Dennis Meador: The Surprising Truth About 50 Loyal Listeners

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County Living presents Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

I love rich buyers. You're not going to show up! You're not going to show up! You're not going to let me talk more. It's kind of a few seconds of argument. You don't have to let me talk. No, no, no. 

Rich Bennett 0:27
What if the most powerful way to grow a business isn't by talking louder, but by helping other people tell their stories? And what if the lessons you learn while building a company from the ground up, end up changing to a UC leadership, marketing, and even human connection? Today I'm joined by entrepreneur Dennis Meatter, a man who's been forged in his own path since he was a teenager. From years of legal marketing and serving as a pastor to founding the legal podcast network and helping attorneys build trust through authentic conversations, Dennis has discovered that real influence is built on sales pitches. It's built on serving people and giving them a platform to be heard. His journey is about taking risk, embracing change, improving that when you lead with authenticity, your story can become your greatest asset. Do you ever wondered what it really takes to build something meaningful? Or why conversations may be the most valuable business tool we have? To grab your drink whether it's coffee, water, soda, bourbon, whatever. And sit there because you're going to learn a lot from this or how's it going, Dennis? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 1:42
Very good. And feel free to call me DM. I am a junior. So in my mind, Dennis is my dad. But if in your head I've been Dennis as you prepped and prepped, don't worry about it. But my friends and family call me DM. If you choose not to, I'll see where we stand. 

Rich Bennett 1:56
And just don't call you late for dinner, right? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 1:58
Yeah, something like that. 

Rich Bennett 2:00
Hey, I'm a second and it's a lot of people we, I don't know, I have several different needs. It's either Rich, Richie, Richard or rocker. He's a regular guy, never dick. Although my son for some reason has his friends calling me that my father was dick. He always went by, actually, he went by Jimmy dick. And it's like, no, there's only one. I'm not him. So 

Dennis "DM" Meador 2:24
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 2:25
I want to start at the beginning because I think every successful entrepreneur has a story that most people never hear. 

And businesses centered around helping other share their voices. So looking back, what were some of the defining moments that shaped the entrepreneur and the person that you've become today. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 2:53
Well, there's a couple of them. I think one of the biggest, most seminal moments of like where I. determined that I was going to not be end up in the station and life of where I was as a child. And I think I was 10 or 11 years old. It was a late night. My mother was often in very unhealthy relationships. And she also, there's a lot of partying and things like that going on And drive by shootings, parting every night, just very crazy kind of stuff going on in our life. And one night, about three in the morning, I took my mom and my sister. And me and my sister were just talking about this story the other night because she's actually here visiting me here in Meredith. 

There was a family is about a block and halfway from us that was poor than we were. So it's kind of my last stop to try to take them because my mom and whoever she is with at the time, it got in a fight. There was some, you know, physical things that happened. And so she's crying and bruised up. Yeah, I was ugly. So I take them down a block and a half away or whatever. And we're laying there. And the ladies like, do you want me to turn the light off and I look around and there's roaches and mice everywhere. I'm laying on the couch, my sister's on a cot. And I just said, no, I prefer to sleep with the light on my sister was already cocked out. And I spent all night flicking roaches and knocking mice off of her. So she could sleep. And I remember in that moment, saying to myself, when I grow up, I will not be poor. 

Rich Bennett 4:43
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 4:43
And like, that was like a mantra for the next 10, 12 years until I got into my early 20s and kind of took off with my career, sort of making six figures, things like that. That was definitely a seminal moment because from that point forward and I was always already doing things like, you know, we lived in Iowa, there was a nickel can. So every morning we would wake up and we would dump out the stale beer out of usually there was two, three hundred beer cans sitting there every morning from the night before just to contextualize. So me and my sister would take that. We could usually give us about $10, $12, $15 worth and that's what we'd use to eat that next day.That's  how we fed ourselves unless there was some sort of school food program or 

Rich Bennett 5:24
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 5:24
something going on. So I became aware of money and the need for it pretty young. Then my dad got remarried and we moved in with him and his new wife. Now we're in like, we moved from like kind of the poorest part of town or the area that we were in to like the bottom of the middle. You could just say 

Rich Bennett 5:48
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 5:48
that, right? Like we're getting church, we're getting church pantry stuff, we're getting food from the church. But there's like not roaches and mice crawling on us and you know there's not like criminal events happening. So we moved, I moved there and that's when I started my, I need to call it a business. I'm out shoveling snow. I had another friend that he kind of was making money and he's like, here's how I make money kind of from poor family as well. And he was like, here's how I'm making money where shoveling snow when it, you know, we can make like a hundred bucks in a day and didn't take long. I figured out like my brother and his friend didn't want to knock on doors. I didn't want to shovel snow. So I would put them on shoveling and I would go get the next job. And that 

Rich Bennett 6:32
part 

Dennis "DM" Meador 6:32
turned into a full like snow shoveling paper routes, breaking leaves, mowing lawns, year round, four or five, 12 or 13 year old boys. For the next few years, I would get the jobs. I would collect the money. I was the face of the company. And then they would do the jobs. And they would say, well, why do you get half? I did the work. And I said, you want to get the client. Well, no, I don't want, okay, then this is how it works. So, you know, that's 

Rich Bennett 6:55
commissions better. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 6:57
Yeah,exactly . You know, so I just ended up like because I had to be aware of finances at a young age, then it was like, now how do I do this as efficiently as possible with 

Rich Bennett 7:08
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 7:08
still being able to like be a kid and play basketball and, you know, do all the things I wanted to do and not just be a 14 year old kid with no life. So I just kind of started seeing like things around me how I could make money quicker. And the more I got into that, the more I learned how to make more money quicker. And it's just kind of snowballed from there. Why? Whereby my early 20s started my first like full fledged company within a year. We were doing over $3 million, almost $4 million. And 

Rich Bennett 7:41
what kind of company was that? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 7:42
It was a marketing company. I got into marketing at 19. I came up with this concept called a just encased emergency guide. It was a six by nine magnet with 10 to 12 numbers that you needed a moment's notice like poison control animal control on call nurses at the hospital around the bordering sides of the of the magnet. There are 10 two by two spaces where we feature 10 prominent local businesses. The police, the police officers or the fire department community liaison officer or the Red Cross, it's going to hand these out during their community activities. And this local high traffic pizza place is going to put them on their boxes. We're going to put out 5,000 of these and you can be the exclusive X, Y or Z for only three or $500 depending on if you want one or two spots 

Rich Bennett 8:27
brilliant. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 8:30
That's brilliant. So that's that's not the exact script that I wrote 20 

Rich Bennett 8:34
close enough right 

Dennis "DM" Meador 8:35
27 years ago, but that was the premise. And so I did that and within a year, like I said, things were taking off and I ended up kind of running it from I built a house in Romania. The girl I was married to at the time was from there originally. And so we went there. I built house and I ran that business on calling cards and 

Rich Bennett 9:00
dial up internet from Romania. Dial up internet from Romania. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 9:03
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 9:04
Wow. Wow. And computers weren't that fast back then either. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 9:09
No, no, no. I mean, this was 2,000, 2, 3, 4, those years. So, well, no, it was 2,000, 3, 4, 5. 

Rich Bennett 9:22
Sorry. So back then, too. No, you had cell phones, but you started a long distance, didn't you? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 9:28
Oh, yeah, that's why I use calling cards. It was like $80 a minute to call the US from there at that time, but it was only $3. 75 cents with these calling cards. But you remember the calling cards? 

Rich Bennett 9:38
Oh, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 9:39
You dial the number and then you wait and then you hit the 16 digits on the back and then you wait and then you dial the and you mess up one number in the sequence of like 40 numbers. And or 30 something numbers and you have to start all over. It was it was a frustrating process. I remember sitting in Romania thinking someday we're going to use the internet to call people. Some day we're going to use the internet to watch TV. I remember thinking that 

Rich Bennett 10:07
yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:07
and now here we are just 20 years later and like, you know, I haven't had traditional cable or a traditional phone line for 15 years. Like I just watched Netflix. I just watch like, 

Rich Bennett 10:17
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:17
you know, and here. I mean, I'm in merit of Mexico. You are 

Rich Bennett 10:21
in Maryland. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:23
Maryland. Yeah. So, 

Rich Bennett 10:24
can you share? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:25
I mean, look at this, just a streaming talking like it's so much has changed 

Rich Bennett 10:30
in it's 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:31
in my career, I feel very lucky to have been in this section of the 

Rich Bennett 10:36
yeah 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:36
history of the world. 

Rich Bennett 10:37
It's funny because I remember I want to say it was in the 70s or maybe early 80s. Remember, remember the magazine popular mechanics. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:48
I remember. Yes, I remember it. 

Rich Bennett 10:50
That one of the things they were talking about. There's an article about video phones. So you can video chat 

Dennis "DM" Meador 10:58
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 10:58
about how this was something in the future. We had no idea it was going to be a real thing and wireless to top it off. You know, here. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:07
I mean, who knew that? Who knew that Dick Tracy was just wearing an Apple watch? 

Rich Bennett 11:14
I never thought of that. But 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:15
you're 

Rich Bennett 11:19
wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:20
That's the title of this episode, by 

Rich Bennett 11:21
way. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:21
the 

Rich Bennett 11:22
Oh, yeah, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:22
more clicks, my friend. The title is who knew that it was just wearing an 

Rich Bennett 11:27
watch. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:27
Apple don't get you more 

Rich Bennett 11:29
I 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:29
than Dennis, better entrepreneur, blah, blah, blah. People are going to be like, I don't want to hear But 

Rich Bennett 11:35
a DM. Here's the sad thing. How many people will look at it and say, who's Dick Tracy? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 11:40
Hey, man. You know what? Maybe, maybe they'll just laugh and be like, I don't know what that means, but I'll click on it. 

Rich Bennett 11:47
Oh, God, something you, something else you said earlier too. And this is something you don't see a lot anymore. 

I've only seen two other kids do it around here. But as a, as a young man, you were out there shut. Well, I'll take it back. You're, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 12:07
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 12:07
you had people shoveling. You were knocking on the doors, but a lot of kids don't do that today. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 12:14
No. Well, 

Rich Bennett 12:15
grass or anything. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 12:16
Well, you got to realize some kid got kidnapped 10 years ago. So no kid should be out on the street. So, you know, um, and let's not, let's not sound like a boomer and an ex right now and talk about back in our day. But things are just different now. And that's okay. Like, like, different isn't always better, but it often is. 

Rich Bennett 12:38
yeah, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 12:38
And because of just the plain out, you know, whether you talk about iterations, evolution, whatever words you want to use, as things, as we progress your life in a society progresses, you know, that next thing is always a, a desire for convenience or profit or something. So you know, we're seeing just the compilation of that. And that means that our, the children that we see nowadays typically are raised different than we were raised. Much less vitamin D than we had, they don't drink from hoses anymore. That's why they only grow to be 5 foot 8. I don't know. I'm just making up shit now. So I 

Rich Bennett 13:22
have to ask you this because when I put together the introduction, I had to do a double take and I had to look again. I'm like, wait a minute. Why becoming a pastor? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 13:35
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:35
Okay. What led you down that path and how long did you do it for? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 13:40
So this is I moved in with my dad, like I said, at 13, I believe. And you know, my dad was heavy into church. My parents were having a church when I was a kid, and then when they got divorced, they kind of took two different paths in life. And so people have asked me, like, if I wrote a book about my life, like, what would you call it? And I always tell people that he's a preacher mom as a prostitute because that was my life. And 

Rich Bennett 14:03
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 14:04
so I moved in with my dad and we got involved into church. And then my hero became like was my youth pastor and like we were heavy into church as an independent fundamental Baptist churches. If you know much about that, sort of stripe of people are pretty intense. 

Rich Bennett 14:19
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 14:20
And so at the turn the summer, I turned 16. I went down to Mississippi to my youth pastor, taking his first church. And 

I was like, "Oh, I'm going to be a preacher when I grow up." So I said, "Okay, tomorrow, you're on." And I got up. I preached. It went well. And I was like, "I guess this is what I do." And so, 16, we moved to another city in Iowa. And I kind of became like the default teacher. And I would speak in church here and there. And then at 18, I password my first church. When I moved Romania, I moved there because for mission work. So I was been a pastor, missionary, an evangelist. And then a youth pastor. And then when I, I did that until I was 34. And then at 34, I had a breakdown. I always ran one or two companies. I always took like churches or ministries that were struggling. And then I would build them up and bring somebody in. Because 

Rich Bennett 15:20
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 15:20
I was like, "You can't afford to pay me what I want to make, but I want to do this." So I make my own money. I'll come in. I'll chip in. We'll do this shoulder to shoulder. And then when it grows to a certain size, and you can afford to get somebody, then I'll let them step in and I'll step on to the next thing. So I did that for, yeah, up until I was about 34. I had a nervous breakdown. I mean, again, I'm running usually one, two companies. I'm pastoring. I've got three kids. From the time I was 18 to the time I was 34, I literally believed every moment must be monetized. If I watched TV, it was a documentary that I was using to study for something I 

Rich Bennett 16:01
teach. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 16:01
wanted to From six in the morning till 8, 9, 10 at night, every day, seven days a week, I just worked in some capacity. And obviously I know that's not healthy now. And I've tried to adjust over the last 15 years. But that was kind of part of the reason that I kind of transitioned away from it. And then just kind of started looking at things differently, you could say 40. I got my first tattoo, sat for nine hours and got an outline 

Rich Bennett 16:30
first, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 16:30
for my 

Rich Bennett 16:31
at 

Dennis "DM" Meador 16:31
very 

Rich Bennett 16:31
40, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 16:32
at 40. I took my first drink of alcohol at 36, smoked weed for the first time at 38. So like, yeah, I mean, I was a straight arrow laced or whatever word you used as it comes.I  was intense and got put on my back and it made me look at life a little bit differently. And I 

Rich Bennett 16:53
right 

Dennis "DM" Meador 16:54
realized that I want to do life a little bit differently. So here I am. 

Rich Bennett 16:58
Do you think there's years as a pastor has helped you with what you're doing now? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 17:03
Absolutely. Leading is leading, you know. And leading, learning to lead without using power and authority is an important skill set. And although I was in a group of churches that really the preacher man is in charge sort of like mind frame, I never had that mind 

Rich Bennett 17:23
frame. Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 17:24
I was always more like this. And I want to lead by example, I want to lead together. I want to be shoulder to shoulder. Don't call me sir. Don't call me mister. I'm just, I'm just Dennis. I'm just DM. And so, you know, and that's also helped me run remote companies because with remote companies, it's kind of the same thing. You have to motivate people to move. You can't just like, you know, hit them with a big stick and be like, you're going to do what I say because I have this position. And because of the evolution of society as a whole, that's helped me be a better leader because that sort of leadership style does not fly anymore. It's 

Rich Bennett 17:57
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 17:58
not accepted. 

Rich Bennett 17:59
Well, no, I mean, the thing is nowadays. And I think I learned this from the time in the military. Teamwork was always a big thing. Yeah, we had leaders. And sometimes because the officers, they always told you what to do. But we were always the ones to correct them to tell them the right way to do 

Dennis "DM" Meador 18:23
it. Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 18:24
but it was always a team effort as well. And if one person on the team messed up, then of course, everybody paid for it. But 

Dennis "DM" Meador 18:32
right 

Rich Bennett 18:32
to help them again, you help that team member back up and brought them back up. And also, all right. So now, because you've been in marketing forever, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 18:43
30 years. 

Rich Bennett 18:44
Well, 30 years, but what got you into the podcasting part? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 18:50
When I lived in Austin, I did a podcast project that I was just like, you know, Austin supposed to be this was like 2019. Obviously everybody knows just before what, uhm,so  I was like, Austin's supposed to be this really cool place. 

Rich Bennett 19:08
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 19:09
But no one is really like showing how cool it is from the ground. 

I have a video podcast called A-T-X-A-F, uh, exactly what it meant at the time, Austin Texas's 

Rich Bennett 19:37
Oh, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 19:37
fuck. 

Rich Bennett 19:37
Austin, okay. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 19:38
Yes. Um, and so I started it and it was, um, you know, it did well. It wasn't like lighting the world on fire, but I made some really great friends and connections out of it. Really, for me, it was just like an opportunity to be a part of a community that I kind of, I was kind of a part of because I had like an Instagram following blah, blah, blah. But it really entrenched me with like the music grew, you know, music crowd and all of that, uh, entrepreneur chefs, you know, all these people and I just, I just did it different. I had a like HD, I had a three camera crew, I had two audio guy, I had like a crew of 10. Then we would like set up at like cool places around town. We would have these cool people around town. And I'd have cool conversations and I became this cool guy, or at least in a few people's mind, I'd like to think. And so I enjoyed that, but I didn't, I didn't see it as like, I mean, I, I think I spent in three months, I put out 60 episodes, three months, and I spent like 150 grand on it. No 

Rich Bennett 20:42
wow, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 20:43
monetization desire like I was just like this, I'm just learning here. And then it like kind of like started like really going and all of a sudden like the state sounds or what did the sound stage, like we were going to setting up, we were going to have like full network and we were going to put on like a television streaming network and 

Rich Bennett 21:02
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 21:02
we were had all these shows and development. Wait a minute, wait, hold up, hold up. I have a whole business over here where I'm actually financing all this out of my own pocket. And like, I'm now working like I did in my 20s and in my early 30s where I'm working. It's 14, 16 hour days again. And, and I'm just like going all the time and nonstop nine hours a day on social media, while I'm running, you know, basically two full companies while I'm in. So I just was like no guys like I make my money over here, I need to stop and then I did and I kind of put that in my back pocket. 

Rich Bennett 21:43
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 21:43
And was just like I learned a lot, production quality was I think one of the biggest things I learned. And then with my I was doing the other company I had I was doing SEO with attorneys I had a partner. And I was like, we whenever we would offer a podcast like kind of a done for you sort of podcast product, the attorneys would just eat it up. And then they would start asking me, Hey, are you guys doing that podcast thing again. Hey, can you help me get a podcast. And I went to my partner and he had like three podcasts. I was like, dude, we should create a podcast network. We both have been working with attorneys for years. Like let's create a podcast network. He's like, no, I want to create an answering service. I think that's bigger need in the marketplace. I was like, All right, dude. So this thing could have been this thing could have come out like in like 20 22 or 23 

Rich Bennett 22:34
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 22:35
But instead it, you know, I mean all things are done in the right time. So I was just like December 1st of 2023. It was time for my partner to either give me 50% of the business or give me a, like a buyout and he chose the buyout even though when I joined him four years before that, four and a half years. No, it was a five year because it was a five year contract. When I joined him, the agreement was, he was doing, he had like 75 customers was doing less than a million. So here we are like five years later, we're over 400 clients. We're doing $5 million a year. I've come up with the process to tweak the product done what I do. It's just, you know, I've got, it's like I've been here before like this isn't a new thing for me scaling a 

Rich Bennett 23:23
yeah, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 23:23
business. So he decided to exercise the buyout because the buyout was based on the valuation of the company four years ago, five years ago. So he exercised it and I was like, OK, so I'm four months away from my wedding, living on that island in Belize. Wow. And I say to my wife, my then fiance, hey, you know that X amount of dollars I've been making every year that I told you and we don't have to worry. Well, that's gone. I got to figure out a new way to make money. And she's like, she's looked at me. She said, that's OK. I know you got this. 

Rich Bennett 23:56
Wow, that's. there. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 23:59
yeah. And so, you know, uhm, if you're crazy, Mary or crazy person, it works out well for 

Rich Bennett 24:05
you. [Laughs] 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:09
You can be crazy together! And so, I launched May 1st of 2024. Was my official launch date. I'd built the website, started getting clients, and 

Rich Bennett 24:17
started, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:18
like, building, like, here's what this is going to look like, and I got some buy-in. My first 10 clients, seven of are still clients. Uh, that's 

Rich Bennett 24:27
-- This is for LPN, right? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:27
This is for Legal Podcast Network, 

Rich Bennett 24:29
Okay. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:29
'cause we're a little over two years old now. We now have 250 clients, shows that we do. We have 90 people on the team. And we did seven figures first year, double, and we were on pace to double again. This year, 

Rich Bennett 24:44
Wow! 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:44
so double, 

Rich Bennett 24:46
double. I gotta admit, I've never heard of any attorneys doing a podcast until I came across your information. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:55
Well, now you know there's hundreds of them. 

Rich Bennett 24:57
Yeah. But 

Dennis "DM" Meador 24:58
I just need thousands, and then I'm, you know... 

Rich Bennett 25:01
Well, you would not be -- we were talking in the green room about how it makes sense for businesses to get on podcast. Well, an attorney is a business, but for an attorney to do it, "Oh my god, all the advice and everything they can provide." 

Dennis "DM" Meador 25:18
And that's exactly the way we frame it. So we do this different. Our attorneys aren't hosts, mostly they have hosts. 

Rich Bennett 25:27
Okay. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 25:27
So if you look at the YouTube channel, you can see the actual show, and it's the attorney answering the questions. So when they become our client, we find out who their client is, and we develop a content plan based on who their client is. And then we have a host who says, "Okay, John, if I'm going through -- I'm a business owner going through a divorce in Atlanta, and let's say I want to keep the lake house, how does that work? How would I make sure that happens?" You know, so they ask these questions, and then those questions become the podcast, and then that podcast becomes their social media, because we break it up into videos, and sound clips, and 

Rich Bennett 26:09
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 26:09
static ads, and then that podcast becomes website content, and then, so they give us 30 minutes, they've got a month's worth of content, they've got a show that goes out, they give us an hour a month, they've got two shows, two posts a day, on 11 outlets, five to seven pages of content. You know, they're guesting on shows, they have a streaming network show now, a YouTube channel, like we just take care of all of it for them, and that's why we call it Turnkey Podcasting, because they just show up and answer questions, like they would have a potential client was sitting across from them, and we take that moment and multiply it for them to their advantage. 

Rich Bennett 26:44
Now, and I love feel good stories, and I know you got a lot of them, even with the short time you've been doing LPN, can you share some stories about how some attorneys, how this is actually help them in their business? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 27:02
Oh, absolutely. We have, like, if you go to our site, you go to our YouTube channel, dozens, you look at our reviews, just say, legal podcast, the legal podcast network reviews, but we've got 40, 50 reviews out there of clients that are just like, some of our clients won't give testimonials, you know why, they don't want their client, they don't want their competition to know who we are and what we do. So some of our, we're like, Hey, you've been with us two years, could you do a testimony on there, just like, No, I'm okay, I don't need to do that, and I'm like, Why? And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I remember I've worked with you guys for decades, like, I know how it is, so let me give you, let me just give you a couple of stories. So what is it's December of 24 I call up this guy because I sold our, I think our first 90 or 100 clients because I build the sales processes, I write the scripts, I come up with the product blah, blah, blah. So I jump in, you know, I don't have anybody in sales yet. I'm doing all the selling for the first almost, you know, 8, really the first year. So I jump on a meeting with this guy and he's like, you know, I call call him off of a list, I've got these people, I've got an opted in list of attorneys that kind of follow me around because I've been doing this forever, so I could just start marketing to him. So I start, Hey, this is what I'm doing. This is how I'm doing it. And then I call him up, Hey man, like, obviously, don't talk like this, but hey man, like check out what I'm doing now and nobody like, Oh, yeah, I read your email here and there, it's good stuff every once in a while. You know, so I meet with them and he's like, here's what I do. Here's how I do it. December of 24, I'm like, I think this would be good. I was like, I mostly have focused on like local attorneys, but you do this nationwide thing. So his show launches, I think late January or February of 25 and had a little show about tariffs and border compliance, I don't know if you paid much 

Rich Bennett 28:55
them. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 28:55
attention 

Rich Bennett 28:55
Good 

Dennis "DM" Meador 28:55
to 

Rich Bennett 28:56
timing. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 28:56
New year's The Past two years. He went from regionally referred to nationally waitlisted with his client base. 

Rich Bennett 29:07
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 29:08
Because, and now honestly, that's fortuitous. Like that's not like, uh, the world's both skilled marketer, you better hope to line up that work with me. It's like, that's a little fortuitous. But we have a lot of clients because what this does is it allows them to build relationships 

Rich Bennett 29:28
Yes. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 29:28
before they ever come in. Which does a few things. One is it pre-cells the person. So when they come in, they're not saying things like, well, how much is this? And, you know, well, why should I work with you? They're coming in saying, Hey, I've been watching your stuff. Listening to it, seeing it. What is it going to take to work with you? And so, yeah, I mean, like I said, I've got several dozen clients that have given testimonies. And I never hide this. Like, typically it takes six to eight months of doing this the way we do it to scale out through the algorithms and social 

Rich Bennett 30:00
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 30:01
media to show up in like the LLM's, like chat GPT and Claude, like this stuff takes a little bit of time. But at around six to eight months, generally, our clients start seeing and hearing people calling in, not asking about price, saying you were already my attorney, I just needed to meet you like, you know, that the no like and trust is already there. What I say is it's no like confirming the trust. So they call you. And as long as you are the person that they saw in the podcast, they are calling you to work with you. 

Rich Bennett 30:33
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 30:34
And so, you know, it's, it's and they're not, they're not comparing prices among attorneys, they're comparing attorneys by their knowledge and skill set, which is what used to happen. And that's why we call it like authoritative positioning is because we're trying to restore for knowledge workers like, you know, attorneys, professionals, whatever you do, we're trying to restore and not commoditize your, your intellectual property, which is your brain. So

Rich Bennett 31:06
Wow. that's brilliant. You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. I want to take a minute to talk about Hartford Tart magazine and full transparency. I'm proud to say I'm a business partner with them. Why? Because Hartford's heart is Hartford County's only truly local magazine. This isn't a franchise or a publication run from outside the area. It's built right here, focused on our community, our businesses and the people who make Hartford County special. I read every issue because it highlights local events, restaurants, nonprofits and businesses that deserve real visibility, not just an ad stuck on the page. As a business partner, I believe in what they're doing. And I trust the platform enough to put my name behind it. If you're a business, looking to connect with the community in a meaningful way, or a resident who wants to stay in the know, check them out at Hartford's heart dot com local matters at Hartford's heart gets that right. Now, have you thought about also doing this with businesses, all types of different businesses as well? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 32:28
Yes, we actually launched the authority podcast network a few months back. And that was just because I looked I looked inside of my clients, because I do that would just like look through the videos 

Rich Bennett 32:38
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 32:38
and stuff. And I was like, Why is this football coach here? Why is this guy who teaches kids how to get scholarships in baseball here? Why is this real estate agent here? And so I went to my team and I'm like, what, what is this, what's going on here guys? And they're like, they called us. We told them we're legal. They said they didn't care. They like what that what we offer. And so I was like, well, I planned on doing this like when I first like when I started getting on podcasts actually, I told people it'll about three years, five to six hundred clients. Or I'm paste for that three years to be at 500 clients. But because of this, I was like, all right, let's launch it early. So we launched it at two years just because we see the need. And then, you know, we have the guest matching service that we added this year. And we have a two streaming television networks that you can download on like Amazon fire, Roku, Samsung, Apple TV. Yeah. And so you just you download it. One of them is a channel for attorneys because we have about 25 or 30 shows where people work with attorneys. And so like everything from like building referral networks, dressing for success, mental health as an attorney. So we have like 25 shows with that. So we have a channel for that. And then we have a channel from attorneys to consumers where they can watch the podcast. And like, like let's say I'm in Boise, Idaho and I get hurt. I can like go on this app and I can like say I'm injured in Idaho and it'll show me all the Idaho podcasts about injury. And then I can watch those podcasts and find my attorney. 

Rich Bennett 34:18
Wow. 

Do you still feel that? Because I mean, you've mainly been dealing with attorneys. Well, no, nation wide. Well, throughout the world, right? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 34:32
Mostly nation wide. I mean, I talked to like I've talked to a few in the UK and a few in Australia because they've reached out to me to work with them. 

Rich Bennett 34:40
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 34:40
And then I just said, well, like, let me I did have somebody from Saudi Arabia, but I was like, ah, that seems weird. So not that I'd be against it. Like, I'll take oil money, sure. But like, you know, like I'm just like, okay, so yeah, I mean, all over the world, but really, yeah, all of our clients are in the US, but we do have people reaching out. And when they come from other countries, I'm just like, okay, well, let me check what works, like how I can make sure that I'm in compliance with because I know the US market for like legal and the disclosures and what states are, are forgiveness versus permission states for content marketing. So I kind of know that because I've been in the industry so long. So somebody comes to me from elsewhere and said, go, sure, I can sell you like, come on in, and then get them in trouble. I'm like, well, let me research. And then, and so some of them, I've come back and said, here's what I would need. Here's what you would need. So in order for this to make sense and thus far, we haven't had that, but it was the same thing with these other non-legal people. We did that with them. And then eventually it made sense. And then we broke it out. So if, if we find the other places, because my team is all over the world, 

Rich Bennett 35:54
yeah, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 35:55
like I have from the Philippines, I have Pakistan, I have South Africa, I have Nigeria, I have Finland, I have Mexico, I have Belize, I have the US obviously. You know, I mean, I've had upwards of 15 countries at one time in my company. 

Rich Bennett 36:14
Has there been any attorneys that you reached out to when you first started and they said, they weren't interested, it would never work or something like that. And now they're contacting you. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 36:26
We're at too high of a scale for me to really know that 

Rich Bennett 36:28
Okay. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 36:29
because like, I just don't scale on a day-to-day basis. I 

Rich Bennett 36:33
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 36:33
mean, I know that I, I get clients that I recognize their name, but I've been in this industry so long, I recognize everybody's name and I'm not sure if it's because I actually do, or I've just talked to so many attorneys for, 

Rich Bennett 36:46
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 36:46
because I was thinking about like my trajectory of 30 years of doing, you know, legal marketing, often on, not exclusively. I probably have worked with over 2000 attorneys. 

Rich Bennett 36:57
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 36:58
So like, it's kind of hard to be like, I have 50,000 attorneys in that email database that I was telling you about, that I send five days a week, tips and tricks, how to run their practice, blah, blah, blah. So we have 250,000 attorneys slash law firms that we market to, there's 360,000 that fit our demographic. At any given time, we're marketing to about 75,000 law firms. So it's kind of, and, but we're doing like we've got our email newsletter, we do LinkedIn, we've got LinkedIn ads, we've got meta, we've got 11 different, we've got 11 different outlets, social media outlets with four different internal brands plus my personal brand. So we're marketing to literally, you know, I mean, yeah, we're marketing on a very, very high scale, but that's what I do. I love it. Like it's, you know, and what's really changed in the past year, especially, we're starting to see a lot of fruition. One of the guys who sells for for me, he recruited me into the industry 22 years ago. Now he's selling the product for me. We've worked together off and on through through the last 20 years. and I said, what are you guys noticing? What's going on? And he said, you know, it's getting easier to sell believe it or not because they see you, they watch you on a podcast, they hear you, they see you in social media, they have friends that work with you 

Rich Bennett 38:22
You're 

Dennis "DM" Meador 38:23
like 

Rich Bennett 38:23
building, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 38:23
I could 

Rich Bennett 38:23
give you trust. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 38:24
Yeah, I could give you story after I was at a podcast festival. And there was like a handful of legal podcasters there. We did a roundtable podcast with the guy. And the guy intros, he goes to me. I say, oh, I do the legal podcast. And the first question was, how do you know it works? And so I said, oh, this is why I know it works. The next guy was a lawyer who'd had his own podcast for a long time. And he said, but I'm learning that it doesn't just work for podcasters who are lawyers, but it also works for lawyers who are podcasters because my brother and law is also a lawyer. And I didn't know this till I sat next to DM here. He's DM's client and he's been getting clients like crazy. And I was just like, you've got more clients out of your podcast in the little bit of time that you've been doing, then I've been getting out of mine for years. What are you? What is this guy doing that's different than my own podcasting? And I was just like, man, I couldn't have paid for that. Like, I'll 

Rich Bennett 39:14
it. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 39:14
take 

Rich Bennett 39:16
Well, the other good thing with that is because him, he has his own podcast. It's not part of a big network. You have the whole network. So people can go 

Dennis "DM" Meador 39:25
Yeah. Yes, but the network is comprised of several small networks. What works for my clients? So like what I tell my clients is this, you don't want 50,000 downloads of your podcast. You want 50 downloads from local people who five of them hire you. 

Rich Bennett 39:42
there. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 39:43
That's, that's the metric that matters when you're a professional who or a business who podcasts. You're not looking for a million views or 10,000 downloads. You're not trying to be top 10 podcasts 

Rich Bennett 39:54
league. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 39:54
in the 

Rich Bennett 39:54
Right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 39:55
History, unless you're trying to be a thought leader and get on stage or have other attorneys say you're awesome. But if you're trying to get more clients, that's a totally different game than what even 

Rich Bennett 40:07
Yep. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:07
you and I are doing right now. 

Rich Bennett 40:09
Yeah, you're usually as a business tool. is. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:12
Yeah, that's 

Rich Bennett 40:12
Which is what 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:12
exactly 

Rich Bennett 40:12
you 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:13
what it 

Rich Bennett 40:13
should be doing? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:14
So I thought of a, so when I came up with like, and I don't say came up because I'm like, because people are like, wow, like providing a host. I haven't heard of that before. Do you come up with that? And I'm like, I kind of assumed it already was happening. 

Rich Bennett 40:28
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:28
Like I didn't look to see if it was or wasn't. I was just like, this makes sense. Like, because right now rich, let's be honest. And I look at all, I looked at all your tabs. All your tabs are, come listen to about John Johnson's story and come listen to Sally Smith's story and come listen to DM Metter's story. Like you, your job is to lift, maybe lift isn't the right word, but your job is to provide me to your audience. 

Rich Bennett 40:57
Right. Highlight you. Highlight 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:59
And 

Rich Bennett 40:59
the 

Dennis "DM" Meador 40:59
highlight 

Rich Bennett 40:59
gap. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 41:00
me. Well, if I'm trying to get business out of this, highlighting other people outside of the law of karma, which takes 100 episodes and two to three years, to get that karma back is what we're kind of seeing in the industry for business podcasters. When you highlight others first, it takes 100 episodes, two to three years. 

Rich Bennett 41:19
Yeah. Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 41:20
Our method highlights our clients first. And like I said, it takes about six to eight months. Number of episodes. It really doesn't matter. It's more consistency. I like to see my clients do two a month. That seems to be the right. But over over half my clients do two episodes a month, 40% do one episode a month. And 10% do four episodes a month. The four episodes a month are my most, are my most dominant. They, 

Rich Bennett 41:45
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 41:46
I just had yesterday my very first four episode person is a, as a personal injury attorney named Sige Shachad in Miami, Florida. Sige is what I tell people are biggest and most important client because he's been. He's one of the first 10 I sold the first person I sold multiple episodes to. And it was a weekly episode. So somebody one of my cold callers was like, hey, I just called this guy. And I pitched him and he said, I can't work with you. Sige Shachad works with you. He already has my market, and I don't want any other market, but this one, but thanks for calling me. I really like you guys. I listen to your episodes and I follow you guys everywhere. 

Rich Bennett 42:27
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 42:28
So, you know, like it's one of those things. And so he, he is known in his market, not because of us, but conjunction with what we're doing. 

Rich Bennett 42:42
in 

Dennis "DM" Meador 42:42
He owns his market. And that's the other thing we do. For the legal part, there's going to Some like different industries. We do it outside of legal is we don't duplicate so he's my Miami personal injury attorney. Somebody calls me and says, I'll pay you $5, 000. I say I'm under contract with Segi, he's my client. I'm contractually obligated. I set it up this way. As long as he remains active, he is my client in that market and I cannot work with you. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 43:10
That's smart. That's smart. I do the same thing with my with my top level sponsors. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 43:16
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 43:17
Of course. And they stay when when that happens, when you do that, they're loyal to you, because you're showing loyal to either them as well. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 43:26
I mean, I have people sometimes that will just like say, Okay, I'm going to get this spot now so no one can get it. But I'm not going to be ready for four months. Can I start then? And I'll be like, so you want to pay me to do nothing until like, yeah, I want to pay you so they don't get it, but I want it, but I'm not ready. I'm like, I'll take free money. It doesn't happen all the 

Rich Bennett 43:45
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 43:45
time. It's like, it happens three times a week, but it definitely has happened. 

Rich Bennett 43:49
Yeah. All right, so here we've been talking about attorneys and again, we mentioned this in the green room a little bit, but tell all those entrepreneurs and business owners out there. Why it is, especially when it comes to marketing. Why it is so important to get on podcast today. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 44:09
Well, a couple of reasons and to get on podcast number 

Rich Bennett 44:13
Yeah, to 

Dennis "DM" Meador 44:14
one 

Rich Bennett 44:14
guess. Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 44:14
is it. Yeah, it's a guest on podcasts is great, but I think it's important where you guest. So I did 99 spots last year. My goal was to do 100. I stopped at 99 just so I can tell people if you're having pod problems,I  feel bad for you son. I did 99 podcasts, but a pitch ain't one. So 

Rich Bennett 44:35
I. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 44:36
And I've done probably year to date at least 50 and so I've learned quite a bit about return on investment things like that. So you want to make sure that the podcast that you're on are reaching to your potential clients. So like there were, you know, that's number one. You also want to make sure that you know that the podcast that you that you're going on is offering value whether they have an engaged audience or if they don't have an engaged audience, are they doing helping you build assets like clips From the show, 

Rich Bennett 45:14
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 45:14
you know, the video clips, the audio clips all of the things that you can build out of it, you know, either yourself or I know like you use the script, the script does it for you. So like not does it for you, but does it with you quickly to build clips and all of that. So like there's that advantage. Then there's building trust. We have, we just had like, I think in the last two weeks, we've had like five people under mediation and arbitration come in and our team was like where are all these mediators coming from. And I was like, Oh yeah, I did a couple of shows into two shows of mediation arbitration. And since then they just been calling in, How do I work with you guys. How do I work with you guys. You do it with the right person or the right, you know, show. And then, you know, if you don't do it the right show, you build assets out of it. So you're not ever wasting time. And then on top of it, you're coming in and, you know, some people like you, some people will love you, but at least they know you. That's the way I look at it. Love me, hate me. Just don't forget me, 

Rich Bennett 46:21
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 46:22
Right. So everybody is afraid to be hated. The problem with being afraid to be hated is you also don't get loved. So, you know, like you've got to put yourself out there. your mama, I get it. Your mama loves you. You know, but besides your mama, if you're, if you're not happy with just mama loving you, then you've got to be willing to put yourself out there a little bit 

Rich Bennett 46:44
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 46:44
and 

Rich Bennett 46:44
Besides 

Dennis "DM" Meador 46:44
be yourself. Talk a little too fast. I talk at a 1.5, like speed rate, typically. I purposely slowed down on this, this podcast because I'm trying to get better with it. I, I, I, I cuss way too much. I use like way too much when my brain is going a thousand miles an hour. The other day I did two podcasts after putting out fires for six hours in my company. I was wound up and I got on this podcast like, 

Rich Bennett 47:10
like, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:10
like, like, 

Rich Bennett 47:11
like, like, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:11
like. Like, and I was just like, and I just didn't literally there, but I got to the end of the show and the end of the day and I go. Man, I sound awful on these podcasts. I hope they help. You know, but some people, they listen to my podcast, whether they, whether I say fuck, whether I say like 50 times, They like what I have. Yeah. So like, there's some people that do that. I'll give you an example of it. LinkedIn. That's kind my main playground 

Rich Bennett 47:41
right? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:42
socially. I got, I got LinkedIn jail for two weeks. I did not. I had 

Rich Bennett 47:49
jail. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:50
Yeah. Well, you know, they, they, they shut down my account. 

Rich Bennett 47:53
Yeah, I didn't know they did. I knew 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:55
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 47:55
Facebook. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 47:55
I was, I was in this, I was in my account the same time as my VA. And so they're like, you shared your log-in. So I get in LinkedIn jail about four or five days into it. I start hearing, hey, I got another call. Some guy who follows you on LinkedIn wanted to make sure that you're okay. Can I just tell these people you're okay? Can I give them your email? This one guy says he's your biggest fan. He wants to, he, he watched every bam man episode. So I have a, a, a, I animated 90s superhero cartoon inspired podcast for lawyers called BAM building authority through media. 

Rich Bennett 48:33
Mm-hmm. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 48:34
And you know, we have fun with it. It's just actually, I'm getting ready to record an episode after we get off of this. I'm about to record an episode in three minutes. So, um, So he says he's he's your biggest fan. He said, tell him that he follows BAM. He asked me to tell you he follows BAM man and he just wants to make sure you're okay. Can I give him your direct email? Is my, my, EA was asking this and I was like, yeah, that's why because I have like a set of com stuff where it goes to her and then she 

Rich Bennett 49:02
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:02
can like, and then send it to me and I was like, yeah, that's fine. So I sent him and then like I post, I kid you not. I posted on LinkedIn when I, it was about a week later or a couple days later, when I got back on LinkedIn, I posted and immediately he replied back to me. Oh, you're back. 

Rich Bennett 49:17
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:19
And he's just like, I don't, I don't even remember. Like he's just this attorney's not a client. He don't like, he just has been following me on this and that and he gets my email and he does, and again, I'm not saying I'm necessarily worth this. But if I hadn't put myself out there, it would this sort of like sort of kind of weird. And I'm not 

Rich Bennett 49:40
you 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:40
saying 

Rich Bennett 49:40
feel good though. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:42
Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, people 

Rich Bennett 49:44
you're one, maybe that's not the right word. I 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:48
people 

Rich Bennett 49:48
mean, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:48
are listening. 

Rich Bennett 49:49
Yes. That yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:51
Because sometimes I don't know about you rich, but it feels like you're shouting into a black void. 

Rich Bennett 49:56
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 49:57
And you're just like, here's my opinion. Does anybody want to hear it? Hear 

Rich Bennett 50:01
it? Hear it. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:03
Here's like, hey, I know what I'm doing. Let me help you. 

Rich Bennett 50:08
Help you. It's 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:09
like, you know, so I understand that feeling. So yes, that is comforting to know that you're not always completely shouting into just the abyss. 

Rich Bennett 50:18
Yes. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:19
I'm very thankful for that. But like, I'll have people say like, you know, like, oh, what do you do? Oh, I do some podcast. And they'll come back. Dude, like, I checked out your stuff, like, like, you're kind of like a thing. And I'm like, like, 15 attorneys think I'm a thing. Like, it's not that big of a deal. Don't worry. Like, you know, so it's just fun. 

Rich Bennett 50:40
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:41
But, but, This enables me to spend my time doing something I love. So because I'm willing to put myself out there because, hey, listen, I also get hate mail every day. 

Rich Bennett 50:53
oh, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:53
You motherfucker. 

Rich Bennett 50:54
yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 50:55
You think you know, you're not even an attorney. You're just like, hey, thanks for emailing. I'll take that in a consideration, you know. So, so, you know, for every one fan, you have about five people who fucking hate your guts. 

Rich Bennett 51:09
I never thought I would see that. And sure enough, I had a guest on and I, I was getting hate mail and hate reviews. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 51:20
Yep. I got a couple of those recently. 

Rich Bennett 51:21
We because of the guests, I'm like, they're, their story they were almost great. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 51:28
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:29
Well, you should have heard the other person's story. The other person was invited. They never came on. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 51:35
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:35
So, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 51:36
no, yeah. I mean, so it's, so as a business owner, why should you be on podcasts because it helps you build relationships with people at scale in an evergreen way. How can I capture 30 minutes of my time two years ago and allow that to bring me a new client every seven weeks? 

Rich Bennett 52:00
Yeah.

Dennis "DM" Meador 52:01
You tell me another way to do that. because most marketing is PPC. I spent 10 grand this month on PPC. What did I get out of? I got nothing. Google doesn't send you and I'm sorry, let her let's, I'll give you 10 grand in credit. But if you spend time on a podcast, you can build social media videos and clips and things like that. And let's not say get your name out there. I hate when people say that. It's like, everybody's is out there. We all have a Facebook page. 

Rich Bennett 52:30
Right . 

Dennis "DM" Meador 52:30
It's, get a chance to connect with people and have them see you for who you really are. You're not just a logo, you're not just a suit, you're not just a lawyer, not just an accountant, you're not just a coach, you're not just an x, y, or z, you're a real person with real intelligence and real feelings and real ways that you can connect with people and you help, you really help 

Rich Bennett 52:50
people. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 52:51
when you hide behind a logo as a business owner, people don't trust logos anymore. And I'll pitch, I have another podcast that I do called Authority Matters. And there's, I've got eight episodes that have come out. And I basically talk about the evolution of authority into the internet. And now how do you cultivate authority? And what is proper authority on the internet to use it to cultivate better clients and more ideal clients? So like, you know, the other one that I do, I have on like marketing, like people, and then we 

Rich Bennett 53:24
So 

Dennis "DM" Meador 53:24
talk, but it's like a show and it's like a story. So this one is more about just authority in, you know, how often should you post? What's too much? What's not enough? Should you do this? Should you do that? Like, all of these things. So it's just me trying to a help to people. 

Rich Bennett 53:39
Yeah. Which is good. That's important. Yeah, we need more people like that. Something very important. Tell everybody your websites and how they can get in touch with you, especially if they want to be a guest on a podcast or be on lpn. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 53:55
Sure. So there is the legal podcast network.com. And then there is the authority podcast network.com. If you are in or serve the legal field, that's the legal. If you are a professional who wants to be known as an authority in your field, that's the authority. If you want to connect with me, Dennis, two ends, DM, letter D letter M, meta, connect with me there. I've got, I don't know, 9,000 or so people, primarily attorneys, but obviously that'll change as as our brand of valves. And that's how like, that's how you can actually know that you're I don't want to say no that you're talking to me, but like, that's where I'm actually in and out of. Like my Facebook stuff for the business and stuff. I have people that manage that. 

Rich Bennett 54:50
right. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 54:50
They take content that I create and they put it there. But like, if you want to connect with me, LinkedIn is the way to do it because I have real conversations back and forth. I mean, I bet like, I've been doing it six hours. Like my average day is like six hours on LinkedIn. So I'm trying to like, 

Rich Bennett 55:05
Wow. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 55:05
cut that way down. Hey, dude, when I had that other thing, it was nine. I told you nine, 10 hours a day with Instagram, Facebook, and all that stuff at the time. So I mean, I live and breathe this stuff. It's like sitting around, like some guys sit on the porch and chat with their buddies. I sit on LinkedIn and chat with my business friends all over the world. 

Rich Bennett 55:25
It's networking. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 55:27
There you go. 

Rich Bennett 55:28
I mean, you don't have to do it in person all the time. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 55:32
Dude, my whole everything I built is online for 

Rich Bennett 55:34
Yeah. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 55:35
20 years. Every since Facebook has hit the market, I haven't had to go to conferences. I haven't had to do this, do that, shake hands, influence, almost every single person on my team, and I have 90 people. I've only met maybe five of them. And some of them have worked for me for 10 years. 

Rich Bennett 55:52
I can't even tell you the last in person networking event I've been to all the different networks and now I'm talking about business networking. And the mastermind groups that I'm part of are all online with 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:08
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 56:08
people 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:08
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:08
from different parts of the world. And I think it's helped it's helped a lot because you're not hearing the same thing all the time, timing over and over again. So DM, is there anything you would like to add before I let you pick the last question. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:24
No, my man, I'm ready for the, you want me to come up with a question? Are you going to give me a 

Rich Bennett 56:30
between? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:30
choice 

Rich Bennett 56:30
I'm going to give you a choice. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:32
Oh, okay, let's pick the question and get out of here. Get these people, let's get these people home and in bed. Let's go. 

Rich Bennett 56:38
Pick a number between one and five, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:41
three, 

Rich Bennett 56:42
three, all right. Now I need you to pick a number between 41 and 60, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:49
41 and 60, 

Rich Bennett 56:50
yeah, 

Dennis "DM" Meador 56:51
52, 

Rich Bennett 56:52
52. I got these in blocks. 

You know what? This is a good question. What is something you've come to appreciate more as you've gotten older? 

Dennis "DM" Meador 57:06
I would say 

the cumulative effect of time. 

because I am a kind of person that pushes to get what they want. I work my I work my tail off to get it. I. I'll work 18 hours a day if I have to. You know, and I've had to learn to trust time. And it's the way that it builds and it, you know, compounds and like. And so yeah, that, that's it. The cumulative compounding effect of time. 

Rich Bennett 57:45
That's a great answer. I funny. How is we get older? We learn to appreciate time more. And it seems like it goes by faster. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 57:54
I mean, 

Rich Bennett 57:55
well, you haven't hit that age yet. You wait. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 57:59
Yeah, you're a boomer. Don't put me up there. 

Rich Bennett 58:04
DM, I want to thank you so much, man. It's been a blast and an honor. Continue success to you. And I have a funny feeling. We're going to be chatting again. 

Dennis "DM" Meador 58:14
All right, thanks, my man. I appreciate you. 

Rich Bennett 58:17
(laughs) Damn, another good conversation. God, I love doing this. You know, when DM and I started talking, I thought we were going to spend most of our time discussing marketing, podcasting, attorneys, and actually building an authority. And we certainly covered all of that. But underneath everything we talked about was something much bigger. The experiences that shape us. The risk were willing to take. And what happens when we finally learn that success doesn't always have to happen overnight. Think about DM's journey. Here's a kid who remembers lying awake at night, protecting his sister from roaches and mice, promising himself that when he grew up, he wasn't going to live that way. That determination turned into shoveling snow, mowing lawns, finding customers, building businesses, becoming a pastor, doing mission work, running companies, experience and burnout, reinventing himself, and eventually building the legal podcast network. But I think one of the biggest takeaways from our conversation is what DM said about putting yourself out there. People don't connect with logos. They connect with people. So whether you're an attorney, entrepreneur, business owner, author, nonprofit leader, or a podcaster, people want to know who you are. They want to hear your voice, understand what you believe, and decide whether they can trust you. And that's something that podcasting does incredibly well. You don't necessarily need thousands or millions of people listening. Sometimes the right 50 listeners are far more valuable than 50,000 people who will never take action. And I loved his answer to that final question. As he's gotten older, he's learned to appreciate the cumulative compounding effect of time. That's something worth remembering. We live in a world where everybody wants immediate results, more followers, more customers, more downloads, more success. But relationships take time. Trust takes time. Building a reputation takes time. And sometimes the work you're doing today doesn't reveal its true value until months or even years down the road. So maybe the lesson isn't simply to work harder or move faster. Maybe it's to keep showing up. Keep creating, keep building relationships. Keep helping people and trust what consistent effort can become over time. Diane, thank you for sharing your story, your experience, your humor. And especially some of those parts of your journey that weren't easy to talk about. I appreciate the conversation. And something tells me this won't be the last one we have. And to everyone listening, I'd love to hear from you. What's something you've learned to appreciate more as you've gotten older? Join the conversation. Let me know. Your answer may be exactly what somebody else needs to hear. Until next time, I'm Rich Bennett. Thanks for listening and remember, every great conversation starts with someone willing to listen and someone willing to share. Now it's your turn. Join the conversation by sharing this episode. Leave in a comment or reach an anthem to me directly. Take care. Be kind to one another. And I'll talk with you again soon.