How do lawyers become easier for AI to recommend?
Your clients already tell you what to write about. Their reviews, questions and feedback can become the content that builds trust with people and with AI.
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Episode 41 · Listen now
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Brief summary of the show
In this episode, Andrew Colsky talks with Lorraine Ball, host of the More Than a Few Words podcast, about turning client reviews, testimonials, FAQs and real client questions into content.
Lorraine explains why the questions clients already ask are the best source of blog posts and FAQ pages. She shows how a steady stream of reviews on Google Business Profile helps local visibility and brings in calls.
For attorneys, the takeaway is simple: the proof clients give you is the content AI looks for. Use it consistently, and you become easier to find and easier to recommend.
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What you'll learn
- How to turn client feedback into authentic reviews and testimonials
- Why client questions make strong blog posts and FAQ content
- How Google Business Profile improves local visibility and generates calls
- Why user-generated content works especially well for professional services
- How attorneys can use testimonials while staying professional
- How to build a repeatable content system without starting from scratch
- Why answering real client questions strengthens SEO and AI search visibility
- How to choose the right platforms for your firm's audience
Chapters
- 00:00Understanding user-generated content
- 07:20Turning customer questions into content
- 19:36Using Google Business Profile for reviews
Full transcript
Read the full transcript
Andrew Colsky: Welcome to Be Picked, the podcast where we talk to professional service providers about how to get yourself out there to build and grow your business. I'm your host, Andrew Colsky and today we have a guest, Lorraine Ball. is host of More Than a Few Words podcast, and she's going to talk to us about ⁓ content, amongst other things. So, Lorraine, welcome to the show.
Lorraine Ball: Andrew, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Andrew Colsky: Well, I know we have a lot to talk about today, so I want to make sure we get every opportunity to do that. And you come at I'll call it marketing, promotion, whatever word the the the listener wants to use, but getting yourself out there and you have a unique approach that you use from a user generated content perspective. Tell us what is user generated content and how do you use it?
Lorraine Ball: Okay, so if you start a business, you know that the best way to do it is with other people's money, right? Get a loan, get investors. That same strategy works in marketing. Now you're not allowed to take other people's content, that's just bad form. But if you can get loans and investments in the form of content, use user-generated content, it helps your business grow. ⁓ Reviews, getting people to talk about you, getting people to talk about you online, getting people to interact with you, getting people to take a photograph of a product or a service and sharing that to their community. All of those things are user-generated content. And depending on the industry you're in, you have more flexibility or less flexibility in terms of what you can ask for. Even in highly regulated industries, there are opportunities for USJ.
Andrew Colsky: Hm. Okay. So I I get the concept, but I guess I'm not clear yet on how this works with professional services.
Lorraine Ball: Okay, well, number one, the single most common type of user-generated content are reviews. Hotels and restaurants are masters at this. You almost get a review us on your your bill as you're leaving the hotel.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh.
Lorraine Ball: Attorneys and accountants need to do the same thing. They need to ask their customers, were you satisfied? And if you were, leave a review. Now, there are different places that people can leave reviews, and you need to think about in your specific industry what makes sense. I will argue that a good Google review is always wonderful. But sending someone to a Google Paige, if they don't have a Gmail account. Is a waste of time. So it really makes a lot of sense to look at the email addresses of your clients and sort them. And there's a technique called text a column that you can do to sort them and get all your Gmail people together. And then when you've done work with them, send them to Gmail. Send them to your Google My Business page, which should exist, which should be complete, blah blah blah. We're going to assume you do in that.
Andrew Colsky: Ha ha ha.
Lorraine Ball: And it should be a standard part of your follow-up process. We hope that you were pleased with the service. Do you have any additional questions? If you have any complaints, here's who you call. If you were satisfied, go here and leave us a review. Maybe it's a law review site. Maybe it's Facebook. if you are a If you're a personal injury attorney, Facebook is a good place to have reviews. It is. ⁓ it sounds crazy, but it is. I would not necessarily look for my estate planning attorney there. I I I think I want them on Google or LinkedIn. You know, you have a robust LinkedIn page. Ask people to leave reviews there. So that's step number one in your follow-up process. But
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh. Ha ha ha. Okay.
Lorraine Ball: That's not enough. now you need to be proactive. And again, what kind of marketing are you already doing? Are you doing video? Will you feel comfortable calling some of your best clients and saying, hey, you said something really nice at the last at our last meeting when we finished the will for your mother? ⁓ would you mind saying that again on video? you would be amazed how many people are flattered and will say absolutely and you can collect that video footage and have your marketing company turn it into a reel or a series of quick little bites. Those video testimonials have huge positive impact.
Andrew Colsky: Sort of.
Lorraine Ball: Because they're authentic and people talk about you and say things that you would never think of. ⁓ and there is an authenticity to that kind of content that just really resonates with a wider audience. So doing a series of posts on Facebook, we're good at what we do. Don't take our word for it. Mary Smith, Mary Smith. Hair salon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Attorney is fabulous. John Jones, Butcher, I would never have gotten through the last quarter without my financial reports from. And that kind of content. And the nice thing is, yeah, I mean, you need to keep it fresh. You can't keep replaying the same two testimonials. But you get one good one a month. One good one a month.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh. Right.
Lorraine Ball: And now at the end of the year, you're still getting one good one a month, but now you have two a month that you can run. And you can, you know, that's the thing is that people think, ⁓ my God, I have to be on this like content treadmill. I constantly have to be creating content. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. ⁓ I'm gonna advocate no you don't, because the truth is people don't remember. They don't remember that they saw it a week ago or a month ago. beyond moving beyond reviews, every every accountant, every attorney has got an inbox filled with questions. Just questions. And what do they do? Especially the attorneys. Answers. And they send it off to one client and then they move on to the next thing.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh.
Lorraine Ball: When a customer asks you a question and you create an answer, it goes to that customer. And then you strip out anything that is uniquely identifying for that client, and you make it a little more generic, and it becomes a blog post. And you know what? Or a part of an FAQ page. And on most websites, FAQs are some of the most Active pages on websites. And right now, what AI is responding to very well, and search engines have for a while, but AI really responds to is questions and answers. And they're not questions that you're dreaming up and thinking are important, they're questions your customers have. And if one customer has it,
Andrew Colsky: Yeah.
Lorraine Ball: Multiple customers have it. So I love that as a source of content in professional services. The other thing is if you're if you're more the accountant than the attorney, so you're a numbers person, not a words person.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Lorraine Ball: Put a little microphone, there's a little microphone app right on your phone. Turn it on, read the question, and read the answer. Not read the answer, just answer it. Pretend that I just asked you that question. Answer it the way that you would. If your style is a little gruff, if you're a little, are you kidding me? You're asking me that? Let that come through. And then you can do two things. You can actually use that video or audio in its raw form, or You can take the transcript, which I know my Apple phone does. I don't know about droids, but ⁓ I can take that transcript right from that recording, paste it into Chat GPT, and say, turn this into a slightly more polished version of me. And so your content is coming from your customers. It's the questions they have.
Andrew Colsky: Ha ha ha. Right.
Lorraine Ball: The other thing that I would do on questions, this is really important from an SEO perspective, and it just makes me laugh. Make a list of the questions you think people search for most often. You can get into your Google Analytics and see what they're really searching for. I had a great conversation with somebody recently about how nobody lies to their search bar. They're more honest with the search bar than they are their rabbi or priest. I thought that was funny. But there's a lot of data on what people are asking, not necessarily individual keywords, but questions. Then what I want you to do is I want you to go to your website.
Andrew Colsky: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Right, right, right.
Lorraine Ball: and type in that question and see what comes up. Does your website answer it? And if not, guess what? yeah, yeah. So but I but I would always start with what's in your inbox. What did you you know, if you walk out of a meeting and somebody asks you and you if at any point in your day you find yourself saying, Man, that's a great question. That's your next blog post. That's your next FAQ. That's yes. So that's it go ahead.
Andrew Colsky: Great content. Yeah. You know, and and well I was just gonna say I I I love that approach because when you're the professional sitting on your side of the desk, you you know what you know, you know how things work, and you probably are not thinking about the types of questions that the person on the other side of the desk has, because they're not questions for you. You already know the answers.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky: But this is a great way to be getting the questions that not only that one particular client, but like you say, probably lots and lots of other people have. And that's that's the content that you want to be creating and putting out there because now you're addressing your particular audience so they find you because you've got the answers to their questions.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. It is that's the thing about user-generated content. Now, if you're in more of a a product business, it if you're in a business where you can demonstrate, ⁓ you know, or show customers using your products, getting, you know, for somebody who teaches At cooking school, getting people to make the recipes and post those pictures online. Great. ⁓ I'm not putting up a copy of my will on my Facebook page. You sorry, you you don't you don't get to see who inherits grandma's china. you know, so there there are some limits. but ⁓ think a little bit outside the box. Think about
Andrew Colsky: Yeah.
Lorraine Ball: What do you talk about when you go to a cocktail party? What can you say about your business that doesn't have the other person rolling their eyes in the back of their head? you can do, depending again, depending on I would do this. ⁓ if you wanted to have a little bit of fun, I might send an email to 10 or 20 of your peers. What are the funniest questions that your customers have asked you? What are the strangest questions your customers have asked you? And depending on your personal style. That could be just a really fun series. Hey, I talked to a bunch of other attorneys, and here's the strangest thing they've been asked. What you know, and then that leads to what's the strangest question you haven't asked your attorney? What's the question you haven't asked your accountant? And now you start getting feedback and answers from them.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh. Right.
Lorraine Ball: And those kind of posts, the ⁓ the peer ones, I might even put those on LinkedIn. I might put the question on LinkedIn and then tag a couple of my friends to see if they would play with me.
Andrew Colsky: Interesting. Yeah, 'cause that was gonna be my next question is where do you suggest that they put these? But again, I guess that goes back to depends on who your audience is that you're trying to attract.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, everybody thinks that attorneys have to be Jason or Jason Wolfe. Sorry. I am so sorry. everybody thinks that attorneys are so button up that they have to be so professional, but they're human beings. And
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh.
Lorraine Ball: There are so there are opportunities to let that personality shine through. And it depends, you know, on on the business that you're in. you know, ⁓ I personal injury is is tough. Because it's very competitive, it's very oversaturated. You almost want to do something. in personal injury, I might go to a bunch of doctors and say, What are the strangest in injuries? Not the most deadly, not the horrible, gruesome ones, but what are some of the strange injuries you've seen in a car accident? And you know, do a little interview, get back some answers, and share that. People love that stuff. you know, I
Andrew Colsky: Ha ha ha. Right.
Lorraine Ball: I had a plumber who did a series on, he asked a bunch of his his friends, things that they had found in basements, you know, and it was just hysterical. ⁓ auto cleaning business. Things they found in the back seat, you know, and It makes people laugh and engage and and and you're still kind of in the realm of your business, but you're not necessarily completely in your business.
Andrew Colsky: Right, right. No, th these are great ideas because it kind of ⁓ humanizes the person. ⁓ but now now okay, so then answer this. If if they're doing this type of content, how is that going to be found when someone is looking for okay, let's say personal injury. Someone's looking for a personal injury attorney. This person now has material that they put out about some of the strangest injuries that have occurred. How do the two marry?
Lorraine Ball: Well, you always have a link back to your website. You ⁓ the content should live initi my my feeling is all good content should start out at home. So you should always have silly blog posts, FAQs, whatever it is you're you're doing in writing, should live first on your website and then with teasers and graphics and social media. Maybe it's Facebook, maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe it's Instagram. If you are a young attorney, ⁓ TikTok, you know, there there are some attorneys that are really making names for themselves by sharing little bits of information. I mean you gotta be careful. if you are in a regulated I spent some time in the ⁓ financial services industry and we used to refer to compliance as the sales prevention department because they ever everything I wanted to do, they were like, Yeah, no, you can't do No you no you can't say. Well what can I say? Well we sell insurance. Yeah, I know that. So ⁓ you definitely want to be careful.
Andrew Colsky: Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha ha. Mm-hmm.
Lorraine Ball: But if you're a young returning and you're ⁓ or a young accountant and you are familiar with TikTok and you're comfortable with it, put a little content out there. Always have your website, always have your name so people can, when they search for you, they can find you. you always want your website. It is it is your home base, it is where people go. At the end of the day. I know that people think, well, I remember doing a presentation on this very topic and talking about the fact that user-generated content is great, but at the end of the day, it has to live on your website because the tools that we use may go away. And I remember saying, Well, you know, Twitter could go away. And there was this like gasp. That no one in that room, we were all marketers, could ever imagine a day when we weren't on Twitter 24-7. But it happened. And Facebook is not, it is not what it was. It has its place. So social media platforms up and down. And play, play where the action is, play where your customers are.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Lorraine Ball: But your end game is always to bring your customer home.
Andrew Colsky: Right, right. That sounds like a a decent amount of work though, to to create this, keep it on your website, also be going out and posting it in multiple places. It it it it it can be a lot.
Lorraine Ball: Well, okay. Filing your taxes is a lot. Okay? I don't file my taxes. I my husband does some of it and I have a tax account. Writing a will is a lot. I don't do that either. I don't do the contracts for my business. I hire professionals. Those professionals need to do the same thing.
Andrew Colsky: Right. Right.
Lorraine Ball: And I I remember I again I I've listened to some of the episodes of your show and one of your guests made that same point and I was like, absolutely. Now, if you are determined to do this yourself, ⁓ because you think, God help you, you think you can do it as well as a professional, please say that out loud three times the next time a customer ⁓ walks into your office. But okay. But if you're determined because you're just starting out and you just really want to kind of foot out there, start small. Pick one platform where you know that the people who are likely to buy from you hang out and get active there. ⁓ share content there. the number one thing you can do before any of the rest of this stuff, and you need to have this engine in place, is the Google My Business.
Andrew Colsky: Uh-huh.
Lorraine Ball: You have you you have to have that. So start asking for reviews even before you do anything else. There are all sorts of systems and services that can help you do that, but at the beginning, just ask for the darn review.
Andrew Colsky: Yeah. And you know, that that's something that so many people, number one, they're not aware of, but the fact that, you know, that my business page, that Google page, it doesn't cost you anything. You know, and it's amazing the reach that it gets. ⁓ Google it gets tremendous reach.
Lorraine Ball: It it is shifting. ⁓ it is not maybe as strong as it was six months or a year ago, but it's still really powerful. And again, remember, it it's going to go up, it's gonna go down. But I remember there was a period there where I had a client who was running a thousand dollars in Google Ads every month. And we charted how much he was getting in sales from his Google Ads. And I kept saying, Well, those are good, but you're wasting money. And he says, Well, prove it. So we heavied up on his Google My Business page. We put every blog post that was on the website on the Google My Business page. We asked for reviews. We actively updated the page. When at the end of the month, when we looked at the number of calls that we got and the number of web visits that we got from Google My Business versus his advertising, we were like five to one. So you tell me which, you know, and if we just do phone calls, it was even higher. So please tell me how this doesn't work.
Andrew Colsky: Hm, wow. Right. And and you know again the fact that it doesn't cost you anything, but it gives you tremendous coverage and you're you're in control of the information that you put out there. And i you know.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, and I mean, and I used it just today. A friend of mine is getting married. She lives about 90 minutes away. I wanted to get a couple's massage for her and her husband as a wedding gift. I don't know where the salons are down there. I got online. I found three salons. I read reviews. The one that had a 4.9, and the first review said had a lovely couples massage. Sold. Sold!
Andrew Colsky: Nice. Stuff. Right.
Lorraine Ball: And you know, they got you know, they made, I don't know, a $300 sale because they answered the phone and they had a Google My Business page.
Andrew Colsky: Yeah. Yeah. It it's you know, I shared this once before on another podcast. I had ⁓ gone to a small business in my neighborhood, a little coffee shop, and they had asked for a review and I said, Sure, I'm happy to give you a review and I put up the review and I also took a couple random pictures around the shop. I'd never thought anything of it. It's like ⁓ yeah, I'll be nice. They're nice to me, I'll be nice to them. And I put it up. And I get a notification, I I I continue to get regular update notifications from Google. But originally I got a notification that, you know, several thousand people had seen it, then several tens of thousand. Now we're up we're we're past several hundreds of thousands of views and it's only been, I don't know, a year, maybe a year and a half now. And it's literally I mean, hundreds of thousands of views of of my pictures that I put up, much less think about all the other customers. And it's all free to them, you know, free to the business.
Lorraine Ball: 'Cause it was those pictures. Absolutely. I mean and then you hit it lucky. If a customer if a customer cares enough to take a good picture, to write a good review, you're doing your job. And if they care enough to share it, that's the that's the core of user-generated content.
Andrew Colsky: Right, right. And that's the other thing I think y ⁓ you know, s a lot of people express hesitation of asking their customers for a view. They think it's going to turn them off or you know, will be will sour them in some way. What has your experience been?
Lorraine Ball: Ask once and no problem. Ask me five times and yeah, you're at the bottom of my list. So, hey, would you mind? Hey, let me make it easy for you. And then let it go. Do not send me three follow-ups saying, hey, we still don't have your survey. Hey, we still you're not getting it. Let's be honest. I'm over ya. We're not getting it.
Andrew Colsky: That that is so on point. I ha I have a a doctor's office right now who ⁓ 'cause I guess they buy these platforms that automatically send and it's I I I haven't even had the appointment yet and I'm getting every day a text to rate them, rate them, rate them, rate them.
Lorraine Ball: ⁓ they're the worst.
Andrew Colsky: And I'm gonna, you block the text, but I don't wanna block it until I have the actual appointment information I need. But I'm not I'm not gonna do a review. It it's it's it's it's invasive.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that ⁓ I have noticed lately that medical practices are way overdoing the reviews. Yeah. Cool.
Andrew Colsky: Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I think that's important is if you ask someone for a review and you you just said it, make it easy for them. So don't don't say, Would you mind going on to Google searching us, finding us, leaving a review? Give them a QR code, give them a link, give them something so it's just a simple click. But just do it once. They'll either do it or they won't.
Lorraine Ball: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then you're done. Yep, absolutely. Cool.
Andrew Colsky: Yeah. So all right. Well, so you know, it this has been wonderful information and really, really helpful. I haven't had anyone who's really talked about this in detail yet the way you have, and I really appreciate that. sort of last word, if you w had to give an elevator speech to a new professional service provider who hasn't started anything yet and is looking for the best place to start and the first thing they should be doing. What's your basic elevator pitch gonna be to them?
Lorraine Ball: Start with good branding. We didn't even really talk about that in this ⁓ in this episode, but invest in good branding because that's going to follow you. And make sure that you look good and you present professionally. And then number two, start asking for reviews. Start early, make it part of your system. It will serve you well indefinitely.
Andrew Colsky: Mm-hmm. Excellent. Excellent. Well, so this has been Lorraine Ball, and she's given us some wonderful information. And you know, there's there's nothing you said that really costs money unless they choose to hire someone to help them with this stuff. But you know, the these are basic, easy things that you can do, and you know what? If you're not doing it, your competitor is. So who do you think is going to get the business? And
Lorraine Ball: Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky: You know, take advantage of the opportunities that are out there. So this has been another episode of Be Picked. We're here to help you. We want to see you grow. We want to see you succeed. Join or visit our website at www.bepicked B-E-P-I-C-K-E-D dot com.
Lorraine Ball: Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky: And you can see all of our episodes as well as our blog posts and other helpful information to help you grow your business. And we look forward to seeing you next week. Lorraine Ball, thank you so much for joining us.
Lorraine Ball: It was a lot of fun. Thank you.
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