seckler (07:35.948)
Okay. When lawyers hear the word brand, many of them think of a firm name, a logo, and maybe some colors. What does building a brand actually mean for a lawyer starting a firm? You've already alluded to some of that.

Michele Correnti (07:42.565)
Mm-hmm.

Michele Correnti (07:50.117)
Yeah. One of my favorite quotes, it's actually a Jeff Bezos quote, I think. It's from years ago. But it's he says, like, your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room. And he's essentially saying, like, if you're not creating your own brand, everyone else is doing it for you. So from my perspective, your brand is essentially your reputation. And there's a lot of visual components to that. And our team loves the visual components because it's like, you know.

You're recognizable, you're seeing it consistently, you're gonna be remembering it kind of like the McDonald's arches or a Nike swoop. but it's also just like this whole encompassing reputation of like what you're all about, what makes you different, who you're serving. and you really gotta like decide that narrative before you get going, or else you can kind of get lost in the mix and people won't remember you.

Stephen Seckler (08:39.51)
Do you like an example of that? You know, I think for lawyers, a lot of times, you know, you and I both belong to provisors or business networking group, and we hear people introducing themselves. And a lot of lawyers will say, you know, I'm a trust and estates lawyer, I do estate planning and I don't do any probate, or I'm a business litigator and I handle commercial disputes or something very mundane that really isn't differentiated. So can you give an example of how somebody might differentiate themselves with a better

Yeah.

Michele Correnti (09:12.037)
Yeah.

Michele Correnti (09:16.612)
The biggest thing I would say is deciding what your ideal client is. So for example, we recently worked with a woman who was going out on her own and she does employment law. And for starters, she chose to do the employee side of employment law, which is already, you know, like picking a little bit of a niche. But she defined her ideal client profile as like a very strong, successful career woman.

And she created all of her messaging around this like ideal client. And what she's doing is basically she's able to attract that person and get that kind of client work coming in, as opposed to if she just said employment law and used a lot of general language, she would be getting a lot of caseload that she's not necessarily interested in or passionate about. for her, it was really important to kind of appeal to this like woman audience and not necessarily, you know.

not work with anyone else, but for the work coming in to primarily be that kind of audience. So yeah.

Stephen Seckler (10:19.884)
I don't know if you feel this way. I know that I meet or hear from a lot of lawyers. I'm listening to them again at our provisors networking meetings. We go to a lot of them. We hear a lot of people introducing themselves. I feel like the lawyers have a tough time sometimes differentiating. I feel like the financial planners, the money managers really have a hard time. But the th we have somebody in our group who I think you'll know who it is that

Michele Correnti (10:37.368)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (10:49.078)
represents or works with a lot of women who are recently divorced and to me, is that kind of what you're saying? Like having that

Michele Correnti (10:56.142)
Yeah. Yeah. And the reason is it makes you more memorable and you're gonna get more direct referrals. So like you said, like there's a t an attorney that shows up and they're like, I do litigation. And you're like, Great, I know 10 litigators off the top of my head, or that doesn't really help me understand who you are and what you do. so it helps when you have specificity and

We actually find and the research actually shows that when you have a niche, you'll get more work outside of that niche as well, in addition to the work within that niche. So it's people often become afraid that they're gonna, you know, like make people not refer them business because they have this specificity. But in reality, it actually really pays off in the end. we had a client that we've worked with for years and we finally got them to hone in on the fact that they work with high net worth clients. So they're an estate planning firm.

And they've always had this ni niche, but they've been too afraid to kind of like own it. and over the years, we've really like helped them realize that this is this a smart move for them and it's what they're known for already, and they should really own this space. So now like all of their content, for example, is focused on this. It's high level topics, it's things that their clients actually care about. And we're just seeing like the engagement increase across the board, like their newsletter, their blog, people are really like coming to them with these like high-level questions.

In addition to them being like, My child needs help and it's like their child doesn't necessarily have this like complicated estate, but you're still getting this other work because they like working with you and they trust you.

Stephen Seckler (12:26.286)
What about current D marketing? What would you say? There there are other agencies that do what you do. So what's what's your niche?

Michele Correnti (12:34.338)
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, Stephanie law firms, and I think the way that we do marketing for law firms is different. Marketing is such like a broad term. And when it comes to us, like our clients care about their brand, their reputation, and staying consistently like known online as like a thought leader or someone who does this service, provides this service. so for us, it's it's the way that we approach marketing for law firms.

That is also different, in addition to the fact that it's just law firms. so our clients, generally speaking, they're great law firms. Usually they're really involved in the community, or like whether that's professionally or like locally in their actual like, you know, hometown communities. And we help elevate their brand and make sure that people know about them and that the right people are hearing about that firm. And we really try to make it holistic, like that.

caring about the firm as a whole and asking them questions about other things that are going on or not making our marketing so sp par down that like it's not getting the bigger picture. Like we're constantly having big picture check-ins with them to make sure it's like aligned with the company's goals. And yeah, it's it's fun.

Stephen Seckler (13:51.481)
Yeah, I mean I think having fun and enjoying what you do is definitely a good marketing technique because I spent many years doing recruiting and coaching, but honestly most of my time was spent on recruiting and that just after twenty five, thirty years it just it just never really felt right. But coaching I love and

Michele Correnti (14:11.258)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (14:11.744)
Some somebody asked me six months ago. So I do some work with senior lawyers also, helping them figure out what their next stage is. So I'm basically helping lawyers with you know, retirement like transitions. And somebody said to me, Well, what would you do, Steve, if you retired? And I looked at them like a deer in the headlights. I'm like, I like what I'm doing. I have no intention intention of retiring. So anyway, it you know, you definitely convey a sense that you really do enjoy what you're doing and

Michele Correnti (14:31.342)
Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (14:40.514)
I don't know if you feel this way, but I sort of look you know, you send out a lot of great marketing materials. You've got this newsletter that keeps coming out, you're putting out great content. And I I don't know if this is right, but I see you as a solo small firm agency that's working with with small law firms. Is that your brand your brand? Okay.

Michele Correnti (14:57.988)
Yes. Definitely. Yeah, we work a lot. So our firm is small and we work a lot with smaller firms. we like to say it's usually like a solo firm or a small firm that has anywhere from like eight to ten attorneys. We can do larger. for example, we're working with a client right now. We've been working with them for a couple years where their director of marketing left the firm and we came in in the interim to help, you know, support their they had a lot of things going on. There was an office move, a rebrand.

And this is a firm with like 40 plus attorneys. so we've been able to support them through that process and help create this consistency online and get this really great engagement while they help backfill that position. So that's like another common thing that we'll do for clients, even in like the interim for certain circumstances, but mostly small firms. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (15:50.817)
If you're working with a firm that has more than one lawyer, now you've got a few different messages that have to get out. So how how do you differentiate between what the individual lawyer's brand is and what the firm's brand is?

Michele Correnti (16:04.068)
That's a great question. Typically, the firm as a whole has an overarching message and an ideal client. In a perfect world, we love it when, for example, the partners of the firm also want to have a presence online. So, for example, on LinkedIn, your personal LinkedIn profile gets a lot more engagement and traction than a company page for a number of reasons. Like the most obvious one being that people like to interact with people directly and that's who you're connecting with directly.

and in a perfect world, we love having that company page to be able to do things like announcements, job postings, kind of like this hub, and then using the personal profiles to have more of that individual's voice. So maybe that individual partner has a niche within their niche or their practice area and they like to focus on that, or their personality comes through in their post. So it's really more about like that individual's unique approach, or if they have like a

sector that they work with that's unique. but yeah, we try to balance it usually through like personal versus company. that comes up a lot in conversation, especially for small firms like should it be me or the company that's posting.

Stephen Seckler (17:17.816)
What about websites? You know, you have a brand, that's the firm, you have individuals, again, if we're talking about more than one individual, and layered on top of that question is how do websites differ when you're building an estate planning practice, family law practice versus a business litigation practice, say?

Michele Correnti (17:20.218)
Yeah.

Michele Correnti (17:40.792)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Circling back to your other question, when it comes to like the website, obviously we want to have different bios for each attorney. And then also the blog is a great place for each attorney to be able to own that space. So if they have a specific topics that they want to cover and they'll be the authors of them. So that comes into play for sure. When it comes to creating a website for a law firm, we treat them all as if they're completely different companies.

Our clients like working with us because we don't just do we can do like a templated, you know, classic website, but for each of our clients, we're really asking like the right questions to make sure this website's gonna, you know, reach their goals or whoever they're trying to target. So for example, like we have one client that she's actually from Poland and she found us on LinkedIn and she works with California startups that are scaling up. So in this like investor stage.

And she wanted her company to match the feel of them while also like coming back to her like European roots. So it has this like Swedish startup feel to her website and like that's the energy that it's bringing. versus like we have done some more traditional ones where they're like, I'm very I'm pretty traditional, like I want our branding to be modern, but I want the website to be like pretty classic, and we'll like develop the website in that way for them and make sure that it's like easy to.

click through and all of that, but it just depends on what their goals are and how they want to be portrayed and then we help cut make that come to life.

Stephen Seckler (19:15.662)
We're in a world of AI now and it's really, as we both know, just rapidly changing everything. So how would you say AI has changed and organic search has changed with the advent of AI?

Michele Correnti (19:33.508)
Definitely changing. I think we're still learning what it means to have like Chat GBT and Gemini giving us answers. from our perspective, from what we've learned is that websites and SEO and the concepts that you should be following for foundational SEO on your websites of search engine optimization, which traditionally is for like, you know, your Googles, your Bings, things like that. The practices there are actually quite similar.

For what you would do for generative generative day AI. so things like asking, trying to figure out like frequently asked questions for your clients, trying to be more concise or conversational or use bullet points, like readable content. and a lot of that is so the things that you're hearing for like generative AI and how to show up on them, it's similar. I think we're still in this trans transition phase to see like how it's actually gonna pan out as far as like

how much is gonna be on Google versus ChatGPT. it's something definitely to pay attention to. But for the most part, if you're doing the right foundational work for SEO, then you're in a good spot as we head into this Chat GPT era. but yeah, it's a moving target.

Stephen Seckler (20:48.824)
fact that it's a moving target to me is the biggest and most compelling reason to work with an agency like yours because you're keeping up with this stuff and presumably your clients are keeping up with their expertise and staying current and I I try to keep up because I'm not doing marketing but I'm coaching lawyers on business development so it's kind of adjacent a little bit but I'm not doing what you do.

Michele Correnti (21:05.295)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (21:17.526)
And it is dizzying how how frequently the and it's like a w I'm feeling like I'm being whipsawed with LinkedIn. Like do put in links, don't put in links. I mean, it's just like the recommendations keep going a hundred and eighty degrees, but having somebody like you to monitor these things I think is a incredibly valuable service that you provide.

Michele Correnti (21:23.407)
Mm.

Michele Correnti (21:26.894)
huh.

Michele Correnti (21:39.842)
Yeah, it's interesting. We talk about like we just the other day were doing some additional research or we're constantly doing research on, you know, like the LinkedIn algorithm, all of that. But ultimately, to make you feel a little more at peace, Steve, ultimately it comes down to are you providing thoughtful, actually like interesting and valuable content? And in like, you know, like for LinkedIn, for example.

Are you trying to create something that's gonna get people to engage and stay on the LinkedIn platform? And that goes for any platform that you're trying to optimize for or like hack the algorithm for. It's they basically want you to put like original, valuable, thoughtful content, like something that's actually thought-provoking, it's gonna engage people and get them to stay on that platform. So that's kind of where you're hearing like, don't put links in, put links in. It's like if the link is is helpful, put the link in.

But if it's not helpful, skip it. Like have people stay engaged with the post on LinkedIn. but yeah, we try to remind people that ultimately like what we're doing for clients is we're constantly monitoring and adjusting what we're doing, but we're always bringing it back to like what's actually quality versus like trying to chase that algorithm.

Stephen Seckler (22:54.082)
What are some of the biggest mistakes you see lawyers make with their websites and with their online presence?

Michele Correnti (23:00.417)
Ooh, that's a good one.

Michele Correnti (23:05.825)
not having anything. So for example, like having an old or non-existent website, not having a Google Business profile. That one's huge and very easy to set up, generally speaking. having a LinkedIn profile that isn't updated. Like maybe it has your old law firm still attached to it. Maybe you don't even have a headshot. Maybe your headshot's from 20 years ago, like a real estate person that hasn't shopped any of their logo and like your web shot headshot in 20 years.

basically everything that makes you either non-existent online or look really outdated or confusing. I actually just had a call yesterday with a prospect or Friday rather, and she is having concerns about her maiden name versus her married name and also like balancing working for a practice and also having her own practice. and it was an awesome conversation and a nice challenge to talk about like, okay.

what is your goal and how do we make this consistent and how do we make this clear to people online so that they're not confused because that's what's happening right now. And those are some of our favorite challenges to work through.

Stephen Seckler (24:15.278)
So don't use your bar mitzvah photo, right? You know, you know, I j I joke about that. I don't think I ever posted my bar mitzvah photo. I did I may have done it on on Facebook as a joke. But but the yeah, it's not pretty. But anyway, I did post one of my all time most popular posts on LinkedIn was a photo of me in college. I look like I

Michele Correnti (24:17.559)
Yeah. Time to update your LinkedIn profile, Steve.

Michele Correnti (24:30.349)
I'd like to see.

Stephen Seckler (24:45.462)
I mean it I look pretty emaciated actually. It's it's you know, it's funny. Yeah y well, it wasn't no, it wasn't that. It was just like my body type, you know, which, you know, my my age caught up with it. But but it's funny how the personal really engages people. I did another one the other day. Well, this wasn't a picture of me or anything. But it was a post about

Michele Correnti (24:50.711)
Surviving on ramen noodles.

Michele Correnti (24:56.953)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (25:12.302)
I don't know if you saw it, but just like how you get all these annoying inquiries that people send to you that may have nothing to do with the services that you provide. And then they'll send you a follow up. I'm still waiting for your reply. So I so I did a post on that and it just went, you know, it got so much engagement because it just really resonated. But going back going back to the personal though, I mean, any any comments well not going back to I guess those are both sort of personal, but any comments about about using the personal

Michele Correnti (25:23.971)
Mm-hmm.

Michele Correnti (25:31.481)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (25:42.26)
a as a branding vehicle.

Michele Correnti (25:44.367)
For sure. I mean, but especially when it comes to being like a solo attorney or having a small firm, people are usually coming to you to work with you. And the differ the difference between like you and another attorney is literally like you and your personality and how you approach things and your like philosophy for life to make it like really heady. so I think by going personal online

it really benefits you in that sense because when people feel like they get this like parasocial relationship with you where they think they know you and understand you and they they're like, wow, that really resonates with me, or like I agree, or I love the way they talk about subjects. and then they're more inclined to actually reach out to you. They say like it takes anywhere from like seven to eleven touches. And if you like are putting out these personal posts within like, you know, explaining what you do or all that.

It's more touch points where people are like, I I kinda like this person or I'm I'm interested or like I trust this person or you know. So it builds that online parasocial relationship that not to be like weird, but it just builds that trust that we otherwise wouldn't be able to get in that amount of time.

Stephen Seckler (26:56.276)
who are working at law firms and then start their own firm have professional relationships and potential referral sources. So what should they be doing to make sure those relationships actually follow them to the new practice?

Michele Correnti (27:09.134)
Mmm, great question. We love talking about launching your firm. The key is making sure it's like more of like a campaign approach, which in our world is basically like making sure you're kind of covering all the bases. so you don't want to just do, for example, like updating your experience on your LinkedIn profile and telling people I started a new position, I launched my own firm. That's great. But that's like one out of a million other pieces you can do. At the very least, we always encourage

Have some sort of brand set up, whether that's like a basic logo and website to start and later you can revisit, you know, like putting more investment in that. having a Google Business profile, having your LinkedIn profile updated, doing that LinkedIn update, but then doing other things as well, like preparing an email list, having an email announcement going out, actually reaching out one by one to your referral sources, your clients, your prospects, all these things to let them know about this change.

And then your really important ones, like meeting up with them, whether that's Zoom or getting coffee or lunch and telling them more about what you're doing. You really have to spend like that first three to six months just constantly dripping and letting people know what you're doing. Otherwise, you're really losing this like valuable momentum. It's exciting that you're doing this. There's a reason behind it. Usually there's a niche that you're focusing on. and you really can take advantage of that if you're thoughtful.

Instead of just being like, I launched the firm, okay, I'm busy, I gotta go practice the law, like I gotta go try to do the work. It's like you also need to be letting people aware of what's going on so that they come to you.

Stephen Seckler (28:46.626)
I tell my clients that are thinking about starting their own practice to make sure that they have the capital to survive a certain amount of time. I also I also tell them not to be pennywise and pound foolish about certain things. And I think it's hard to get that balance right because clearly you could spend a lot of money and then run out of money while you're trying to get your business going, but you could also run out of time because you're spending so much time

Michele Correnti (28:53.954)
Yeah.

Michele Correnti (28:58.094)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (29:16.28)
doing all the things that somebody like your agency could take care of very quickly while you're focusing more on, you know, very specific relationship building. So can you say something about that tension?

Michele Correnti (29:28.876)
Yes. I have a lot of thoughts about this. As someone who's in this branding and content marketing space, I know the importance of it, but I also know that if you are a great attorney with a great reputation, and for example, you're networking a lot, like you're going to a lot of provisors' meetings or things like that. If you have at least everything foundationally set up and not necessarily like professionally done by our agency, for example, but at least it's consistent, it looks

Some semblance of professional, not just like Times New Roman font. you can get away with it for a little bit. But I think for most people, it's really this balance of like what can I successfully do on my own? Like, do I have this capability or design capability on my own or a taste or design on my own? and what do I need to like hand off to professional? And also, am I the kind of person that

needs a professional brand to actually feel confident about doing this. Cause a lot of us have this imposter syndrome when we go out on our own. And I can tell you from like all the solos that we've gone and we created a brand for, like they feel so much more proud and legitimate when they go out in the world and they have this like brand behind them and it looks super professional and clean and it's focused. but at the same time, it I think it's important to like

If you don't have the budget at first, just try your best to be as consistent as possible. And then over time you can come back and start to like piece through the budget of making it more professional over time, or do it all in one go, like a couple of years in once you have more capital.

Stephen Seckler (31:05.474)
Well on that on that note, how often are you spending time not just kind of beefing things up, but possibly doing a slight rebrand? How often does that come up in your work?

Michele Correnti (31:16.152)
When it comes to branding and rebranding, it's like half and half. We'll have half our branding projects will be starting from scratch, like someone who is planning this launch and it's, you know, like in the works, whether it's six or twelve months. And about half of them are rebrands. So they're established companies in some semblance. So for example, we just did we're finishing up one for a solo attorney that is

Finally, doing like a professional brand really wants like she knows what she wants, she knows who she wants to work with, and we're creating this brand to make that all like come to life for her. and then also in another case, like we have a client that we started with about five years ago, and they became their partners of the firm and the original partner retired. So it's just this one partner that was left over, and she really wanted to rebrand it because it was so old school and they had like no online presence.

So like that's another common one where it's like we come in and we make it something that like actually reflects the current team and like what they're about and like who they're looking for to join their team. so yeah, it's about like half of our work is rebranding and half of it is branding from scratch.

Stephen Seckler (32:23.118)
We have a little bit of time left. I I wanted to hear a little bit about what you have to say about AI. AI has made it incredibly easy to generate blog, social media posts, newsletters and other content. And I know personally it's been an incredibly helpful tool that is my writing partner. I mean I most of the time will use some kind of a prompt to get started or start a a a post and then have AI weigh in.

Michele Correnti (32:38.733)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (32:52.546)
Where do you think AI can help lawyers with marketing and where does the human voice still matter?

Michele Correnti (32:58.423)
Yeah, great question. Our philosophy is that AI is a tool, and the professionals that are using AI are the ones that are gonna get ahead. so from our perspective, we use it as a tool. There's times that we're using it for brainstorming, perhaps like starting a first draft of something. But what what people are missing is that it it takes a lot of work to alter that AI system and like create that process and also to like put that human touch on it. I think

Attorneys can be using it from like a marketing standpoint if they don't have that budget and they have that drive to edit things and make it their own. but I think if they're gonna try to like copy and paste or just use, it's just gonna get turned into AI slop and the algorithms are noticing, people are noticing, people are sick of all the AI content. so you have to really be like, you have to really know what you're doing to use AI.

in a successful way. And like you said, it can be such a helpful tool. And I think if you're not using it, you're gonna get left behind. But at the same time, you gotta be responsible and know the, you know, ways around it.

Stephen Seckler (34:10.796)
I noticed that LinkedIn now has a button that you could pull down and label it slop.

Michele Correnti (34:16.801)
Yes, yeah, this this is AI slop or I think this is AI slop, yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (34:20.984)
Yeah. I you know, I I'm a little bit of a I have a a slightly different view on this because and maybe because just because I'm a good writer to begin with, so I can read something and know whether it's well written. But I gotta tell ya, I am relying heavily for content from from from Chat GPT is what I'm using. I'd I'd like to switch over to Claude, but I just like

Michele Correnti (34:46.989)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (34:50.488)
Chat GPT just knows me so well already that it's just like, ugh, I don't want to retrain another tool. But but Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Okay. I don't know anybody that doesn't that prefer yeah, for writing anyway. I don't know. I'm a bit of a contrarian when I'm talking to people that, you know, are doing copywriting and whatnot. And sometimes I wonder if it isn't just, you know, nobody wants to be replaced.

Michele Correnti (34:56.215)
Ha we're biased. We love Claude over here.

Michele Correnti (35:04.311)
Right.

Michele Correnti (35:14.519)
Mm.

Stephen Seckler (35:20.14)
And of course we're all gonna have to adapt no matter what, but I mean I think there's I I can go both ways, but I I do think that I don't know, there's a couple of people and provisors that are just I think they've got their head in the sand, frankly.

Michele Correnti (35:24.215)
Mm-hmm.

Michele Correnti (35:35.35)
Yeah. Well I think I I agree with what you're saying. I get what you're saying. I think it's the people that don't know how to use AI and are like copy and pasting things and it is AI slop. And then there's the people that are like using AI too much and like they are replacing all the human side of their team and like I think that's only gonna get you so far, especially when it comes to service marketing, like

When you're providing a service, ultimately the person wants to work with you and they want your expertise. They don't want AI slop or they don't want, they don't want to be put into a bunch of, you know, like online systems that like walk them through a process. Like they're usually hiring you for you. And I think your unique case, like, because you're like our team, like we use AI as a tool and we have human writers on our team. but you're a human writer as well. And it's like you're using AI. And I know if I sat down with you and watched you do it, it wouldn't be like

Write this blog. I don't really have any ideas. It would be like you're basically giving it a draft. It knows your voice. It knows things you don't like. It has previous opinions. It has your edits from last time. So like you've created this unique tool that a lot of people are not spending the time or have the skills to do. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (36:48.054)
Okay, so here's the thing. Like visually I think I was a photographer also, but but I have like no visual aptitude, like really none. Like I can't draw stick figures. And and I have created some what I think are some pretty good images using Chat G P T. Now I give it the concepts, like I'm able to think conceptually, but I can't execute at all. And to me it's just been like incredible, you know. Like

Michele Correnti (37:09.047)
Mm-hmm.

Michele Correnti (37:13.12)
Yeah.

Michele Correnti (37:17.505)
The AI images, I will say, I personally think people need to be careful. And maybe I'm just being protective over like art and things like that. But I just think everyone can tell you have an AI headshot these days. Nobody wants to see the posts that look like AI created this like crazy 3D looking event invitation. Like people are tired of it. They want like more genuine, they'd rather have just like a basic photo from your iPhone at this point.

Stephen Seckler (37:18.062)
Incredible.

Michele Correnti (37:46.753)
That's the sentiment that I'm hearing across the board. So I think imagery imagery in particular, you gotta be careful. Like you're it can turn off people depending on how you're using it. But it is crazy. It's becoming like a really incredible design tool at the same time.

Stephen Seckler (38:00.707)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I mean I like just today I haven't posted it yet, so I won't say exactly what it is. But I I have a a professional photograph that my neighbor's a photographer and you know, I did a studio shoot with her a while back and I gave it to chat and then I said do blah blah blah and actually it came back with one image. I was like, Hmm Yeah, make this thing bigger because I want it to be a little bit funny, you know, my relationship with the object.

Michele Correnti (38:02.081)
Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (38:30.836)
I'm just leaving a little teaser in there. And I was pretty happy. I also gave it an example actually. I gave it

Michele Correnti (38:37.398)
Yeah. It also sounds like you're using it in an AI way, like it's like supposed to be an AI, like it's like you know, like creating this like exaggerated image. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (38:45.472)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but it did have it was my real it was my real image and it was a professional photograph to begin with, but

Michele Correnti (38:51.328)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I also have a complicated relationship with the visual components of AI. My team and I talk about this because AI and like design resources, even within Claude, you can start designing like PDFs and things. We have a complicated relationship with it because there is this like ethical responsibility with AI too, like with the environment and you know, like all the things that come along with that, which we don't have to get into, but I think it is something we need to pay attention to that we're not just, you know.

overusing something that is, you know, gonna be the demise of of our environment or anything like that.

Stephen Seckler (39:29.868)
Well, I was an environmental studies major in college. I'll just leave it at that. So and let let's just say I'm not driving an electric car, although I do feel quite guilty about it, and I hope our next car will be.

Michele Correnti (39:43.724)
Electric cards are little controversial. Again, we don't this is a whole other podcast, but the batteries. And the batteries, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (39:47.577)
Well that well that's that's true because there's the whole life cycle. Yeah, you can't and the extraction of you know, extracting materials min miner yes, the the things that are being e extracted, the extractive technologies are causing some bad environmental impacts where the where the minerals are yes, I get it. Anyway. like reduce, reuse, recycle, I think is the three

Michele Correnti (40:02.358)
Mm-hmm.

Michele Correnti (40:13.366)
Uh-huh.

Stephen Seckler (40:14.318)
So reduce is the first one. So just stop using so much stuff. But I don't know. I'm at a slightly different life stage than you. So I'm like sitting in my air conditioned house. I'm not just using a fan. So Yeah. Okay. All right. I wasn't saying not to not use AC, but that's like anyway. okay, so we're getting near the end here. So for someone listening who is about to launch a firm.

Michele Correnti (40:23.968)
Yeah. I have AC2, trust me. I don't like the

Stephen Seckler (40:41.4)
If you were to give them just three marketing priorities for their first ninety days, what would they be?

Michele Correnti (40:47.148)
Mm, what would be my three priorities?

Michele Correnti (41:00.928)
Decide what your practice is going to be and get specific about it. Think about like who your ideal client would be and then create everything around that ideal client. So if it is this like strong career woman that's like late in her career, try to speak to her in everything that you're doing and try to create things that she would want to hear. so I would say like sit down.

Do that exercise, really hone in on that. And then I would say create as much as you can ahead of time. So like prepping your LinkedIn profile, prepping your headline to like have this new you know, headline, make some semblance of a website and have a logo and prep everything so that when launch day comes, you can make it all live all at once and it can be this announcement. And then my third recommendation would be to make sure you have a plan to continue talking about it.

Continue talking about what you're doing, who you're serving, whether that's like one social post a week on LinkedIn, whether that's a monthly newsletter or blog. It's just something to keep you top of mind and keep that momentum so that you're not gonna lose on that exciting announcement.

Stephen Seckler (42:16.332)
Okay, that's terrific advice. All right, final question I like to ask all my guests. What's one movie, streaming television series or podcast that you would recommend and this is something for entertainment?

Michele Correnti (42:28.384)
Yeah. I cannot get over the movie Obsession right now. It's it's a scary movie, a horror movie, and I will say that it is a very, very dark concept when you like grasp what's going on in the movie. But it was this like low budget indie scary movie that came out in the last year, I think. they did it in like half a million dollar budget, and most of the cast members are like people you've never heard of before, and the the acting is just phenomenal.

And it's a really well done scary movie. And I think if you like scary movies, go for it. If you don't like them, don't do it. Yeah. It's not a to clarify, it's not like pop-up scary. There's a couple unsettling parts, but it's mostly like psychologically you're just like, Yeah. Yep. See, this recommendation's not for you. But I couldn't think of anything I'm more Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (43:05.134)
I don't like scary movies.

Stephen Seckler (43:15.122)
they I hate that the most actually. I know. No no no. No, that's okay. That's okay. Yeah. We have a range of guests that are listening. a r a range our audience comes from a a range of backgrounds. So and as I was saying to you when we were just chit chatting, I think that people's reaction to art, theater, music is very personal and it just strikes a chord.

Michele Correnti (43:27.804)
Ha

Michele Correnti (43:32.513)
Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (43:43.786)
And for some people, like thrillers or whatnot.

Michele Correnti (43:43.926)
Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (43:49.408)
It just does something for you that actually does have a beneficial effect. So or you could just like it.

Michele Correnti (43:54.794)
Exactly, yeah. I'm I'm a big fan of like cinematography and really well done acting. And like the star of the actor Center, that's like the lead. Her ability to like change emotions and things is wild. Like I yeah, very impressive.

Stephen Seckler (43:56.086)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (44:08.886)
Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. I'll I'll give it a I'll I'll give it consideration.

Michele Correnti (44:15.923)
You can watch the trailer and call it a day.

Stephen Seckler (44:18.126)
Okay. Okay. All right, Michelle, this has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I've been enjoying getting to know you better. thanks so much for joining us. If anyone in our audience has follow up questions, wants to sign up for your newsletter, how can they reach you?

Michele Correnti (44:36.447)
You can find us on our website or on my LinkedIn. So my name is Michelle Carrenti, I C H E L E, and then C O R R E N T I. And our website is currentimarketing.com. we do have a LinkedIn newsletter. We also have a newsletter sign up on our website if you want the same newsletter in a different format via email. and yeah, you can stay connected with me on LinkedIn.

Stephen Seckler (45:01.134)
Okay, and I really encourage everybody to sign up for that newsletter. She's got great content.

Michele Correnti (45:05.557)
Thanks, Steve.

Stephen Seckler (45:07.734)
I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please tell others and rate us on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and share it with someone you think might be interested. And if you're watching on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. It will help others find us. If you'd like to continue the conversation, I welcome your inquiries and invite you to set up a time to speak with me about your own career or marketing concerns. I've been coaching lawyers for almost 30 years and I'm happy to do a free 30-minute consultation.

You could sign up at my website at www.seckler.com. On my website, you could also find links to more episodes of Council to Council and get access to many free career marketing and leadership resources. In the meantime, thanks for listening.