EP369: Marketplace Mastery: Becoming the Expert In Your Niche With John Hinson | Spotlight Branding

Stacy Jones: Welcome to marking mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones, and I’m so happy to be here with you all today, and I want to give a very warm welcome to John Hinson.

Stacy Jones: John is the editorial director at spotlight, branding a content marketing company that specializes in helping solopreneur and small firms generate more referrals and get their targeted consumers to stay engaged with almost a decade of experience. John excels in collaborating with legal and financial professionals to help grow their firms while handling the challenges of SEO.

Stacy Jones: As an author of over books in his role as a host of popular industry podcasts, law, firm marketing, minute and center stage. John has an unwavering commitment to education and community building and aims to provide his audience with new tools and perspectives to help them succeed, whether as a guest on the podcast writing, an article speaking at a conference or running a workshop.

Stacy Jones: Today, John and I are gonna be chatting about how to have your business position itself as an expert and stand out in a crowded marketplace. We’ll learn what works from John’s perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses and individuals just miss the mark. John, welcome, so happy to have you here today?

John Hinson: Yeah, thanks. So much for having me.

Stacy Jones: What would I always love doing? Starting off is having you tell us, how did you get here today? Is this what you always thought you were going to be doing?

John Hinson: Oh, God, no! So you know, my initial goal

John Hinson: was to teach like writing and composition. Probably like community college level. You know, I just really enjoyed that aspect of it. I enjoy teaching, you know, and all that. But when

John Hinson: grad school came and went, no one wanted to hire me for that position. I not smartly, didn’t really have a backup plan. I was just super confident that, like, Oh, man, I’m doing so well, someone’s gonna definitely wanna hire me. And that wasn’t the case. So I moved out to the Charlotte North Carolina area. Got a job as a copywriter for a big corporation. So I thought, all right, this is my big boy job. I got a nice corporate job. I’m just gonna to it for my entire career.

John Hinson: and that’s fine days in they cancelled my contract, and I was in a new city. Didn’t know anybody didn’t have any clue. What I was gonna do and then I happened across this company. They needed us, a social media manager. I thought, Yeah, I know social media. I can do this for a few weeks for a few months until I can finally find my actual career. years later. I am still here with the same company.

John Hinson: I’ve kind of just done just about everything there is to do here and now I get to, I guess, for all of that work I get to do fun. Things like this. I get to go to conferences and speak. And I manage

John Hinson: our media section called Spotlight Insider at spotlight, insider com, where there’s just new articles, we podcast going up every day, and it’s just all around helping business owners

John Hinson: just kind of grow their firm with marketing or tech advice, money, advice, all that kind of stuff. We also have a big focus on mental health which, at least in our industry, which we focus mostly on so and small law firms. Just the mental health aspect is just not talked about enough, but there’s a huge you know, need for it there. And so II particularly enjoy that section of it. But you know the the advice that we have in the sense that we have is really helpful for any other industry as well.

Stacy Jones: That’s awesome. And I think there’s so many people listening to you today that are saying, you know, I set off in college do something thinking that I was going to graduate. And I, too, landed in what actually worked out to be the best thing ever.

John Hinson: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The that’s, you know, to get off of like the the business related, you know, conversation, I mean, that’s one of the

John Hinson: things that I really learned growing up, especially in my twenties, where it’s just like, you know, no matter how much I really planned my life out, it never turned out the way that I expected to, but that wasn’t always necessarily a bad thing.

Stacy Jones: I think most of us have found that to be very so when you’re working with these law, firm professionals who have planned their lives out exactly how they plan to be right. Those are people who like

Stacy Jones: they made a plan. They went to school, they went to grad school, they got to and went be, and they passed the bar they went beyond, and now they’re logging it out. So you’re working with them. What’s the first thing that you do because it it’s gonna apply to any industry in general. How do you help them figure out what their messages to tell and what their differentiators.

John Hinson: I. The first thing really is about

John Hinson: changing this narrative that they have been taught, you know, so many so many marketers in our industry. The first thing that they tell these lawyers is that you gotta get on Google. You gotta make sure you’re on page one of a Google search. And you have. You know it’s it’s all SEO,

John Hinson: and that isn’t necessarily how it has to be. You know they they’ve been fed, and I’m sure it’s like this for other industries. But they’re fed. This narrative that everything you do has to be

focused with this end goal being, you have to have success on Google. And and

John Hinson: what that has led to is this overall negative view towards marketers in the marketing industry. And you know, we’re all seen as kind of snake oil salesman, you know. Well, we promise you we’re gonna get you all these leads. No one really believes us. And so what we’ve tried to do with spotlight branding is

John Hinson: provide a a different way of doing it where we’re focusing on helping generate referrals, focusing on helping them stay top of mind with their audience. So that you know the Referrals that they get.

John Hinson: They’re gonna convert those because they have a great website. They have a great foundational presence that makes them look like the expert. And then that way, they’re not having to spend thousands of dollars a month trying to compete for one of spots on page one of the Google search with all of the other firms that are trying to compete for that same real estate.

Stacy Jones: And there is limited real estate there, there’s not a whole lot that is there to go around. But also a lot of your clients are not necessarily looking at the national stage. And so you’re helping them more so in their local communities, too.

John Hinson: Yeah. And and even, you know, and unless you’re in like a really, really really small market like a , , person tab

John Hinson: you? Maybe not. Maybe you don’t have this issue. But if you’re in a big city, I mean even us in Charlotte, you know, bigger markets. Your Dallas is Miami’s, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago’s even stuff in between. There are

John Hinson: , , other firms, maybe even more hundreds who are doing the exact same thing. And you’re all trying to compete for that

John Hinson: page one. Because, you know, there was a Stat. I saw that, like only like point of Google, searches

John Hinson: go over to page

John Hinson: and the the pages that are on page one, their their life span, or they’re like their their lifetime existence is like years old. So you’re not one. You’re not going to get immediate results. And , those results are not going to be guarantee. And yet you’re spending thousands of month $,, thousands of dollars a month

John Hinson: to get there with the hope of getting there that’s not guaranteed. And and there’s just such a small real estate. And if Google changes their algorithm overnight.

John Hinson: all that hard work and all that money is done with the toilet. And so that’s that’s why we try to kind of refocus that

John Hinson: to where you build this momentum with a good content strategy. You stay consistent. You stay top of mind with your audience.

John Hinson: with the referrals that are gonna come in. You know that you’re not going out and hunting and trying to bring in but just referrals that are coming in from other lawyers that you know, or past clients, or whoever. And you’re nurturing them, and you’re getting them to convert faster. And and they’re not balking at price or anything like that, like in Google lead, probably would. And it just makes your marketing work that much better, and it makes it that much more efficient.

Stacy Jones: And so with that, I mean your approach. And I’m I’m a content marketer at heart. We do so much with content marketing, I mean, really, what my whole job is is I get brands into other people’s content, and but it’s all about content because we work and do product placement as an example or celebrity and influencers. And we’re creating branded opportunities within any of those realms of content.

Stacy Jones: And the benefit of it is just like our blogs that we do with this podcast you’re creating something that has a life longer than just paying for Google and

Stacy Jones: adwords. And basically, so your options are, you’re either on the top part of the fold of the page one and all that paid advertising space by Google. And each time you’re paying your ,, ,, whatever it is, the highest bidder is willing to pay. And right underneath you.

Stacy Jones: or you’re creating content that is going to hopefully get onto that page one in this case.

Stacy Jones: or is going to at least give you opportunities to take the content. Put it in your newsletter, put it in other platforms, use it in your social media and really create a lifeline for your business that will keep on going for years to come. With an example of our agency, I started doing blogging back in ,. And so we have over , blogs now.

Stacy Jones: and with that, you know those blogs. Some of them have been seen very few times. They haven’t really kicked off, but some of them have been seen tens or hundreds of thousands of times, and it’s all just an effect of building our expertise as an agency and our positioning for people. And that’s what you do so well for other people. So

Stacy Jones: you’ve talked to someone

Stacy Jones: you’ve learned that there is something that is that they have a story. How do you start? What’s your next step there?

John Hinson: Yeah, it. It’s all about really honing in that message. And and what do they really want to be known for? Because one of the things that I’ve started talking about recently, you know, having having too many clients and having too many referrals or too many leads coming in is still technically a marketing problem. You know, it’s a good marketing problem to have. But it is still something that you can work to address, because I’ll have these conversations with lawyers, and they find out we’re a marketing company, and maybe they’re just trying to like

John Hinson: let us down easy or something. But you know a lot of times out here. Oh, I have way too much business. I have more, you know.

John Hinson: referrals in business that I know what to do with, and there’s still a marketing problem there, because chances are the the leads that you’re getting, or the referrals that you’re getting. Not all of them are the right fit. And so if you’re referring out more cases than you’re taking on, or you’re rejecting a lot of leads because they’re not qualified. There’s still a marketing problem there.

John Hinson: And so there’s an opportunity. And and what we really try to do is say, Hey, what do you really want to focus on?

John Hinson: You know? And and it doesn’t have to be just one practice area. You can drill down even farther than that. You can have one element within a practice area. So, for example, you know criminal defense, you know, a lot of law firms will do multiple practice areas. I know some will do like criminal defense, family and personal injury. Alright cool. You want to just focus on criminal defense. Great!

John Hinson: What? What? What more? Take another step down? Cause there’s so many different areas of criminal defense. You got traffic tickets, duis assaults. You know, murders abuse whatever all that. Oh, you just want to handle duis. You wanna be the Dui lawyer in your city

John Hinson: cool. Let’s create content blog articles, videos, social media posts all around. What people need to know about duis, what happens at a traffic stop, what happens if you do get arrested, or what happens if a police officer suspects you of drinking? What are your rights? In that case there’s so many different questions and so many different content pieces around that you can go for months and months and years.

John Hinson: just creating content around that.

John Hinson: And you do it consistently. People will start to see you as the expert. You know. You brought up that point a couple of minutes ago, just of how you do what you do for for your audience. And that’s that strategy. Right? You’ve been blogging for all these years. People go to you for that branding expertise, because that’s how you’ve positioned yourself. It works the same way with other industries as well. You focus in on the kinds of work that you specifically want to do. You do it consistently.

John Hinson: and you get out in front of your audience. You stay top of mind. That’s who. That’s how they’re going to see you. That’s those are the kinds of referrals that they’re going to send you. And those are the kinds of leads that are going to come in.

Stacy Jones: Yeah. And what people don’t understand is you are in control of your positioning. So if there is a very target niche that you want to be going after, or if there’s work you don’t want to be doing. You can set your content up to do exactly that, because the story you’re telling is the story that people are going to hear, understand, interpret, and act on.

John Hinson: Yeah, absolutely. And and that’s what’s so important about is you tell the story right? Like you are not the hero, but your client is the hero. So position, position it that way. You know you’re the guide, right? You are the Gandalf, the Yoda, the story, and your your client your audience. They are the Frodo or the Luke Skywalker, whatever they’re the hero, and you’re there to help them overcome whatever obstacle or antagonist that they are facing.

John Hinson: and you position it like that to where? Say, here I am here to help you. It’s not, hey? Call us call us call us call us, but you know, because that’s gonna turn people off. But you’re saying, here’s what needs to happen. Here’s what happens in this situation. Here’s what here’s how we help.

John Hinson: And that’s how they begin to see you. That’s how they build that trust, because, especially in the legal industry, no one trusts the lawyer. So that’s that’s an additional extra hurdle to climb. But you do that, and and you again. You position that message that way. And and it really does make a lot of difference.

Stacy Jones: And so are there any platforms that you think are the best to do this is blogging the number one go-to for you is podcasting. What is it that you suggest.

John Hinson: So I kinda break it down into different areas. You have kind of the the content types. And then you actually have the vehicles that get that content out. And so content types. Blogging is still pretty powerful. Video for sure is becoming more and more important. But then also podcasting, it has has really increased in popularity, and a law firm can have a really good podcast

John Hinson: because, I know lawyers specifically, they like to get super deep into the weeds on concepts. They wanna make sure that they cover every single aspect of a topic that they’re trying to talk about and a podcast is a good outlet to do that

John Hinson: you can go for min on a topic

John Hinson: and cover the things that just a blog post has no business, having right? Because, you know, people aren’t gonna sit there and read a , word blog post and try to. They’re gonna glaze over. They’re gonna be out after paragraphs. So your blogs are still important, though, videos, like, I said, important and in podcast support. But when it comes to the vehicles, social media is becoming very, very important. And also I still am a huge believer in email.

John Hinson: And your blogs and your videos

John Hinson: are great content to put in your email and email, newsletter, and you only have to send that monthly. And it creates a ton of difference, you know, like our clients. Specifically, I hear. I’ve heard on several occasions every newsletter they send every month.

John Hinson: They’re getting multiple referrals, multiple requests for repeat business just from that email, because that lawyer is just sending out.

John Hinson: You know a feature piece of content.

John Hinson: the the blog titles, the subject line people are seeing it in their inbox. They’re reminded. Oh, this is that firm. This is what they do. I didn’t realize they did that, too.

John Hinson: Let me call them back. Got because I need this, or I know someone who’s going through this. I’m gonna forward this on today, right?

John Hinson: And then on the social media side. You know this very well. Everybody’s on social media. Everybody’s that, you know. That’s where everybody’s hanging out. It also is a great place for you to control your story and control where you show up. And, as you know, Instagram reels or Tiktok become more and more and more mainstream, more and more popular. The video content that you’re putting out there becomes that much more important as as a tool for you to tell that story.

Stacy Jones: And so what are some of the mistakes that people make with this? So when you’re starting working with them, is there something that they go to in general and one direction that’s wrong, is it, that they want to talk for h on a podcast. Or

John Hinson: the, the nice thing about it is we created all for them. So we don’t let them make those mistakes anymore. But the the one thing that I see kind of outside is that they still treat their social media timeline like a billboard. You know you you drive around town. You see a billboard for law firm. It’s the same thing. It’s got their phone number plastered on it. It’s maybe got the lawyers big face up there, and you know it’s called the legal, and that’s it like it’s the same billboard in different places around town.

John Hinson: and they end up doing that same thing on social media. Every single post is just the same call to action, and you don’t have to do that.

John Hinson: You have so much control and and ability to change your message and and provide different resources and content. And just not enough. People are taking advantage of that. Instead, they’re turning off their audience. And people are just gonna right. Ignore them because everything’s a money grant. Everything’s just a you know, book or book. A call with us here book, a call book, a call book, a call, and it gets annoying. People aren’t gonna listen to that. They’re gonna block or they’re gonna either mute

or whatever, and you’re just not gonna have any success with it.

Stacy Jones: And so what is the next step that you take with someone? So I know you, you all manufacture this yourself, and you run the processes. But if someone else was doing this for themselves, how would you get them started?

John Hinson: Yeah. So I would tell them to create basically what we call a content loop. Right? And it’s exactly how it sounds right, you know. So traditionally.

John Hinson: you have marketing funnels.

John Hinson: and it’s very A to B. You have. People come in at the top of the funnel. They’re very cold over time. They warm up. They get to the other end of the funnel, where they are ideally warm, ready to make a buying decision.

John Hinson: What we have seen is that main issues, one. There’s not a lot, or there’s not enough

John Hinson: action going on in the middle of the funnel nurturing people, but at the same time

John Hinson: there’s not anything going on for the people who go through the funnel all the way, whether they are a yes or a no or not right now. And so what a content loop does. It essentially closes that funnel. So it becomes circular rather than just an A To B sort of thing, and you close that up

John Hinson: with different content points. And you and that consistency that I was talking about earlier, publishing the blog regularly, sending out an email newsletter regularly posting on social media consistently having a podcast videos, all that kind of stuff. Those are your content loops. Those are the touch points that you’re created. You are, you know, quote unquote keeping people in the loop. They’re not gonna forget you, you know, no matter what’s going on, because you’re constantly showing up.

John Hinson: And if you’re providing value. You’re not going to annoy people right? Because that’s what I hear. Oftentimes it’s like, well, if I post a social media every day, I’m gonna annoy my audience. Oh, if I send them an email every month that’s gonna annoy them, it only annoys them. If you’re not providing value, or if the content that you’re putting out is terrible.

John Hinson: But if you’re providing value and you’re providing those resources to people they’re gonna stick around. They’re gonna see what else you have and and ways that you’re helping everybody

Stacy Jones: right? I mean, people are on for using your social media as an example, not gonna annoy them. It’s not that you’re littering an inbox for them. You might show up in their feed. Hopefully, you’re gonna show up in their feed enough times that all of a sudden, they’re gonna actually take notice. And they’re going to click on you. And then Meta is going to allow more than % of the followers that you have to actually see your content as more and more people engage.

John Hinson: Exactly. Yes, and you know, and here’s the thing, too, right like, obviously, especially in the industries that we work with. A lot of the subject matter is very heavy, and it’s not necessarily something that people are going to engage with right like no one’s gonna publicly like a post or comment about something going on with divorce. I get that. But that’s why balance is very important. Show your audience that you’re just another business, that you are just human beings.

John Hinson: You know. You’re making a living this way shows some behind the scenes stuff. Show what it’s like to be working in your firm. Show what you’re doing out in the community. Stuff like that, because people will gravitate towards that, they’ll openly engage with that. And so when they start engaging with posts like that, those other posts will start to show up as well.

John Hinson: because that’s, you know, especially in the social media world. That’s how those algorithms work. They’ll say, like, Oh, this post is is getting a lot of traction. This must be a really good page that people need to see, so they’ll start showing more and more and more of that, so that organic reach will

expand a little bit more as long as you are doing it consistently, and by consistently I mean bare minimum, like days a week, ideally, every single day.

John Hinson: But you know, once a week is not gonna cut it, but it’s also not going to annoy people either.

Stacy Jones: No, I think the minimum is, I think, in general, time posting that they’re suggesting at this point, like at core minimum, you can get there.

John Hinson: Yeah, yeah. And and look, it’s it’s all about systemization. You know, you, you can build a quick ecosystem and look if posting every day to social media and sending out an email newsletter every month feels daunting. And I get for business owners who are trying to wear many hats that can be very daunting.

John Hinson: Start with one.

John Hinson: you know. Start with a monthly newsletter pair that with a recent blog article. And that’s it. You don’t have to curate this giant email full of stuff.

John Hinson: Have the blog article be the main piece of your email. There’s other content and use the title of the blog as the subject line. That’s a real. That’s an easy trick that not a lot of business owners

John Hinson: are taking advantage of, because if you’re just putting your businesses name in the subject line, that’s not interesting. People have no reason to open it. But you put that blog title in the subject line. Now, people have a reason like, okay, this looks like it might be interesting. This might be for me. They’re gonna have more of a reason to open up that email. And that’s what drives those referrals. Because people now understand who you are and what you do. And it’s making that connection for them

John Hinson: way more than just Smith law firm, August newsletter ever would.

Stacy Jones: And for all of those people who don’t like to write, then they have the option of podcasting and turning all that content into written content afterwards.

John Hinson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, whether you transcribe your your recorded episode, you know one of the greatest tricks. Honestly, it’s that it’s the concept of content, multiplication. Right? So you can take something like this where we are obviously recording A, podcast you and I are on video as well. You can take that video, publish it to Youtube, rip, the audio, you have a podcast episode, transcribe the audio. You have a blog post. You have different mediums for the same concept.

John Hinson: and all of those mediums can then become content that you put in your email, newsletter or post on social media.

John Hinson: And it works because not everyone is going to see every single post. They may see the blog version of this, or they may see the video version of this. And then next week, when they come back around, they may see the blog version of the next episode that you did. And so it doesn’t require you to create all this additional content.

John Hinson: You’re taking one piece of pillar content is what we call it. You’re disseminating it out to different various formats. You’re chopping it up, and and you’re putting it out all over the place, and it’s not any extra work on your end.

Stacy Jones: And so for those who are coming to you for help, you find that, you know there’s certain people who would prefer a written strategy versus one that’s more podcast-based. Other people who are nervous about, you know.

Stacy Jones: hosting a podcast or how do you kind of

Stacy Jones: figure that out for them right well, you know, for us our industry is still very old-fashioned, a lot of ways slow to adopt a lot of the new stuff.

John Hinson: Very, very aware of

John Hinson: kind of what they put their name on, and also the time commitment of it as well. So they tend to stick with what they know a lot of them do the blogging and the email, which is great cause that still works like I said, you can send out a monthly email newsletter and still get great results from that.

John Hinson: The II do notice that the younger law firms, they are more open to the video, they’re more open to the podcasting. You know, I think there is. And and I think you know, you can speak to this as well. The

John Hinson: the concept of running. A podcast isn’t as complex as maybe people might think it is. you know, at the bare minimum like. And you and I probably have a little bit more bells and whistles on ours because we’ve been doing it a lot longer. You know, we’re investing a lot more in it. But, man, you can easily.

John Hinson: Just open the voice, memo, app on your phone, hit record and just talk into your phone for min. And if you can get maybe someone on fiverr or upward to create you an intro and intro bed that’s going to be

John Hinson: good enough for your listeners, because the audio quality is going to be

John Hinson: good enough

John Hinson: to pass as a regular podcast, you know, to your point, like we were talking before you went on the air, you were just hoping that like there wasn’t a lot of outside noise, someone cutting on a lawn mower or something like that. You don’t want that in the background when you’re recording, obviously. But if you’re sitting in your car sitting in your office, even just recording into your phone, that’s gonna be good enough, audio quality to get a podcast started. And then, as it gains some traction

as you get more into it, then you can invest a little bit more into it. Get you a nicer microphone start setting up in your computer, you know, have a little studio space setup, and you know, but it’s also just so much fun.

Stacy Jones: And for our listeners, who are like, I’m not sure.

Stacy Jones: Just no. I’m on over odd, , podcasts at this point.

Stacy Jones: when I started.

Stacy Jones: how I started was not by interviewing other people. My first podcasts were just me talking. And I didn’t know necessarily what to talk, but I had been a writer. So I went in, and I looked at all of those blogs that I had been writing since ,, and I chose topics.

Stacy Jones: And if you listen and go back to my very early days. will say that I would like to review those podcasts. Because I’m pretty sure it sounds like, I’m reading some of my content in a most eloquent way of course, right? But

Stacy Jones: there was a little bit of that going on, too, because I wasn’t comfortable yet. I wasn’t comfortable just sitting and talking, and you’re not expected to be comfortable right out of the bat. You just need to like. Figure out what kind of if you can put in place so that you can

Stacy Jones: check it, do it and move on and not get so stuck on yourself, either, because the other thing I did is I went in in while I was nicely reading those intros and those podcasts and the whole thing. I went back and I started editing myself. And that meant, I edited out every and awe or mistake that I had.

Stacy Jones: And then it didn’t sound really real anymore. Cause that’s not how we all talk. So you’ll get into a group once you get used to doing this where you’ll certainly want to fix mistakes. But you’re not going to go in and like, try to make yourself sound absolutely perfect. And that’s the key.

John Hinson: Yeah. And you know.

John Hinson: it’s and I especially in our industry, like, there’s such perfectionists. They want everything to be super polished. No mistakes, everything’s perfect. And that’s just not what your audience expects, you know. I tell them all the time they’re not coming to your podcast expecting this Npr level of quality. You know they’re coming for the information. They’re coming to be

John Hinson: just almost essentially a fly on the wall in the conversation that you’re having, whether it’s with someone else, or just with yourself. And I like what you pointed out. You know about your first episodes, you know. Maybe not being as polish as they are now.

John Hinson: yeah, that’s the point. Right? Like, the first time you do anything is not going to be nearly as good as the the one hundredth time you do something. You know. The first case you try isn’t gonna go as smoothly as the tenth case. You try because you’ve gotten better at it, right? You know. If you’re, you know, in show business, right? The first play that you act in

John Hinson: your acting is not gonna be as good and believable as the twentieth play that you’re in, you know. And so it’s it’s all about perfect, you know, practicing that. And it doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try that ever have to be perfect. It’s about sharing that knowledge and just being genuine with your audience.

Stacy Jones: And the other thing is, I, if you decide that you are not Mister or Mrs. Podcaster. You don’t want your own show. You don’t wanna host it. You wanna interview other people. You don’t wanna talk yourself. But you like people asking you questions. You can also do exactly what we’re doing today. And you can get yourself booked on other people’s podcasts. And then you could actually leverage their content and take part of that transcript that they have. And there’s so many different platforms that you can rip pretty much anything. Just ask your podcast host if it’s okay

Stacy Jones: first, but they’re going to want you to help expand their message. And if you can find a way to mutually benefit both of you, where you’re bringing more attention to their podcast and they’re obviously giving you access to content, that you can be purpose on your own platforms. You’ve also solved the problem, too.

John Hinson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about you know, expertise building authority building.

John Hinson: That’s a great tool. You go on someone’s podcast people. See? You know. And then you share clips of that on your social media channels or in your email newsletter people are, gonna think you’re a big deal.

John Hinson: You know, they’re not gonna know, you know, whether whether you’re going on, you know, ran these podcasts who has listeners. And it’s just his mom on different accounts versus a nationally known, podcast most people aren’t going to know the difference in that.

John Hinson: And so you share that you’re sharing your expertise. You’re in that element. People are going to really start associating you with that expertise that you’re pointing out there.

Stacy Jones: And so how can our listeners find out more about you. So if they are interested in learning how you can work with them

John Hinson: absolutely. So you can go to spotlight branding.com. That shows that can show you all about the services that we provide. You know, our core focus is so in small law firms, but we do not turn anyone away. If we still think that there’s a good fit there. So even if you’re not a lawyer out there, and you’re listening, and you still would like to learn more about us. I do encourage you. Go to spotlighting dotcom, or at the very least, if you wanna just, you know, learn more about the content

John Hinson: content that we’re putting out all the resources that we have. You go to spotlight insidercom and check out the community there, get on our email list and we’ll send you just a ton of great content every week.

Stacy Jones: That’s great. And so, as our listeners are digesting everything that you’ve said. Yeah. and give a a high level

Stacy Jones: one of some of the things that you’ve learned that have made what you do for other people even better.

John Hinson: I would say, you know.

John Hinson: on a high level, I would say, you know, just try something.

John Hinson: you know. I think a lot of times especially with the people that we work with. They get so deep into the weeds. And I get it because I’m the same way. I wanna plan everything out meticulously. I want to know, you know

John Hinson: what happens in this situation. I wanna know, you know how exactly the best way I should do something should be the first time I do it. And what happens? A lot of the time is you spend so much time planning and thinking about doing something that you miss a ton of opportunities along the way.

John Hinson: So

John Hinson: if there’s something out there, if there’s a little itch, scratch it, try, you know, and and improve along the way, but start something today, build that system and then make refinements improvements over time rather than trying to roll out something that’s % perfect from day one. Because you’re not really ever going to have something that’s ever gonna feel perfect.

Stacy Jones: totally agree?

Stacy Jones: Well, I really appreciate your time today, John. Thanks for sharing all of your insights, and

Stacy Jones: how to use to our listeners.

John Hinson: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me have fun.

Stacy Jones: and to all of our listeners thank you for tuning into another episode of marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week, and until then, if you do have any interest in how your brand can get interwoven into other people’s stories through product placement and influencer marketing. Please reach out happy to chat, and until then have a great one.