Ready to shatter the confines of traditional lawyering? This episode is your ticket to a paradigm shift, guiding you on the journey from a regular lawyer to a CEO leading your own law firm. We tackle the mental gymnastics this transition demands, underlining the necessity of a personal coach to help you vault over ego-based barriers and land safely in the realm of skill development. Our mission? To create a thriving ecosystem for your employees and clients alike, where your company's purpose is the lighthouse that guides each decision you make.
We examine their impact on cultivating a healthy workplace culture and the discerning role they play in hiring and firing, and in choosing clients. We also tackle the guilt trip that can accompany a self-running business and the importance of freeing up mental real estate for you to be creative. The narrative then swerves into the challenging terrain of teaching marketing in law firms and how to navigate it effectively. We share success stories from our very own community, Great Legal Marketing, and invite you to join the ranks of the Renegade lawyers who are redefining the legal profession by prioritizing high-quality services and exceptional customer care.
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.
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.
Speaker 1:
I want to build a great place where I will thrive. My son is a co-owner, will thrive, everybody who works here will thrive. They'll grow personally and professionally and we know that if we put those things in that order then the clients will do well, right.
Speaker 2:
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 1:
Today I want to talk to you about really what is my favorite topic, which is your role as the CEO of your law firm, and I think that if you get to that point in your journey where you can really wrap your mind around what this really means, that you're just. You're going to be happier, the people who come to work for you are going to be happier and, most importantly, your clients are going to be well-served. If you own the firm, you are the de facto CEO. There's nobody else to go. Who's in charge of you, right? Nobody else in charge of anything.
Speaker 1:
And most law firms, as we've talked about in the past, they start as not as a business to be built and grown, but really as income replacement. You don't like the job you're in and so you quit and you start your own job. Right? You start your own firm, which really is your own job, and there's nothing wrong with that's how I started. The vast majority of Great Legal Marketing members started there. You may have come out of law school and started a firm.
Speaker 1:
There's a tiny percentage of lawyers go to law school with the intent of growing a business. That just happens to be through the mode of being a lawyer. Most of us become the lawyer first, start a firm. Again we're the de facto CEO, but it's income replacement and some lawyers go through their whole career running a business. That's income replacement and that's fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The Great Legal Marketing strategies and techniques will help you do that, but that's not for everybody. And what I have found now doing this 16, 17 years coaching lawyers and having members of our high level I used to be called the mastermind group, now our icon accelerated group who've been around some of them 10, 11, 12 years been around in the group. There is, I will tell you with 100% certainty, 100% of them who've been around that long have this mind ship that is at earlier points in their career and you may be thinking about this.
Speaker 2:
Now, I just want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1:
I like being a lawyer, I like doing the legal work, I'm good with the money I make and I could never see that being that CEO, as a true CEO is. I'll only tell you that I've just seen it in 100% of the people that have been around long enough. You just get to that point where you realize that it's actually better for the world for you, a good lawyer with experience running a firm, to become a true CEO of the firm. So now let's talk about that a little bit, because when we run firms that are income replacement businesses, we suddenly realize we're in over our heads. We don't know and we don't have enough opportunities to experience hiring, firing. We may have some rudimentary understanding of money management. We never think about culture. It's just us. We don't think broadly about magnifying our import or impact that we can have on the world and a lot of times we get overwhelmed because we think we need to be good at these things and we do. It's just not in our DNA. Number one, number two we don't have the time. Many of us, if you're a trial lawyer in any of the types of verticals that would go to court. That's time consuming stuff. It's stressful. Stop dealing with clients is stressful, and you just don't have time to develop these talents that you need to be a true CEO. I promise you, though, that you'll get there. It's the rear bird that goes through, and, at 80, is still just being a lawyer. So most of us find it a lot more fun To transition to CEO, and it took me a long time to wrap my arms around this and get my mind wrapped around it.
Speaker 1:
Biggest problem is your ego. Right, I am a lawyer. I'm good at what I do. Nobody could do this as good as me. I'm the president of my. Nobody could do this as good as me. I don't want anybody else hiring my people. I don't want anyone else setting culture. I'm the one that has to do everything. It's hard, and I don't really have a great way for you to help get your ego out of the way, except for to get a personal coach, some sort of a mindset coach or a business coach who can just reinforce, really, this speech like every week or a couple times a month in your head, and so I want to talk just a little bit about what the true responsibilities are of a true CEO, and then we'll talk a little bit about how to get there.
Speaker 1:
The CEO's job really is to first answer this question like why are we here at all? Why are we even running a business, choosing to create our own thing, with all that it entails, and running a profitable business and keep it going for year after year? Like why are we doing that At Bengloss Law? Our reason for being is we build a great company where people will thrive. Right, I could take my whole group. We could go to a different business altogether and, as long as we have the subject matter expertise or could buy it like we could run a store, we could run a pet grooming salon, we could do any number of businesses, because I've got great people here. But a CEO, a true CEO, has got to figure out like why, what is the mission here? It might be hey, we're here to help people get the best settlements, get the most money, improve their lives. For me personally, that was too narrow. I'm not here to judge yours, but you are the one that has to decide it.
Speaker 1:
You set the tone and the reason for being the second thing we've talked about this in other videos is you're really setting the culture, and the culture in a firm is how do we talk to each other and what do we talk about Inside the firm? Not talking about marketing, I'm not talking about talking to clients or judges or other lawyers Inside the firm. What is a allowable discussion on the table? How much voice are we going to give to the folks who work for you in terms of setting for the day-to-day direction of the firm, and how are we going to have those discussions? My experience is, and my DNA is, built around full discussion, full input. I can't promise you that I'll say yes to everything you want or need or would like if you work here, but I can promise you you'll never get it unless I know about it, unless the leadership knows about it what it is. So here we encourage open and honest raw discussion, our leadership meetings, where we meet 90 minutes every single week. Sometimes there's raw, hard discussions in that meeting. Right, we don't all agree about everything all the time, but the thing that we agree on is that is how we speak to each other and how we listen to each other and how, at the end of that discussion, when we walk out of the room, no matter what the decision is that we as a team back that decision.
Speaker 1:
I think this goes ignored in many firms. I only know this because I talk to other lawyers in our community here in Northern Virginia. I talk to a lot of JLM members. I sometimes talk to their teams like out of the hall of events or I've done calls folks with some of your team members that you don't even know, that I've done the calls with right and I hear a lot about toxicity in the workplace right, about places where people aren't really thrilled about going to work on Monday and they just they can't wait till 5 o'clock Friday and I'm telling you that things go a lot better when it's the opposite of that. But I'm also telling you that it's a lot of work and this is counter most of what you've heard in growing up as a lawyer and as a business owner.
Speaker 1:
So you set the tone. That's your job as CEO. How are you going to talk to each other and what are you going to talk about? Hey, this has been Jess Butting in here. If you like what you're hearing on this podcast, then you should know that our GLM tribe members are going to be digging deep into a brand new curriculum for 2024. You can get founders pricing from now to December 31, 2023.
Speaker 1:
Head over to theglmtribecom that's theglmtribecom to see what we're doing. You decide, as the CEO, who we're going to deal with, and let's just talk about employees first. We'll talk about clients in a minute. This is critical If you are going to, because at the end of this I'm going to tell you what the real goal is. Let me just give you a preview. The real goal is to free up your mind to be creative. Okay, we're running this whole thing in this way to free up your mind to be creative. That's what the world needs, that's what your clients need. But if you're going to do that, you have to have the very best people.
Speaker 1:
Here at Benglars Law, we are on constant high alert for talent acquisition. Right, we have a mantra or practice here that anytime somebody leaves, we're trying to replace him with someone who is 150% better at that position, better for our culture, better for our clients than the person that's being replaced. This is hard because, especially running a small law firm, we don't have a lot of practice hiring, we don't have a lot of practice onboarding people and we don't have a lot of practice cutting them after 90 days If it turns out they're not a good fit and we don't have a lot of practice firing them Right. But I'll tell you, there's a lot of great books on this. There's a lot of people who you find great YouTube videos.
Speaker 1:
That comes down to this you get to decide what people you want and what seat on your bus they're going to sit and fill, and you have to be ruthless. If you have made an error in hiring, first you have to be ruthless, I think, in your screening process to get people in we're not just in the business to give people jobs but then you have to be ruthless in cutting them Right. If you're down harsh but ruthless means I'm paying attention. If somebody isn't good for you and your firm, then it's not good for them to stay there, and every day that you delay freeing them into the world to go find the right place for them, you are really you're not being fair to them. This is hard. This is hard in small firms, but I can't tell you how important it is and how many times we've had discussions with high level icon accelerated members where we've told them you need to cut this person loose. Okay, and a lot of times they don't do it in a timely way and it comes back to bite and to hurt, and every time we've been slow about that it's come back to bite and hurt.
Speaker 1:
But this is part of your role as CEO is really guiding the direction of who we are going to work with. Again, it's your company. You take the risk. You have done the hard work to build the thing. Don't let anybody ever shame you into keeping somebody on who really isn't a great fit for your firm. Same goes for the clients.
Speaker 1:
The whole reason that we teach marketing is that marketing gives you the most good. Marketing gives you the most choices for being able to handpick the cases and the people that you want to work with. All right, again, this is counter cultural. You're taught in law school get help a lot of people. You can have clients who are jerks. We believe that's not true. We believe you should never have a client that's a jerk. Either don't let them in the door or, at their first manifestation of being a jerk, you cut them loose too, and the reason is because it brings down your staff right. It affects culture, it demoralizes you and them, you and your team, and those clients who are just bad clients are the cases that you don't want to work on. You need to help waste take and end up barking louder. They're always trouble.
Speaker 1:
My message here is as CEO, you are the one that has total control and responsibility for that. So if you've got bad clients, let's your fault. So let me just wrap this up now with kind of the biggest mindset shift of all here. Then I'm going to give you a quote from a great book, and it's this for those of us who have for years and years worked very hard days, nights and weekends to build practices, it can seem weird when you get really great people in and you've got really great systems and a great culture and the business becomes a self-running business. It gets weird because you actually have less to do in the day-to-day operations of the law firm and there is a sense of I've called it guilt that can be present in your life when this happens.
Speaker 1:
What I want you to realize is that this is normal and that it's a necessary process, because your most important job now as a CEO of mature, self-running business is to have that time and that space to be creative, to think about the next thing, to think about the next hire, to think about the next process, to think about your top level cases and the strategies that will help those clients win and prevail. And you can't do that if your ego says no, ben, like everyone else, is working on briefs. You need to be working on briefs too. You can't be sitting at your desk with your feet up on the table just thinking about the business, and I want you to get over that, because it just doesn't help the company move forward and it actually frustrates those great people that you've gone out to hire who want to do great work for you. If you're continually getting back involved in the actual running and the doing of the business, you need to quiet your mind.
Speaker 1:
I'll give you one book recommendation and then I'm going to leave you with a quote from a book called Rocket Fuel. The book recommendation is a trillion dollar coach. It's the leadership playbook of Silicon Valley. Go and hunt it out. These guys and gals are playing at levels much higher than we are, but the principles are all the same. Now let me leave you with this. Rocket Fuel is a part of the attraction or the entrepreneur operating system series and they address in one of the books, or Rocket Fuel addresses this phenomena of when the visionary, the creator, the guy or gals work very hard to build a firm, suddenly looks around and realize, holy cow, like I might be coming irrelevant. And here's the quote.
Speaker 1:
The visionary or the CEO may experience a phenomenon called visionary remorse after letting go of some tasks they've held for a long time. Sometimes the visionary feels they've been put out to pasture. The first year will likely bring turbulence in your new position as true CEO. Your new position certainly feels different for you. You may feel you've lost a part of your identity. True, and personally experience it, and I have a lot of lawyers who are for my number of years through this process of experience of that. You feel you've lost a part of your identity and simply aren't contributing at the same level you have for years. Now here's a lesson this clearly is not the case. You should rationally know that you are now in a position to contribute at an even higher level. This is the mindset shift in a way for which you are uniquely suited. You may still have that said. You may still have such feelings. This trough usually lasts six to 12 months and then they have.
Speaker 1:
A great piece of advice is from Joe Pollock, another visionary client mentioned in the book, and he says this, and I think it's a good thing to write down and put on your desk. Don't mistake activity for productivity, creativity, which is what we're engaged in as a CEO. Creativity is in its productivity. It just doesn't feel like that at first, so let me leave you with that Again. This is my absolute favorite topic because I think it's the hardest thing. Teaching marketing seems hard when you're first introduced to it. Learning all these new techniques and strategies. It's actually pretty rudimentary, formulaic at least. But getting to the point where you can really explode because you're quieting your brain, because you forgot to sell for any business, that's a very cool place to be and that's where our icon accelerated members. By and large, they are there, or there that process where they're just on the cusp of becoming true CEOs of their firms. All right, until next time.
Speaker 2:
If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone Renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high quality legal services coupled with top-notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at greatlegalmarketingcom. That's greatlegalmarketingcom.