Al McBride
Welcome to the dealing with with Goliath podcast. Our guest for this episode today is Mr. Roy Sexton. Roy is the Director of Marketing at Clark Hill law, which is comprised of over 650 attorneys in 25 offices throughout the US, Mexico and Europe. With a passion for solving problems, improving culture, facilitating business growth, and collaborating on long term strategy. Roy has been a marketing communications and strategic planning professional for nearly 20 years in fields such as consulting, healthcare, the legal industry, and college advancement. Welcome, Roy. Because I says quite an array of different experiences in there, that’s quite something.

Roy Sexton
Well, what is evidence I was I tend to overwrite my sentences.

Al McBride
You’re there with the legal Guys with a lot of long sentences this Hemingway short crisp sentences

Roy Sexton
No, I like clauses lots of lists, I like lists,

Al McBride
Love the lists, excellent stuff. It’s probably a good place to start actually because we were talking about this in earlier correspondence that you’ve a wealth of experience but even just starting off on your education career into your professional career, you’ve an undergrad in English and theater, then you have an MA in theater itself. So went more specialized there. And then you did a little bit of a pivot to an MBA in Michigan, so very interesting. So can you talk us through some of the headspace of the decision making there?

Roy Sexton
Right, I like to double down on skills that are not marketable. Just see what happens. Oh, I like to ask you to take a drink of whatever you have there. What are you drinking by the way? What

Al McBride
is your this is a just an nespresso coffee?

Roy Sexton
Well, I’m I’m drinking Pepsi Max. We love to do product placement. I guess we are, you know, they can they can pay us they can subsidize, they can pay us later. Yes. All But no, I you know for me, I have one I’m an only child and I have wonderful parents who just said do the things that make you happy. I’m grateful for that. But the downside of that is you you’re in college and I was in college and college and scholarship and I loved college and went to a small all male college it’s sort of like Goodbye Mr. Chips. It was that kind of a environment or Hogwarts if you’re a certain era, I suppose. And I loved it.

Roy Sexton
It was in Indiana, but it had kind of an Ivy League feeling on a budget. And so, it four years came up and I had not really thought about internships or career I just I loved literature and at the time, it was early 90s I was studying a lot of Shakespeare, and I was doing a lot of feminist studies with Shakespeare have Camille Polya Foucault some of those types at the time. And we’re all into unpacking and whatever that meant. And so I was very interested in that. And my junior year, they were doing The Merchant of Venice on campus, the theatre department, and I thought, well, I’ve been writing about Shakespeare I should be in one. I should try it.

Roy Sexton
I had not done theater. I did one production in high school. They did Annie Get Your Gun without music. That’s kind of high school. I went to anything. Your Gun does not have a great book, by the way. So why you do that without music? I don’t know. But we did. And I thought, well, I’m never doing this again. So I get to college. My junior year they’re doing Merchant of Venice. I audition and I get graciano. And for the Shakespeare folks in the audience, he is the resident smart alec of play. He gets the great lines, he gets the laughs and I fell in love.

Roy Sexton
So my junior and senior year of college I was in every play I could took every class I could. But as all things I was a late bloomer, so I was a little long in the tooth to go I’m gonna go be an actor. I should have probably taken that myself. And so I then hit the snooze alarm on college and went to Ohio State and got my master’s in theater theater history and criticism, thinking I would teach or go into academia. And then after two years of that, I was like, why, you know, theater programs are being shuttered in schools across the land.

Roy Sexton
I mean, what am I thinking? And so I pivoted to your point, went back to my undergrad, and they were doing, building up a advancement team for a capital campaign. And so while I was there, I got more on the business side of things. Deloitte was on campus recruiting, I have talked my way into jobs I’m supremely unqualified to have that was a good example of which, and then I moved up here to Detroit, in 1999, to work at Deloitte was in their healthcare practice. And then that led to a 10 year stint for a health care system and planning and marketing.

Roy Sexton
During that time, my husband said could you get your MBA, he’s an engineer, so he was on a career track his whole life. He does not understand my path at all which has been very much that’s fun. That’s Let’s try this. So I did get my MBA through University of Michigan. Those those of you who know the rivalry between Ohio State University of Michigan, it’s pretty, pretty thick. I am.

Al McBride
Okay, so you defected to the other side?

Roy Sexton
Apparently, you know, I’m a theater guy, so I didn’t nothing. Football I, you know, I for all I know it’s soccer. But, you know, I just don’t I’m not into that sports rivalry. But anyway, I got my MBA. And then that got me on a more career oriented path. And and after a certain point, I put my resume out there. I loved the marketing planning. I love storytelling, which is how I sort of feel marketing and planning in any organization, business, nonprofit, whatever. You’re really telling that organization story to whatever the consumer facing side looks like and helping them understand how to access what you do and and celebrate the best of what you do. So I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of my business work. And that was kind of how I put myself out there and ended up With a law firm, and it’s been about 10 years now, I’ve been on the legal side of marketing.

Al McBride
It’s very interesting. You know, it’s as far as the connection of story with marketing. It’s one of those areas that people wouldn’t think of as a very intensive marketing niche, but it is a niche or a ‘nitch’ as Americans would like to say. What are the particular differences with trying to market legal services compared to many other areas of services?

Roy Sexton
Yeah. You know, especially, when you think of the different kinds of law firms there are the first law firm I worked at was mortgage foreclosure, which is a pretty insular space to be in and, again, that the target market is b2b in that world. And it really is a law firm that’s dealing with the foreclosure process with the bank that’s making the loan that now needs to go into foreclosure. So you’ve got a pretty tight audience you’re marketing to.

Roy Sexton
Whereas when I was in healthcare, it was, you know, it was consumer facing it was billboards, it was television ads it was. So I would say to simplify things grossly, what I find changes most dramatically are the vehicles we use to tell the message that concepts and principles remain the same. Regardless if your audience is a small group of mortgage lenders, if it’s a if it’s a large group of industry leaders that we might be pitching here at Clark Hill, if it’s a if it’s a set of consumers trying to figure out to use your emergency room in a hospital, there’s a group of people on the other side of that conversation that you have to reach.

Roy Sexton
You have to get in the psychology of what’s going to motivate them to come to the emergency room to send their mortgage foreclosure matters to that firm to call Clark Hill and say, I don’t understand what’s happening in the labor and employment space with COVID. Can you help walk me through what I need to do to make sure my employees are safe and that I’m safe?

Roy Sexton
But whatever it is, they have a need and the marketing person’s job is to understand their psychology and to understand the psychology of the people I work with on a day to day basis, because I think what I find in all those instances, the hospital system, three law firms, which have worked, the people inside the organization, think they know what people outside the organization wants, nine times out of 10, they have no idea.

Roy Sexton
They want to tell their story their way as opposed to having so many who have come along and edit or direct the show. I mean, I tend to think of myself as either like the stage manager, or when I’m full of myself, the director of the show, it’s like I’m not on stage or Clark Hill, the attorneys are, but the attorneys need someone to say those three things are of interest, the other 33 things on your bio that you want your mother to see when she checks the website every few months. Nobody cares about your clients want to know XY and Z.

Roy Sexton
These are the problems they’re facing these what I’m what I’m seeing is like guys, here’s the client survey tells us, you know, pulling that data together to say, this is what’s driving the client to make the purchase decision for the switching decision or the the expansion of business decision. And unfortunately, it’s not that you edited your Law Journal, it, I don’t care. I know it’s important to you, they don’t care about that. What they care about is an article that makes it very easy for them to understand how to solve a problem on their own. And in so doing, then say I want to call that attorney because my problem just got that much more complicated. And now I need to pick up the phone. I like the way that person addressed. I think the other thing is a bit of a ramble and Sorry, no, no, I find that in that storytelling moment. It’s again, like theater, you’ve got a lot of actors that want to bring on far too many props that they don’t need because it makes them comfortable. I had a director once, Rex McGraw, he taught me three very important things he said. If you’re gonna be Get the audience to cry, don’t cry, try to fight crying on stage, the audience relates to you trying not to cry more than they do the indulgence of crying. Give the audience the same show closing night that they got opening night, that same level of energy. So I bring that into work, wherever you are, bring the same energy brought two weeks ago. And this is the part that I get to don’t bring a prop on stage. You’re not going to use you know, if you’re going to fixate on the gun above the mantel,

Al McBride
the classic chango. Yeah.

Roy Sexton
So a little bit of that was with attorneys, they want to throw everything but the kitchen sink at something to compensate for their anxiety over an activity that’s not comfortable for them. They get the credit for selling your business. I don’t. So they’re on the hook for building a book of business. I have to help them get there. And they’re going to want to buy koosh balls and sponsor things and take people to dinner and spend all this extraneous money. They’re gonna want to spend all that kind of money but then when I tell them, you need it, CRM. Oh, that’s so expensive. Why would we spend that money like, but you’re going to sponsor our rodeo. Why? You know. So you have to pull them back and say, remember what your audience wants. They want what’s in your head. They’re not buying your personality. Hopefully they liked you enough. They want to work with you. They get need to get to know you. But at the end of the day, they want to know you’re smart, you’re going to deliver outcomes. That’s what they’re buying.

Roy Sexton
They’re not buying that you gave them chocolates or a pie or a gift. That’s not why people hire attorneys. But attorneys think that’s the case. It’s I don’t know if you remember the movie Dumbo from the Disney movie, and the little mouse gives him a feather. And Dumbo thinks he can fly as long as that feather and then one day the feather goes away and you can still fly. That’s what attorneys are like, they want that feather and we don’t need that. But what you do need is people need to see fly. That’s the part they’re interested in, not the feather you’re carrying around. So I’m sure your audiences I lost them about five minutes ago.

Al McBride
I think I think the element of storytelling is powerful. And as you said that tapping into the actual needs, not what you think they need, or what your audience think, or in this case, your clients or potential clients, maybe more importantly, what they actually need. How is that quite difficult? You have to be quite diplomatic in clarifying the difference.

Roy Sexton
From more diplomatic then it comes across right now.

Roy Sexton
You know, I do respect and greatly appreciate the I like working with smart people. I get to work with some smartest people. And attorneys are funny, they’re clever. They’re linguists, they, they like arts, they like creativity, they that you know, the most of them. you scratch the surface, and they have some really interesting hobbies. And then has probably been the Machiavellian approach I’ve taken. I mean, you See that? I’m in my basement where my husband sends me every day. Yeah, seriously yapping all day long.

Roy Sexton
He’s working upstairs, I’m working downstairs quarantine. But um, you know, I go into an attorney’s office that I have worked with before I look, I look at what’s on their walls, I see what their interests are, and they have them and they are like me, they like to have trophies around and things that remind them of happier times. And, and so that gives you an in with an attorney to say let’s get to know each other. And I can then understand what motivates you and drives you and you build that trust.

Roy Sexton
So then you can have the honest conversation with grace with respect saying, I get what you want to do. Let’s pull it back. One of my favorite questions is what problem are we trying to solve here? So, you know, I because attorneys think they’re doing you a favor coming to you as a marketer with a fully developed idea. And more often than not, the idea isn’t quite yet. There’s a nugget in there. That’s good, but there execution isn’t right. But they’re used to managing summer associates and Associates and giving them full, complete direction.

Roy Sexton
Don’t think people that way, give me a goal. I’ll give you a sense the best way to get yourself out there. But if you tied my hands because you’re really wedded to this event, or this activity and and attorneys are really good at arguing, oh, I get so much business out of this. Well, can you demonstrate to me Where? Yeah, a lot. I’ll get that. I’ll get back to you on that week. Can you tell me the names of the clients? Oh, they’re, they’re really great. They’re wonderful clients, I’ll get that.

Roy Sexton
So they, again, you got to unpack that and say, Well, what are we trying to do here And trust me, help me help you let me in and I’m going to give you far better exposure through my techniques. Then, the $5,000 ad, you know, they’re always attorney lists all the time and attorneys are a soft touch for a list. You add an attorney to a list They’re like, Oh, I get a plaque for that, I’ll give you $3,000, I get a half page ad in a program, no one’s going to look at other than other attorneys.

Roy Sexton
Let me write the check. And I have to say, Hey, I will get you as much exposure on social media with the credential. I’m glad you’re on the list. That gives me a reason to say congratulations. But I will get 10,000 views on something. And there’ll be the right views, versus you spending three or four or $5,000 and a half page ad in a program. That is only going to be you remember the movie the jerk with Steve Martin, he gets the ticket for phonebook and he’s so excited to be in it.

Roy Sexton
I mean, here, that’s what those attorney list publications are like, they stick them in a business magazine, there’s 30 pages of tiny print of all these attorney names. they’ve paid money to be in there. And they think some business person is going to flip through there and go, Oh, that name. I want to work with them No. Other day didn’t want to see their names in there, but other people you know, so it just drives me bonkers and I’m but again, I have to be gracious and I think I am mean you can you’re getting a sense of me why anybody hires me? I don’t know. But I think people find it comforting that I comment things in this way. I’m not a slick marketer, I don’t claim to know all the things but what I know I know. So let’s work together.

Al McBride
Absolutely, absolutely. It sounds like a great strategy that being that for want of a better word being that authentic. It’s an often overused word these days, but it’s very much rings true. You’re talking about working with an awful lot of very smart people. In my experience with lawyers and doing trainings with lawyers, and attorneys, I’m always impressed at just how creative their creative problem solving abilities are always surprised. their level of innovation. It as I said, Really off the wall solutions for things really quite impressive. But that said they are paid to argue for a living. So I can imagine when they push back, it can be quite something. So do you have a particular set of strategy, I don’t mean to give away too much, too much of the gems there

Roy Sexton
I telll them openly.

Roy Sexton
Nothing, nothing undermines that sort of argumentative press, then disarming humor. And I can only get there I’m very self conscious. For a while, I go back to you know, you guys have different sort of levels in your school system. For us. It’s called middle school or junior high, that awkward, horrible time between like 12 and 14, where you just don’t want to live that period of time, right?

Roy Sexton
If I’m in a new group of people, I go right back there all over again. And I’m like, No one wants to eat lunch with me. I don’t know how to comb my hair. I don’t dress. So I it takes me a little while and then I get that comfort level with people. Then Yes, they come at you with a fully baked argument. And now you know, you work the place long enough to see the name come up on your phone and you’re like, Oh boy.

Roy Sexton
But if I come back to humor, if I come back to coming from a place of grace and compassion and saying, what are we trying to do here and just speak to put the time you want to argue with me? I’m not arguing with you. Now at some point, it does kick in, I will argue back but I have at least been kind and gracious. And I listened up to a point and I have found that there is a there is a punch of humor that can always get people back on track. I shouldn’t bring up this anecdote.

Roy Sexton
But there was a wonderful woman that I work with that when I started, she was sending pies, very expensive pies to all her clients. And, you know, a lot of money on pies, and I said, Oh, why are we doing that? And she goes for they’re the best pies. These clients love these pies. And it wasn’t just the cost of the pie, the pie was being taken out of a package wrapped in Saran wrapped ribbons putting on at the marketing team or writing handwritten. It was not just sent to the attorneys, they want to do everything taught when they do something that’s gonna be top of the line.

Roy Sexton
No one cares. So it was the money, the pies, it was the team time that could be spent getting articles pitched getting media things that would matter. Anyway, so I listened to this. And I said, Well, I bet those pies are really good. I love pie. So already, you can see I’m going to go on. However, if your clients are only hiring you because you’re sending them a pie every year, I have a bigger concern about the quality of the work and what that says about us and our confidence in who we are and what we do.

Roy Sexton
Oh, well, maybe I shouldn’t send those pies anymore instead, I wouldn’t. Now that was I don’t know how I got there. It’s like, I’m not a religious person. But it’s like sometimes there’s a beam of light that goes into my head and go say this and you know you have to listen long enough. Understand that the person thinks they’re doing the right thing. So don’t make fun of it. Don’t attack don’t undermine, but at least understand what they’re trying to do and then elevate them to a different path.

Roy Sexton
And a lot of times the marketing stuff, people have latched on to something that they think works for them. My mom is crazy. I’m snapping my fingers, keep the elephants away. There are no elephants. It’s working. You know, that kind of thing. What I’ve been doing is I’ve been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for 400 years. That’s why I have the business I do. No that another attorney comes in who is obsessed with his SEO ranking, very prominent attorney great followed for what he does. Why am I not coming up first in Google searches anymore. I said, Are you if you’re getting your business only from Google searches, given the quality and the caliber of what you do, I’m concerned about our business strategy here.

Roy Sexton
We could put a lot of energy and time into into Google and SEO. But as you and I know, Google is changing the game every three minutes to drive us crazy and make us spend a ton of money on advertising, I don’t need to do that I can do through a full court press, writing a bunch of articles getting us out there using SEO that’s already built into LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to help us show up in search. And by the way, a Google search is not your best marketing or business development strategy. So when I said to him, if that’s how you’re getting your business, I’m concerned. I haven’t heard another word about it. Okay, I got I’m not, I’m not diminishing that. It’s like, that’s just you’re just, it’s a point of pride for you. Exactly. That actually driving any business.

Al McBride
I love the way you bring it. You bring back the human to humanity, literally, that you bring a humane element to the whole process. So you’re not saying you’re wrong, and that’s a waste of time. You’re bringing in that compassion that as you say, you see exactly where they’re coming from. You see, okay, you’re trying to do like the lady with the pies. Full points for differentiation and being memorable. But as you said, if that’s a lead thing. It’s a different story. It also says like context is a big thing as well. Again, being high in SEO is not a bad thing. Yeah. But if that’s the primary sole thing, then maybe there’s an issue there. Absolutely.

Roy Sexton
My first berm was they were they were publishing a quarterly magazine. A mortgage foreclosure firm was publishing a quarterly magazine. We’re no small amount of change for a client base of about 500 maybe was 1000 I can’t remember now. And we were already It was 2011 we were moving into a space for people I don’t know about you sometimes I like getting a print magazines. It’s nice to sit down with them. For the most part. I read all the articles in Entertainment Weekly by the time I get the actual issue, because they’ve already been online.

Roy Sexton
Exactly. Thanks, guys. We’re putting a lot of energy into the content. That’s great. But we’re spending a lot of money to produce a magazine has always come back because the people in the mortgage foreclosure industry move around so much. We get a lot of return address. Why don’t we stop doing this? But it was for a while? Yes. But people love this magazine, they look forward to this magazine every time I’m like, I have three or four people do or they’re being nice. Like, thank you, you sent me a magazine.

Roy Sexton
Why are you? Why are you doing a magazine and we stopped doing it a certain point, but I had to give something instead. And so the content is worth let’s, we’re gonna get more eyeballs on it, moving it out of a printed piece. But again, it’s you know, and something that worked 10 years ago might work 10 years ago, but you always have

Roy Sexton
the principle.

Al McBride
I love the principle that as I said, they were proud of the articles, the quality content that maybe people were like, Oh, I did pick up the magazine, which seems a bit daft but that was actually a very good article. So you know, the principle is there, as you said, You’re, you’re actually praising that it’s just changing maybe the channel or the format or whatever it

Roy Sexton
so No, I think a very American thing is going to be accomplished. But probably won’t sound like it to your ears. What I love about my European friends My boss is in Dublin all the time and she’s Irish and yeah and obviously you’re British you know that um but you have a way that especially people in the UK but I think throughout Europe making just my in laws are Italian they can work just a little phrase in there. Well it is daft but little did you know that I aspire to that where I could just calmly send it to a sentence like my boss can and just you go Oh, that is daft. You’re right. I so I’m learning something from you if I could just work in

Al McBride
work in the flip side, that’s not so complimentary. It’s the other side. The other edge of the sword is they say yeah, the Americans out there. It’s bless your heart there. That’s their version of bless your heart. You’re very good. Brilliant. I’m gonna one of the questions, I’d love to ask people who have expertise in the field because I love to learn more and more on these insights. And one of them is about common myths or misunderstandings or misconceptions that people often have. What do you find either about marketing or maybe more specifically about lawyers? What are some of those big things that people often get slightly off for just very, very wrong?

Roy Sexton
One I come up against all the time, and I and then I used to play. It’s like a really only people who care about this distinction. There’s an anecdote I’ve used far too much. I’m going to use the game here and those who heard me before going to a router comes to the Disney story. I love Disney and I obviously love kitch and Walt Disney was building Disneyland. I assume this is true. And there was Mainstreet and whatever’s tomorrow and is to the right I think, and there was a bed of flowers and people were walking through the flowers and the gardeners all came and said, Well, we to please fence around these flowers, because they’re getting walked on.

Roy Sexton
And Walt Disney said, No, we need a sidewalk there. And I think about that a lot like we do that a lot in corporate, I don’t know, I’m about to do it myself and I struggle with this like, is it? are we fighting an uphill battle? And we should listen to our own internal consumers and stop trying to distinguish this? Or should we keep fighting the good fight? Because it’s an important enough distinction to make? And I don’t know. And what I’m about to say is the difference between marketing and business development.

Roy Sexton
That means something very distinct, at least to those of us who do that, particularly in the legal space, although I think generally, we when we do orientation with our attorneys, I have a peer who leads business development and I lead marketing. We also find she’s a woman, I’m a boy, and, and often because of the inherent sexism in the world. People always come to me before they come to her and I’m like, No, we’re peers.

Roy Sexton
She does not report to me I do not report to her we are peers can we get that through our heads? These are two distinct disciplines. And we describe it this way. Marketing shows you where the door is. Business Development helps you walk through it. Okay? So my job as a marketer is all the fun stuff. Another person said to me once you marketers make the attorneys feel good and we business development people have to tell the truth.

Roy Sexton
And you know, it’s kind of I am the PT Barnum. I’m the one who gets the gets the noise. I’m the one that everybody wants to get an article place. They want to get pie set out, they want to do these things that feel fun, they want to have parties they want to and a lot of stuff like I wouldn’t do that. I am not an event planner. Why are we having parties, why are we even Christmas parties, who cares? But that they come to my side of the team for that? The BIOS, the photos, the website, the brand, all the fun stuff.

Roy Sexton
The Business Development people are the strategist. They’re the ones who come in and sit down with the attorney again, the attorney is the one who gets the credit for what they bring in, none of us do. So if I’m an attorney, I need to sit down and have a hard conversation just like I would with a fitness instructor, but an instructor or a dietitian. Here’s how you discipline a discipline way, grow your book of business, you have to have a plan. You have to have a steady drumbeat. You have to make phone calls you have, you know, the stuff that isn’t fun.

Roy Sexton
Just like I would love to have muscles and ABS but that means I have to stop eating fudge brownies and do and run and do sit ups and none of those things are gonna happen. But the brownies are the marketing and the setups to the business development. And so if you really think about those two disciplines, they they are complimentary. We create the tools and the mechanisms that should complement what the attorney does. So the attorney wants to jump over business development and come up with let’s send pies.

Roy Sexton
Let’s have a party and the business development person is pulling them back when wait a minute before we spend money on pies and parties and things. What are we trying to do here? What industries are important to you? What are your targets? How are you reaching them? You know, let’s take time to learn how to play the piano before we say we’re having a concert at Carnegie Hall. I know my, my metaphors are so mixed. They’re great. But that’s the that’s me drives me bonkers all the time. And it? I think it’s, I think it’s in many industries, but it’s legal. They want to, they want to allied all of it and just say, well, you guys are just marketing. They dismiss it. It’s just marketing, isn’t it, just marketing. I pick up the phone, just do what I need you to do. And it’s like, no, we’re here.

Roy Sexton
Because we have an expertise and we’re gonna make you better. We’re going to help you achieve those long term goals. You have yourself proposed to the Sugar Rush, that my boss would sometimes call it because they get something right away and they have something right away and they feel like they did something interesting. So, you know, it’s just, that to me is the big, the big challenge we face in the legal side of things. So,

Al McBride
very good, very good. I’d love more thought. On what advice you’d give with having to work with people, particularly who are very bright, particularly who have very strong opinions, often with a huge amount of experience. It’s that kind of thing where, you know, people who are, who are very accomplished often think that their, their expertise and insight in one domain naturally carries into their expert insight in another. And you mentioned your approach, but being very humane, very self deprecating, and very human. In that approach, which is lovely. Are there any other thoughts you’d have for people?

Roy Sexton
Well, I think you also have to be not afraid to toot your own horn. So I’m, I’m weird mix of things. Um, and in second grade, Mrs. Edwards that I had. So this is I tell these stories because I think they tell a lot about my psychology. Yeah, or I think they’re funny anyway, I was, it was a kid, and I was I was a bookish kid. I wear penny loafers and carried a briefcase that you know, I was doing more of an adult in kindergarten than I am now. And I that’s that was my thing I was I read I was I worked on this part of my body.

Roy Sexton
But on the playground there were, you know, rough tumble kids Chad rice. I’ll call him out Chad. Hi. He kicked me in the shins on the playground. It just cause because kids do that. And we were friends. I was like, What? Well, when we got into class, we were in reading circle, and Chad couldn’t read. I could. So there was my victory. I’m reading like illegally any learned, I leaned over to my friend Ted beer. And I say Ted chat is dumb.

Roy Sexton
Now I’m not even going to chat with dumb but he just made this shin. So it seems fair. And Ted, my friend, when Mrs. Edwards says, What did Roy just say to you, Ted? Ted says Roy said Chad is dumb. I’m like, thanks a lot. When I learned and then Mrs. Edwards at night, called my mother and said Roy needs to learn how to be humble. And I didn’t know what that meant. And my mother was very protective. And she’s like he does not and I’m like, well, maybe I do a little bit

Roy Sexton
But what I take from that moment is the humility is kind of what I lead with because I know nobody likes somebody to go look at me, look at me look at me We have to talk the attorneys out of that they think that by leading with I’m very important and I’ve got all these accolades and everybody loves me, they’re gonna get this. Nobody wants to talk to that person. But they want to know you got it in the background. So for me with the attorneys being accessible and approachable and a decent human being for the most part is great, but then I get to do things like this. And I’m not shy about putting this out on social media and letting the attorneys know now there’s a delicate balance because they could very easily go you’re out there too much. And I waiting for that day. But they also do look at their they are very because they look at those those things on their own TV. They look at them online. They looked at I’m on the international border with me may see them on the board around mcdonald house and mosaic up They see I’ve written a couple of books that only four people bought. But I get, you know, they, they see me out there writing articles and being asked to speak on issues and that add that air of, but I never bring it up. I’m down with them. I don’t go. Well, you should listen to me because I was just interviewed today. I don’t know. They don’t need they know what’s happening. They don’t acknowledge it. Never really, they don’t ever go. But I know they know what’s happening because I hear from people that the attorneys are like, many of our attorneys are fascinated by you because they want to do what you do for yourself. Okay, how to do that. And I do. And I say, this is what works for me, and I’m not afraid, just as I am with you to lay up there and go, this is what works for me. I’m an introvert, I’m in my own head. So I have to give people a point of access. And then once they’re in and I feel comfortable with them, they see that there are layers, layers of crazy, but they see there are layers there and they go oh, he’s actually got he’s got two graduate degrees. He’s done a lot of things. He’s asked to do more Maybe I want to listen to him even though I don’t want to let him know I’m actually listening.

Al McBride
Gotcha.

Roy Sexton
Gotcha that I’m already doing it. I’m okay. not winning. I think the consulting trouble trying to win an argument. I know that in and I’ve just sold the apartment, everything. I know that in winning the argument sometimes it’s just it drifts away. An attorney doesn’t really ever want to say You’re right. I was wrong. Right? Why it leaves Robin?

Al McBride
That’s fine. It’s the classic kind of marriage counseling thing of right. You want to be right or do

Roy Sexton
you want to be married? That’s right

Al McBride
to choose the battles and yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But I’m not. I’m just picking up on a point that you made there about the volunteer work or nonprofit charitable work. What do you feel that brings? Is it just as an escape? Is it a completely different headspace? Is it a feeling of giving back or how do you feel that that that it brings you value personally,

Roy Sexton
it’s all of the above. There’s a I won’t lie, there’s a bit of ego involved if she asked to be on a board, you know, and I bet on a bet on boards now, maybe 10, 15 years, the first few boards I was on they were local theaters and the board was, you know, a committee. It was fighting over one play we were going to pick for the fall. But as my life has evolved, I’ve gotten to be on sort of more corporate or more community oriented boards, which I much prefer so I’m, I’m gratified that someone says, Hey, you, you’re connected, you make a lot of noise, we’d like you on our board.

Roy Sexton
But then once I’m in it, I also like getting to know the people I like cohort learn, I do better and a group that I’m with, I liked my MBA for that reason. I’ve done some leadership programs. If you’re just the same group of people, that’s where I do best and get to know you as a slow drip over time. And then you then know we’re sort of always tied together. So I like that about board work. And I do like and I should lead with But you know, it’s third in my list, it tells you some about me. I like the fact that what we’re doing does have a positive impact. Like I like that Ronald McDonald House I, we had a nice, we had asthma as a child and her mother’s day there.

Roy Sexton
But otherwise we don’t have that much of a connection to it. But I know and when I can empathize with the situation, a family must be going through when their child is very, very ill. And to be able to go to a place and lay their head down and have somebody be kind to them, and give them food and have them not worry about those things for a little bit. That’s that does speak to my heart. That’s the storyteller in me. That’s the person who’s lived through bad things and knows how hard it is to feel isolated and just have somebody show some kindness. And I think the present moment we’re in as a culture, global culture, that those bits of kindness are so important.

Roy Sexton
You know, people want to argue or fight in their battles in their forgetting. We need a warm touch. We need someone to say I love you. We need someone to Say, Hey, you’re gonna get through this moment right now. And so I like that about Ronald McDonald House. The mosaic youth theater has a similar mission in that it in that not exactly what it does, but he is offering arts education in the metro in Detroit primarily to kids whose schools got rid of the arts because it couldn’t. And and for me, theater has informed my business life by far more than my MBA my my interest in reading an audience and telling a story.

Roy Sexton
All of those skills I use every day, the MBA dental that had people go, okay, you’re not a complete flake. And so I like that mosaic is taking kids who are just like, I had parents who had me read books and watch movies. And I’ve benefited from that, you know, we’re able to do a version of that with kids in Detroit, who if they go into arts and we’ve had some Tony Award winners and get some really accomplished actors come out of that program.

Roy Sexton
And we’ve also had some amazing community and business leaders come in program because They’re set on a path, to say collaboration is valuable. working as a team is valuable. doing that with limited resources, because theater, we never have anything to work with theater. So you’ve got to make magic out of nothing. And those skills and to be able to do that in a collaborative fashion that really baffles your life. So I, in those two instances, there are specific reasons once I get past my ego, being part of a club, that I like being involved with those.

Al McBride
Excellent, excellent. And that brings me to another thought is, what do you believe that most people don’t do have a particularly unique take on, again, whether it’s legal, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s the impact or application theater principles,

Roy Sexton
I believe. Yeah, one thing and this may be awfully specific. I don’t like when people hire based solely on technical skills. Or in a fairly linear way saying, well this person has done this job before, so I’m only going to hire people who’ve done that job before. I’d rather have I did a production of the mystery of Edwin Drood a few years ago and I own one of my favorite theater experiences and the director. He does have a learning development in his day job and and, you know, and children who have learning challenges and actors are not dissimilar.

Roy Sexton
So he got such good work out of us because he structured the program our rehearsal program rehearsals differently we usually do a theater piece you’ll go one day music one day choreography one day acting and every week is like, he didn’t do it that way. All the time I’ve ever had this experience. He did all the music first. And we spent three intensive weeks it was hard music. And we learned that music and we had it in our bones and he said you get off look on the music. And then we spent two weeks on choreography. So we got the music in there.

Roy Sexton
We were and none of us are dancers. So we had to. And then at the end, we added all the scene work around it. And I felt so confident. And so certain of what I was doing because of that learning model. Now, where I’m coming to on the hiring piece, I asked him after it was all over, I said, How do you frame this really interestingly, you I feel like you got the best out of me I’ve ever done. I love the people I get to work with what is your trick?

Roy Sexton
Kind of smile, dingoes. I cast for culture, not talent. And I thought, well, thanks, man. He goes, No, no, you seem fine. You’re great. You got talent. You have to have a certain level of talent. Sure. But I’m casting you because I know you’re going to be my quarterback. You’re going to get along with people, you’re going to have everyone else come along behind you, as well. That’s that, and I think about that when I’m hiring people now. It’s like, I want someone who’s gonna fit in with the team. I can teach them. I learned these skills.

Roy Sexton
No one taught me I people took chances on me it was an English and theater major and people gave me a chance to Deloitte. They gave me a chance to open healthcare. They gave me a chance at Clark Hill. And I’ve never been a conventional candidate. So why would I suddenly get conventional when I’m hiring other people and I’ve, I’ve gotten when I listened to other people in hiring, and this happened a couple times, I always kind of regretted that if I thought that person was the person we want to work with.

Roy Sexton
No, they don’t come with the resume that fits perfectly the job. But we can teach them those things. I can’t teach them how to be a decent human being and someone who works well with others. That’s very good point. And so that’s my, I don’t know if it’s unconventional, but I, I’m, I’m solidifying it because it wasn’t really clear in my head until the last couple years where it’s like, look for the culture fit and and assume a certain amount of talent, you know, but

Al McBride
no, I love that. It actually corresponds with A book I read there recently on rebel ideas. And one of the points in that is exactly what you’re saying about hiring people to fill in your blind spots for that diversity of right of insight. And maybe that comes from experience or background or whatever. But as you said, people who don’t just think like you which is which is similar to what you’re talking about it just last one, um, if someone wanted to get into marketing into better storytelling, so they’re with you in, in taking that humane humanity approach, having humility, and then trying to tap into what the audience really where they’re coming from, what their needs, are there any particular books that you’d recommend any particular resources.

Roy Sexton
Yeah, so how long do we have?

Al McBride
Let’s go with three key ones and other way

Roy Sexton
to go six, but I know but before I get to those, I my reading my text that inform me actually aren’t the conventional ones as I have some of those, like the world is flat by Thomas Friedman, which is now 20 years old. I love that love

Al McBride
it here above my head.

Roy Sexton
That book changed my or it solidified a perspective I had which was the disruptive nature of communications technology and what that does to tribal. Obviously, we’re living through that right now. I found that book fascinating and it kind of gave me that aha moment about how you can use the platform to connect with people. If you feel you know, in an isolated way or whatever, and you can bring the world together. I thought it was a fantastic book.

Roy Sexton
But there are other things like, you know, the prince by Machiavelli doesn’t form a lot of it just does. The allegory of the cave is something I come back to a lot of the misanthrope by mollier they’re just things I read in my life. That I that got under my skin To Kill a Mockingbird because the movie Penny serenade? They’re just things texts that do inform my worldview and the way I approach things, but that’s not me. Yeah.

Al McBride
So I have a very interesting though. Thank you. Yeah, that’s right. Y

Roy Sexton
ou’ll be like QVC. Do you have that over there? Or that home shopping network? Oh, yes. Hold up some books.

Al McBride
Get it Oh,

Roy Sexton
this one just came out the pivot J. Harrington. If you’re not following him on all things, you must a his wife does all the design work. She’s also a genius. So everything looks beautiful that they do but the, the way he approaches this, he’s an attorney who now does business development in marketing. And he doesn’t do it in that sort of off the shelf. Here’s a recipe book, he really gets you immersed in the the brain patterns that will help you be successful as someone’s supporting people who who need to understand these skills to succeed. This is called the productivity pivot.

Roy Sexton
And it’s really designed for attorneys, but as a marketer, I would highly recommend build a profitable legal practice by selling yourself you need to know what he’s telling you read this just came out to have a few. And of course, these are all friends of mine. So there’s a shameless Around best practices in law firm business development and marketing.

Roy Sexton
What I love about this book is she is one of the just just a decent soul and a great human being and she shares her own sort of experience. It opens with her going into her first law firm like 1988 or 1989. And having her desk be in like the broom closet and moving things to the side because they didn’t know what to do with marketers. And so it charts her growth she also brings in content from other people and I think it’s really well done.

Roy Sexton
This is very important. Gina, ruble, everyday public relations for lawyers. I’m a big fan of media and public relations as a tactic. Getting that thought leadership out there and the third party validation of the media saying this attorneys very smart on a topic that I can repurpose for social media and marketing purposes. And this is a Bible for how to do that kind of work. Excellent. I’m not done. Sorry.

Roy Sexton
The talent Emergency by Nicole Martin is about what we were just discussing. So I got through that and quickly but check this book out about her casting for culture. All right pandemic Julie Severino survive and thrive post pandemic. I also have a blurb on the back. That’s not my hold it up. But she’s here locally in Arbor and a business development legend and she talks about in this current moment, what do you need to do to be prepared now these are fun books at the end.

Roy Sexton
Finally, things that’s been a Carson, another legend in the legal marketing space. It’s called the last night run. What this book has nothing to do with marketing except she’s a genius, chief marketing officer in the legal space, but she is also an incredible humanitarian. Her quote, her favorite quote is from Mother Teresa if you can’t feed 100 feed one.

Roy Sexton
So she grew 1520 years ago set up this soup run in Manhattan once a month with a big group of people who go from Manhattan in bring food to the homeless. And her whole point is I wanted people treat people with inhumane conditions as people. And they’re my guests. And I want them to feel loved, which is amazing. And finally, they have to my own mother has written needs to bow.

Roy Sexton
It’s an old typewriter. And I love this one misunderstood gargoyles and overrated angels. I mean, you talk about people who have influenced you in your life, my mom and her worldview, which is very inclusive, very interested in our own personal history and how that informs our future. These are all a series of essays of a very liberal progressive woman growing up in conservative small town Indiana and and what that meant to her and how culture informed that so when I think about books that have influenced me and continue to influence me, I’m always gonna treasure these because it’s, you know, her own personal history. There it’s not like seven or eight books in seven or eight

Al McBride
appears beautiful array. They’re nice across all sorts of different domains. So

Roy Sexton
Thank you, and I get nothing for that I get no cut of the profits, even though I know every one of those authors.

Al McBride
Hmm. Well, then the very last question, is there a question request submitted but the

Al McBride
very last one, the very last one, just to finish off because I do want to respect your time I know you’ve hold multitude of appointments coming up. So is there ever a question that you’re waiting for someone to ask you that they never bloody asked you that question, What might that be? What question are you dying to be asked?

Roy Sexton
You might have stumped me and you even told me what you might be asking in advance. Um,

Roy Sexton
I guess the question I never get asked is how do you really feel about this boy? It’s a bit of a left turn.

Al McBride
It’s quite a layered question. So how do you really feel?

Roy Sexton
I mean, I you You know, people I think our our nature is and my nature is just to kind of come in behind and go, Okay, let me get through this moment I’m in with the person I’m working with, and get back to my because I really just I crave those. I live for those silent 20 minutes, you know where I don’t have anybody talking to me? Which sounds awful and there’s misanthrope. That’s why I like that place so much. Um, I, I don’t think we ever asked people enough.

Roy Sexton
And I don’t feel like I’m ever asked enough. How do you feel? You know, what do you what do you think down deep. We tend to steer into the situation we’re in and try to massage it toward an outcome. But we never really want to honestly know, like, there was a situation that arose last night that I won’t go into detail about workwise where I just wanted to say, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Roy Sexton
Being able to say it and to be respected for that. That kind of candor. I just don’t. I think as a culture globally, we claim to appreciate the kind of candor when someone is that honest and that’s what the misanthrope is about. By the way, if you’ve ever read Moyers piece, it’s just someone who just has. Bartleby the Scrivener is another piece like this. It’s a Herman Melville short story where if you’ve ever read it, I think I prefer not the entire short story and same thing I prefer not. And so we’re whatever Scrivener is right?

Roy Sexton
I should know, writes things right? And I and they would go I need you to do this for work. I prefer not. They try to fire him. I’d prefer not. And it sort of becomes satire because when he survived Rip Van Winkle, and they’re carrying him up on a chair to close the business, and he’s like, I prefer not. That’s his answer to everything. But we don’t really let people speak their truest minds most more often than not, and I wish we could I wish we did. And I wish I guess I felt competent. When I’m asked not to say you know what, this is what I really think of this situation. Please keep employing me.

Al McBride
Here’s the official answer. Here’s how I really feel about it.

Roy Sexton
Hey, what’s your question the way? You know,

Al McBride
you know that that’s a good one. That is a very good one because, yeah. diplomacy is in the workplace also for a reason, though, as you say, because people like to keep their jobs. Not offend too much.

Roy Sexton
Again, I’m not gonna change my tune all of a sudden, but I do think we could do more of that where we just say to people, this is safe. Tell me what you really think. And I won’t judge you for it. But I don’t think we I don’t think we’re comfortable with doing that. Most people don’t want to know.

Al McBride
But that’s the thing when you flip it the other way that you have to be brave to ask as I say someone else. Okay, I hear what you said. But what do you really think, you know, you’re exposing yourself to something that could properly wound you. Takes bravery takes courage. Yeah.

Roy Sexton
I’ll never leave the house again.

Al McBride
Yeah. As I said, if you want people to ask you, maybe you need to do the asking. First.

Roy Sexton
therapy?

Al McBride
Well, on that note, I will, I will pause it because I know you have a meeting to go to. So I want to respect your time. But thank you so much for being a guest on the show. That was fascinating and very enlightening. So thank you very much. My

Roy Sexton
pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Al McBride
I lied. There’s one more question if people listening to the podcast want to get in touch or they don’t want to learn more about you

Roy Sexton
know, where

Al McBride
they can’t go away.

Roy Sexton
Yeah, they’re like, Oh, no, not him. I would say I’m, you know, all social media. I I’m very open to invites, and I’m on all platforms, and everything’s public, so you can find me on Facebook. LinkedIn is probably the best option. And then Twitter, or you know, you can always drop me an email at our Sexton sex t o n at Clark hill.com. hear from you. So

Al McBride
Outstanding stuff. Thanks a million, Roy

Roy Sexton
Well thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai