Description: Join Nick Constantino on Marketing Madmen as he and Josh Nelson, CEO of Nelson Elder Care Law, slice through the complexities of elder law in Atlanta. Discover the genuine care and smart strategies that set Nelson Elder Care Law apart in a bustling market.

Keywords:

• Elder Law
• Legal Education
• Power of Attorney
• Medicare and Medicaid
• Legal Document Accessibility
• Authentic Legal Services
• Storytelling in Law

Key Takeaways:

1. Elder law is more than contracts; it’s about understanding and navigating the fine print of life.
2. Josh Nelson offers a unique approach by providing essential legal documents for free, emphasizing education over intimidation.
3. Medicare isn’t all-encompassing; Medicaid could be the crucial support many overlook.
4. In the digital age, having immediate access to important legal documents on your smartphone is key.
5. Quality trumps quantity in the competitive elder law market of Atlanta; authenticity is paramount.
6. Nelson Elder Care Law stands out by crafting personal life stories, not just legal documents, fostering trust and building lasting relationships.

Transcript

Everyone here has a grandparent that they love. What if I told you that they were the targets of countless scams, infighting amongst families and other things that they shouldn’t have to deal with at that age? Well, Nelson Elder care is here to make sure that them, their families, and all of their loved ones are taken care of. In this episode, we talk about how they mark it, how they reach the elderly, and how to make sure everybody lives their best.

They say marketing is a madmans game, so now we turned it over to the marketing madman with Nick Constantino and Trip Joe.

Happy Saturday. Welcome to the marketing, man, man, Nick Constantino here. And we got a great show. We’re talking legal. We’re talking to the elderly. We got a lot to cover. So we’re going to get right to it. And I’m going to introduce Josh Nelson. CEO and founder of Nelson elder care law. Josh. How you doing, bud?

Doing amazing, so glad to be here. Marketing is one of the biggest things that helps us help more families and excited to. Talk more about it.

Yeah. And you guys approach it very interestingly, a lot of people are say they want to educate. But what from what I’ve seen you guys, the effort you put into it? It’s one, it’s part of marking that is forgotten right to be out there, to be educating people. Most educate you because they’re trying to buy something, right? Educating people to really look put it this way, my grandma just turned 99 years old. OK. I love my grandma and she is ******. My grandma, she fell. She blew out a hip and was in and out of the hospital in 24 hours. They did surgery on her hip and she was walking within a week.

They did not let you stay there like they used to. Once you’re in, you’re out.

She’s 99 years old. And she is an immigrant, and she does not want to be a burden on anybody. She still lives alone. She still gardens. She’s nuts. I mean, in fact. There was a couple of months ago she locked herself outside of her house and instead of calling anybody, she went into her shed, got a ladder and climbed in the window and 98 years old. So the point is, is that you look around, we all have grandparents. We all have elderly, we’re around and you know, right now I am getting bombarded with fraudulent calls. I got one from the De Kalb sheriff’s actual number. That was a fraudulent mind, and the only way I knew it is cause what I wouldn’t give my information. I was called some derogatory terms that no sheriff should be saying is the only way I knew this was a scam.

Why is this sheriff cussing at? Me.

So and then I called the Sheriff’s Office and I was like, hey, I just wanna let you know this is happening. And I was. So the nonchalant it’s like it’s. Man, they’re using your number and it’s a scam. So the point is I can only imagine what’s happening in. The world of. The of the elderly, now and and what they’re dealing with and the target they are. So I think before we even get into the legal background, let’s set the stage of what you guys do and how you guys help the elderly because again I. I think we’re heading to that time where they need help.

So first glad to hear your grandma’s 99, but it’s it’s not just the elderly. In that context, I do have seven clients over 100, and hearing their stories just like your grandmothers is. Thing, but it’s just a type of law that describes people 55 and older. As we start to have different ailments and go through different care journeys, how do we plan for that? And it’s not old estate planning that’s wills and trusts and things like that. It’s really looking at the person hearing their story and figuring out where do we go from here. How do we make sure that. And Nick’s taking care of how do we make sure that Nick’s grandmother is taking? Share of like you said, scams are on the absolute rise and they’re so sophisticated today compared to what they were before. It’s not some foreign number. It’s not just your phone saying scam likely.

Yeah.

So you’re not a Nigerian Prince. You’re not a Nigerian Prince, OK?

I’m going to send you a check. I need you to cash it. Just send me some money back. It’s going to work out fine for both of us.

As long as you.

But I think that that’s the thing that we don’t think about and then you hear stories about people not wanting to lose their autonomy. So like you say, your grandmother going. Actually grabbing a ladder to climb through a window before she’s gonna call locksmith because she has that nature and that fear of, oh, my God, if I call my kids or my grandson and I say that I locked myself out, am I going to get put in a home like I I don’t want people to know that I made this mistake and and that’s really where we come in and help us. How do we? Have those conversations. How do we empower people? To really live the lives they want.

To live. Yeah. Yeah, it’s great. OK, so now let’s rewind. So talk about, first of all, getting into law school, getting into it, and then talk about the firm, because that’ll set us up for the conversation to pull all this together.

Definitely unique story. I used to run a race team for Dunlop tires and the local company Maxis Tires went through undergrad here at Kennesaw State. Got a degree in finance? Was it really the right time coming out of 2008 to have a degree in finance? Always wanted to go to law school, be a tax lawyer, come to find out my mom was working for Home Depot. She bet me she could beat me on the entrance exam. She did. We took it again just because I’ll gamble on about any. Saying we both improved got scholarships to law school, so me and my mom, Cindy Nelson actually went to law school together while we were there. I did tax law, got my masters in tax while I was in law school, but she worked for an elder law clinic that the school ran and started just dealing with all senior issues. So is the HOA trying to kick this senior? What are they saying? They can’t have their bench or their American flag.

Don’t even start. With me on the edge, HOA’s. I’m gonna do a whole HOA server show on how. Much. I hate HOA’s. Keep Jerry on.

Well, I’d say it’s so weird, but like the American flag for a senior veteran that fought in World War 2 that’s fighting with his HOA that he can’t have the American flag in his yard. And so she really just had a soft spot for them, came out of law school. I did tax law. She did elder law. A little bit later, she started her own firm and I came and joined. I met a veteran who was flying P50 ones back in World War Two. He got some really bad advice on taxes. Somebody told him just cash out his IRA.

And at the same time perfect.

Just take take the tax.

Hit, you know, pay $40,000 in tax, no big deal and then go try and get a $20,000. Benefit. And that was just stupid. And so my mom, Cindy, brought me in to kind of Co counsel on that thing, fell in love with helping veterans, and the rest is history.

Yeah, I mean it’s it’s an amazing story. It’s ironic. So I was a finance major and I took my lsats and I was this close to going to law school. I don’t know what clicked in my head. I didn’t end up doing it. And I did pretty well. I would have been, you know, a Tier 2 law school would have been. It would have been a I didn’t end up doing it, but I I was a finance degree and I I graduated in 2004. So I would have been entering if I had done finance at the same time where you just didn’t want to be in finance.

So I graduated in 2013. Last year was my ten year anniversary and I am so amazed about how many people that even made it through the three years of. School, who no longer practice it, is definitely not for everybody. I think so many people get into it is, you know, kind of a the economy was down. I’ll go get a masters or a lot of gay or something like that. But if you aren’t really passionate about this, if you just don’t have the drive to help people, there’s not as much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Money in as. People hope, right and.

So they leave, right? And there is money. Most of the time you have to sell yourself to go find that money. Like with most things, right?

Yeah. Ambulance chasers, right, that’s that’s where we get a bad at like.

And no, there’s there’s a place for them, and they some of them are really good and some of them are really good marketers. But it is a crowded space. It is a convoluted and confusing space. So you specialize. So that’s one thing that I think in most of these. Industry is that differentiates. I’m not saying it’s easy to market, but you specialize talk about what you specialize and talk about what your consultations are like. Talk about what your client base is like. Because I have to imagine that, like my grandparents came from Italy on a boat and keep cash under a mattress, right? My grandfather was an 8 year old security guard at a bank and he still doesn’t trust banks like they just there be relationship with money and with these things is different. So. Talk about what your clients are like and and what how much education is required to get them to a place where.

Even comfortable with you, I think that first you you really hit it on the head and you kind of dismissed it. But it is easy whenever you have a niche, you gotta first identify who your avatar is and my. Guitar is not somebody that’s out there, 30 years old with new kids trying to figure out what happens if we get hit by a bus. Yeah, my avatar is people 55 and older that are starting to think about retirement. They don’t want to worry about their money. They don’t want to worry about their health. They really don’t want to be a burden. A lot of times in elder law, we talk about asset protection. But really where we focused is how do we become a burden. Release. Yeah. How do we make it so that whenever your grandma does get where she can’t live alone, she’s not being that, you know?

Yeah.

Kind of duty for your parents or you or whoever.

Yeah, I bet you if you asked 20 people on the street, they would have no idea how much funeral costs or how much of those those processes.

And everything costs. I bet you would have no idea. Almost everybody we meet whenever we first meet them has no idea how much like having somebody in your house costs how much go into these beautiful assisted livings cost. Most people don’t even know what a nursing home is. Or the fact that it costs 8 to $10,000 a month? Yeah. Average retirement for people $2500. How do you make up $7500? Yeah, you come talk.

Yeah.

To people like us.

And pensions are gone, so that’s going to get worse when this next wave comes out and they realize that there’s no pension there, Social Security is going to be diminished. 401K’s with the averages. So it’s gonna get worse. So let’s not. Be all doom and gloom. Yeah, let’s have the rest. But.

That I’ll do it, but yeah. But so the back to your question of how do we market it towards them, it’s really just letting them know first that there’s an option. So many people are afraid to even look at their bank accounts or do a budget. I’ve worked with congressmen, judges, financial advisors, other attorneys. And the reality is almost nobody really works on a budget, so your normal, you know, Grandmother, grandfather, they don’t do it a lot of times, one spouse has been handling all the bills. If that spouse gets sick, the other one is just left in turmoil. They don’t even know what, like, how much money they have, let alone how. Much they spend, and so you.

Well, how much their house is worth? I mean, my grandma, they bought their house, I think, for like $12,000. Cause it was when World War Two vets were settled in New York. You know, the house is worth now. It’s a, it’s.

A bungalow in Queens is worth $1.3 million. I tell you, my grandma’s gonna hate me. I hope she doesn’t hear this, but like whenever I go out to eat with my grandmother. I have to leave cash tip afterwards because like even if she like demands, she’s gonna pick up the meal like it will be like, you know, like a 2 or $5 tip. But you don’t wanna like stiff the waitress. So you gotta be laying down cash afterwards. Yeah, like.

$2.00.

Oh, I I do with my father-in-law. He’s he’s 76 and I’ll do. He’s 86 and all the time before he turns around on my here’s an extra $6. Just take it because he’s still doing math and like 12% and my inflations everywhere. Dude. But you don’t have that conversation.

And that’s The thing is, you’re you’re we you appreciate the gesture, but how do you make it work? And that’s really what we do is we figure out. Things to make the system work, things to make people’s aging journey not feel burden us.

To yeah. So I want to continue this after the break, but talk about how you would distinguish yourself or delineate from a financial advisor because when you use the financial advisor like my parents to get the and they’re meeting with the state attorneys and their meeting, but how do you think that’s what financial advisor said don’t meet with him? To meet with me because I know how to beat the market and I know all this. And now right, like you said, they’re never saying how to protect the family. They’re saying to make you the most money. So they make the most money. But how do you delineate yourself? And I bet you this will carry us through the break. And we’ll talk broadly about the industry. But how do you delineate yourself from financial advisor?

1000% different, so we don’t do any actual money management. Meant we don’t have any kind of assets under management, which is how most financial advisors get paid. They’re taking one 1 1/2% of all your stuff every year. We work on a flat rate model. You come in, you pay me once and that’s all you got to do. We’re big proponents of if you do this once, there’s no reoccurring fees, there’s no ongoing. You know, the old estate planning. Have you got to come back every three years and pay me money? It’s just dumb. We know that seniors are on a fixed budget. We have very transparent flat rate price. Thing. And we’re going to help you. Everything that you need to know to protect your money, not just build it because it’s not just how much you make, it’s how much you keep. So taxes keeping it free from medical costs, making sure that you qualify for any government benefits that are out there. That’s really. Where our specialty is?

Yeah. And I have to imagine. I don’t know if it’s I’ve gotten older and paid more attention, but the laws around these things change almost every six months. It feels like there’s a new RMD. Age changes. And like these things, it’s they change so fast and like they change, but they don’t go into effect into now. So just keeping up with that stuff has to be exhausting.

Absolutely. One of the things that we find is, you know, I joke that what we do is truly Google proof because it’s mandated by not only your county, but your state and the federal government. So if you go Google something and you find out that nationwide, there’s been a change, you don’t know how it really impacts Georgia. So how does Medicaid expansion impact Georgia residents and seniors? How do you qualify for different things to get Medicare waiver? So your insurance paid for cheaper? What kind of things do you need to avoid with your health insurance? What do you need to do with your taxes? Do you even need to file taxes? I mean, that’s probably one of the biggest things for somebody. Like your grandmother is like, is she still filing her taxes?

Well, since I already know my dad.

Or years ago.

‘S been doing it for probably 50 but.

Years ago, somebody said no, you’re good. She just ran with it, and then all of a sudden, they do big tax law changes and then they don’t know if it’s a scam call from the IRS or a scam letter.

Right. They wouldn’t know where to start. Yeah, and I think we’ll pick up on that cause, put up a good point about how States and municipalities are so different. That’s gotta be exhausting. But we’ve been using the marketing amendment, an extra 106 three and we will be right back.

Now back to the marketing. Mad Men on Extra 106.3 FM.

Welcome back to the marketing Madman Extra 106 three. Nick Constantino here with Josh Nelson, CEO of Nelson elder care law, and you brought up. A good point. Before the break, so one of the things that being about a lawyer and I only know this because of like zoom docs and like all these things is 1. So that’s a lot. So we look over a lot of legal contracts. We have contracts with Georgia, the Braves intellectual property tailgates, lots. There’s a lot of contracts that go over. And I it. I’m just dumbfounded. One most things are boilerplate, right? Until you start getting into how the law is applicable to the state. And then the county and then where laws change. And then you’re governed by this here and govern. This year, so I have to imagine Atlanta is a big area of the metro area. You can go from a pretty blue leaning area to a pretty red leaning area fast. You can go from Cobb, which is super developed to Cherokee which is super not like is. Does that make it more difficult where people live and keeping up with the legalities? There.

It absolutely does, and I think that most lawyers are just idiots whenever it comes to this concept.

Let’s rewind that part.

Of. I’m like one of the few lawyers that doesn’t love lawyers. I understand why we have the reputation we do, but I think that sometimes, especially like estate planning attorneys that try and dabble in elder law, try and do marketing to persuade people that they print paper better than they do. Like, that’s so stupid. Like you said, LegalZoom, I can go on LegalZoom with the knowledge that I have and make a great. The state plan. Yeah. And anybody that tells you otherwise is an idiot. They’re they’re trying to scam you in some way, especially in.

Yeah.

Georgia, our legislature is so cool that they give you a power of attorney which, like helps people help you with finances or an Advanced healthcare directive, which is like a power of attorney over medical decisions for absolutely free. And there are attorneys out there, the ones that are just like the lowest of the low, trying to sell these free tools to people.

Sure. Wow.

No way.

Hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

And that’s a big thing, right? I know, like in New York, it is almost impossible to get be granted power of attorney. I have a brother who’s been going through some stuff his whole life. The one of the easiest ways to help would have been to grant power turning to stop him from being able to check himself out of rehabs and stuff. And it is near impossible. New York to gain power of attorney, they want to just caught up in the legal system. And again, that’s where the bureaucracy is, right. There’s a lawyer that have to be assigned to you charging the law. It’s gonna cost you $50,000 to get power of attorney, which is something you should be the privileged to very easily.

Yeah. And it’s really crazy. So like down here in Georgia, if somebody doesn’t have the pre plan done, we do what’s called a guardianship, which is over the body, our conservatorship over the money. And those are easily easily 10 + 1000 dollar cases, especially if there’s any fighting going on, cause you’re going in front of a.

Just ask Brittany.

Judge people are getting their rights taken away from him, but the fact that you can skip all that for absolutely free breaks my heart that people don’t know that. And so whenever we start working with people in different cities or counties where we add value isn’t in the fact that I print paper better than you, it’s the fact that I know what to put on the paper. It’s that whenever we print that. Paper. I know that I don’t need to give your son a paper copy of your power of attorney or your Advanced healthcare directive. He needs to have that as a PDF that’s going to be on his phone, so that if you. Get in a car. Accident or you have a fall. It’s right there. Whenever he rushes to the hospital and they say, hey, do you have this? He pulls it up in his Gmail account and. All of a sudden you’re not longer worrying about. Where are the originals? Where are the originals?

And and that’s a big point now, cause hospitals have more lawyers and they’re more worried about getting sued. And then the insurance companies get involved. I. Mean it’s just a change.

And that’s all. The funny thing is, that’s all lawyers faults, right? That’s like why people hate lawyers.

Well, that’s how you double hours, dude. Come on. I know how I know how the game. Yeah, I I you know it’s it’s it’s an unbelievable thing when you just watch the bureaucracy spread and you watch like it started probably helpful harmlessly. There were a couple of lawyers doing this. Now it’s just this web of interconnected legality that it’s just billable hours here and sometimes it’s it’s self fulfilling, right? Like they they leave the contracts vague so that someone else has to interpret the vagueness of said contract.

Well, and so like, even with power of attorneys, one of the things that confuses people is at the end of every power of attorney, it usually says and all other legal things. Which makes a normal person think like, well, I can do whatever I need to for Nana, right? But then whenever.

All other legal things.

You. And then all of a sudden, you walk into truest or you walk into your local bank and you’re trying to, like, help her pay a bill, or you’re trying to get some money out to buy a car or whatever. And they’re like, Nick, you can’t do this for her. There’s no way that you have the power and you’re like. Well, right here it says and.

Is all their face.

Other legal things. And they’re like, that’s not what that means, which is so crazy. Yeah, that it’s not written in normal English.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I’ve learned this from working with AI and I think this is applicable anywhere, right. It is not about the output. OK, so LegalZoom is giving you a piece of paper, I said. But the more you know and can input to it, the better your output is going to be. As a lawyer, your job is not to give the piece of paper. It’s put all of the right things. The inputs that make. The piece of paper A I can probably do a lot of this stuff.

Yeah. So I think AI is gonna clean the clock of most attorneys. It really just is because most attorneys are in the document preparation. Even what you’re saying I would challenge is not being true. What’s best on paper. Cause AI is gonna do that. AI is gonna read hundreds of thousands of versions of powers of attorney, and they’re gonna kick out a pretty freaking deal. One where I feel like the attorneys best job is is as the advisor. Just because you have that piece of paper in front of you, how do I make sure that you understand it? How do I make sure that whoever is going to help you understands it so that whenever life throws you a curveball, you’re actually there prepared not just being like I think I got that in my safety deposit box. I don’t know what it. Yes, and that’s where I think that the attorneys role is going to shift drastically over the next three years.

Yeah.

So it’s gonna be a relationship business. It’s gonna be a rapport build. You’re not gonna be. You’re not going to be just a a shadow behind the Oz behind the curtain. You’re gonna actually be someone who’s gonna be able to get beach on phone. I know my father hasn’t training merge. I don’t know what he does. I’ve never actually interacted with him legally. But I’ve met him before. Yeah, it’s like I’ll just ask merge. I’m like, who the heck is this merge guy?

1000%. Well, I think that’s where like so much of it comes from is really where I’d love to get kind of my three-year goal is how do I give away the legal stuff for free and just be there as an advisor be there as a true counselor, the way attorneys really started back 200 years ago. So that if something does happen to your dad and you call.

And you said.

I’m like, hey, I got you and I think that’s the part where most attorneys are get left behind.

No. They’re gonna spend 25 minutes, actually just asking who is this again so we can build the hours back for that. Ohh sorry I have. A bad connection. What was your name?

Yeah, that’s we’re rolling out like a portal to give everybody case status of where they’re at with everything. Even the kids are gonna have a way to be able to text in if it’s emergency call 24/7. And that’s gonna be right on everybody’s phone. And that’s the kind of thing that’s gonna create those relationships that add value. I think the people that are trying to compete on my paper is better than your paper. Yeah. Are gonna.

Amazing. Die every day. So let let’s set up a marketing conversation cause I think this is a good segue. So how in in Atlanta, how many real competitors would you say you have that are doing business like you? And how many competitors do you think you have there doing business, either the wrong way or a different version of what you’re doing is in a thousands what? Would you say competitor wise?

When we started 10 years. Ago there were maybe three people who really did elder law well and over those ten years it has flourished. And unfortunately it’s because a lot of people are trying to take advantage of seniors. You know, it’s the old quote. Why do people rob banks? Cuz that’s where the money is. That’s where people are trying to go for seniors, get these baby boomers in their retirement. So if you pull up Elder lawyer right now.

Yeah.

There’s hundreds of them in Metro Atlanta. There are five that I would trust my family too, OK? There’s one in Decatur. There’s one in Alpharetta, so we don’t have.

So if you’re saying to the, you’re saying community based. Realistically, if you’re saying that it’s the kid and he’s a tough kid, so it’s it’s a community based kind of thing, right?

Yeah, you’re really looking for most seniors aren’t going to drive more than about 12 miles to get somewhere, right. So if you think about like your.

Let’s hope they don’t, at least the ones I’ve been around.

Like if you think about, you know, your 99 year old grandma, if she’s still driving, which I’ve had 103 year old still drive. Tangent. But Georgia DMV, or DDS, will continue to give you your license until you’re well over 100. If you could pass the vision test.

Achar.

That’s one of the biggest conversations that we help people navigate again because it’s not about the paper is, how do we make sure that she’s safe? How do we make sure that she doesn’t have some cognitive impairment where she’s getting lost in? Alabama and all of a sudden.

Yeah, and it’s. It’s a big problem, you know, it’s a big problem because rush hour coincides with the exact time that that Golden Corral has their senior time special. So when you’re in rush hour, you have all these. And I I I, my grandfather, he lived drive to his old my father-in-law 5050 and a 65 God bless him. I don’t never want to take that. Throw it away. Just don’t be on the road in rush hour. Just go out on the road and there’s nobody there for the love of goodness.

Well then the the problem. The problem with so much of the growth of people saying they do this is people don’t know how to verify. So even yesterday I had a marketer that was meeting a referral partner over to Starbucks and she overheard a senior couple talking to a guy that’s just wearing AT shirt in the middle of Starbucks talking about their will.

That is not a legal. Statement, by the way.

And their trust and. Like, that’s so scary you don’t have the confidentiality. Those people are my most fearful people because what happens is they have the paper in their hand and they have the confidence of having a plan. But they have.

They have a plan. They have a plan just to have one. Yeah, someone told them they have to have a plan. So they have a plan. They don’t know to execute it. They don’t have a liaison or confidant to help them walk through it. Yeah. They someone told. Oh, my God, this happened. We need a plan. So they made a plan. That’s the end of it.

No.

Especially if the guy doesn’t even have an office. Like what happens if he changes his business, right? So all of a sudden he figures out he can’t hack it as a lawyer without an office? Who are they gonna call? Who are they gonna call? Whatever something goes wrong? You know what happens if you go to a firm that only has one lawyer, and that lawyer decides to be a judge? Like they they can’t help you then, like, what’s going to go on. And so.

Yeah, but T-shirts. Not a good starting sign.

Yeah.

That’s really where. There’s about 5 people around Atlanta that I would call like competition, but there’s literally hundreds of people that say. They do what?

We do. Yeah. So it sounds to me like this is one of those examples where it lends itself well to content, marketing, storytelling, content creation, education. And it’s really hard, right, because you are adding good hardness. Trying to be an educator where there are people who are trying to just capture the lowest buck or outbid you, or now all of a sudden you’re doing a great job. So they’re coming in and they’re stealing your your clicks on Google. So talk about how you approach your marketing, that storytelling and talking about where you’ve seen success and where you’ve seen other people who are doing things a different way, maybe get an advantage some. This is.

I think whenever I look at what’s going on, 1st, the education is always the foundation, especially whenever you have a service based industry and people don’t quite understand it. So a big part of our marketing is we have to start with what’s the problem helping people identify that figure out what their pain points are for that problem, and then figure out what solutions are. Possibly there for them.

To choose how often do you have people not know what their problems are because one of the things in life you always find out right is people may think they know, but it takes probing to find. Out what the real root of the problem is, I would say.

Recently the Internet and helped in some of our marketing has definitely helped. By the time they call, they’ve usually send content where they have at least half of them have a good understanding. But.

That’s good. That’s good.

That’s good.

That means the marketing worthwhile just in that sense, if they’re educated more and they’re calling you with the basis of education, that means what you’re doing is working.

Absolutely. But the the biggest thing is most people get their paychecks and they see Medicare taken out of their paychecks, and they assume Medicare is going to cover everything whenever they get old. I would say over 80% of people that call in think that Medicare is just something that’s going to cover whatever you need health wise. Whatever you turn 65. And that’s just a a big misnomer. And the bigger part of that is there’s a program called Medicaid, which is a government benefit service, and even people in the industry get them mixed up because Medicare and Medicaid are spelled so similarly, they can’t really differentiate. So what we found is story based marketing telling people really stories.

Sure.

About this person was in this situation. They came in because of their mom or they came in because their spouse they came. Because of. Themselves, but really importantly, making sure that we’re telling how they’re the hero of the story, not how Nelson elder care law or Josh is the hero of the story, because nobody cares. You know we’re the largest in the state. That does what we do and we don’t market that at all because I don’t think people care about it. It gives us the ability to be there. We’re large enough that if something happens, we’re a resource for them. But I don’t think anybody goes in and is like I need to get my estate plan done or I want to talk to an other law attorney. I just want the biggest, biggest and So what we do is try and say.

Yeah.

No.

How does this daughter free? Herself by getting a plan for her mom. That makes it so that maybe she moves in right now with them, but they have a plan so that if that doesn’t work, she. Can go somewhere else can.

And she knows how much it costs. You have those things laid out and you have understanding not. Just going into it winging it. Yeah, my team hates it cause.

I always do math. Like I’m just a big math person. It’s the kind of thing. Like, if you really look at a budget like, say, an assisted living is $5000 a month, that’s $60,000 a year. People look at that as how the heck am I going to spend $60,000 a year?

I’ve been doing it in my head too.

Well, then you look at it and say, OK, well, you actually have 3 grand a month in income. So that’s 36. Now all of a sudden we’re just over $20,000.

24 gramma. Yep.

The year you got, you know $200,000, you got 10 years worth of money and you’re 93. I think you’re OK. Like, those are the conversations that people aren’t going to have without the. Math. And again, nobody lives on a budget, so just being able to explain that, especially with things like Medicaid, a lot of times we’re able to get people 24/7 care and save. Between 8590, sometimes even 100% of their assets. And that’s the kind of thing that people just don’t even know. That’s an option. So what happens a lot is whenever your parent goes to a community like a nursing home.

Wow.

And it’s seven, $8000 a month. The business office is not your best friend. They’re going to tell you, hey, let’s apply for this benefit. They purposely apply, get you a denial letter and just say keep paying us till you’re broke and then we’ll reapply. And then people don’t even look for us because they’ve seen something on state letterhead that says you don’t qualify. Where if we can get the right content to. Them they actually could save 100% of what they worked. Their entire lives for.

Yeah, end time, end time, because now you will never applying. You’re saving time, money, everything. You’re stressing your kids and.

Well, in the stress, I mean, imagine you you think dealing with you know the DMV is bad or the IRS is bad. Imagine an underfunded state represented like, you know entity. So just this morning before we came in, we had a guy that was like, how do I make my mom’s the word of the state? And we had to explain to him the department that. Handles that has 35 staff total. They do not take people as wards of the state. They’re under resource, they have 900 wards in the entire state of Georgia, not 900 a year, 900 total. You can’t just call up and say, hey, I don’t want to deal with Nanna or mom or whoever. Can you take it over like that’s not an option.

Oh my God.

That that’s that’s insane. So I’m, I know we’re gonna do our last segment on now. We’re going to say how. Why is this all broken and how do we fix it? Because first of all, how you have to do marketing for the government because they were so stupid to name Medicare and Medicaid the same thing and confuse everybody and do no marketing of their own to actually give people a service in which we are paying for is crazy. All of this is crazy.

Oh.

We talk about content marketing, talk about what you’re doing, talk about what, where you’re reaching. People talk about when they’re coming in. Are they saying they saw it? Are you doing outreach? Are you reaching people who are already in the funnel? Talk about how you use this cause. I think this is a good lesson for a lot of people. It is a very misused thing. Content marketing. What most people do is they think standing up and putting a YouTube video drawing on about the product or service they do. It’s content marketing. Well, let. Me tell you, no one’s gonna you.

I did that. I did that it.

Did. Didn’t work because there’s no active. I joke with people all time we have. To make a. Video I go. OK. You made me spend 20 grand making a video for all this time. And go. Who’s gonna? Your video and then understand that it just doesn’t work that way. You don’t just put something into the ether and just pray that it’s going to be watched. So talk. About how you do your content marketing.

I think the biggest thing that people forget is whenever you’re making a piece of content. You’re 80% done by the time you turn the camera on. You better have put input into what you’re trying to actually educate somebody on who you’re trying to reach, what kind of thumbnail, what kind of tag, where are you going to put this thing so that it adds value? Because you can easily get kind of scammed into spending way too much money on production. And then you look at your video. Afterwards, and you’re like, how do we cut this thing together in a way that’s not just? Yum. And so making sure you have a plan, making sure you have a real shoot list, making sure that you’re coming with a hypothesis of how is this going to help my end user? How is this going to educate them? How is this gonna give them value? Especially now there’s so much content being put up. If it doesn’t add value. If you’re not really giving people actionable stuff, don’t play. Hide the ball. You know, 10 years ago you could put an ad up there like the Frank Kern. Method where you’re trying to like hide like you gotta click here. Download here. Even click funnels. You know based up in Canton.

Yeah. Oh.

The problem with even what they do is people don’t want to go find it anymore. You got to give people actively that value, give people the story, let them know how it impacts them.

And and not only that, but you have to play in the parameters that Google and Facebook and Instagram set up, right? One of this is SEO is like you may say think you say everything. Are you tagging it the right way? Are you keyword are you summarizing is it transcribing because one of the things when you look at SEO right? These are buzzwords, these are things people are talking about now. They may not have been as much 10 years ago that’s a good thing but there’s your video actually say that are you saying the buzz words and one of the things I found. Is a. This is where I can really help because you could say here’s a topic. Give me some talking points and some keywords that I should say and you could preemptively do that. Most people are doing it after the fact. You could preemptively do that.

I would say even once you get the AI version, make sure that somebody that’s not in your company or not in your like field of practice or business is looking to it too, because you might have cursor knowledge. So like nobody searches Medicaid. Here, but for offer like you know, so long as an attorney, we’re gonna try and go target those words. We’re gonna try and do that. Well, that’s just dumb. And you put it into AI, and AI is like you’re an idiot. Don’t use.

Right.

That word, but then sometimes just.

Hey, I called me an idiot all the time. Also it’s it’s unbelievable. I’m sitting. I thought it was.

Whimsical. It’s like Nope, you’re dumb, but so then also just going in front of people, right? Like actually getting in front of people that are kind of part of. They’ve worked with you in the past. They’re happy with what you’re doing. Go buy them lunch and say, hey, can I show you a couple of things? What do you want? What would make you buy doing that research? So many people just want to do the content because content is uncomfortable. People don’t like being in front of video, and they finally get that down. And then they realize this is 10% of the work. You got to go do the research. You got to go make sure that it’s planned out. You know, talking with people that are going to be the end users, people that had great success with you in the past. You know, even things like just asking them, right? So Google loves Google reviews and everybody’s excited whenever they get a hundred, a hundred is nothing. You know, we had to work really, really hard to get each one of our offices over 1000 Google reviews. And it’s no easy task. But once you do it, everything else gets easier.

Yeah.

Yes, that’s critical mass. They want you to get to critical mass to show your real value, and once you do, Google really helps. That’s what what I found. It’s it. Once you, it takes a lot of work, a lot of times, sometimes a lot of money to get there. But once you get there and those mechanisms kick, they’re there to benefit you. And I think it to be honest with you, it’s wedding out process.

The the.

So we don’t want is some guy who starts up on a Tuesday and then cause look, you can choose the system. Let’s be honest, I get emails all the time. Do you want to remove your negative reviews? And it’s like, wait a second then what’s the point of this all? What’s the point if I can just pay you to remove my, what’s the point of this all? And that’s the problem with the Internet world. Everything they figure how to monetize everything. Everyone’s got their hands out for a cut back in the day. When you were a radio station.

Yeah.

You were not removing negative reviews, right? You accidentally had an honor guy that was like they suck. Oops. And like, that’s a negative review. But nowadays you can remove. So how do you stay ahead of it and how? You know, you know that you have to get to 1000 reviews. You started a new business. How are you learning that stuff and what advice can you give to people, not necessarily in the same field, but how you story tell how you get to critical mass cause you guys have done a great job at it and sometimes it’s better hear from the horse’s mouth.

I think the biggest thing is be a constant learner. You have to go work with the people, model the people that are already where you’re at. If you wanna go get 1000, Google reviews, don’t go ask a bunch of people that have 100. Go ask some guy that’s got 5000 or 10,000 and say, what did you do because they’re so far advanced of where you’re at at that point in your marketing experts. Piece that it’s going to be like a fifth grader teaching a kindergartener how to do addition. They got that thing packed now they might not be a college level professor still, but they’re going to be able to help you get where you are if you want to go set up a podcast room or you want to go shoot content, go to the people that have already done it. Find somebody a couple steps before you. Everybody that you meet is so excited. To help you, and I think that’s one of the things that especially like, you know, marketers and entrepreneurs and small business owners don’t realize is.

Yeah.

Pick up the phone, talk to somebody. Nobody. If you’re really going to follow through on what you’re trying to learn is going to be like Nick, I don’t have time for you. Yeah. If they do say that.

They may. They may expect the favor.

Later. Yeah, but I mean the your net worth is entirely relational to your network is one of my favorite quotes, and that’s really where the marketing helps. How do you go find people that are in your area that you can jump on with and they can walk you through something? You know, if you’re having problem with microphone? You can watch YouTube, you can figure it out, or you can find somebody in your area that’s an expert. Have them over, buy lunch, get everything lined up.

Yeah. That.

Is why I did the show. I mean, we’re we’re, I’m personally 100 episodes in the show is 150 and I’ve had a 80 guests, 90 guests that have come on and I’ve asked questions to learn about the business. Right. We’ll get to marketing like at some point it all comes back to marketing about 45 minutes of marketing where. Me like these things exist and I think it’s a it’s a really good piece of advice, right? You don’t need to go to Joe Rogan, right, or join your podcast. Don’t go to Joe Rogan, right? You’re not gonna do a four hour podcast of hundreds of millions. Just not going to happen.

Yeah. He.

He’s going to tell you he doesn’t have time.

But the trick is go to somebody who’s gotten past the 100 episodes, right? Because 100 episodes, just like 1000 reviews, is that critical mass where the system is like, alright, this person’s really serious about it. If somebody got to 25 and you’re going, how do you do a podcast? You’re asking the wrong people. I remember one of our staff, they had someone he’s like, hey, this we I know these two women, they do this podcast. Can you help them? So they they sat with me and I was like you. What? How many people? What do you think this is worth? Are you guys crazy? And they’ve only talked to people who are doing 5-6 episodes of a podcast and all they thought was gonna be worth a billion dollars. Like you guys are out of your mind. Let me show you how this really works. Here are numbers. Here’s stats. Here’s what we do. Let me show you. This really works. And they went away. So defeated, but so thankful. And. So grateful that they’re not wasting their time to some fallacy that someone else LED them to believe.

Yeah. And I think that’s one of the biggest things, especially with like the the coaching industry that’s popped up is everybody wants $10,000 to teach you how to do something. And the reality is a lot of times they’re just charlatans. They’re just trying to say, you know, I’ve cracked the code. I’ve gotten 30 clients and you’re like,

Don’t get me started. It’s a it’s a pyramid scheme. It’s a pyramid scheme. It finds its way down, starts with the Gary Vees of the world that have this great strategy that that killed LinkedIn. Just when it came out about and it finds its way down, they keep passing this knowledge down and all I should all I wanna ask is, hey, how do you trick people into doing what you do? Don’t. Don’t give me the trick. I don’t know how you trick people so easily because it’s insane.

That’s that’s nothing. I mean it’s. Yeah. It’s like, yeah, the the easiest way to make money is to sell a business opportunity, right? And so I think there’s so many people out in marketing there. To do that, make sure before you’re paying somebody even like $1000 or $5000 that you know how to track that. That’s actually good. I mean, even whenever I was getting started, we wasted so much money on just like scam style SEO or people that sell you vanity metrics. They’re like, you know, I can get you this many followers and then all of a sudden you do a test and all your followers. Over in like Europe or India and you’re like, like, I don’t think they’re gonna buy anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you’re lucky. If you’re lucky. I don’t think that Azerbaijani Prince is buying my service. But. But you know, it’s you. Bring up a great point and. I think it’s one of the arguments and and I don’t wanna say arguments but like there is value and anyone should be in digital marketing you should be doing SEO but you should know enough to be dangerous and not someone else telling you what’s going on. SEO is we used to actually tell people before I started here like don’t do SEO, only do radio. You guys are nuts because if they search you and they can’t find you the radio is worthless. These things all have to work in conjunction. Right. But you could ask and I know you guys use hybrid and Jeff Mironov, Jeff and I get along so well because Jeff is like no dude radio it makes me look better because if you see three ads and you heard your name in advance, you’re gonna click on one of those ads, but they’re not gonna tell you that the radio boosted because they want to make their own bottom line. It’s a constant thing to show that these things don’t work together before we before we continue this because we’re going to finish this one, and we’re gonna talk about what’s really wrong with the world. We’re gonna go to a quick break. This has been a great conversation with Josh Nelson and we’ll be right back on the marketing admin.

Now back to the marketing. Mad Men on Extra 106.3 FM.

We’ll come back to the marketing man, man, Nick Constantino here, finishing our conversation with Josh Nelson of Nelson elder care law. And so Josh, we talked a little bit about what’s broken here. Right. And you know, there’s a lot of problems everywhere. And you know, there’s a lot of books and a lot of stuff. I’m reading that the, the, the Empire has just gotten too big as a country we’re on no matter what. We found our 200 year. Cycle we’re cycling down. We’ve gotten too big. We can’t fight enough wars to keep everything. Everyone’s fighting over the same money. What is going on? Why is it so hard for people who have, for the longest time, been so respected by society, our seniors, our parents? Why is it so hard for them to do the things in which you’re out there helping to do?

I think the the biggest thing is the lack of education, but also just the fact that things are changing so, you know, back in the 1970s people had pensions and companies were failing. And whenever your company failed, you lost your pension because if the company couldn’t fail your pension. You didn’t have your retirement. You could have worked 40 years. The day you retire. You’re so happy you got $6000 a month coming in and then the company goes bust two days later and you lost everything. And now it was a real problem. So instead our government decided let’s go ahead and sell you the idea that you can control your money. You can make your retirement portable. So if you work for GPC for 20 years and you put your money into a 401K, whenever you move over to Home Depot, you can take that money with you and you know more about your risk tolerance and you know more about your money. So you should be the one managing it and come to find out, most of us are pretty garbage about financial investing. We’re just playing in a system. That were outsmarted. We’re out. Games, the computers, the AI, the you know, smartest guys in the world are playing in that arena and beating.

Us. Well, the only counterpoint I would say, or we think we’re too clever and we try to do too much because one of the things about cost averaging 401K is just let a freaking go man. Just put a tolerance, decide your response and just let it go. I’ve seen too many people that are rebalancing trying to do all this stuff and all they do is screw themselves. So I think that.

Yeah.

Well, like most things, like Goldilocks is the. Right, but carry on.

I think one of the things that we see too, especially with seniors, is they’ve been through so many hard cycles. They’ve seen so many people go broke doing the. One thing that we actually find whenever we do a deep dive into a lot of people’s accounts, they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in a 401K or in an IRA in a. Cash. Account and they don’t realize that they’re losing money by inflation every single year that if they would have really got an advisor, if they really would have gotten somebody to walk them through it, they’d be better off.

Function.

Yeah, in some kind of small, you know, index fund or what?

Sure.

But whenever you start talking about people that are just scared, I deal with people that live through the depression and live through World War Two. A lot of us don’t remember that right after World War Two, our country was in shambles. I mean, people were having to move states to find jobs, because whenever women became. You have such a major influence in the workplace and we ramped up for the war effort whenever all of that manufacturing stopped. There weren’t jobs, so guys that were coming back by the millions were unemployed and that’s really where these people got this idea of saving. Things were cheaper. We started doing a bunch of financing. There’s a bunch of debt problems that we run into.

Yeah. So that, that. Doesn’t feed capitalism right? People not working? It’s been now it’s you need a new TV every you know, TV’s used to be made to. For 20 years now, you need a TV every some for some reason every six months. Oh, my God. There’s a new one. I need a new one. And we’re taught that we’re, and we’re putting everything on credit because the government just puts everything on credit. So who cares? But you know, we’re the reserve currency now, right? That doesn’t even give the reserve currency in 50 years that that can that all that debt can balloon at some point.

One, I think that’s one of the biggest issues is you know, how do you time it right? So it’s like when do you get out? A big issue is that people thought they were going to have enough money and so we took better care of our kids than what their parents took care of them. So I mean, how many people do you know that are our age and have a 35 year old kid like living on their couch like that wasn’t a thing for that generation. It was like, oh, you’re 17. Like, I think you’re ready to go.

Yeah. Oh my God. If not, you go to the army. If not, you’re going to the freaking army. If you can’t figure this out, if you’re.

Yourself.

Not married by 18. You go in the army. Just get out of my house. And then one of the problems is we have so many people who need to earn a living wage in these roles. That may not have necessarily been designed to be lifelong living wage roles. That raised the cost, so unfortunately care has gone up just the same way like tuition has you.

Know. But that’s the same thing for infants and for children, too. Like we look at both sides of this. So you have those middle age earners that now having to take care of young children, cause now it’s two families. Two parents have to work young children and then seniors. Well, the, the, the burden just all falls on them that didn’t used to be the case. It used to be communities of braising people.

You. But it it’s ultimately good because we’re living longer. The problem is we just aren’t good at financing those extra years yet because it’s not just about length of life, it’s about quality of. Life and what we’re finding is that a lot of people have more years. Those years can be better years, but especially the expensive years, the ones where we need an aid, we need a nurse. We need to live in an assisted living. Unfortunately, are quite a bit more expensive than any generation before us has seen. And so there’s some great programs or some great planning that you can do to avoid that. But if you wait until you’re too late.

Yeah.

You’re in a crisis, and whenever you’re in. Crisis. Just expensive.

Yeah, like HSA is a great example, right? Tax savings on the upfront and I know you gotta be in high deductible plan. But I tell people all the time I look, this is a mutual fund. I’m not saying use the money. Now I’m saying if you know the 10% of your future. Is gonna be health class and you can offload 8% of that by putting money right now, do it.

Even things like long term care insurance, so long term care insurance is a a weird industry right now because they priced it wrong in the early 2. Thousands. And so a lot of the big players, Jen Worth, John Hancock, all these guys are no longer even in the industry. But if you’re between 35 and 55, you can get a long term care insurance policy that will give you usually a 12X multiplier is a reasonable rate of health that you put money in now. Whenever you need it later, if you need somebody to come in your house, you need to go to an assisted living, whatever it. Helps you save your autonomy. Yeah. And the way that.

Yeah. So what’s it betting against that you won’t need that cause insurance to bet against something. So it’s betting against that. You’re not gonna need that. So if you’re healthy, you’re thinking.

The thing you die before you get care. Got it. So like.

OK.

Instead of underwriting for things like stroke risks, you know, life insurance knows that you just need to make it past this certain period for term life.

You’re not going to healthcare if you have a heart attack like there’s there’s. So it’s really playing the numbers. You know, what percentage of people and it just got it wrong. Probably because it was a new industry.

Like they’re hoping you have a heart attack that’s fatal. Rather than blow out a hip. Like, that’s. That’s really what?

Look at that. Good for you insurance industry.

That’s what their argument is, because if you blow out and you blow out a hip, that’s whenever you really need somebody, come in and help with bathing and things like that, getting around your house. But but you can get that really cheap 35 to 55, but people don’t start thinking about it until you’re thinking about retirement. Most of us don’t think about retirement till after age 60, well at age.

It’s gonna get later, but it’s gonna get later. Too.

At age 60, you already got something going on, especially with so many people being pre diabetic. So many people with high blood pressure. Those are the kind of things that are going to keep you from being under writable for long term care insurance at a rate that makes sense. And then just because people hear it’s a good idea, like what I said, they don’t do the math on what the multiplier. So they can get these stupid policies that have like a 2X multiplier like you put in 100 grand, you get 200. But that’s not the kind of insurance you need, no.

No especially cause you put that 100 grand in an actual cash bearing counter, any kind of paying interest compounding interest would have surpassed that multiplier with one time.

Yeah, and. And then one of the biggest things that people always say, which is just silly, is well, what if I don’t get sick? And the real answer is like, it’s like your homeowners insurance, your car insurance, you don’t get mad every year whenever you pay your homeowners insurance, you’re like, man, my water heater didn’t flood.

Yeah.

My house. So my house didn’t burn down.

Yeah, we happen.

But they’ve even designed policies now where you have a death benefit. So if you don’t use it, your family can get some of the death benefit. The problem then, though, is you’re hacking away at that multiplier. Yeah. And so that gets really scary. Again, is are you getting suckered into a plan that doesn’t?

Make sense for you? That being said, I also know why people don’t trust insurance agencies. Talk about whence I know why people don’t trust insurance insurance. Is never there for you when you need it, unless they’re collecting the check for their insurance.

Well, and so that’s what’s really cool is ethically I cannot sell any kind of insurance. I can’t get any kind of kickbacks. So whenever I talk about these programs with people. I have 0 kickback, 0 skin in the game.

So you pre vetted them and it just.

That’s good. So like I can sit there with you and the person that’s trying to sell you this. Thing and be. Like, that’s dumb and most people can’t do that because every insurance agent is trying to sell you insurance, they get commissions and some of them are massive. I really, really hate like the annuity sales people that come in and they just got like A12K kicker off of like a $200,000 policy and they’re like.

Yeah.

Oh.

Well, the 83 year old grandma in 14 years, you can touch your money. You’re like which she’s 97. Like, this is dumb.

Yeah, and there’s no protections there. It’s it’s a shame. But look, you’ve done a damn good job of of selling what you guys doing, making sure people know. So let let everyone know how.

Josh Nelson, from Nelson, elder care law you can find us on any of the socials at Nelson elder care law. Nelson eldercarelaw.com. We’re a very southern down to Earth family run company. We do a lot of stuff in person. One of the things that we’re really piloting and doing well with right now though is actually being able to do people that are still working. It’s full. State plan elder law plan where we can do it virtually. You don’t even have to come in the office if you don’t have the time or the mobility to do that. And I mean, we can even send people out to you to get the paperwork signed where you’re at. So make it super easy. We’re moving as many of the friction points as you.

Nothing.

And you know, really just helping people protect their loved.

Ones, yeah, I love it. And you guys just started an advertising campaign with us on extra. You gonna be hearing a lot from these guys. So give them a call. It’s a consultation. Like you said, he’s not making kickbacks from anybody. He’s there to help. Listen and follow the stories. Josh, thank you for coming. You’re listening to marketing, man. An extra 106. Three. We’ll catch you next week.