Luke Russell:

It’s really interesting because it’s such a different approach because some people might say, “Well, what if you just email people and ask for some tips and do an Instagram shout out?” And I’m like, “That’s not going to build an incredible relationship.”

Chris Dreyer:

Forging powerful relationships with others begins with the relationship you have with yourself.

Luke Russell:

I wouldn’t say I went from being unhappy to happy, but I went from a place of internal turmoil to a lot of peace. I still have anxiety, but there’s so much peace.

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, Founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the preeminent personal injury marketing agency.
Before we get started, if you like what you hear, head on over to Apple or Spotify and pound that five-star review button. And if you don’t like what you hear, tell me about it in a one-star review. I got a big hug for all my haters too. Each week, we talk to the best in the legal industry. Ready to dominate your market? Let’s go.
A great way to connect with potential clients is to tell great stories. This can look like personal and brand narratives or client success stories. This helps individuals see a firm as a human, trustworthy, a brand that they can and want to interact with. Stories are so powerful that they can elevate a firm’s brand by creating community. To create community through story, consider partnering with a community ambassador to identify great narratives with major impact.
Owner of Russell Media, Luke Russell is a community ambassador and an expert in human connection, a skill that’s taken years to master. They create goodwill in diverse communities by telling unique research backed stories. This is a strategy that helps law firms build trust and authority all while solidifying their brand.

Luke Russell:

Let’s tell a beautiful message while saying, “Hey, we’re going to hold these companies accountable.”

Chris Dreyer:

Today, they offer a fresh look at how to create powerful long-form content that both Google and humans love. Get an inside look at how Luke reimagines tired marketing narratives and transforms them into human-centred marketing masterpieces. Luke also has a background in digital marketing and copywriting, which began in high school.
Here’s Luke Russell, community ambassador, on how MySpace kicked off an obsession with digital marketing.

Luke Russell:

I was in late elementary and early middle school at MySpace’s height, when that was the thing. And I remember seeing people doing cool things with their profiles and I didn’t understand anything of code. So there was a seed planet of like, “Man, I wish. I could do those cool things.” So, the way people would do their custom code on their profile, which thank goodness Facebook and Instagram doesn’t allow. And I think I was 14 years old in high school. I still had this underlying, “I want to learn how to build websites” kind of thing in me.
My dad walks by my bedroom and he goes, “Hey Luke, if I buy you Adobe Dreamweaver,” and this was back when you bought the software for $400 bucks, and he’s like, “if I bought you Adobe Dreamweaver, would you build me a website?” Because he had just retired from teaching and was starting a foreign language software business, teaching, his instruction was in schools and whatnot. And I was like, “Yeah, absolutely. I’m in. I’ve always wanted to learn to build websites.”
So that was kind of where it had been, that seed had been planted early on in my late elementary, early middle school. And then it was in high school when I actually started doing it. And then at the same time, well really earlier than that in middle school, at least by the age of 13, I began honing my writing technique. I wasn’t just writing, I was looking at the way authors would use different types of punctuation styles and the way they would break grammar to make their point more powerfully than if they had followed the rules. And I’m very much, if everybody says that’s the way to do it, then I’m like, “Let’s just do it a different way just cause. Who cares if it’s worse? But it’s not what everybody else is doing,” which is not always the best trait.
So I started very early on in those early teen years, as both honing my copywriting skills as well as my code-writing skills. And that’s where it all started. I built my dad’s website. I remember the first website I built was for, well, for somebody else, was for a radio station and in exchange, they were going to pay for my database design class at the local university. Well, it wasn’t local, but at the university in Indianapolis because I was also like, as a 15-year-old kid who’s like, “How do I prove I’m more important than everybody else?” I was like, “I’m going to start going to college at 16.”
And so I did. The IUPUI in Indianapolis had a whole program for high school students who wanted to start taking classes, so I was taking college-level coding and database and all that stuff. So, that’s how I got into here.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s fantastic. I cut my teeth with Dreamweaver too. Some of my first sites, oh, just brutal. That was back in the affiliate marketing day and I just had nothing but Dreamweaver sites.
You know what? It’s interesting, but I still use a lot of that code when I need to get in there and roll the sleeves up.

Luke Russell:

Oh, yeah.

Chris Dreyer:

The other thing too is about MySpace. Of course I had a MySpace profile too. It was key to just change that song on the profile. Everything was about that song. The whole design, the whole theme.

Luke Russell:

And the top friends.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s such a trip. So you rolled up your sleeves and you went right to work and you learned by doing. Hey, you set this goal and you learn. Now take me forward. What brought you into the legal space?

Luke Russell:

So after I graduated high school early because that was another thing I could do that would somehow make me better than other people, and because it’s like, “Oh, what does everybody else do? They go for four years.” I was like, “Great, you know what? Just cut a semester off because it’s against the grain.”
And so by the time my friends graduated in high school, I was already a sophomore at this point. I only made it one more semester. I made a full year of college and I was going to business school because I finally realized, I was like, “I want to start my own business.” And I realized that, despite it being Kelley School Business, not many people had started their own businesses, and I realized… Or we’re talking about this oil company that’s doing $700 million on this or that, and I remember, I co-founded the Entrepreneurship Club. We’re having this whole seminar. We brought in all these local CEOs of these companies and this woman behind me, I hear her just go, “I just want to open up an art studio.”
That was the moment where I realized I just kind of want to open up my equivalent of an art studio. I don’t want to be learning how to write memos. So I quit college after being there for a year at age 18, started my business in 2009. My business is still legally the same and I can’t bring myself to change it. It’s called A Single Page LLC, because I was like, “I won’t just do websites because that’s what everybody else does.” It’s like, “What’s not being offered? You know what? One-page websites.” This was before the Wix and everything was like…
So I started doing that and I ended up in 2011 hiring a business consultant to help me build my business, and he happened to have another client who was named Ken Hardison of PILMMA. And so he was like, “Luke, let me connect you up with Ken Hardison.” And so I end up, in July 2011, so I’m 21 years old at this point, I end up in Myrtle Beach at a Mastermind event for lawyers. I don’t know anything about these personal injury lawyers other than they chase ambulances and they’re… And that’s about it. I don’t even have any idea what a personal injury is.
That’s how I got… And an attorney there had heard me, ended up hiring me as their marketing director for several years, and I just never ever intended to go to this space, but I kind of fell in love with it because a few things. One was even after doing this for 12 years, I think most PI marketing is completely out of touch with humanity. And I’m not saying all of it’s terrible, and even if it’s out of touch, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s so boring, so disconnected with people’s daily lives.

Chris Dreyer:

“Congratulations, you’re injured. Call me.”

Luke Russell:

Right, exactly. Nobody thinks they’re going to be injured, so they don’t care about your message. And then they’re like, “Shoot, I am injured.” And so I kind of enjoyed that aspect of it. Not kind of. I do, I like that. It really requires a lot of thoughtful creativity.
And then the other aspect is we have… So at age 17, I came face-to-face with suicide and walked away from an attempt on my own life. I fell into this industry that has much higher, against the general population, rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, divorce, et cetera. And so this was very early on and actually, what attracted the firm to bring me in as their marketing director was I started producing content that showed how PI lawyers are doing really, really important work, and they’ve also been really mischaracterized.
And I don’t know this, but my guess is being vilified by society doesn’t help mental health. I’m not saying that that is causing suicide or causing depression, but it sure isn’t helping. And so for me, it’s been like how do I highlight the beauty of attorneys while also the fact of what they’re doing is really, really important in our society?
So, that’s how we got here.

Chris Dreyer:

Thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable and transparent. And what a person to be connected to as Ken Hardison, PILMMA, Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing Management Association. Such a great human being.
And I want to take it to the mental health side. Now, from doing my research, some of the things, and your journey, it’s more clear, like on your Lawful Good podcast where you have your mental health resources, even the SEO police is now… It makes sense because you’re protecting the attorneys. When I put up an ad, a Facebook ad, it doesn’t matter what I say, it could be the best message in the world. The first comment is, “Ambulance chaser chaser.”

Luke Russell:

Yep.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s what I get. And always I’m just like, “What? Did you watch the video?”
So, let’s focus in on the mental health. For you, what kind of took you to the mindset change and got you to where you are now? When I talk to you, you’re happy and you’re so full of life. What was that shift?

Luke Russell:

Yeah. I was definitely happy as a teen. Most people in my life didn’t know that I came to the brink of ending my life at my own hands. And that wasn’t until I was 29 that I actually opened up publicly about it, and some close friends knew, but outside of that, it wasn’t something I talked about. There was actually a lot of shame I had around this idea of I had a good childhood, good parents, good family, good church, good school, good grades. What was wrong with me that I thought my life was so bad that I wanted to end it?
And for me, it was I had internalized this idea that who I was was wrong, in the sense that I was too talkative, too bossy, too much, too intense, too much this. And what’s interesting too, looking back, it was like my teachers didn’t know how to be like, “Hey Luke, you know how when you’re telling a story, it’s really fun when people listen?” I’m like, “Yeah!.” Like, “Shut up while other people are telling their story because they want you to listen.” I’m like, “Oh, no one ever put it that way.” It was just like, “Luke, you talk too much. You’re too much of this and too much of that.”
And so I think that’s part of what added to this idea of, “Man, this is why people don’t like me,” which again, is very skewed because if you looked at my life, you’d be like, “What are you talking about, Luke?” But I had this idea in my head that people didn’t like me. I wasn’t good enough. So that’s where I was in so much pain that I wanted to be away from the pain of self-hatred.
That night, I remember I was walking toward an attempt, and I mean, I just remember tears streaming down my face because I was in so much pain. And I ended up walking away from the attempt. And that night, I remember, so I didn’t have a lock on my bedroom door, I remember. So I sat down on the floor with my back against the door. That way, if my parents tried to walk in, they’d be like, “Oh,” and do up a different expression quickly. And I remember sitting there and hearing a voice in my head, you can ascribe it to God, myself, I have no idea. But I heard a voice in my head and it was, “Luke, I love you and I want you to live.” And in that moment, I was just like, “All right, I’m going to live and I’m not going to do this again.” But I still had two and a half more years of darkness and loneliness.
And so then I ended up getting invited to this workshop, it’s an experiential workshop. If people have been to one, you know it. If you haven’t, you’re like, “What is it?” Let me tell you, it’ll freak most people out.
I’m at this. We do this “game.” I’m putting quotes around that because it’s a weird activity that is meant to help you look at your behavior. That’s on a Friday night. The next morning, we come back in our small group, my coach is like, “Hey, who wants to talk?” I was like, “I’ll talk.” And she was like, “So how do you show up?” And I was like, “Well…” I was kind of in the back of the room trying to figure everything out, and so my coach, Shawn, she looks at me and goes, “How’s that show up in your relationships?” And I said, “I don’t really have many close friends. And I kind of like it like that.” And she looks at me and goes, “Luke, I don’t think you believe that.”
And I remember, I stopped for a moment, and I looked back and I said, “You’re right. I don’t.” And that began a very long journey. So that was at age 19, 2009 in November. And that began a long journey of me figuring out what it looks like to really forge really intentional relationships with others and also myself. So I talk a lot about human connection because that’s my passion, and that for me is connection with others and connection with self.

Chris Dreyer:

Luke eventually arrived at self-love.

Luke Russell:

And I defined that for me as this capacity to lovingly hold space for myself no matter what’s happening around me.

Chris Dreyer:

But their journey to self-love was non-linear. They experienced the ups and downs, setbacks and leaps forward. In late 2021, Luke sat in the aftermath of an argument and knew that everything had changed.

Luke Russell:

And I sit down and I don’t even know where this thought came from, haven’t had this thought under my head in years. And I sit down and my brain goes, “I fucking hate my life.” And before I even, I didn’t even have to process or anything, my brain then immediately responded with, “No, Luke. I love you.” And that was when I was like, “Well, snap. I did it.”
This is the capacity for me that even my own brain can be like, “Man, we suck,” and then my own brain goes, “No, we don’t.” And that took a lot of work. I’ve had so many coaches and retreats and books that I’ve gone through and so much self-reflection. And so it was a long journey. And most people I meet that I have these conversations with, they don’t have that experience of self-love. And so I’ve been thinking a lot because people are like, “Man, I wish I could have that.” I mean, some of the most prominent attorneys in this country have told me, “Man, maybe you could coach me.” And I’m like, “I don’t have any idea how I got here.”
I just want to clarify a couple of things of I wouldn’t say I went from being unhappy to happy, but I went from a place of internal turmoil to a lot of peace. I still have anxiety, but there’s so much peace around it. And so it was a long journey. Exercise, I do believe is a big part of it. My sleep routine is a big part of it. I’m really, really intentional about cultivating relationships. So I have many, many rich relationships. And rather than scrolling on social media, which I’m not moralizing, I might open Facebook for 30 seconds, but if I see a story that’s interesting, I’m not going to comment on your post. I’m going to send you a message, Chris, because I’m going to be like, “Oh, Chris, let me send you this message because I thought that was really cool what I saw.”
So I don’t know what all got me here. I also don’t think I have any clinical depression or anxiety. While I might have chronic anxiety, I don’t have clinical anxiety. And so I don’t know, I don’t think my journey is like other people who have faced suicide, but that’s a little bit of diversion for you.

Chris Dreyer:

Wow. The only thing I think of is just so many people probably go through this and to be at this place where you’re at now and you’ve come to this realization and you’ve come to peace and you have that inner voice that’s now positive saying, “No, I love you,” that’s so amazing that you’ve been able to do that.
And I love the idea, you passing this along and being that coach. And what brings you passion now, I can see it. One of the interviews that I picked up was the interview of you and James Helm, and James is a good buddy of mine. And it was such a great conversation, such a deep conversation of meaning. So where does that lead you today in terms of your projects and your focus and your passion?

Luke Russell:

So I’ve been working with just three law firms where I’m working as a Community Ambassador for them to come in, and basically from my perspective, I’m a human connection expert in this. I’m saying, “Let me. I’m going to help you go build goodwill in the community really powerfully.” Nothing I’m doing is quantity-based and I don’t want to… Again, I like to be very careful because I feel like a lot of times, people talk and they’re like, “This is the morally superior form of marketing.” And I’m like, “If you’re being manipulative, let’s call it what it is.”
But most lawyer social media is as boring as it gets. It’s irrelevant. It’s out of touch. And they get three likes. And I’m like, “Okay.” But to flip side of a quantity standpoint, from an SEO standpoint, there’s a lot of quantity that puts in and there’s a reasons for the quantity. What I’m doing is I’ll write an SEO-friendly piece, a piece, maybe once a month, that takes hours.
I wrote this whole piece and we’re working on finalizing it because it’s about bias in the courtroom. And so these firms have hired me to come in and help them build rich relationships with different kinds of groups, which includes the LGBT community. And mind you, this is in central Florida, rural central Florida. And this is where we start talking about motorcycles, motorcyclists, and how juries will have bias against that. But then it’s like if people can have bias against a motorcyclist and be like, “They’re probably popping wheelies down the interstate, what do they deserve?” Well, then what happens if our clients are a gay couple? Will people in central rural Florida get the legal representation they need? How does bias show up in the courtroom? And it’s not about even saying that if people have bias, the bias is bad. It’s just saying it’s bias. It’s the things we have.
The insurance attorneys are going to look at this and go, “Oh, look, this is a really red area. I bet we can low-ball offer this lawyer with this gay couple.” The lawyer will probably tell the client to take it because they don’t think they can win at trial because they don’t believe that the jurors of this city can set aside their bias to fulfil their oath as a juror. Here’s what I know about the people of this city in central Florida is that the people care about their word, they care about justice, and that they can see past whatever personal views they have to deliver justice for my clients.
You talk about that, and we’re playing a whole different ball game, but you can’t write that up in an hour. And so it’s this really beautiful piece I spent hours on, but it’s really interesting because now we’re starting to tell different messages that I think are just uplifting to humans in general. It’s marketing messages people aren’t hearing. And so there’s that aspect.
Or I’m working with a client in Texas where we’re focused a lot on the hair relaxer litigation. I tried to write a history of hair relaxers, which I thought would be really simple, and it turned out to be one of the most, not most, but more complicated topics I’ve researched because there’s not a lot of authoritative sources and most the lawyers who put up pages on hair relaxers aren’t even citing the research properly. So what I’ve been looking at is most of these law firms are either putting out inaccurate or incomplete content, and sometimes blatantly false, but they don’t realize it because somebody else quoted this article as saying this, so then they quoted it and they cited it. Except when you read the research, it doesn’t say that.
So I’ve been digging in, but I look at this and go, “How do we do this in a community fashion? How do we do this with human connection?” And it’s like, what if we go out and we work with hairstylists and we say, “So yeah, hair relaxers, these chemical straighteners, are causing cancer.” But what if it’s not just all about doom and gloom? If a woman has been using chemical straighteners and she wants to stop, well, that’s actually a multi-month process of regrowing her hair out because you don’t just stop and your hair all of a sudden stops being straight. So a lot of times, women will cut their hair shorter and then as you’re growing your hair out, there’s all these different stages that sometimes feels awkward unless you have a great hairdresser who’s like, “Let me show you how to make every step of this be awesome and empowering.”
And so I was like, “Let’s make this a whole story about Black hair.” And yes, the hair relaxers that companies L’Oreal have been… Studies have tied these chemicals to these cancers and let’s just talk about more than that. So then now I’m working with hairstylists to plan interviews and to come into their salons and do videos and build relationships with them as an individual, promote a local business, and talk about something that’s beautiful while also still bringing, by interviewing somebody who doesn’t use chemical relaxers with their clients or with most of their clients and mostly all their clients are using alternative techniques, well now it’s like, “Hey, look, we’re still talking about hair relaxers except we’re talking about here’s how to style your beautiful hair. Here’s different… Look at this and here’s that.”
And there’s so much rich history to Black hair and it’s also rifled with a lot of negative history. There’s so much reclamation of that power and I’m saying, “What if we don’t just talk about the bad of the litigation?”
This is all new, so I’m really excited about it, but it’s really interesting because it’s such a different approach because some people might say, “Well, what if you just email people and ask for some tips and do an Instagram shout out?” And I’m like, “That’s not going to build an incredible relationship.”
Now, does it take a lot of time? I’m going to fly to Houston, set up times to meet with these hairdressers and we’re going to do all this stuff and I’ve got other ideas about maybe we do a gift certificate for the salon to help promote them even further. Who knows? But so now it just comes down to how do we do a relationship strategy? That’s where I lean into my instincts for building relationships. So, that’s what I’m excited about. That’s one project I’m excited about. That’s my main focus right now.

Chris Dreyer:

There’s so much to that. And I know a lot of the SEO people and content people are all afraid about ChatGPT. Yes and no, right? If you have an original piece where you are the source and it is truly custom, truly creative and unique, then you’re automatically going to stand out. People aren’t going to be able to replicate easily what you’re doing there. There’s a gap there. You have to fly there and have these personal relationships.
And I also have to imagine that they may be more open to share with that high-touch, in-person because they’re being vulnerable. Do they want to be vulnerable over a phone call? They don’t know that individual. Even the content you get and their reactions. And I also just think it’s so positive, and yes, this was a solution to straightening hair, but now here are these other solutions for styling your hair differently. Maybe there’s some other products.
So, I think going the extra mile is amazing. Even the piece on bias, there’s nothing out there like that. I can’t imagine there’s many. Maybe there’s a couple good pieces to cite, but nothing as original as what you’re creating. And that’s a whole different level of skillset.
And we look at these torts, I’m in the mass tort game. There’s a lot of people in the mass tort game. They want mass tort cases. They want, whether it’s Camp Lejeune or the hair straightener, or AFFF, whatever it is. I always talk about my clients creating something unique because then you’re the source and you automatically stand out. So first of all, that’s fantastic, and doing something like that, I guess it acts almost like the grassroots component as well, like, “Hey, this attorney really cares about its people.”

Luke Russell:

Yep. With that Texas client, they do PI as well, which was originally going to be my focus, but they were like, “Hey, we’re really heavy on the hair relaxer litigation.” So I was like, “All right.” I just thought I was going to write a piece because I’m a good writer, I’m a good researcher. I thought I’ll write a piece. And I was like, “How will I go about this?” I was like, “I’ll go about the history.” Then the history, I’m reading books, I’m digging through research archives. I don’t think there are many marketers in this country who are digging around the overall story surrounding this to understand, how do we make this?
Now, there are some. Trust me, I have some friends, some Black and brown attorneys. What they’re doing is incredible and I don’t even want to put myself in their same court, but for the court I’m playing in, there’s not a whole lot of people who are digging in. It comes down to the firm has to understand what we’re producing is something so different. And going to your comment, that original source, no other law firm is out there saying, “Let me produce original content on Black hair.” It’s just hair litigation-focused. And I’m saying, “Let’s tell a beautiful message while saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to hold these companies accountable.’”

Chris Dreyer:

If you type into Google Trends or Ahrefs or Semrush, you’re going to see “hair relaxer lawsuit,” and here are the iterations of that phrase, and then here’s our H2s, it’s a hair, some variation of that, and you’re just not going to have an original piece.
We talk about those different signals that Google loves, and if you have an original piece, they’re going to stay longer, they’re going to come back, they’re going to share it with their friends, and so it has all those intangibles. Where does Russell Media come into play?
And the reason I ask specifically is because we share a client together, Stewart Guss, Attorney at Law, Sean and their team are fantastic, and he was so complimentary of your guys’ client service. So tell me, where does Russell Media fit in? Is it a new passion to do these projects?

Luke Russell:

Yeah. This is all under the Russell Media umbrella. We still have a couple few dozen clients who we advertise for and we’ve got a team that handles all of that. I recently brought in somebody to take over all of that who’s just got lots of extensive PI advertising background. I’m really excited about that and because I wanted somebody who could take us higher than where we had been. I was like, “I need somebody who can elevate us.” And so I brought in a great person for that. So, we’re still servicing all that.
That transparency, I’ve had clients tell me that we’re one of the few vendors they don’t have any issues with billing, where they said they’ll have other vendors over-billing them when they shouldn’t be, and I’m like, “Oh wow, that seems like a really low bar.” I’m always a little… Which is that let me make sure I’m delivering value, make sure I’m showing up. It’s about giving thoughtful explanations to things.
So on an advertising campaign, especially in mass torts, there are times where we’re going and we will spend just as much time researching and assessing to decide to make changes as the amount of time to not make changes. Because sometimes when we’re running these social ad campaigns, you’re like, “Man, I think we got to let this algorithm play out another week or two,” and if we’re spending $1, $2, $3, $4,000 a day, that’s not a small decision to do nothing. So it’s like there’s times where I’ve spent 15 hours digging through data and my response is, “We’re going to turn off these three ads and leave everything else,” but I have to make sure to the client, they’re paying us a lot of money and also spending even more on their advertising, I want to make sure that they understand if we’re spending $1, $5, $10,000 a day, if we’re not making changes, here’s the logic.
And so it’s even on stuff like that, I tend to prefer to over-communicate than under-communicate, to just be like… And I send novellas as emails, which some clients love. I’m sure some clients are like, “You could have said that in a text message,” but I’d rather just be like, “Hey, look, here’s all these thoughts that went into this,” and so I don’t know. Just some thoughts that come up for me.

Chris Dreyer:

The over-communication, it also makes you more trustworthy in terms of, “Hey, maybe something didn’t go right, we’re pausing these and it wasn’t a home run, but now we’re going to do this,” versus just, “Oh, we slipped that under the rug and these didn’t work and we’re not going to tell anybody about it.” I imagine growing the accounts with the trust component is there from that too.

Luke Russell:

We’ve had things that flopped and I never beat around the bush. I’ll say on the PI side, a lot of what we do is long-term, and so what happens is because they’re long-term, like education strategies, what’ll happen is lawyers will be excited to sign up and then lose sight of the fact that this is a multi-year approach. What we’re doing is we’re list-building and we’re staying in touch with these people and it’s a very long-term strategy and in that, it’s a lot more of like, “Hey, we got to keep going on the path we’re going on, or you need to just stop spending if you don’t like it.”
But it’s totally different from when we do mass torts, which is there’s a lot of flops. Just straight-up. And it’s easier to tell a flop because it’s not a long-term strategy. If we spend $50,000 and you get two cases, that’s just terrible. I got to own up to that. And so I have those where I just tell people, “Here’s the numbers, let me know. How can I show up to you?” And maybe it’s like, well, we waive the fees on our next mass tort campaign because it’s like… And I know some people would tell me not to do that, but it’s a relationship game. These people have been with me for years, so I want to show up.

Chris Dreyer:

I think when you choose a niche, you choose an industry, they have friends, they have their peers, you want to have integrity, you want to do the right thing because you’ve decided that, hey, this is the space I’m going to live. I don’t know about you, I want to be able to look people in the eye, know that, hey, I did everything I could. I was transparent with you, and I can walk away and I can feel good. The head hits the pillow, I’m good.
As you know, the SEO game, not every campaign is a home run. As much as we have our systems, our process, our trainings, it’s just sometimes some things don’t work and they take longer to work than you think that it will take. And I think that’s where that communication and that candour and honesty comes into play.
Tell me too, I want to go back to the Lawful Good. I’m the host of a podcast. I have a few of my favourite podcasts. If anyone hasn’t listened to your show, what’s a couple episodes that really stand out that you really enjoyed?

Luke Russell:

I have been told that season three, episode one was one of my best interviews ever.
All right, now this is a good friend of mine, Julia Metts, and I love her, okay? I just don’t know how to evaluate that it was better than Ben Crump or John Morgan. I’m like, “They were all great.” But I will say, get the tissue box out if you’re going to listen to Julia’s, it’s heavy. I love how rich it is or deep it is and how people are like, “Man, I’ve not even talked about these stories in years,” close to a quarter of my guests cry. And it’s not like I’m trying to get people to cry. We go there. And so to me, the crying is a reflection of the vulnerability space.
So there’s Julia Metts, which is season three, episode one. Ben Crump, I spent more time prepping for interviewing Ben because he’s had more interviews than any other attorney I’ve interviewed. He’s got more content published on him. I got two hours of Ben’s time. I also refused to take less than two hours with anybody, which proved challenging with getting on Ben’s schedule. And I was like, “Man, I did it. Now I need to make sure it’s worth Ben’s time. It needs to be good.” And I got stories, people, little things that people hadn’t gotten before, and it’s like, that’s just kind of fun.
Each interview, I think, is good. I think there’s some in which maybe the storytelling gets edited in a little more potent way, or maybe people are a little more concise. But I’d say season one, episode one, if you want that. Ben Crump, I think, is episode 10 of season one. Season three for Julia.
And John Morgan’s, there were some moments, and I’ll say this, that’s the thing is when you asked me, there’s a moment in John Morgan’s where I asked him if he had fond memories with his mother, and that was a question I didn’t plan. We’re talking about how his mother had gone from being really loving and present to becoming abusive and mentally ill. I just, in the moment, was struck with the question of, “John, do you have any fond memories with your mom?” Which afterwards, I was like, “Wow, where’d that question come from?” But that was a moment where I was just really proud of myself as an interviewer because I end up collecting really intimate, potent stories.

Chris Dreyer:

I appreciate that so much. The thing that I’ve noticed when doing the research for podcasts is a lot of times, shows get in this loop where it’s like they just repeat their same… They go back to their core things that they like to talk about. And just going deeper, it makes me want to go jump into these interviews right now and listen to these, and you’re so great at the conversation and the questions and just the back and forth, and I think everyone should check it out. Lawful Good Podcast.
If anyone wants to get in touch with you, how can they get a hold of you and what’s next?

Luke Russell:

Find me on social, if I’m on the platform, my handle’s always the same. It’s LukeWRussell. That’s really a great way to find me and the last part was what’s next?

Chris Dreyer:

What’s next? That’s a big one, right?

Luke Russell:

No, it’s great. So yesterday, I just signed all the paperwork with a guy who, his whole specialty is launching YouTube channels. I am helping people expand their presence as a thought leader. But what’s next is I’m going to be investing a lot in really on the human connection aspect. That’s going to be a big focus of mine over the next three years, which is already what I’m doing with these law firms where I’m working as an ambassador. It’s all about human connection, but now I’m saying like, “Hey, I’ve learned a lot of lessons over the last 15 years. Things that I’ve not heard people talk about. Not that no one is, but that I think I really want other people to be able to experience the depths and richness of human connection that they want in their lives.”

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much to Luke Russell for everything they shared today.
All right, it’s time for the PIMM Points. PIMM Point number one: go beyond the facts to captivate your audience. Draw them in. Wrap your topic in a human story. This will connect you to real humans in a meaningful way. It will also help reinforce your brand and showcase your values.

Luke Russell:

We’re starting to tell different messages that I think are just uplifting to humans in general. It’s marketing messages people aren’t hearing.

Chris Dreyer:

PIMM Point number two: give it time. Marketing content that is interesting takes time to develop. Long-form, research-based, thoughtful content won’t happen in an hour or even a day. Luke goes the extra mile to generate human stories that draw people in and create lasting connections.

Luke Russell:

I’m going to fly to Houston, set up times to meet with these hairdressers, and we’re going to do all this stuff, and I’ve got other ideas about maybe we do a gift certificate for this salon to help promote them even further. Who knows?

Chris Dreyer:

PIMM Point number three: get comfortable with discomfort. Creating an intentional relationship with yourself might be challenging, but inner peace means a better relationship with yourself and everyone around you.

Luke Russell:

My brain then immediately responded with, “No, Luke, I love you.” And that was when I was like, “Well, snap. I did it.” This is the capacity for me that even my own brain can be like, “Man, we suck,” and then my own brain goes, “No, we don’t.”

Chris Dreyer:

I’m Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. If today’s show gave you some food for thought, do me a solid, let me know what you like and what you don’t like and click that follow button so you never miss an episode. Come back for fresh interviews from the best in the business. Now get out there and dominate.