Welcome back to another insightful episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. This time around, listen to an engaging role-reversal discourse as host Ben Glass sits in the guest seat to discuss the transformative year his firm experienced. Trace the firm's journey from experiencing its most significant year to moving into a new space, all while celebrating law firm success stories. Join us now for this enriching discussion!
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA.
Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
We've always been proud of the tools we give lawyers to create the law firms of their dreams. We know exactly what modules you should, software you should utilize, and the strategies you need to employ to build a law-firm that is a cash-generating machine. When someone initially becomes a GLM member, you can bet that they're joining for the tactics and tools that we offer.
Welcome back to another insightful episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. This time around, listen to an engaging role-reversal discourse as host Ben Glass sits in the guest seat to discuss the transformative year his firm experienced. Trace the firm's journey from experiencing its most significant year to moving into a new space, all while celebrating law firm success stories. Join us now for this enriching discussion!
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA.
Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
We've always been proud of the tools we give lawyers to create the law firms of their dreams. We know exactly what modules you should, software you should utilize, and the strategies you need to employ to build a law-firm that is a cash-generating machine. When someone initially becomes a GLM member, you can bet that they're joining for the tactics and tools that we offer.
Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. And instead of Ben interviewing someone.
Speaker 3:I am going to interview Ben because I remember last year around this time we were talking about how it was just our biggest year ever. We were moving into a new space and everything was rockus and wild. And now, here we are. Now it's our biggest year ever. I wanted to sit down with Ben and he's here with me now to talk about this year. Ben, I'm looking forward to hearing your insights. Cool, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 3:As we said to my kids today, really, november is this week, could that be. It's Halloween is coming up. We just give candy out now. I don't have any. We're still trying to treat it, except for the grandkids. But yeah, we're here at the end of the year.
Speaker 3:I'm just back from a Dan Kennedy conference. Dan is actually still with us. He, of course he wasn't at the conference, but Denver was 70 degrees to slow storm to 40 degrees. So seconds, those two are very interesting. I'm glad you managed to make it back safe and sound. So let's just dive right in because, honestly, again, this has been a two-year top of the year.
Speaker 3:Brian starts in the law firm, your son Brian starts in the law firm, and we've made a lot of big moves since then and a lot of people have heard you talk about one of the biggest things that we've done, which is EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. For those who haven't heard you talk about that in depth, I'd love for them to hear what you're doing with that and how that has progressed so far this year. To back up just slightly, of course, brian joined the firm in January and 13 months ago we had moved into this new space. Brian brought with him a practice area that we weren't really doing, which was the lower end soft tissue automobile action, in case we had.
Speaker 3:I had not wanted to be involved in that market, but Brian was making a lot of money in that market at his old firm and he wanted to. As he put it, he saw the rocket ship was getting ready to launch because we were doing some other things really well and he wanted to join that. So that's been great, and so he brought that practice area over and brought his top assistant, so that was wonderful. And then we unleashed Tiffany and the marketing, particularly the internet marketing. Tiffany for those of you who don't know her is an absolute wizard on attracting online leads and running infusion soft and monitoring the phone calls and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:Once we unleashed Brian one associate, tiffany, brian's assistant, and that practice area had just exploded and all of a sudden we realized we were outrunning our systems actually, yeah, that's been big this year, yeah, and that, coupled with the fact that I'm on a plan to do less and less of the legal work as I sit here today I've got literally, I think, two cases that I have primary responsibility for and to do more of the CEO work.
Speaker 3:We recognized that we didn't know what we didn't know and we needed additional group training, and so we'll talk about that, about getting coaching yourself and getting coaching for a team. One of our mastermind members, mark Breyer, had introduced us to we actually introduced him to a book called Traction. He had read it, showed us work, he was doing it, and so we went out and got an EOS entrepreneur operating system trainer who's local. It's not inexpensive, but what we have been doing is making our leadership team really good, and although we were decent at systems, we were outrunning our systems and that creates chaos. Hence the summit we just came off of a few weeks ago the too many cases summit.
Speaker 1:That was us yes.
Speaker 3:That was us and the issue that we were solving this year. So we can talk a little bit about what's involved there. But as we sit here in the last quarter of the year, we have a firm that is running better than ever on system, on consistency, on everybody rowing the boat in the right direction, on a lot less just chaos, when, literally, I swear to God the first quarter of the year, there's a line outside my office every single day with people having questions like who's responsible for this? And that I didn't know the answer to and you don't need to know the answer to when you were small. Yeah, and a couple of that with the fact that we had two companies under one roof. It was chaos. It was good chaos. My friend Clay Massey of Infusionsoft, or KEEP by Infusionsoft or whatever that is.
Speaker 3:I talked to him a few years ago and he said I had a lot of problems, I was starting out and I have a lot of problems. Now I, like these problems have now better. Yeah, so that's what we've been doing as we through this year and it's been wonderful hard work, but wonderful and getting ready. We really had our best year ever again and there's no doubt now that the only 20 will be the same. Yeah, so, with bringing on all those people I was talking to Brian actually just earlier today and we're rejecting out for next year and he was talking about the problem of when you're growing, things are expensive, seem to be like a dog trying to catch the profit at the end of it all.
Speaker 3:So, right now, I would say that we're in another entrepreneurial renaissance. Within the practice it in terms of scaling up very rapidly. Yeah, how does that? How, right now, are we working towards handling that whole thing? How do you, as the owner of the farm, I know you're thinking about transition planning and stuff like that with this now at 60 of a 62 February, 62 February Entering this new phase, looking at all this growth mindset-wise and just operations-wise, what are you doing differently? Yeah, people should know, 2018 profits were down because we said, dave, this is the legal word shit ton of money to build out this space.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness yeah and, and so the challenge in 2019, as revenues go up significantly, so have expenses. Your largest cost in any organization is the cost of human capital. Right, there are team and our team is really good right now, so just recognize that. So I think the biggest thing that that we have worked on is and we were good before, but not because we are now is a couple things one, wrapping our arms around the money flow, oh, really understanding what each of the verticals we appeal if criminal law, we have long-term disability, which he shows verticals cost, yes. Dividing up the overhead amongst the verticals. Looking really carefully at the people that are in each of the verticals. Looking really carefully and in attributing, if we do some marketing that's specific for a vertical, making sure that's charged against that vertical, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, keeping track of where the money is coming from, because you can't do all of the rest of the stuff, which is, hey, putting a number on how much money and we'll talk about when talking about compensation scheme tricks, yeah, much money does Ben want to make in 2019 and 2020 and 2021, and all of that stuff. You can't get to that number. You're even if you get to that number, but you don't know. You don't have a really good idea of where all the money is right now. It's really hard to know what to improve, how to measure, and we practice kai Zen right. You make little changes across the whole board. So that's what number one is is getting more comfortable as our money flow got more complex, making sure we're ruthless about that.
Speaker 3:And your brother, who's our CFO and has a background actually training college and the finance World, has been really helpful. That Brian, my son, and, as a great lawyer basic, also a great business person, has been really helpful. This is my least best skill of all and they hand me little little reports with the right numbers on it, and so that's been helpful. And then the other thing is really making each person in the organization Accountable for their role in the organization. Again, if you can't, if you can't say, hey, tiffany, what is it you do here? What are you accounting before? If you don't have an answer to that and Tiffany needs to go now I just take Tiffany's name not to pick on her, but but we actually know what if we actually know that because we worked on it under EOS.
Speaker 3:We worked on building on an accountability chart, and they're not built out overnight, take several months. But now, and the whole idea is that we've got a firm that, more than any time in the past, is run by the numbers and the jurors, let's say, run by the numbers, and so we can make good, better projections going forward we know when is it time to hire someone else and when we're trying to hire in advance of need to. That's another thing that this year has Brought us is we cannot wait until we need somebody to hire them. A the talent pool is a lot of people are avoid a lot of good people. It's really getting us here and somebody else. But you have to find good people in advance of the need and that's always. It's not I wouldn't say it's risky. It always generates some angst because you're spending money before it's.
Speaker 3:For me, and it's truth be told, this year is in our practice, because we're contingent fee firm and the explosion of leads, inch aches and cases signed. You don't get that money in 30 days, all right, it's six months to 18 months for the vast majority of our cases, and so you not only have to hire in advance, but you have to spend money in advance and we've done totally bootstrap. We have. We don't go out and borrow money, but that's what we've been spending time on and so it's a long answer to your simple question. But we should have with putting the right people in the leadership team now in the finance of stuff, since it was Yourself-admitted weak point in this. I'm serious. So maybe it's because I was trained by you and everything, but for me everything could be solved by sales and marketing Reactively. How I go to so, fortunately Joe has what I said.
Speaker 3:Brian, having that stuff, what was in the finances, were there any numbers that you last on to has been Surprisingly useful. Anything revealed as you went through that process that other practice owners should really be aware of? In EOS they teach a fundamental known as the scorecard Mm-hmm, and the scorecard is Are those numbers that if you were on a desert island and they could only send you like one slip of paper in a bottle and but you still wanted to run your business, like what numbers would you want to have? Right, and these are not. So these are not trailing numbers. This is not last month's revenue, because I only tells you what happened in the past, right, their numbers that Predict issues in the future. So, for example, we track Number of new leads, number of contract size, number of demands Sent out, and we have goals for each one of those Categories. And there are other numbers and we have 13 months running averages for each one so we can see if some number is getting unwackedly advanced.
Speaker 3:Now you asked about anything that surprised you again, the whole concepts of looking not at has revenue. What do we do? Last quarter, by the way, we know our revenue like to the day, like we can look to Yesterday and everyone on our leadership team can see all of the numbers. We and our leadership team knows, everybody knows how much everybody makes with sort of profit. Ben wants and Brian wants and talk about that.
Speaker 3:But those aren't the most important numbers. Those important numbers for us is basically the speed at which inventory moves right the time between the time that we sign someone, at time we get paid on our case, and so tracking things like how many people have finished treatment. But we don't have all the records yet. Why is that number getting bigger? Right number should be getting smaller. We have the records we set out of demand, but the case hasn't settled yet again. What then? I would be growing smaller, at times more.
Speaker 3:Now this is all done. Look, we're really good at what we do and clients are really well-served clients like it. They give their money faster, so we don't sacrifice any legal quality. I want to make that very clear. But we're not driven by Emotion, we're driven by numbers, more and more driven stratify numbers I should. So let me ask you about that how, when you have a leadership team like the one at Ben Vassal, where you people managing different Verticals and everything you are inevitably have some level of egos competing people looking for Leadership positions, people looking for compensation, things like that how does that get handled in that room in the leadership Meeting, when people are talking about oh, I want this to be attributed to you, that shouldn't, yeah, or etc. We have a promise to each other that and I'm wanted just because I've got the wording here- so you're not solving it by night, to say the least.
Speaker 3:No, we haven't yet. I don't have it. We we have a promise to each other that we can have that. We must have Passionate disagreement maybe isn't the right. We must have passionate position taking.
Speaker 3:You can't walk out of a room Having held back on a position that you advocate, because that's not fair to the rest of the leadership and it's not fair to the firm. We have a rule that if I, if you, have an idea and I ask you a question, it's not because I've had an agenda, it's because I want to know, honestly, the answer to the question. I expect you will know the answer, or know you know how to go and get the answer. And we also know that leadership meetings can be Uncomfortable meetings and that if they're not uncomfortable, will probably have to get right, because we want people to advocate and to challenge and to fight. For the other day I get to make the final decision as the owner.
Speaker 3:But the alternative is you have simmering, festering discontent in the ranks and that's no good. All right, you can't be in that place either. Having that level of radical honesty is. It is difficult in business and in personal life too, whether you're engaged with the business partner or your life partner, but it's super valuable. Yes, but most people don't live ever. Yeah, and you're saying we haven't talked about but these meetings that we have our weekly.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah but you let's talk about the rhythm, because you've now.
Speaker 3:Eight to ten months, two months of experimenting, then about the last eight months in an actual trainer. What's the rhythm so far? What's the rhythm gonna look like next year? Every week we have a 90 minute with a call that's close to level 10 meeting I. Why do they call it level 10? Level 10 meaning at the end of the meeting, everyone has to rate the meeting and if it's not rated as a 10, you have to say why. And we want every meeting to be a 10. There's criteria really for it to be a 10.
Speaker 3:And when I first heard, oh my gosh, you were up to meet 90 minutes of meeting, which I hate meetings, but you were in the midst of trying to get rid of all of your meetings, obviously I was, but now the meeting is better. I heard that 90 minutes a week. A we won't have enough stuff to talk about. B we'll get bored with each other, we'll fight, and none of that's true. But every Thursday is 9.30, unless something really big. So last week I was or, yeah, last week I was in Denver, so we moved it up and had it on Tuesday. Outside of that, we have a. We've got a two day offsite retreat. We've sold five members of the leadership team. That's annual, correct. That's the annual retreat. It's coming up in December that we rented a house, airbnb or something like that Going down to Lake Anna Going down to Lake near a nuclear reactor so the water is supposed
Speaker 3:to be in the water In December. The water is safe, they say, and we will be planting and setting flags in the ground for next year. We've developed a three year, almost fully developed and fleshed out a three year program where we want to be, and so this retreat is really about. What do we need to actually get done in 2020 to get there? And again, there's a lot of ideas that get put on the board, a lot of debate, massaging and pushing and shoving, but what will arise out of that is the most important things that we have to accomplish, or movements we have to initiate in order to achieve our goals.
Speaker 3:Outside of that, we next year will have three quarterly. So these are all these are one day. We do them in-house because we've got a training center here, but we do close the doors. We have lunch brought in, no one can be on their cell phone, no one's doing business, no one's coming in to interrupt us, and at the beginning of EOS, you have a couple of onboarding days where you really are.
Speaker 3:Your trainer is in a sense of where the company or the firm in our case is and setting the direction. Our trainer is really good, he knows his stuff really well, and it's not rocket science, but it's a lot of work. I would say it's a lot of work but highly valuable. So one of the things I was touched on earlier I know that's probably going to be part of the discussion because you're looking at giving out not just giving out, not like handing out it, but having equity stakes sold, and so there's talk about the ownership shares versus management shares. I know we're early in the process, but I know members would probably love to hear about how that's going to be handled, what your thought process is and maybe the general sketch of what that might look like Sure.
Speaker 3:It's a great question at the level of the attorneys who work for you, who are non-equity owners in the firm.
Speaker 3:Our modus operandi is here's the numbers, here's how we make money, here's how much I'm taken, how much money do you want to make? So you're telling the owner, you're telling the lawyer how much you are taking home and why maybe you own it In the leadership. Everybody knows all those percentages. But if I'm talking to a non-equity lawyer who knows how money flows through the firm, it kind of cases we get, average case value, how many cases we get settled in a month, how many big cases do we have? My question is how much money do you want to make? Oh, I don't know. Bad answer, I can't help you. If you don't know how much money you want to make, I can't help you. Right? Oh, I want to make X, so I want to make 150, 250,000. Great, here's what I need you to do. I need to figure out how you're going to do it. Right, because here's how many cases we get, here's the average value, here's the overhead, here's the cost. Boom, boom. And so you're engaging people who want to make significant amounts of money, gauging them in the process. It's a two-way. It's a two-way street, and one of the things Sammy Chong has taught me over the last couple of years is I don't need to know the answer to any of these questions, I just think, terrific, show me how we do that. Show me how we both do that. That's how we do it as lawyers, down to the team level, the staff level. What we've done this year is worked on really being a little bit more consistent. So we've got salaries for a Parallel Legal One and Parallel Legal Two, maybe some of them with no paralegal experience, whoever is answering the phone, different categories of salaries. But one of the things we did do is we said to those team members hey, when we do, well, what do you want? Like, do you want to go trips? Do you want money? Do you want days off? They wanted money, right. But I've heard different answers to different people. They work cash. That's cool, great, and so we're empowering.
Speaker 3:I like to try to empower people. I want this to be the best place they work, but I want great people here, and when you have great people working in the best place they've ever worked, you get great productivity. And there was something else I was going to. Oh, I know. So here's a little thing that we just did, which is amazing. We did the swag box showdown. We have new shirts and sweatshirts and coats and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3:Four out of five GLM team members had theirs on today, and this in the whole scheme of things. We're talking hundreds of dollars. Maybe 1500 of those dollars I don't know what it was, but it's not a lot of lefty Compared to other things that people think. And they, they work. Again, I've got notes all day from team members saying oh, thank you for this OX, and so our rule is if you'll wear it and it has my name on it, I'll buy as many as you want. There you go, you just got to wear it. You can't hang it in the closet and leave with it. So it's just a little thing. That's a win A win deal with staff.
Speaker 3:The point is, not everyone is motivated strictly by money. Oh, we also asked them what do you all want to do for holiday party? How? Now? What firm is there? So what do you guys want to do? And they said we don't add enough, we didn't ask that question. So what do you guys want to do? You tell us. You tell us what you want to do. And it's just amazing they came back. They want to have the party here, they want to be able to turn the phones off, they want to have a crazy sweater.
Speaker 3:To me I was ready to tell we could all fly to New York or something. I've been there together but they don't. If you have good folks, just ask them what they want. I guess we're going to be told something outrageous. But they always underplay that. Yeah, and even if they give you like the small ball idea and it isn't necessarily what they would have gotten excited about if you had originally proposed that to them Because they came up like, oh, it was our idea after all. So that's how we're approaching compensation. We try to bank money for bonuses and stuff. But this all starts. I know the percentage of profit that the partners want to get out of the firm. So we start there and we are just again more ruthless with knowing our numbers and holding everyone to be accountable for their numbers. Speaking of people that we have, you've often said, and many other leaders in our overall space have said, the people who get you here are not necessarily going to get you there.
Speaker 3:In this process, in this move from the kitchen table version of both businesses to the scaled up and scaling up professional versions. We've seen turnover. How are we handling that? What's that? Yeah, so it's when it's involuntary turnover. That's hard, like firing people or telling them this is no longer the best place for them. It's always harder. It's probably always harder in my own head, that it actually turns out to be for everybody. We had a State of the Union address here a couple of months ago and I said how many people worked here in January and about half the room actually raised their hand. That's hard because we actually have more people here, right? Yes, remember we moved in here a year ago. We had so much space we thought we could have basketball courts and now we're negotiating for space upstairs because we actually have outgrown the space that we're in. Oh, and you're going to love this. When we were up there.
Speaker 3:The 3,000 square feet. Brian open up the conversation.
Speaker 2:Should we check the extra? I'm 400. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I thought those were hybrids. I forgot what question that was. Oh people, yeah, and you've done a great job in creating a hiring system for us that patiently waits, patiently puts the bait in the water for the right person to come along, patiently waits for that person to come along. As the ones who aren't perfect for it come along, we don't jump at them and take them, and I think, in every case this year, the replacements, if you want to call them that are better than the people that left and that's what you want it to be. I truly want to surround myself with people who are smarter about all this than I am, and let me just be the visionary and think about big ideas and big relationships, which is really what my job is now, of the two companies, of the law firm and great legal marketing. It makes it easier when you know who is accountable for what and when. You can, as best you can, in essence, monetize every seat on the bus. Yeah, we're not running a charity, we're running a business. I'm the one that has taken the risk right now. As you said, brian is going to purchase a portion of the firm in January, but it's my name on all the obligations. So at the end of the day, I need the very best people that I can go out and get. We upped our benefits this year. I think our salary packages are good. I think the opportunities to make money here are good.
Speaker 3:Certainly, the work environment is, I think, second to none. This is a. I get people running around in Benglass Law Sweatshirts and there happens. I'll tell you, when I interview people a lot of times, one of the most common questions I get when I ask them hey, what questions you have for me? Is they ask me what it's like to work here. And the worst part about telling my own story to them is I see the look on their face at the end that all that they're saying through their eyes is please hire me. I want that. Yeah, and I think we should point out that your system is so good that I meet people on their first day of employment. Yeah, I don't interview, I don't unless I happen to pass them in the hall. I don't interact with them in any of the several pre-interviews that they'll come into.
Speaker 3:On. Massive credit also to the department heads yeah, the fact that they now have taken that system plugged in their individual needs where I don't have to be involved in that either and, like always happens, they've made it better. They continue to get better and refine it for their individual needs, and I love seeing that. Hey guys, this is Ben. If you like what you've been hearing on this podcast not just the marketing and practice building strategies, but the philosophy of the art of living your best life parts you should know that my son, brian, and I have built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives of their own design and creating tremendous value for the world within the structure of a law practice. We invite you to join us at the only membership organization for entrepreneurial lawyers that is run by two full-time practicing attorneys. Check us out at GreatLiveOfMarketingcom. What do you think about it? So the new employees? So we're currently looking for a lawyer to do ERISA work. Yeah, we, I think we just hired. We have the offer out. We're waiting to hear about it.
Speaker 1:She may be scared off by the interview with her.
Speaker 3:Another marketing assistant. But these people are working for me because it's Bangalore Slough, yeah, but they're not working directly for me, they're working for the department heads and so, for example, in our ERISA Welcome Disability Department that's headed by a non-lawyer Awesome, ellen that many people have met. The lawyer that we hire has to be really comfortable by getting directed and quote bossed around by someone who's not a lawyer, right, but who knows more than 99.99% of lawyers in the country about these types of cases. And it's better that I'm not involved in the process because they're going to have to work with Ellen and with Olivia and with Audrey on that team. So, yeah, we can tell one funny story we were interviewing a couple of months ago for paralegal position and the lawyers were ready to hire this woman, this prospect she had just left after an interview or lunch or something here and the other, the rest of the team, the other paralegals came out and we go we need to have a word with you. Oh, what about? You cannot hire? Oh, she didn't treat the reception as well. She was snapping selfies of herself while she was waiting and they're waiting for just weird stuff and they got weird bites and they basically said you won't hire her and, to our credit, leadership's credit there's no hesitation. Yes, no way we're arguing against it. Yeah, and the person we hired is back. Yes, that happens fairly often.
Speaker 3:Where you can fall in love with a person, it's always. It's why we always talk about multilayering. You dropped in a little thing about how your role has changed and how you are spending more time being creative, which I know for some people when they think about if I just spend an hour quote unquote being creative, have I wasted my time? Yeah, and so let me see if I can find that. Quote Some rocket fuel. Yeah, it was from rocket fuel, it's basically Nothing, nothing Says. So part of my problem is, as often felt art. These days, I often feel guilty because I'm actually sitting in my office not handling a whole lot of cases and not filing stuff and all that, and I Get on the phone with Sammy and I go, I don't know man, maybe I may rope. But then I came across this paragraph from that you say the book Rock of Jewel, which is one of the books in the traction EOS series and it was it's describing me says the visionary dots who I am. They also experience a phenomenon we call visionary remorse after letting go of some tasks They've held for a long time, like handling all the cases.
Speaker 3:Sometimes a visionary feels they've been put out to pasture. The first year will likely Bring children absolutely. Your new position will certainly feel different for you, absolutely. You may feel you've lost a part of your identity that's true and simply are contributing at the same level as you have for years. But the entrepreneurs busted their ass for 30 years has worked hard and contributed a lot. Rock a fuel goes on. This is clearly not the case. You should rassily know that you are now in a position to contribute at an even higher level in a way for which you are uniquely suited. This trough usually lasts six to twelve months and then I guess I just get over it.
Speaker 3:But I was just. I was just in Denver for Dan Kennedy that's right Full out to Denver, and they said on Wednesday I flew back late Saturday night and while I was there I spent a total. I talked to one client for 20 minutes in the in a case that actually the case settled while I was there. My team settled it for two million dollars, but I had 20. That conversation with a client. I had a 20-minute conversation with Brian just about business, marriage with stuff, and I spent 15 minutes answering even 15 minutes Yep, not 15 minutes every day, 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:And the point there is I had become Irrelevant to the nuts and bolts of the cases. And that's the goal, because In Denver, the very first night I saw, I just was introduced to a great idea, I think, and brought it back all excited and talk how to meet you, a Tiffany about it. But it has to do with strengthening a relationship with our, our physician and health care with oral sources, and that's that's worth more than I think it will be worth more than Me spending time working on cases there. It's not so they're not getting worked on, so they're getting worked on by other people, and I know this makes some people uncomfortable, because it still makes me a little bit uncomfortable, and it made me. And there was a time when I thought how in the world Would it ever be appropriate for me to Not be working on Cases? After all, clients come to me wanting me to do their work. Guess what they actually done.
Speaker 3:As an entrepreneurial lawyer, you have two separate huge engines running at all times that are out of your identity One as a lawyer. As a lawyer, you think of doing cases, working with clients, doing the actual legal works. There's one identity then. The entrepreneur is a unique person who has decided to shoulder all this responsibility and say I'm going to drive forward A a slice of our economy and I'm going to carve out a piece for myself. Yes, and the big pride is you're going in and saying this is my slice, I will grow it as I see fit, I will very responsibility, for which most people never live out that lifestyle, those two huge identities that you're partially having to say okay, I'm not always doing the option.
Speaker 3:Yeah doing the lawyer thing, yeah, and so it's perfectly okay to have a practice, and I did for many years, which is little more than it's a job, and I'm the boss and I'm the producer, the direct producer, everything.
Speaker 2:There's never start there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah there's some that probably that's okay, but that's not. That's no longer really fulfilling for me, because we're in a position of, first of all, we're good at what we do. We're actually really good at what we do. The legal service we provide our top notch, and we're in a position where we can help More people with excellent services through the business that I've created and worked very hard to develop, and it's good for everybody. When you, my employees, don't worry about am I gonna get fired because we run out of money? I'm right they're like how many sweatshirts? Yeah, really have three, have three.
Speaker 2:So I feel my wardrobe, the back.
Speaker 3:Three sweatshirts again. The deal is you gotta wear it. I buy it for you, I work and being comfortable with that you actually serves more clients better and at the end of the day, that's really what we do. So we're affecting now they dress up to 16 or 17 employees and their families to what they earn here, what their benefits are. But we affect a lot of clients and even people that we don't. We don't accept their taste. We still help them in some way.
Speaker 3:Now, right now probably some people listening this sounds like the rosier version of reality. Yeah, there's a classic question which is going back, Whatever distance in time, maybe a year, maybe five years what would you actually do? What do you know now that you wish you would know that? Yeah, we've talked one thing already is it's getting better. Well, we're getting someone who understands numbers and who has a greater that's what numbers than I do. But the other thing is If you get go back maybe more than because we've actually been doing this for more than five years but is getting people like you Not only to work for me but then to go so Usually you would have come to Denver with me, but you just got back from a different event, Yep that we sent you to out in Phoenix. And so having your People who are in charge at the first level with the marketing because that's what people tend to be most concerned about, how do I think no marketing books having that, your, your support team or your marketing team, Really up to speed.
Speaker 3:So when again we were in Kennedy's titanium group years ago, we went together Yep.
Speaker 3:Then when they were events that I couldn't get though to, I sent you Yep, we sent Tiffany out to Mozcon. You know we've sent calling out to infusion soft right and not I think that you're the only one that can or should understand the marketing is very important and even in the EOS. Eos is a pretty significant investment. This year we spent over $130,000, not just in EOS alone, but in all of the coaching that I have for me personally, for my leadership team, the personal coaching some of them with SAMI to the group coaching. So the EOS is again, it's not just the leader understanding how to run a law firm better, but it's the leadership team understanding. So now we have five people with ears on and doing the work of running the firm. So that's what I would have done faster, knowing today what I know In our world what you have, Charlie, have really helped build is things like the elite marketing director camp and the events that you hold where not just lawyers are coming, but in some case you have one coming up right.
Speaker 1:It's all marketing. Seven marketing directors.
Speaker 3:I'm all agreed. We're going to be doing hot seats with them, the whole Kate and Kaboodle because I guess I'm previewing this for you as well as anyone listening that we're going to have more non-lawyer events coming down the pipe, some training and stuff like that, in addition to, obviously, a lot more stuff for the lawyers themselves. Even when they come, we make it fun, we take them out to dinner and we're doing a crowd legato self-defense class with the marketing directors Perfect, make sure they sign the wristband. But yeah, and so we have a fair number of members who came to the summit earlier this month brought marketing team members, marketing directors. So that's what I would do. I think that's. It's simply too much. It is a ton for just the owner to be producing legal services still to craft the marketing. I sat down with someone. I was in Denver. I was sitting at one of the things that was on Facebook, yes, and I'm like I don't even know what this guy's talking about. The text thing got it. I assume that was all this stuff.
Speaker 2:It's all on top of it.
Speaker 3:So it's too much for any one person to absorb and then be able to go back out and teach. By the way, anybody else who's chatting, anybody wants to ask a question of Charlie or me? You can hit star two and we'll see. We'll get happy to answer. Try to answer the question. So it's star two on your mobile device or handset to ask questions.
Speaker 3:So what's the next stage for you? What are you focusing on as you're both transitioning even higher into the CEO visionary role? What do you want? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have high needs. So a bunch of my friends in Denver they go on five trips a year, very exotic places. I want to be healthy. I want to referee games. I want to be able to come into my big quarter office here and think about market domination and our next stage. This isn't public yet, except for this call, but Brian's going to be purchasing a big chunk of the firm and we have a very decent valuation, so that'll be good for me and also be good for him. I do want market, I do want market domination and I do like to be like the Jeff Bezosos Certainly have a Rissa. We do dominate the market in that area jurisdiction and we've got a really good general personal injury practice.
Speaker 3:It's cool I'd say a funny story that this is a I'm walking the whole day and this woman who I don't recognize but she's somebody who knows me my hall and she comes up to me and she's I feel like I've known you forever. I've watched your kids grow, I know all of your stories and I know I did who she was. But she's a maven, she's one of our mavens and she dragged one of her friends in here who's been injured. So she was meeting with Brian and just bragging about us to her friend. That's what I want to be, see.
Speaker 3:I want to be the guy who influences and inspires other lawyers in particular, but also all of our clients, to just Disney is the happiest place on earth, right, to inspire them that this is a really cool place. So, whether you're coming here to work, whether you're coming here to be a client, whether you're dragging one of your friends here because you're an ace referral source, we want this to be a really cool place. I do want to get to the point where and so we're in the search for a lawyer, another lawyer. I do want to get to the point where I'm really. I'm just. I'm the advisor in the corner on the legal things.
Speaker 3:Come to the old man in the corner and give your sentence, send the case and we just want to continue to grow our influence actually. Or a lawyer who is first starting to think about I want to become the CEO. How do they start communicating that to people there, because it's going to be easier when you're bringing in new people? How do you?
Speaker 3:yeah, people there I think they are communicating to themselves first. Right, because it is a discipline and it is a commitment. Yeah, that's a good question. So for the lawyer who has been in the trenches doing out the doing for so many years, I would say, first of all, recognizing your own habits, that's where you should be and you can move to there and it's good for the employees. I guess you'll find some that maybe don't whatever approve or think that's a good idea. It'll be the ones that don't get each other's level because they're out working for somebody else, and that's okay.
Speaker 3:I think that what we have done a really good job at is empowered the team. Look again, I don't look at the new hires until you hire them. I don't look at I don't like, approve all the swag stuff they do. I don't look at the holiday party they do. And so what we do good training and we hire good people and we empower them to be leaders and entrepreneurs. I mean our goal is that the team that we have working for us now will be the managers of teams working under them in a couple of years. So we have huge, I think, growth goals. We're going to get to our five year, three and five and 10 year vision, and so you do that. By you act like this is your firm. You have my trust. No, that's all built on training. It's built on hiring the right people and it's built on ruthless money. We're going to have their numbers. It doesn't mean that we're sloppy. We're the opposite of sloppy we are. There's lots of spreadsheets.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of spreadsheets now that I can evaluate you on but also give you the flexibility. As I said, how much money do you have? Great, that's just how much money you're making now with these types of cases, this type of lead book, this type of conversions of leads to clients, this number of settlement demands, we're getting out Great. So, in order to get to three acts, guess what has to happen? Your salary means really get to three acts of these numbers. I need your input on how we get there and I empower you to be a leader to help me get to selfish question for everyone who is we may have some marketing directors listening and everything.
Speaker 3:A lot of times, when those things come up where they're talking about, okay, we're doing, let's say, 500,000 in this department, that person wants to three exit. That means you've got to get to 1.5 million. Sometimes that gets leaned onto the marketing department. How does that stuff? How do you manage that big relationship? Yeah, I guess it starts with the marketing department, right? But the marketing department has to have the trust that the sales conversion department and the production department is all working, and then the finance department yells at everyone.
Speaker 1:The finance department yells at everyone.
Speaker 3:But look, but all I'm asking the marketing department to do is to produce three acts. So if I say to Tiffany, we need three acts the number of leads Tiffany then turns to the team saying that Arisa vertical and goes I need more. I need meetings with you to let me know what the issues you're seeing. I need to know what questions clients and prospects are asking on the phones so that I can go out to write more attractive copy. I need to know what doctors are involved in your cases so that we can do reach out to these doctors and say, wow, thanks for your referrals, even if they've never referred right, which I'd show you in for a podcast. So when you're accountable for marketing but you're empowered, you don't just sit there and wait for Ben to tell you what to do, right, you think about ways to get the other people on the team to help you. And the same thing, the people in the verticals go to the marketing department and go we need more cases. I've got some ideas right and it's great. And Ben is involved in these conversations. Yeah, they come to me usually to tell me what they have already done, which is an awesome place to be.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean it's perfect right. It means right. We still make mistakes. That's another thing. When you go through a high growth period, you're going to make mistakes. Things are going to fall through the cracks. People have to know that they're allowed to make mistakes. Quote failures aren't anything but just one more piece of information on the dial. And if you're going to empower people, then you can't get mad at them when they're taking, I think, reasonable and rational steps to move and have a good reason for things that they, for things that they did. They got to understand the ethics. They have to understand what we can and can't say. That's important.
Speaker 3:That's important, but it's part of our training I like to say we teach people not only what to do but why we do it in a certain way and they're just, they're in tune, so we pretty much can figure out if we've made a mistake in hiring. Everyone comes here, I think, on a 90-day probationary period. Anyway, I think we've been pretty good with picking. You've been great at finding the right people and really at this point I will throw all the credit to the department heads because for the last few months they've done that process on their own. They use the system that we built. But that's the real pride and joy is to have built the system and now see other people using it. Yeah, and that's the whole idea is that you build a system that then people can come in and run the system and tell someone has an idea for a tweak that makes for a better system. Yeah, ellen owns it for that LTD department, brian owns it for the PI department.
Speaker 1:It all makes sense, because they don't want to make more money.
Speaker 3:They don't want to make more money and they the both the people you mentioned are on leadership. All right, great, yeah, figure it out. And it's not so much more liberating with that in the past than it was then trying to figure all of that out. That's really. Lawyers will be hesitant about how much they disclose to team and there's different levels of disclosure and different levels that you'll be comfortable with. I get all that. I only say, if it's the total top down directed organization where you just bossing people around, that's just a recipe for average.
Speaker 3:I think our top, the mastermind members, the top diamond members that we have, I think, having the attitude of we're actually building a real team, like a sports team, where we like each other, where we hold each other accountable and where, when we have issues with each other, we bring them to the table face to face. When you did this, I felt this, or I think you know we don't, just don't let that crap fester, right, that's just the worst. Anyway, we have six more minutes again. If anyone has a question about any of this, you could hit start to talk to us a little bit. I think our mastermind group for next year is either full or almost full. We're, yes.
Speaker 1:We're a ring.
Speaker 3:I think we have two spaces Absolutely max. We have someone who has an application in that we're just finalizing things on. So maybe now the one space of gosh. It's been an incredible group and we had nearly everyone from last year. Yeah, so it's a packed house. Legitimately, a couple of folks at the conference of the summit? Yeah, so I don't. Okay, I've got Cincinnati, ohio. I can't see a name associated with. Who's this? Steve?
Speaker 2:Adams, steve, how are you Good? Ben, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:We're good it is. I must be. 70 degrees outside. It's still sunny. I can't believe it's almost November.
Speaker 2:Good. Here's my question. I want to piggyback off what you do to make other people within your funds be the man. Because when you write thick, wide book for a lawyer and you are all over the radio and radios talk show, people are saying stop by the man, call the man. And that's me, steve Adams, and everyone not everyone, but a lot of people have my cell phone in their phone they get charged with a crime or a DUI and I'm buying into your system to where I need to get my practice back to scale the business up and I have excellent lawyers. I just hired a new one that's going to start in two weeks and she was highly recommended by the ironically prosecutors and judges. So I know I got the right person and I'm reading over marketing director resumes and things like that. But how do you convince a client when they think that I'm the man to hire an associate or a limited partner? How would I have to do that? Because people think that I'm the go to guy? How do I persuade them otherwise?
Speaker 3:All right. So here's the ego busting pin I'm going to stick in your bubble, because it's the same one that I stuck in my own balloon right years ago, which is we think that's true as the lawyer, as the leader. We may even hear it from clients it's Ben Glass wall. I never hear it anymore because I have promoted the Ben Glass trained team. Right, these are people that have all been trained by me.
Speaker 3:And if you think about what you just said, if that was 100% true and again, I once at one time believed it was true, steve if it was 100% true, then I would be the one expected to work every single part of the case. And so the language I use. And then I'm giving you one other thing, because I know you do a criminal defense practice, right, the language I often use used when I was in climbing and I'm rarely in a client meeting in the P almost ever is that you're going to have lots of questions as come up in the case and I'm the last guy to ask these questions about that sort of stuff on the strategist in the case. So you do something about medical records and all that stuff. And so constantly promoting your team, for example, we have not just pamphlets that doesn't give them justice, but we've got printed materials on each of the team members.
Speaker 3:But the thing that the criminal defense lawyers can do is, hey, if you want the Steve Adams, that's a two and a half X fee, right.
Speaker 3:And you want? This great former prosecutor just joined my folks, who I handpicked, who was referred to me by X number of lawyers and judges and prosecutors, who is awesome and we are so happy that he or she is here in the firm, then that's a fee of X, right. What you will find is, if you will get up, steve, and cheerlead for these people that are on your teams, you will discover to yours and my ego, deflation right that the people, the consumer, really doesn't care. They expect because they're going into their doctor's offices right, they see their doctor for five minutes, they see the nurse practitioner and the physician's assistant, right, and they don't have any problem with that. I would say I would suggest to you, as I learned, it's more about what goes on inside your head than their head, and I just, and then, once you do it and get a taste of it, it's liberating, right, and when you can sit in your king in their corner office, as I do, and meet and greet people who are walking down the hall going. Oh my God, that's Steve.
Speaker 2:Adams, wow, I've been following you for years.
Speaker 3:Thank you for coming in to say hello, which is what happened to me this afternoon A lady walking down my hall. I'm like this is awesome, brian's going to take great care of you. So that's where I show. The other thing is I give them to people yourself on. I don't know how you do it. Maybe we'll get you on a call. You can do a coaching call on how many people actually use it and how you live. That's a very hard time management tool. People have your cell phone number and you're one of those answering it.
Speaker 2:They love it. When I answer it, they're like is this you? I can't believe you answered and it goes out on every radio Promotional. You can come give.
Speaker 3:you can come give that that teaching on that. So anyway, I hope that answers the question. We're right up, we're done. Thank you everybody for getting on today's call. Again, we're coming to the end of the year. If you have questions about the Massive Mind Group, reach out to the question about anything else we do. If you're getting ready to sign a big contract for some marketing voucher, please contact us first. We'll look over your shoulder and help you make the right decisions. And, ben, thank you for sharing your wisdom on this call. This was fun. Yeah, this was good. If anyone else would like us to do something like that again in the very near future, send an email to myself or Ben chiming in about that, because at the very least, I enjoyed this fact-signing mission. All right, everyone. Thank you. We'll talk to you again next month.
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