[00:00:00] Bobby Steinbach
The people that we tend to work with are creative people, creative lawyers, and we’re creatives. That mix is going to create some really interesting dialogue. Welcome to Hot Docket, the show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.
[00:00:16] Andrew Nasrinpay
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm.
[00:00:21] Rita Richa
Welcome to this introductory episode of the Hot Docket podcast presented by MeanPug my name is Rita, I’m one of the producers of the [00:00:30] show, and today we’re here with Bobby and Andrew, co founders of MemePug, and your actual hosts for the show. We’re calling this episode zero, it’s your behind the scenes look into getting to know our hosts and why they started the podcast, and they will take the reins hosting their own show after this one for episode one.
[00:00:46] Rita Richa
So, Bobby, we’ll start with you. Can you tell us just a little bit about yourself and the work you’re doing at MeanPug?
[00:00:52] Bobby Steinbach
I can. I’m a partner at MeanPug. Started the company with Andrew three and a half years ago now, so been a good ride. I’m responsible for all things technical, so whether that’s web builds or many things on the SEO side, operations, custom software, all that kind of falls in my realm.
[00:01:08] Rita Richa
What’s your favorite thing about what you do, Bobby?
[00:01:08] Bobby Steinbach
I love our clients. Kind of weird saying you love lawyers. I think like that’s not a commonly held belief, but I think our clients would tend to be. analytical, love to talk through problems, have like a really established view of the in what we do is just the clients.
[00:01:33] Rita Richa
Might be one of the folks running the show, but behind the scenes we have a dog who is actually the real owner of MeanPug. Who’s this dog and what’s, what’s the lore behind this
[00:01:43] Bobby Steinbach
puppy? Mmm, yeah, CPO. The Chief Pug. Yeah, she is 8, turning 8. She’s turning 8. Very old, but she’s an established, seasoned pug. So, you know, the most common question I think we get, there are two things.
[00:01:58] Bobby Steinbach
We get the most common question, which is, how do you name your company? And then we get the second follow up, which is like, tends to be why would you ever call your company that if you’re working with law firms? It’s like pretty much the opposite of what you would probably want to call a legal marketing agency.
[00:02:15] Bobby Steinbach
Um, but whatever. For the name, it’s actually a really boring story. So the way we named the company, Andrew and I were just like We knew we wanted to do it, we had been bogged down in like, figuring out a name for probably 3, 4, 5 days. And anybody who started a business can relate to like, that search of, is the name available, is the domain name available, is it catchy, is it whatever.
[00:02:40] Bobby Steinbach
And we were just like, we don’t want to do this anymore, we just want to get started on work. Um, and we both liked MailChimp, we liked the way they branded, we liked their messaging, and just how they connected with the audience, um, and I love Pugs. So we ended up just being like, okay, we know we want an animal. Let’s make it a pug. What are some good things we can throw in front of pug, like adjectives, verbs, whatever, that are available and catchy. And mean pug just ended up sticking.
[00:03:11] Rita Richa
Thus, mean pug was born. So, Andrew, what about you? How do you fit into this picture? Tell us about yourself.
[00:03:17] Andrew Nasrinpay
So I’m a partner here and I do everything on the advertising side. So it’s my job to make sure that our clients get clients and Um, I’ve been working with Bobby for probably 8 or 9 years at this point, and going back to the name, it was kind of silly of us because we ended up picking things we liked instead of thinking clientele in a lot of ways, but who needs clients?
[00:03:41] Andrew Nasrinpay
It ended up working out because it’s very memorable in a space where all the other company names are really, really generic. So a lot of it was just kind of luck at that point that it worked for us.
[00:03:51] Rita Richa:
Would you say that, that kind of creative process of coming up with a name actually does well with the type of work that you both
[00:04:00] Andrew Nasrinpay
Yep. So I could say on our side, the creative process has gotten a lot better because we’ve hired people who are creatives and who are very good at that sort of thing. But at the same time, Bobby approaches it like an engineering mindset and brings a lot of structure. And we have a pretty well built out product management team. who puts a lot of process and due dates to it. So you take folks who are creative and usually a little bit less structured in their approach and mix them with folks who are very structured. And I think that can be most seen in our workflows for things like creating television ads or things that you both need to hit timelines and keep to a budget and at the same time be very great things that are very memorable and different.
[00:04:42] Bobby Steinbach:
And just to tack on like asking did this like differentiated brand work for us in the end? I think. It’s like a two edged sword, right? It, we don’t want to work, and I don’t think firms that would work with us are firms that want to be different. So, if you’re a firm that wants the status quo, that, like, wants, you know, you’re going to have an established account management team where, you know, everybody has their very specific role.
[00:05:11] Bobby Steinbach
They’re not going to think outside the box, per se. Then, that, that might not be the right client for us. Like, we might just not be a good fit for each other. The way we’ve positioned ourselves is as a different agency in the space. So, I think everything Kind of fold together in that way.
[00:05:28] Rita Richa
So why did you decide to start this podcast? What was the inspiration?
[00:05:30] Bobby Steinbach
I think there’s just going to be a lot of interesting conversations. Because of all the factors we’ve talked about, the people that we tend to work with are creative people, creative lawyers, and we’re creatives. I think like that mix is going to create some really interesting dialogue.
[00:05:44] Andrew Nasrinpay
On the podcast side, I’m looking forward to talking to folks who may not necessarily be clients of ours or become clients of ours, but will allow us to learn either about the areas of law that they’re practicing or the marketing or operations methods that we may not have been exposed to before. I think a lot of folks are going to talk about success they’ve had, but we’re also really looking forward to having people talk about times that didn’t work as well. Because it’ll both help save our clients and us a lot of time when people discuss, you know, both the things that did and didn’t work at the same time.
[00:06:19] Bobby Steinbach
Yeah, I also think just having these conversations raises the industry level, right? The more of these that you have and the more different viewpoints you have, strategies that are coming to the table, everything, it kind of creates a stew. Where it brings up the industry average.
[00:06:32] Rita Richa
What type of guests would be a great fit for this show, Bobby? If someone’s listening and interested in being a part of it, who are some folks that we are looking for to interview?
[00:06:42] Bobby Steinbach
Well, I think there’s only one requirement. Like, being open. If you came on and were like, Um, actually, like, I’m not privileged to be able to discuss that, or like, every question was like, actually, I don’t want to talk about that, then it wouldn’t really give anybody any insight. At the end of the day, we just want to share knowledge. Do they have to be a lawyer? No. We’re going to bring on, um, some marketing coordinators at bigger firms that we’ve been, like, super impressed by. We’re going to have on some folks that are in, like, the legal CRM side of things. And we’ve got folks, we’ve got a guy who does, um, what does he do? Like, virtual depot. So he does, like, automation for deposition. And he’s coming on to talk about his business. So I think there’s a lot of like interesting ecosystem type stuff we’re going to be discussing.
[00:07:27] Andrew Nasrinpay
The industry, one, is very fragmented, where you’ve got about 50, 000 law firms. And that is not common with most industries in the U.S. today. Most of them have been relatively consolidated. Even beyond that, it fragments on skill sets, on the type of clients they will take. And it’s also very conservative and traditional. So a lot of the way things are done is due to just a precedent that’s there. So we’re seeing a lot of change on all sides of law.
[00:07:59] Bobby Steinbach
I think there, there’s always exceptions to the rule. So I don’t want to like make a global statement like people do bad work. I just don’t think that’s true and it’s unfair. But what I will say is I tend to think that this industry is Doesn’t see the same type of experimentation, um, willingness to try things that you see in industries like AI and crypto and things that tend to push the envelope. So obviously a part of that is due to things like regulation and ethical [00:08:30] concerns. You can’t say certain things that you can in other industries. So that’s baked in, in some way. But I think there’s like a happy medium. And I just don’t think there’s been a willingness to move in the more aggressive direction that we need to as a whole.
[00:08:45] Rita Richa
That’s a great point, and I think something else that we are doing with the show that might be different or fun, ruffle a few feathers potentially, is eventually we’re going to have a segment called Devil’s Advocate. And, um, we’re gonna have lawyers debate each other, but not in the way that if you’re listening you think that they would.
[00:09:04] Bobby Steinbach I, I’m so excited for Devil’s Advocate. So, Devil’s Advocate, we’re gonna bring on two or more lawyers. Gonna start with two. We’re gonna bring on two lawyers, and basically, coming into that, we are gonna share, like, a set of questions that we’re gonna have them answer. Some of them are gonna be, like, basics, like, What’s your favorite food? Okay, pizza. What’s this other guy’s favorite food? Okay, hamburgers. Some of them might be a little bit more in the weeds. Not sure what that could be yet, but they might be a little more technical in nature, let’s say. On the show, it’s gonna be the job of each of these lawyers to convince us and maybe the other. Why their opponent’s choice is the right one. So if you’re the lawyer and you chose pizza as your favorite and your opponent or what have you chose hamburgers, you have to convince us and the other lawyer why hamburgers.
[00:09:56] Rita Richa
Listen, in my opinion, there needs to be a conversation about pineapples on pizza because that is very controversial. And for me, I’m against, I’m against pineapples on pizza
[00:10:05] Bobby Steinbach
Yeah. No. And I wanted, we’re gonna do like, uh, giveaways and there’s gonna be prizes for coming on. It’s gonna be. It’s going to be a really fun segment.
[00:10:15] Rita Richa
That’s awesome. Well, if anyone listening is interested in submitting, um, a guest topic or have an idea of someone that should be on the show, we’ll have some information linked in the show notes on where you can send us that information. Um, but that pretty much wraps it up for our introductory episode. Bobbi and Andrew, thank you so much. I’m really excited about the show. I think you’re both going to provide a lot of value to your audience and to our listeners. Make sure to come back to episode one where Bobbi and Andrew will take back the reins and host the first episode of the podcast. Thank you so much, gentlemen
[00:10:50] Bobby Steinbach
Thanks, Rita.
