You might have seen the billboards in Arizona of bearded man in a ripped up suit with photoshop-enhanced tattoos swinging a sledgehammer, but If you’ve ever spoken with Byron Browne, the so called “anti-lawyer”, you might know that his demeanor is as unprofessional as his appearance.
I recently received a summons from his firm on behalf of a desperate and broke client who stayed at my house paying what she could (eventually for free) with her adult daughters and dogs who claims that my dog, a blue heeler bit and bruised her thigh.
While that dog has never bitten anyone and I plan to contest this claim, I called Byron to ask how much the damages sought amounted to since he failed to list it in the filing or issue a demand letter.
His firm must be relatively small since he answered the phone himself, so maybe business is slow over at the Browne Law Group. First he told me that my insurance needs to pay this but when I explained that I am a renter and do not have homeowners insurance, he became really aggressive.
I asked him if he could contact the homeowners insurance and he responded with “You don’t tell me what to do. I’m a lawyer, and I tell YOU what to do. What do you do for a living?” Followed by “You better find some insurance to get out from under this or I will get a judgement against you directly.” and presumably seize my 1997 car.
I explained that I understand he is doing his job and there is no reason to make things personal to which he childishly retorted “you made this personal, bigmouth motherfucker” I replied “Thank you for your time” and got off the phone.
I sense a very desperate law firm headed by an idiot bully going for the lowest hanging fruit on a dead tree. If they could get real cases, they probably wouldn’t be pursuing a thousand-dollar dog bite claim from mid 2020, almost two years ago. Maybe if they win this one, they might make five figures this year and Byron can afford to finish coloring in his sleeve.
The dumbest thing about his actions are that I was calling to figure out how to settle the case, saving them time and money, and most importantly: getting his client the money she wants! Of course Byrons pride got in the way. He needs to show everyone how tough and dumb he is, because he is NOT a lawyer.. he is a big strong thug [who loses cases].
I understand that he wants his image to appeal to the uneducated and low income clients but no matter who you are, or how little you can afford you NEED a professional lawyer for your case. Not one who wears wife beaters to meetings and court appointments according to this yelp review by a former client Sarah N. who fired him.
Think about it this way.. if you needed heart surgery and your surgeon called people named and carried himself this way, wouldn’t you find another doctor?
Bottom line: the “anti-lawyer” is not really a lawyer and if I were hiring a pretend lawyer, I would sooner hire Saul Goodman, who is a better actor and doesn’t bite.
Every Facebook ads consultant out there is now suddenly a TikTok ads expert, right?
Watch for the flood of courses with the “secret” formula to massive viral success and $1 leads.
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, reached out to me last year, asking for help in building a proper course on TikTok ads.
We’ve been testing hundreds of campaigns and looked at the results shared by our friends in real estate, e-commerce, agency, legal, and so forth.
It’s the stuff you do before you upload to social’s business manager that matters most.
I’ll save you the $2,500 course and tell you the “secret” right here: It’s in your simple, vertical video shot from your phone– that doesn’t look like an ad, has a “hook” in the first second to capture attention, has big text so people know what it’s about, and tells a “story”. No crazy targeting or sophisticated campaign set-up necessary
The super smart algo uses your content’s performance. Same for spark ads, where you boost someone else’s post (called “creators” no longer “influencer”).
Hiring an agency makes ZERO sense, unless they can actively coach you through making 15 second videos. The campaign set-up is relatively easy, so long as you already have your digital plumbing (pixels, tracking, data) in place.
The frothy white waves of hype about TikTok being the next tsunami of traffic is true — just like we saw with Google and Facebook. Traffic is about 1/4th the cost on Facebook on the paid side (because base CPMs are about $2.50, meaning CPC, CPL, CAC are correspondingly lower).
Optimize to Your Objective
Of course, you’re optimizing to the objective (algo is so smart), using base traffic cost as one of many diagnostic measures.
But make you’re not jumping in just because of FOMO…..but because you’re shoring up the fundamentals of collecting your client stories in 15 second videos, have a process to process these within your operations, have your digital plumbing properly in place, and are putting money on the winners.
I was at Jake Paul’s house making 15 second videos for the social media marketing course we have for young adults. One of the videos leaked out and got half a million likes. It had nothing to do with our course and wasn’t even on his TikTok account– but one of the guys helping film. But the TikTok algo recognized it was Jake Paul’s house in the background of the video, showed it to fans of Jake Paul– and then it went viral.
You’ll see more stuff like this blow up out of nowhere on TikTok, almost exclusively on the organic side. But these are unlikely to be the posts you will be boosting as an extension of the Dollar a Day strategy.
Same Algorithm, Same Themes–Still a Dollar a Day
Instead, you’ll find that the same themes that worked for you on Facebook will work on TikTok, adapted to their format of storytelling via 15 second videos. It’s the same algorithm as Facebook and Google (fight me on this), which seeks to optimize to your chosen objective based on conversion data you allow it to see.
But if you’ve found success with the fundamentals of the Dollar a Day strategy, I’m pretty sure you’ll find success on TikTok– when you repurpose videos, extend your conversion tracking/remarketing, and start testing at $10/day.
There’s no better time to implement or refine your Dollar a Day process across Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all social networks. We are seeing a growing convergence on the data and ads side of social platforms– since they are all dependent upon the same optimization algorithm that balances user experience with ad monetization.
Remember this each time you see a breathless pitch on how you need to jump on TikTok ASAP– to buy their secret before you forever miss the boat.
If your marketing efforts aren’t working, check to see if the people working on your marketing believe in what you do. You’ll find most of them believe they are exempt for various invalid reasons:
– too busy – not necessary for their job role – only the figurehead needs to actually believe in the product/service – I’m not being paid enough to do this
If your own people (including your agency) doesn’t believe in what you do, they will also lack the depth of knowledge to create powerful, authentic content.
They could certainly check the box to produce 5 tweets and 3 blog posts a week– (ta da, I’m done– now pay me!). But it won’t be effective, for reasons they don’t understand.
They will resist wearing “25 pieces of flair” as a ridiculous rule the annoying manager in Office Space mandates. The power of using your actual customers as your marketing vehicle will help you avoid the pain, frustration, and waste of ineffective marketing.
Are you examining whether those people who do your marketing believe in what you do?
The term “influencer” will die, giving way to “creator”.
Facebook is betting on becoming the dominant eCommerce platform– not because they beat Amazon or Shopify at their own game, but because they will control the entire environment of how humans interactive with the world.
But would you trust Facebook to on your face?
Seems like are living up to their old name– identifying faces, modeling faces, and monetizing faces.
Meta is not the Alphabet of data sucking ecosystems. Zuck designed it to be fully integrated as a platform of platforms– not like Google , who has disconnected efforts in health, self-driving, space, and whatnot.
The technology that Meta revealed today was fascinating– delivered with flawless PR spin by the mechanical Zuckbot. While the AI is trying to appear as human and personable as possible, just like today’s scripted, cinematographic wonder….
Something feels slightly off, like a beautiful plant made of plastic.
I think it’s that Zuck wants us to give him full control of our identity– necessary to move about the Metaverse, “jump into” apps, buy things, and connect with loved ones.
The impersonable, reclusive billionaire wishes to build our future “together” in the most intimate way- to collect your voice, movements, and most minute of facial expressions and feed his machine.
Certainly, Apple, Google, Tesla, Amazon, and other companies have alternate visions– perhaps with more trust and smarter technology.
Would you give up your iPhone for a Quest or camera-equipped Ray Bans? Apple won’t risk that bet, so I anticipate their glasses releasing next year.
Ultimately, whoever has the most data wins. So TikTok has the stickiest app (longest session time of any app), which makes their algorithm the smartest– currently beyond the understanding of regulators who fret about Facebook’s newsfeed algo.
Will Facebook’s version of the metaverse (the commercialized version of Snow Crash) displace all the other attention-sucking apps or be the walled-garden that controls them all?
Do you trust the utopia that the benevolent Zuckbot is promising?
I wrote about spam emails a few years ago, but after seeing a thread on LinkedIn the other day, it occurs to me that this is still a very relevant, and touchy, subject.
For context, this photo sparked 970 comments.
On one side, sales and marketing professionals, responding to feelings of being attacked, both professionally and personally.
On the other side, the folks on the receiving end of the unsolicited (and often unwanted) emails.
I’m sure everyone has been on the receiving end of an unsolicited email, destined at trying to sell them something. Yes, this may only be a minor inconvenience, but it speaks to a larger problem. There’s a disconnect between sales teams’ practices and what clients want.
There’s also a fair amount of disagreement over who, exactly, is to blame.
Are the prospects to blame, for not opening or responding to unwanted emails?
And while we’re talking about disconnects, it could be helpful for folks on the prospect end to know more about how sales funnels work.
Maybe there are ways to teach sales teams?
So how can we move forward, collectively? That may be the million dollar question. But it’s going to start with due diligence, research, and patience.
Ultimately, sales folks must adapt by showing genuine interest in the people they’re reaching out to. They have to become content marketers who wish to educate first, earning the right to a conversation.
