Marketing on the Record Episode 3: Your Logo Is Not Your Brand and Other Truths From Roy Sexton

Keith Edwards (07:01)

I would be. It’s no surprise that you are happy and doing well there and wherever you would be. I want to do a little background on your career. You came up not through legal, healthcare consulting, but worked at Deloitte. So, like, talk to me about your meandering career.

Roy Sexton (07:19)

My serendipitous career. Both good and bad. My parents, when I was in college, I wasn’t that kid that was like, “Get the internship, get the job experience, figure out where your career path is.” And to their credit, they were like, We just want you to get a scholarship because we don’t have money to pay for you to go to college. So I got a full scholarship. And I went to a little all-male college in Indiana, and they said, “Well, study what you like.” And it was a liberal arts place. So you can do everything. And I was an English and theater major. And I’m like, this is great. It didn’t occur to me, there was a time where you fall off a cliff, and you have to earn a living.

And then I thought, well, I like academia. I’ll be a professor. So I got a master’s in theater. Why not? And then it was during that period of time, my dad had colon cancer. He survived, but it was kind of a moment of wow, life is coming. And so I sort of shifted gears. I thought a PhD in theater, especially theater programs at that time, and probably still, you don’t know if you’re going to get tenure somewhere. You don’t know what your life is going to be like. You’re going to bounce from college to college, university to university. I just didn’t think that was a great move.

And also, I’ll say, this isn’t what you asked, but I keep seeing this pattern in my life, too. I went to a liberal arts college where you could be in a show; help build the set; direct; write. Later, when I’d write theater reviews, people would be like, But you’re in shows. You shouldn’t be reviewing shows of people you know. And I’m like, “But I’m both.” I see the show, and I have an opinion. And I also like to be in it and learn. That feels like it’s a constant challenge for me because people want to put you in one box and say, stay there. So that was also a challenge for me. I thought, I don’t think I want to be an academic in theater writing about the height of the Globe stage, and never setting foot on a real stage ever again. So went back to Wabash. I thought, crap, I gotta earn a living. Did fundraising. I thought, wow, I’ve stepped back. I was one of their golden children, and now I’m working here. But it was while I was there, It was Deloitte, interviewing on campus undergrads. And for some reason, they took a chance on me. I was 27. I’d already lived a bit of life. Everyone else was 22, 23, but I went into their business analyst cohort, and it was a good boot camp. It taught me a lot.

Also taught me that’s not the life that I wanted. You know, I soon met the man who’d eventually be my husband, and he’d go “Can you go to dinner tonight?” “Can you go somewhere this weekend?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.” And so then I ended up in healthcare because that had been the practice that made sense to me. And I got hired by a client. Fun story on this, and I promise I will end soon. A friend of mine that started with me at Deloitte at the same time – we had lunch about a month ago – and he’s in Chicago, and we picked up just as we had been 26 years ago, really hadn’t seen each other since. And I said, “You know, Gary, I felt like I really let everybody down leaving Deloitte. And you must have all thought, wow, why?” And he stayed there, and he did well. And he was a CEO and other things. And he goes, “No, we all thought you got the golden ticket. You had a client hire you. You had friends. You had a relationship. You had a life.” And it was interesting, 26 years later, to have somebody tell you how they saw something that you felt maybe wasn’t a great career choice.

Ended up in the healthcare system. I thought, well I’ll do this while I figure out what I want to do with my life. Stayed there 12 years. Every time I felt like leaving, they promoted me. It was a great place to learn. Not a particularly high-end health system, but boy, they cared about their people. We had leadership academies. I got my MBA. And it was 12 years into that. I thought, yeah, I’m just tired of this. I threw my resume out there. Again, that executive coach said, just throw yourself in front of a freight train. And I got hired by my first firm. It was a mortgage foreclosure firm, special place in hell for me. I did that, but I loved it, loved the people.

I got involved in a legal marketing association, and I was like nearly 40 years old, and I was like, finally, something that makes sense for me. Kind of personalities I get to work with, it’s marketing, but it’s also storytelling. It’s also coaching, It’s also therapy, It’s also culture change. And I’ve stuck with it, obviously, and one white shoe firm after that, step back into healthcare for a brief minute, and then Clark Hill, and now Vedder.

Keith Edwards (10:56)

I love it. It’s an amazing journey. And I want to dive more into legal marketing. Obviously, that’s where you and I have ended up, both in different career paths as well. You know, I’ll talk about a couple of the “Roy themes,” I call them – for legal marketing. But one of them that I feel like you coined, and I love and still think about a lot, is working with the willing.

Roy Sexton (11:17)

Right. I stole that from somebody. I don’t know where. You’re gonna give me credit, that’s fine. Thank you.

Keith Edwards (11:22)

There are no new ideas. We just borrow them from other brilliant people. But I love that. Explain what you mean by working with the willing.

Roy Sexton (11:30)

Yeah, I do think it was something I heard at an early LMA conference. And I was such a – I will tell people this if you get into this space, and I’m not a shofar or legal marketing association, whatever it is, it is finding your community of people that you can sponge off of and learn from. It was a blessing. And healthcare didn’t have that. We had associations, and service providers were in the hallway, and we were all in a room, and none of us talked about what we were doing. We were just there to consume information and leave. So the fact that this space has much more collaboration, commiseration is lovely.

That phrase – and it suits so many things. It really fits legal, but it fits your life, family, theater. You can come at everybody and it measures success as I have to get everybody to do this thing. And if they don’t, I have failed. And unfortunately, especially in legal, you’re just setting yourself up with a sea of arguments. One bad habit I learned was, at my first firm, I had a marketing plan, and put it all together, and did my market research, and did all the things I’d learned in healthcare, and I went to everyone and it was like, crickets.

Or they would go, we can’t do that. We don’t want to do that. What is this? What is that? What is this? And so I stopped. A lot of people would go, “oh my marketing plan!” I’m like, “I know what we want to do and where we want to go,” but I kind of wait for the right moment, the right person, the right energy. And I call everything a pilot. So to the point of working with the willing is you are going to hear – especially if you’re new to an organization – there are pain points, there are issues, there are concerns that people have had, leverage those.

Knowing where you think the organization needs to go and bringing those people into the conversation, they’re going to become advocates for it, particularly if you have early wins with them. So yeah, I mean, don’t try to boil the ocean. Find the people who are already leaning in, have an interest, willing to learn, start with them, and then build those coalitions. And it expands quickly because attorneys are competitive. It’s a wonderful quality they have. It can be a challenging one, but they see, and if they see someone’s having success with you in another area, pretty soon they come around.

Keith Edwards (13:26)

They’ll want in on it. Yeah. The attraction principle. What do you say to a sublegal marketer who says, I don’t have anybody willing?

Roy Sexton (13:33)

You probably do and you don’t know it. And I think it’s probably because I sometimes will say this and I think it’s deeply offensive. People think marketers are in it for the creativity. So many marketers I know love to control stuff. Love to control the brand, control the process, and I don’t know if it’s a learned behavior because you’re kind of dealing with everybody who has an opinion about what you do and they think your job is something anybody can do. I mean, we know that we deal with that all the time. I have a nephew that does TikToks. You want to talk to him? No, not really.

But even then, I feel like you’re not seeing the willing, because you’re really locked in on something. And I get it. You know, it’s like dealing with a kid that doesn’t want to eat their carrots and they just want to eat chocolate bars. And you know, I gotta get them to eat the carrots. Okay. Well, how do you help them learn that?

And I have these asides, as you know, painfully. Remember my mom, and you I think were aware of her toward the end of her life, she was angry about everything in the best way possible. She was angry about the world. She was angry about how women were treated. She’s angry about how gays were treated. She’s angry about how animals were treated. She declared herself a vegin. I said, “It’s vegan.” No, I like vegin. I’m like, “okay, that’s not how it’s pronounced.” Meanwhile, she’s ordering a Swiss steak, and I’m like, she would get really upset that people were going into vegetarian and veganism for their health, not for the animals. And I’m like, Does it matter? The end result is the same. Fewer people are eating animals. If that’s your end game, who cares how they got there?

So I think when you think you don’t have the willing, it’s because you’re so locked into a path and a vision that you’re missing the clues along the way. The other story I tell over and over and over, and those who have this on your bingo card, here’s the Walt Disney anecdote. They’re building Disneyland, flowerbed between Main Street and Tomorrowland. People are walking through the flowerbed, and everybody comes at Walt, pretend these are marketers. “We need a fence around the flower bed.” And Walt said, “we need a sidewalk there.” So your willing might not be what you think.

But pay attention to: what do they do? What’s the easiest path for them? Insert yourself into that because there will be a pain point. My first firm, it was a weird spot. It was, they had all these, it was mortgage foreclosure. They were being audited all the time in a positive way by their clients because they, you know, the other big banks were getting all kinds of grief about that process. So they were checking all their law firms. You might remember in the news, there were some law firms that were really doing some robo signings and some really crappy stuff. So they had to go in regularly and sit down.

We did really well. We had all the processes on lock, but when they’d come in for an audit, I remember one time two of the attorneys were arguing whether we had 99 or 100 attorneys in front of the clients. And I said, to the managing partner, I said, we have an opportunity here. I did a lot of this in healthcare. I didn’t think this would apply. I can organize this process. I know you don’t think it’s marketing, but it’s the clients sitting in our space and we have a wonderful story to tell. And we’re so in our own weeds about it. Not doing it.

And that became the opportunity. That became the willing. The partner that was in charge of it, she felt like that was hers. And I went down to talk to her and she said, I feel like you’re handling me. And I said, I am because I’m scared of you, but I can help you. And she became my biggest ally and advocate because she was like, you’re not trying to take the leadership away from me. I’m like, No, I just want to make this easier for everybody. So suddenly I had someone who did not seem willing, right, not want to let it go, was not doing it well. And I’m like, I’m good. My ego is satiated. Let me help you.

Keith Edwards (16:55)

I want to talk a little bit about law firm branding. So we at Good2bsocial do a lot of branding, worked on several projects recently. I know that you did rebranding at Vedder. I know you launched a brand at Clark Hill across 29 offices. You’ve said that you can’t have a separate internal culture and external brand. Why not? Where does that fall apart?

Roy Sexton (17:16)

Because it’s like anything. It’s like, take it out of the realm of legal. You see, I did this on Facebook. I saw all these cute jackets on really skinny men in the pandemic. And I’m like, I’m ordering eight of them. And I get them. And they are eight sizes too small. They’re made out of dishcloth. Now I don’t even remember the company and I didn’t know how to return them. And my husband’s like, This is the stuff that comes in our house. But that disparity between – that drives me crazy. Law firms think the brand is the logo and the color in the website. That is not the brand.

That’s your flag. That’s your signifier. The brand are the jackets that arrived in the mail or how I interact with your attorneys, how you treat me, how you serve me well. And so there is a tendency in firms to compartmentalize all this stuff and go, Well, marketing, you go make things pretty. That’s the thing I’m least interested in. And I’ve done it over and over and over. I mean every firm I’ve been at, we’ve gone through this exercise. But in doing it, I’m more interested in then saying, Well, what’s the story we’re telling around the brand? What’s the language we’re using?

That’s why I think video is so compelling. Here at this firm, they lined up 12 different videos and they were like, we’re just gonna put them on the website. And I’m like, and we’re gonna put them on social media too. Well, should we? Why not? And everyone’s like, Okay, yeah, I get that. But initially it was like, this is for the website, and that’s where it should live. And I’m like, no, you’re telling the story, the people of the firm. It looks good, new brand, new pizzazz around it that gets people’s attention. The ad gets the attention, the CGI, the music, the whatever it is that you got around it, that gets the attention.

But the experience that people have, that’s your brand. And so don’t just, you know, again, another analogy. Don’t take an old shoe and wrap it up in beautiful wrapping paper and give it to someone for Christmas because it’s like, well, all the paper’s pretty. Yeah, give me an old shoe. Weird analogy.

Keith Edwards (19:00)

No, but it makes perfect sense. And I think one of the things in communicating brands, I think law firms struggle with differentiation. You know, a lot of them want to say, We are tenacious lawyers or we have experts in litigation and we put our clients first.

Roy Sexton (19:16)

It’s like a restaurant saying, We won’t give you food poisoning. Yeah.

Keith Edwards (19:18)

So I’m just curious as to not necessarily where you’ve worked, but what are the things that you think about as firms actually differentiate themselves? What are real things that are different?

Roy Sexton (19:31)

I think even the marketers, they want a broad brush silver bullet. It comes in layers again. So you do the new brand, you do the new website, and then you’re like, Okay, we’re done with that now. Now what are we doing within it? How are we diving in deeper and deeper and deeper? And when you try to be all things to all people, you’re nothing to no one. Everything I say sounds like it should be needle pointed on a pillow at this point.

I’ve been at those firms, without naming names, a firm a while ago, called me. Managing partner. They used to have an overhead speaker, you know, PA kind of thing, Mr. Sexton, please come down to so-and-so’s office. He needs to see him like, I’m four doors down. And I went down and he said, put this page up on the website. I said, Do we do that? Don’t ask the questions, just put the page up. And I’m like, okay. And I did it. They didn’t get the work, right? It’s that kind of thing you struggle with sometimes. But so you have got to get in deeper and don’t help – the attorneys know the more specialized you are, the more people are gonna call you.

It feels counterintuitive that if you’re one or two things, you’re gonna miss out on all this other opportunity. But now in this age of how people can search and how people can find people, the differentiation – I think it’s probably generational too. If you were locked into a geography, as many firms were for a long time, you kind of did have to be a lot of things to a lot of people because you felt like you were and granted your licensure and things like that, that’s still limiting where you can practice. But if you have a very specialized piece of work that sets you apart, write about that, talk about that, people will seek you out.

So to me, that becomes really fun to get under and under and under and find those moments, the willing, who are able to step out. And then you have success with them and you say, see, they really focused on this. And they go deep. The other thing I used to get more excited about and I haven’t really given much attention to. And I feel like it’s, again, untapped territory, quite frankly. And it’s not going to sound very sexy, but my first firm, I came out of healthcare and we were doing surveys every time someone got a cheese sandwich in the cafeteria.

I mean, you’ve gotten a procedure done in a healthcare system and you get 83 surveys. So that’s the paradigm I came from. So the first summer I was like, can we do a client satisfaction survey? Again, managing partner said, Great idea. Do that. Okay. Did it, had an intern, had like 40% return, which something like that’s pretty remarkable. And it was simple stuff because again I came from healthcare. I didn’t know enough to ask the quality of the work, didn’t feel like I should. So I was like, How are we answering the phone? Do you like it? Do you get speedy response? Stuff like that. Came back.

Very actionable feedback. Went to the managing partner. He said, I’ve got this back. Can I kind of work with operations and say, hey, these are brands, you’re not gonna think it’s marketing, but these are brand experiences. How someone answered the phone, how the lobby looked, you know, not the superficial side, but what is that Disney-esque experience for people? What are you feeling when you come into this space? He goes, you should meet with the executive committee. I go, What’s that? He goes, Well, they help me make my decisions. I’m like, Well, where were they? I go, You come in with me? No, no, you go ahead. So I go in.

And they start tearing it apart. You did what? I said, Well, they said I could do this. Well, we didn’t know about it. I said, Well, okay, well, we did it. Got a great response. Really good. Well, we’re gonna see the questions. Here are the questions. We don’t like the way you ask that. We don’t like the way that was written. Okay. But still, we have this many of our clients who’ve said we’ve created an expectation. They said, Well, that’s your problem, your marketing. So they didn’t want to do anything with the feedback.

Just because they didn’t like the way I did the survey and they didn’t know about it. And I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that. Don’t go away with data. Also, let people in early. I even get where they were coming from. If I was leading a firm and this knucklehead had gotten there six months earlier and comes forth with all this stuff that I’d learned from Deloitte, like I have my clipboard, here are your problems. I’d be irritated too. But those are the things firms can and should be asking and often don’t, because they’re worried about the website and the font and the logo. And did the new lateral, like, the cerulean blue we picked for page eighty three of the pitch, you know.

Keith Edwards (23:24)

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You have described yourself as an introvert, which I have a hard time believing, but I will allow you to elaborate on that. And you have also mentioned that social media is a platform for introverts.

Roy Sexton (25:35)

Yeah. Is this not the room of an introvert? Well no, you know, I’m an only child and I pushed myself to be social. My natural resting state as a kid was to spend all summer in my pajamas in front of the television. And my father was like, get outside, go do stuff. And I made friends far back who make this therapy. My first experience with humanity. My mother sends me off to kindergarten wearing penny loafers, carrying a briefcase, and wondered why everyone was beating me up on my way home. She intervened a couple of times that didn’t help.

And I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out. And by first or second grade, I was like, if I make them laugh, they won’t hurt me. Sounds like a cry for help. So I did. And those kids became my best friends. Interestingly enough, many of them, their parents were going through divorces. All this other stuff I come to find out later. And you’re like, okay, that’s why I was the target. But that was an early moment of, I don’t really want to have to do this. I want to be left alone. I’m a weird kid and I like being by myself with all my toys and all my stuff. And much of the stuff behind me has self-evented since I was like six. But I learned

To survive in this world, I need to hopefully not change myself too much, but at least unpack certain parts of my personality that will help me connect better with people because I don’t want to get killed on my way home from school. So as time went by, I sort of forced myself in high school. I’m like, I’ll sit at the football game, I’ll be on the student council. I’ll, not really my nature. I like reading. I like and I think there was a bit of a schism that sort of emerged over time.

And I think sometimes in legal why we see some of the mental health problems, some of the substance abuse problems or things, we forced a kind of personality. A lot of attorneys, I think, are on the introverted side. We force them, be competitive, be aggressive, be this. And you have to be these two things. And if you don’t have therapists, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you don’t have good parenting to kind of help you kind of go, all right, I’m code switching here. You kind of lose yourself a little bit. So over time, I think I became adept at being a social creature, but it took a toll.

Not in any dire way. I wasn’t like Liza Minelli or something, but I would just be really tired. I could really get cranky with people. I didn’t quite know why. So, in that healthcare system, again, they were so good at developing and helping you out. My boss, newer boss at the time, she was an extrovert. I mean, she was brainstorming until the very end. Think out loud, piles and piles on her desk, couldn’t read an email. Couldn’t keep up with what was going on, didn’t want surprises.

And I was like, I don’t know how to work with you. And I was that person, I’ve baked this perfect cake. And here you go. Why chocolate? Why not vanilla? How about strawberry? And she said, I love you. Let’s get you an executive coach. And so I met with this woman, MA Hastings, for about six months. It was so transformational. I’m a big fan of working with a director who can help you on stage. They’re the audience. You’re not. Work with a therapist because they can help you see paths that you don’t see because you’re locked in.

Work with an executive coach because they see the work patterns. You know, don’t be afraid to do that. And we did, you know, various exercises and things. And one of them was Myers Briggs. And I came out INFJ, which apparently is a really odd mix of things. Figure. And I was like, my God. You know, reminding me of eighth grade, I learned I was colorblind. And, same thing. The woman said, I’m getting your mother in here. And she brought her in and there were these color things. And she goes, what number do you see? I’m like, an elephant. I don’t know. You’re colorblind. You know, you have this moment where you’re like, I’m broken.

So you’re an introvert. And I said, I don’t, that’s terrible. I know that’s a bad thing. She goes, No, it’s where do you get your energy? Where do you get your energy? Do you get your energy being alone? Doesn’t mean you’re not social. Like I enjoy a conversation with a good friend who’s on a wavelength of me. But if I’m in a big group of people or a mixer or a cocktail party, I now know LMA helped me a lot. Those first couple of conferences, I hid behind potted plants, but I was like, I wanna, there’s something bringing me out with these people. I want to learn. So I learned a lot of good behaviors and how to function.

But it’s not my natural state. I’d much rather be home. I force myself to do some things because I want the adventure and the experience. But and so to your point about social media, what I learned from my LMA experience is the first couple of years I would go to stuff and I’m like, I don’t know how to, you know, I would put pairs of khaki pants and a polo shirt and a backpack and go to this conference. And people like you are walking around in pocket squares and, you know, beautiful suits. And I’m like, you know, and I would just kind of hide. I would kind of hide. I would. And then I was like, you know what?

Just one weird day, I was like, I’m on social media, but why don’t I just friend everybody? Everybody. And I was Facebook, LinkedIn, I had no discretion whatsoever. I’m sorry, lawyers. And I remember Heather Morse later said, Yeah, we were all “Who is this guy who’s friending all of us? But you seem nice.” And so I learned by connecting that way. And Jay Harrington calls it being able to scale a network asynchronously.

So I’m sharing who I am. I’m sharing the things that are interesting to me. I’m not that person that’s like LinkedIn is for work and Facebook is for friends. I don’t get too silly on LinkedIn, but I do share some human personal stuff. I share what boards I’ve been on, people I’m excited about. I try to lift other people up and go, this is really cool work. I never get competitive or weird about that stuff. And that helped.

So the next time I was physically with people, they were like, you’re that guy. You reshare this of mine. Now you have those dogs. You do the car stuff. You’re on the Mosaic Youth Theater board. You’re on the Ronald Gonzalo board. So social media helped me feel like I could be in the room. And I don’t know that that’s introversion. I mean, sometimes I’m alighting introversion in other things. It might just be social anxiety, but that feeling of should I be here? And if I feel like I should be here, I can overcome the energy drain.

Keith Edwards (31:05)

It’s a great point though. It’s using social media to foster a sense of belonging, which I think is a great healthy use of social media. For all that it gets a negative rap and there is some negativity to it. I think that that’s a positive really.

Roy Sexton (31:21)

It was sort of accidental, like my whole life has been, but I kind of have a light bulb moment and I’m like, I see. Let’s see. And my mother used to say that too. I guess again, another theme. The executive coach said you put yourself in harm’s way. My mother was like, Why – I would take things apart, not to be destructive, but just because I was curious and I didn’t know how to put them back together. She’s like, Will you stop doing that? I mean, I’m just like, let’s just see. And I think that’s both good and bad in law firms. I am the let’s just see. And lawyers are not wired for let’s just see.

I think if I ever tried to work at Nike or something, I’d fail miserably. I think I need a bit of that tension for somebody to kind of be like, I’m not really sure about that. I’m like, Okay, it’s an idea. It’s gonna do it.

Keith Edwards (32:02)

Coming back from LMA this year in New Orleans, someone asked me, Did you guys talk a lot about AI? And I was like, Did we talk about anything other than AI?

Roy Sexton (32:12)

I will give two to their yes, and I did think they did a nice job this year varying enough of audience needs. I felt like there were a lot of niches and places and AI was obviously woven throughout, but it didn’t feel like it was an AI conference.

Keith Edwards (32:29)

Yeah, and I didn’t mean that as a criticism. I actually thought it was –

Roy Sexton (32:31)

And this is where we jumped the shark. I didn’t think you did at all. And I suppose it’s my old hat of I’m the old man in the chair. I don’t need to say, well, but I, I also having lived through that experience and putting those things together, I’m like, I agree with you. It was a consistent theme. But what I loved about what they did was because I’ve seen enough of this AI stuff, quite frankly. And I again sound like Miranda, it’s stuff.

And some people do this really well. So I’m not critiquing them, but the people just kind of talk about here’s Claude, here’s Grok, here’s – and I’m like, it’s like when people talk about podcasting or anything else, but talk about the technical aspect versus the why, right? The compelling, the storytelling, the reinvention, the you know, again, we used to talk about social media just in abstraction versus how do you leverage the platform to connect with people. So I felt like there’s an evolution now in the AI conversations at that conference that it was more about application. Consideration versus just don’t sound dumb at your next meeting.

Keith Edwards (33:33)

How much are you personally using AI?

Roy Sexton (33:36)

It’s off and on for me. I think it’s generational. The firm is encouraging people to use it with the proper guardrail. So we’ve got the ones that are embedded in systems already and the ones that aren’t, we’re not, you know, we can’t access, which I think is I get that. But they’re working really diligently, especially with people on the attorney side. How can you not use it? So for the marketing team, we have typically used it for the early days. Obviously, it was all about content creation, refinement, voice, getting stuff turned around quickly.

What where we’re now starting to evolve is, and we’re not there yet, but how can you start to use agents to pull together some of these drafts before you even know to go. And we’re not doing it, but I’ve saw some stuff at LMA that was very intriguing. Like if you know you have a regular task and you’re gonna get six emails on this regular task, having the agent pull those emails together, pull together the draft for you, have it ready for your review. I think that’s where I start to go. This is exciting, not because you can have fewer people, but people will actually be able to think now.

And I will be honest with you, there are times where I’m tasked with something. This just happened this week. My husband and I are members of the Lambda Car Club, which is a gay car club. And I’m – it’s him, you know, he’s the car guy. We’ve been in it for 20 some years. And we went to their dust off this weekend. And we have my mom’s Grand Am now, and that’s become our classic car from nineteen ninety four. And we fixed it up. So somehow I’m the car guy. And John said, because they had something in their magazine, if you have a story to tell, reach out to us. So I reached out to them, thinking they’d say, we’ll have a call.

The guy comes back and he goes, the Pontiac Grand Am, one of the unsung vehicles. Yes, I would like a deep dive article into the history of the Grand Am and what it’s been, and blah blah blah. And he sent me this example. I’m like, and I’m like, John, that’s you. And he doesn’t want to write that. And I’m like, you got me into this. So I turned to Chat GPT and I’m like, please write something on the history of the Grand Am and what. And then I added, My mom did this and I did that. And on it, you know, I but

The interesting thing, my husband is so insightful. I sent it to him thinking he goes, This is great. Wow, you really nailed the car guy part of it. And he goes, I said nothing. And when he says nothing, I’m like, hmm. So about 11 o’clock last night, I go, Did you read that? And I know he’s always afraid he’s going to start a fight. And I’m much better about this now. and I go, Did you read it? He goes, Yeah. It felt like it was written by two different people. Why was that? And I was like, I said, I was.

You know, and we were gonna keep refining it and we’re – I said you spend some time with it because they said I need you to read it to go, is any of this true? I just don’t know. And so, you know, and that’s where the AI conversation, particularly in law, gets so funny because I think people would be horrified that I even confessed that that was part of the process so far. When I turn to send this to this guy, I’m gonna fess up and go, Hey, I used Chat GPT for some of this or whatever, but you know.

That’s part of the play and the experiment. And again, my early days in social media, I didn’t know what I was doing. But if I felt like it had to be perfect right out of the gate, I was never gonna learn anything from it. And I don’t know how we navigate those waters as a society right now, but I think we have to put the guardrails around it, but let people again, what’s the sidewalk versus the flower bed? If you want me to write about the Devil Wears Prada, I’m writing about that.

So where’s the flow happening? Where’s – where isn’t it? When and that’s again, that’s all about the content. I think that’s kind of the least exciting thing people can talk about with AI. I think the analytical side, the fact that it can sort of supercharge processes and help people get past the busy work to really thinking about the refinement, the connection, spending time with attorneys and talking to them versus just going, Here, I’ve turned your pitch around. Right. But did you sit down with them? If you know you can turn that around much more quickly, you have time to talk to them.

Keith Edwards (37:17)

It’s a great point. It really is. What else? I feel like we covered a lot of ground.

Roy Sexton (37:22)

Did I cover your royal?

Keith Edwards (37:25)

My points, yeah, I got all my questions answered.

Roy Sexton (37:28)

Can I ask you a question? I mean, you know, I’m very proud of you. You have been in our space and in our industries, providing value in a lot of different ways for a lot of different organizations. But, you know, it feels like you were kind enough to talk about sort of my capstone moment, and this feels like that, but you are similarly in a capstone moment. I mean, you are an owner of a company. You are the strategist, the voice, the face. There are many of us that – I don’t know that I ever want to do that in my life.

It scares me. I’m not gonna lie. I like having a steady paycheck. But I’m envious, you know, just like the guy at Deloitte was envious that I took that job and I thought, you know, and you again, grass is always greener somewhere else, but what is this like and how are you feeling about this moment for yourself?

Keith Edwards (38:15)

It’s been amazing. You’re kind to ask. I mean, I have a tremendous business partner who’s incredibly talented, Belinda DiGiambattista. And I worked with her husband when I was at ALM. And I was at a place in my life, the opportunity opened up and I went for it. And I am so grateful that I did. I have never been more engaged. I’ve never worked harder in my career. And I’ve never been more excited and engaged to work with people.

And part of the feeling of being an entrepreneur is, you know, we have this. I’m backed by a tremendous team of talented people, right? Who are like who provide clients amazing service and are constantly learning and problem solving and figuring out what’s new with AI, what’s happening in social media. I mean, my team has a hunger for knowledge and information that exceeds my own for sure and constantly impresses me. So

I’m really grateful that I get to work with that group. And honestly, as doing like, you know, a BD role for Good2bsocial, I learned that yes, they are buying the company. Yes, they’re buying the team. They’re also investing in me personally. And that is an exhilarating feeling.

Roy Sexton (39:29)

And I see it in you. I saw it in you a couple of weeks ago. I mean, you’ve always been a really buoyant soul, very, very joy-based, quite frankly, and very intellectual at the same time. And I always find it an interesting mix for you. And warm. But I feel you also have that quality of feeling centered. Like you’re and do these things last forever? No. But for the moment you are centered in your zone. And I think the other thing to highlight, and and I think that’s the through line. I hope I’ve done in my career as well.

These things are gonna change. There’s gonna be, I mean, sometimes I laugh. We go to these conferences a couple of years ago, it was blockchain and Internet of Things. And then we were talking about the EI ad nauseum. Then we can’t talk about that anymore. Now we’re talking about AI. I mean, it’s a little bit of that going on here. Let’s not gonna lie. It’s like water is wet, it’s a tool. How are you using it? Let’s talk that. But the important thing that you learn, and when you really realize that it could be too late to have really done anything about it. And I think both of us just instinctively went the other way.

Keith Edwards (40:15)

Yeah.

Roy Sexton (40:30)

You build thoughtful relationships with people, regardless of the circumstances that you came together. I mean, we worked together, you were a service provider. I didn’t know you very well, but I got to know you and I really came to appreciate just the way your mind worked. And it didn’t matter where you worked or what you did. And you gather people around you who lean in the way you’re leaning in. And so the chance you have now to build a team with like values and really test that kind of concept of what it means to have the mindset you’ve had, but in aggregate with other people and they bring their own flavors to it, it’s magical.

I think when you walk through this life, don’t be so transactional. You don’t know who you’re around who really is going to make your heart sing. They could be anybody and everybody, and it’s going to change and it’s going to evolve. And the people who stick with you 20, 30 years later are never who you think they’re going to be. You net out in a really interesting place. And so it’s honestly fun for me to watch what you’re doing and

And thanks for indulging me the chance to turn the microphone around on you. You’re probably like that’s nice to hear. And I think you’ve earned it. You’ve earned

Keith Edwards (41:34)

I appreciate that. I mean, I truly try to live your principle of – or whoever’s principle who came up with it, work with working with the willing. Yeah. And I love to collect.

Roy Sexton (41:43)

Look, I’ll take credit for it. Just say it say it’s

Keith Edwards (41:46)

Roy coined work with the willing. And no, I mean, and it’s

Roy Sexton (41:50)

I’ve just repeated it enough people think it’s mine. Right. There’s a lesson in that too. Marketing, baby.

Keith Edwards (41:56)

It’s how life works, it’s how careers work, you know, build relationships with people, people you like, people you love, carry them with you. And it makes it all a lot more fun and a lot more successful.

Roy Sexton (42:12)

Right. Well, at the end of the day, it was Maya Angelou. I think this is hers. People won’t remember what you did. They’ll remember how they made you feel. I like Yogi Berra and George W. Bush, and I always get these things wrong. But I mean that and I that’s one that’s almost been repeated to the point of becoming a cliche, but it’s really true, you know. And again, if you’re young and in your career and you’re having a moment, you won’t remember why you were so upset.

Keith Edwards (42:21)

So you made them feel

Roy Sexton (42:38)

There are very few cases where I remember exactly why I was pissed off. And in those moments, that’s why I left the given organization. I don’t remember why I was so mad on a random Tuesday, but I do remember the vibe and the feeling and I think that’s key.

Keith Edwards (42:51)

And learning from the tough times. You know, learning from like that’s another one too for sure for me. So well, I feel like we’ve covered a lot of ground.

Roy Sexton (43:02)

But I didn’t ask you, how do you feel about Madonna’s new songs?

Keith Edwards (43:06)

Roy, I’ve been so busy. I mean, I know. I’m like, I live under a rock. I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.

Roy Sexton (43:14)

You’re a bad gay. You have homework.

Keith Edwards (43:17)

I got your playlist.

Roy Sexton (43:18)

You’re good. Hey, and you at least listen to the Sabrina Carpenter one and let me know what you think. I really, for a moment, I was like, this seems a bit underwhelming, but I’ve listened to it, listen to it, listen to it. And like, no, this fits right alongside Vogue and Rescue Me and kind of those verbally bumbly kind of percolating ones. There’s your homework. Okay. You can find four minutes.

Keith Edwards (43:42)

I will. I promise I will and I’ll report back.

Roy Sexton (43:46)

We’ll have to have another episode just to talk about that.

Keith Edwards (43:48)

Absolutely. I think you’re gonna be at least at least once a quarter, maybe twice a year. Maybe in fact, we’re co-hosting the podcast from now on.

Roy Sexton (43:56)

No, no, no, I’ve done that. No, it’s all yours. I’m good. I’m good. I’m satiated. I like being the old cranky one who just shows up periodically and offers a bon mot. It’s fine.

Keith Edwards (44:05)

Thank you so much. You’re the best.

Roy Sexton (44:08)

You are. And congratulations. You’re doing great.

Keith Edwards (44:11)

Thank you, appreciate that. That’s a wrap on this episode of Marketing on the Record. Thanks for hanging out with us. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, don’t forget to hit subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. And if you’re ready to take your legal marketing to the next level, head on over to good2bsocial.com. We’d love to help. Until next time, I’m Keith Edwards, and we’ll see you on the record.