Join me, Ben Glass, on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast for an enlightening conversation with Danielle Hendon from Four Corners CFO. We dive into the critical topics of money mindset, financial projections, and the entrepreneurial journey.
Discover how to conquer the numbers game and learn about the benefits of remote workforces. Whether you're a lawyer intimidated by finances or an entrepreneur seeking guidance, this episode offers invaluable insights into managing your business's financial health. Tune in now!
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.
Join me, Ben Glass, on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast for an enlightening conversation with Danielle Hendon from Four Corners CFO. We dive into the critical topics of money mindset, financial projections, and the entrepreneurial journey.
Discover how to conquer the numbers game and learn about the benefits of remote workforces. Whether you're a lawyer intimidated by finances or an entrepreneur seeking guidance, this episode offers invaluable insights into managing your business's financial health. Tune in now!
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.
But where are you finding that your small firm lawyers are getting value from intentional, good investments?
Speaker 2:Whichever form of marketing you choose and I have different attorneys that do this different ways I have some that are phenomenal in the ads market and they actually do. Ads and the ads work, and every time they bring on a new associate, they ramp up the ads they fill them up. They're good. Time they bring on a new associate, they ramp up the ads they fill them up they're good. I also have solopreneurs where their marketing dollars are spent on meals, taking people out to lunch. Marketing, as long as you are tracking the effectiveness and being intentional with it, is one of the best ways you can spend your money. The second one is one I also mentioned earlier is hiring somebody in your firm. For those of you that are a solo, especially, you only have so many hours in the day.
Speaker 3: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, hey everyone.
Speaker 1:This is Ben Glass. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode, I get to interview people inside and outside of legal who are making a ding in the world. I love talking to entrepreneurs and today I've got Danielle Hendon. Danielle runs a company called Four Corners CFO. We are going to talk about money, we're going to talk about the mindset of money and we're going to talk about, of course, as we always do, the entrepreneurial journey. Danielle's very experienced Got a company.
Speaker 1:She works with a lot of lawyers across different practice areas, across different states around the country. So this is going to be a really good chat because, danielle, as we talked about before, we went live. We went to law school because we can see issues. If we were any good at math and numbers, we probably would have gone on a business track most of us and numbers just frighten us. And so many lawyers, danielle, just as long as there's money in the bank, we're good to go. And they have a really hard time with projecting. They have a really hard time with figuring out where to go invest and when to use debt and things like that. So I'm so glad we have you on the call today.
Speaker 2:I am so excited to be here. Like we said before, there's any chance I can get to get in front of people and talk numbers in a way that doesn't make it scary, I'm just super excited.
Speaker 1:You're down there in Texas, but you told me that your company is all remote employees and you have a reason why. So the remote worker is becoming more and more of a thing in the solo and small firm marketplace, with lawyers, with remote workers, not only in the United States but also outside of country. So tell us a little about your company and then we're really interested in knowing how you're set up people-wise.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm actually going to start with the people-wise, because it's one of the things that, if I'm honest, makes me the most proud being a CPA. I've done the firm life. I know what it's like to work 80 hours a week I'm sure many of your listeners can relate to that and I know what it's like to feel like. That's what you have to do, because this is the career path you chose, and I'm here to say you don't. And I employ other CPAs and accountants in my firm that work Honestly. One of our most recent hires is a military spouse and they're about to be in Japan and she'll be working from Japan because she can and we can. You do not have to give up doing what you love, to be with the people that you love and spend time with them as well, and that is a core value for me as a business owner and in running this business.
Speaker 1:The military spouse network is also big and legal, because you can have a law degree and a law license and then maybe spouse gets transferred or it's just hard. The barriers to entry in each state are not perfect and they should be perfect for those who are serving the rest of us. Talk to us a little bit about you and your business history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started. I'm going to give you a funny story. I actually started out as a music major in college and I had an English professor that made us write about the future of our career path as our whatever major we were, and I realized very quickly I was not going to be able to afford myself. So I had friends that were doing accounting, decided to try it out, absolutely loved it, stuck with it, got my master's, went to a public accounting firm like most of us do when you graduate with an accounting degree got my CPA there. But then I started a family and I realized I didn't want to work 80 hour weeks and have a newborn at home. So I left public accounting and, being in the Houston area, I landed at an oil and gas company in downtown Houston. Again, absolutely loved what I did. I can honestly say I've loved every part of my career as I've gone through it and I love what I get to do.
Speaker 2:But that oil and gas company went through bankruptcy when oil prices tanked and they came out the other side and the bankers started to slice and dice everything and by the time the pandemic hit it became very clear to all of us the doors were going to close.
Speaker 2:So I had what I will say is a unique opportunity and a silver lining that I think a lot of people have found in looking back at the pandemic, to realize that what I will admit was a workaholic mom could have a completely different perspective of parenting and to spend the time with my kids and their coaches and their friends and their teachers, and just in a way that I hadn't up until that point in my life. And after getting a taste of it, I didn't want to give it up. So I decided to take a leap of faith and start a business. I was lucky enough to have a friend who owns a marketing company introduce me to another fractional CFO who was very empowering, very giving. You know you can do this, we've done it, I'm the same background and we just connected really well and I did it and I'm never looking back.
Speaker 1:So you packed a lot into that. So it's interesting For the young people who listen to this. I point out that Danielle was on one path in college, met a professor who had an assignment. I see this so often and it just makes you rethink. And so the lesson is when you're 16, 17, 18, you do not need to know what the plan is for the rest of your life. In fact, where you choose to go to college should be like where you'd actually like to go, and not necessarily the college you think fits you best at 17 for your life plan. And then, danielle, I've met so many people who took that one class in college and saw something or felt something and just got turned on to a completely different direction. And for you it was accounting. So good for you and good for that professor who caused young people to think about all right, there is a future here and you do have to earn a living and, as you said, be able to afford yourself, which is a use of terms.
Speaker 1:The other is, yes, of course, the pandemic taught us a lot. So there were many law firms in the solo and small firm market who were not prepared I mean unbelievably not prepared for having to switch the way they do business. The technology oftentimes was bizarrely incompetent I mean the technology the lawyers had invested in before the pandemic hit but it really taught us. You know, today, many of our members, all their client experiences are just like this, like they're over Zoom and their courtroom experiences. Many of them are still over Zoom and our employees. Yeah, so many of them are not working inside the brick and mortar building. So so good for you.
Speaker 1:And then you decided to start a business after the first foray into the profession ended, and that's the other thing that young people need to hear is that you know things are going to end. I was telling one of my one of my sons like the fact that you have three jobs in your first five years on your resume. That's just normal these days, and each job is getting better and is getting paid more, so that's good. Tell us who you serve now. Who is your avatar client type of business, type of individual?
Speaker 2:So the fun marketing phrase for who I serve is that we serve other businesses that are passionate about helping the people we're passionate about, and that doesn't really help people refer to me, but it's truly what it is. I love serving passionate business owners that allow me to be the pebble in the pond. I get to create a ripple effect by helping them create livelihoods and legacies and build their community and help these communities around the world and that makes me feel really good. But the more technical, referral-based way that I serve people is predominantly service-based professionals, people that have come out of corporate, that know how to do what they do really well, but nobody ever taught you how to run a business.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's what Great Legal Marketing is all about. Like nobody ever taught you systems marketing. Our space is not your space, like teaching the numbers. That is for Brian and I. That's not really the thing that turns us on a lot, so we turn to people like you. So let's talk about that avatar who comes in. He or she is running a business. They're doing stuff that they really like doing and yet they are not as efficient. They may be lost in the woods. You are the pebble that creates the ripples. What do you see as typical sort of deficiencies, either in the thinking or the mentality about money, or even the organization and the systems they have inside the firm to deal with money? What are you looking at first?
Speaker 2:One of the first things we do with every client that comes to us is a really high-level benchmark just to see where the money goes, to look at your profit and loss statement and figure out as a percentage of revenue how much is going towards your cost of goods sold, because, yes, even as attorneys you have cost of goods sold and it should be labor-driven. Then we want to see what's going to all the G&A, the OPEX expenses, what is going in your pocket and how much of your revenue is making its way back to you and where do those line up as a benchmark against similar size businesses. The goal, just like it is with so the goal with this benchmarking process isn't necessarily to hit a specific number, it's to understand the story that those numbers are telling us. When we're not hitting a number, we need to know why, and if you're over a number, that may not always be a good thing, it may not always be a bad thing. We need to understand what's going on.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting because the question that many lawyers in the solo and small firm market ask is I think I'm doing okay, but I have no doing pretty good, or you're not as good as Billy who's got the same type of law firm down the road. That's huge. What do you typically so after you do your kind of high-level overview? We're always asking ourselves what's the best use of my next hour, my next dollar? What's the most efficient use? Right, because you can't do everything at once and some things that are way down the line. If you do them now they'll kill you because you don't have a baseline. So where do we start typically?
Speaker 2:Depends if you're working with somebody or doing this on your own. So all of my clients, regardless of size, and even the ones that we serve in kind of a group membership capacity, go through the same six-part framework. Once we're done with that benchmark and we get a kind of level set of where you're at, then we go through a six-part process where we look at your balance sheet first, because, if I'm honest, it is the least looked at financial statement and I would venture some of you have never seen yours, but it's important and we want to understand what story the balance sheet is telling us in terms of liquidity, not just bank account, but what is your business worth? What does your equity look like. But also because I hope you all have bookkeepers and if you don't, that is the very first step we need. But when you have a bookkeeper you also want to keep eyes on things and you want to make sure that your balance sheet is being reconciled. It is the foundation of your books. If the balance sheet doesn't reconcile, your profit and loss statement is potentially missing information and you don't want to look at missing information. So we start there. We make sure everything's reconciled and that it makes sense.
Speaker 2:That's part one. Part two we go into your revenue and we understand what are your revenue streams. I can't tell you how many law firms come to me with a single line in their books that says legal services and I have to say, okay, how much is flat fee, how much is hourly, what matter types do we have? What goes into that legal services account? And then, second to that I mentioned earlier, what is your cost of goods sold, because you do have one, how much time are people spending on the work that is generating revenue in your firm? So, going into that and understanding what your profit margins are, what the revenue streams are, and making adjustments to your books so that you can see that every time you run a profit and loss statement, I would say, just in those first three steps, you have a lot of lawyers naked.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of stuff there of lawyers naked.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of stuff there so they're doing their books or they have bookkeepers, but very few lawyers could tell you even with looking cost of goods sold. No clue. And we got through three of your six frameworks but I can see where somebody who gets to you is probably in the oh my gosh, like what's been leaking out of my bucket for the last two decades.
Speaker 2:And I want to start by telling everybody this is totally normal. When I tell you everyone comes to me with one legal services line, you are not abnormal. I would hope the chances are we're not leaking a ton of stuff, but you don't have the information that you deserve to make the best next decision in your business.
Speaker 1:Talk to us about the next three frameworks.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we did, and actually it's four. We got through two. So balance sheet and revenue are the first. The third one's your expenses. So if you're looking at a profit and loss statement which I think most business owners do look at their P and L. When you look underneath revenue, there's this whole other list of all these other expenses to run your business, whether it's Clio or Lawmatics or whoever you're using to process things. Those are all going to show underneath and we go through that and we bucket expenses in one of three categories.
Speaker 2:You have what I like to call the required expenses. As an attorney, you are going to have to pay for CLE. You're going to have to pay for malpractice. You're going to have to pay. There are things we have to do to keep this business open. Those are required.
Speaker 2:Then you have what I like to call the personal perks, the things that our tax CPA or EA or tax attorney told us we could run through the business, but they don't really add value to the business. They add value to the business owner. One of my favorite examples of this is when you put your kids on payroll. They are not really helping your business, but it is helping your business to put them on payroll from a personal effect. The very last category, and this is everything else if it's not required, it's not a personal perk, it is an investment in your business. And we go line by line through each of those investments to understand what are they giving back to you in time? Money or both? And if they're not, then why are we paying for them? Money or both? And if they're not, then why are we paying for them?
Speaker 1:Once you've done this what I would call an audit, like an institutional audit what is the response of you know? Obviously people are coming to you because I think they feel the need first, and then they look around and then they get a referral and that's how they get there. Probably, or they've got somebody they're using and they make a big mistake, or they don't feel they're very responsive or they're not very forward thinking. The big deal with money people I have found over the years with CPAs is they don't look forward, they look backwards, and you need to look forward to plan things and to organize your life, I think. So you get them in, you do this sort of generalized audit. What's the response for most of your new clients?
Speaker 2:So I'll give you one of my favorite stories from an attorney and we were going over CLE and in her mind the CLE was absolutely required and I get it as a CPA. I have CPE. Getting that CLE is required. Paying thousands of dollars for it is not, because if I know anything about, I can go pay $200, get unlimited really boring education units and be done. That's the truly required cost.
Speaker 2:So if you're paying thousands, then it becomes an investment. And what's the return on that? Did you implement? What did you learn? Did you have the time to do it? Did you change things? Are you more efficient? And if not, that wasn't really a great investment. So, going through that exercise and really differentiating what truly is required for your business and what is desired, or a personal part, because I have a lot of clients that will do charitable contributions. They want to do other things, which is absolutely amazing. I am all about the passion projects, but they are definitely a personal perk and if there's something that has to go, those personal perks end up being one of the first things we have to look at.
Speaker 1:Do you work mostly with sole owner businesses or are most of your businesses multi-owners?
Speaker 2:It's a good mix. I have a lot of solo practitioners where they actually end up finding me when they cap out. You only have so many hours in a day and they're thinking of hiring, but you can't make that decision without really understanding what that means.
Speaker 1:Does your firm provide bookkeeping services as well? Is that part of what you're offering is or not?
Speaker 2:We actually don't do bookkeeping or taxes. The ex-auditor in me is a huge fan of having multiple sets of eyes on your books. I think it's really important that no one person holds the keys to the kingdom 100%.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so we've done the audit, we've had the discussion. We have perhaps a reframing about. Let's talk about the mindset around money first of all, because I know you're big on this and I want to talk about debt, good debt and bad debt and that sort of stuff, and so tell me what that discussion typically looks like. If you're on stage talking to a bunch of small biz owners, a bunch of lawyers, perhaps, talk to us about the mindset of money.
Speaker 2:The key to debt and the mindset of money is intentionality. A lot of people could use the terms good debt and bad debt and I would argue there really isn't. In regards to which type of debt you've used, it's not necessarily good debt or bad debt because of what you did. It's the intentionality behind the spending that makes it good or bad. The reason credit card debt is considered bad debt is because people just swipe it without paying it off and then it just sits there accruing these astronomical interest rates. But if you had a credit card that was 0% interest and you needed $10,000 to go invest in a new software that was going to make you exponentially more efficient, that's not necessarily bad debt. That's very intentional use of your money with a return on investment at the end.
Speaker 4: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 greatlittlemarketingcom.
Speaker 1:Where do you see with your law firm clients, where do you see them getting greatest leverage in terms of good, intentional, good investments in their practice?
Speaker 2:I would say that-.
Speaker 1:Thousand dollar ceilings, like we're spending $1,000 CLEs. If you go to a conference that teaches you how to run your business, how to get more clients, even how to be a whiz-bang trial lawyer, there's certainly value in all of that. Most of the whole CLE program is just a participation trophy scam because there's never any testing. Yeah, that's crazy. But where are you finding that your small firm lawyers are getting value from intentional, good investments?
Speaker 2:Whichever form of marketing you choose and I have different attorneys that do this different ways I have some that are phenomenal in the ads market and they actually do ads and the ads work, and every time they bring on a new associate they ramp up the ads, they fill them up. They're good. I also have solopreneurs where their marketing dollars are spent on meals, taking people out to lunch. Marketing, as long as you are tracking the effectiveness and being intentional with it, is one of the best ways you can spend your money.
Speaker 2:The second one is one I also mentioned earlier is hiring somebody in your firm. For those of you that are a solo especially, you only have so many hours in the day and I actually have both attorneys too two clients that came to me this month and said I think we need to hire a paralegal, can we do it? And I didn't even need to run the numbers to tell them yes, if you have the work that says I think I need to hire a paralegal because you're that busy, they're going to bring in more revenue than you're spending on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the bigger challenge there is finding the paralegal. These days it's an increasingly difficult challenge. However, that also can be solved with remote work in many cases. Yeah, so the marketing is mainly our space. Like teaching lawyers how to compete with the 800-pound gorilla who's spending perhaps millions, sometimes millions, a month, both digital and traditional broadcast advertising, both digital and traditional broadcast advertising. And so do you get. I'm curious now is how deep is your knowledge about helping the lawyer decide on his or her marketing? Or are you relying on them to hey, go investigate? Maybe you help them track right.
Speaker 2:So we do a little bit of tracking on the return, in the sense that I want to make sure if we're investing, that we're growing and if we're not growing and continuing to get the client acquisitions. And we'll look at some of those numbers. If I'm honest, almost all of my attorneys are in Clio, so we usually pull that out of there, but we don't advise on where to market or how to market. We will make sure that the marketing dollars are giving you a return and if they're not, we're going to flag it and be like okay, what are? What do we need to change here? But we don't give the marketing strategy.
Speaker 1:For clients that you take on. What drives you crazy about them, like, what are the things that you wake up going? Oh my gosh, I can't believe this person got through law school.
Speaker 2:It's not the clients. If I'm honest, it's usually their bookkeepers that drive me crazy more than the clients, and it's usually because I'm a CPA and I know what goes into getting a license like this and the regulatory requirements behind all of it. When somebody comes to me and their IOLTA doesn't tie to their trust liability, I about lose my mind.
Speaker 1:For sure. Now you said that you're not in the space of tax planning or tax advice. So are you talking to the do these lawyers who are interested in this? They have their tax planner, they have their bookkeeper and you are somewhere in the middle of this or on top of all of it. Or where bookkeeper and you are somewhere in the middle of this or on top of all of it, where do you see yourself?
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm kind of like that icing on the cake. I get to talk to everybody and help coordinate. I know just enough about taxes. I did have to take the test and do all the things and I've dabbled in them to make sure that we're asking the right questions and make sure that we're pushing the bounds in an ethical way. The CPAs that I work with the most that do taxes I like to call them my ethically gray CPAs. They know what we can do and what's defensible and they know what's past the line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, that's the eternal question what do you like most about the work that you do? You talked earlier about helping businesses and business owners do the thing they really love doing and not having to worry, I guess, so much about the money. Is that your passion yourself?
Speaker 2:It is. It's helping people. It's empowering business owners to do what they love doing and knowing that just by empowering that business owner, I'm helping people tenfold. I have not an attorney, but another client of mine that does therapeutic coaching. All of her staff is licensed clinicians but in order to be nationwide, they call themselves coaches and they help the neurodivergent community and as the mom of an ADHD kiddo, I feel like just by helping them succeed, I'm helping so many more people get the help that they need and deserve.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the way we feel, you know, because we're both running a law firm good, healthy law firm and running great legal marketing and helping lawyers really like have fun and get less stressed out about the practice of law, which every year gets more competitive because we have both lawyer money and non-lawyer money now in the space trying to acquire clients across all different practice areas. But we still believe like there actually is not enough. There are not enough good lawyers who know how to run a business and a market well, so there's always a space for more and there's plenty of cases for everyone. I mean, that's our view of the world. Tell me a little bit about your own business, because I'm curious about how many people on the roof, how you keep culture, coach your teams. We run EOS. Other people do stand-up meetings, maybe scaling up different sort of business operating system programs. How do you do it?
Speaker 2:different sort of business operating system programs. How do you do it? So, if I had to name kind of a program resource, I'm a huge fan of Mike Michalowicz and the Profit First and Clockwork realm of things. We run very Clockwork similar. We are on the path of getting Clockwork certified so that we can help our clients do the same. I love having a team where I think I mentioned earlier, flexibility and family are core values for us. So a lot of my team, and we are small. At the moment we have three accountants and two VAs that work for me. The team knows that I'm here to empower them to be the best they can be, and that's my job. My job is to make sure that we're all functioning as a team and that people mean more to me than profit. If you're sick that's why we're a team Somebody's going to jump in, we're going to pick up the pieces, we're going to keep it moving, but you need to take care of you so you can be healthier and come back.
Speaker 1:Talk to us a little bit about Mike Michalowicz's Profit. First, for anyone who hasn't, who's not familiar, it's a book that we've recommended over the years and a program that we've recommended over the years. But you like it because why?
Speaker 2:For those business owners and I will be the first to admit, not everybody can afford a fractional CFO, but everybody needs to have a grip on their finances. You need to know the path that your business is on, and Profit First makes it very easy. When I read it, it reminded me of what I will call mental math, like when I'm sitting and just doing mental math in my head. Profit First is a very mental math kind of way of looking at your business and setting it up, so that you can just look at your bank&L or talk to your accountant until you get to the point I will say when clients come to me and they've got like 10 different accounts, I'm like, okay, now that you have me, we don't necessarily need 10 different accounts, we can do it in a different way and still get that information 10 different accounts refers to the profit first methodology.
Speaker 2:So the idea of profit first is you take your profit first. When those revenues come in, you pay yourself first. You prioritize that and you trust that as a business owner you were smart enough to figure out the rest of the bills and you will. So you put the profit aside, you make sure you're putting your taxes aside and then you figure out the rest of the bills that need to get paid.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do when you're not running your business? You said you have at least one child. Running a business is hard. Being the owner of a small business is hard. It has its rewards, for sure, and it has its challenges. So I'm curious if you're willing to talk about it. What are some of the challenges that either you faced or you think you'll face moving forward as you grow?
Speaker 2:One of my biggest challenges right now is the kids. So my kids are in that middle school almost high school phase, very busy with extracurriculars.
Speaker 1:How many?
Speaker 2:I have two, so I have an 11-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, and they swim year-round. So they do year-round swim. We swim every single day of the year, with the exception of maybe two weeks.
Speaker 1:And I. How do they get these earlier? The start time is right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, summer doesn't mean sleeping in over here, but the challenge for me there often is because I end my work day a little bit earlier so that I can pick them up and be with them after school and get them to all of these things. I don't always get to attend all of these things. I don't get to participate and watch the practice as much as I honestly would like to sometimes, because I do have to get back and get some stuff done and get emails out and finish the last few things that need to be done. Or I am learning to be better at time blocking. My kids go on spring break at the time of this recording. They'll be on spring break next week and I had to physically go block my calendar, otherwise I would have been working instead of spending the time with them that I want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, time blocking is a critical skill. Controlling your calendar Do you have your own personal VA or EA or anything like that?
Speaker 2:So I have two virtual VAs so they don't do the personal assistant side of things so much as email management and scheduling and helping me stay on top of prospecting and things like that.
Speaker 1:There's a whole world out there which we are exploring, based on the Philippines, working with a company based on the Philippines, and several of my mastermind members now have EAs that have a great deal of training, a great deal of training for the lawyer to learn how to work with the EA, and they are reporting, at least in these early months, remarkable free up of time at about $3,000 a month, just in case you wonder about that. So it's an interesting world that we're in where, again, people from all over the world help us and there's a lot of good systems and companies out there that are working to make this safe and secure and make it really win, win, win for everybody involved. What do you think's next? I mentioned sort of growth. We're recording this in the first quarter of 2024. Where do you see yourself maybe two or three years from now?
Speaker 2:I am working on what's the word Taking my own medicine? Finding that next mini me. So we do have accounting staff that do a lot of the backend reporting and analytics. I'm sure most of your listeners won't be surprised to hear most accountants don't like to be in front of people, so we're on the hunt for that other person that can be very personality driven and likes to be in front of people. So we're on the hunt for that other person that can be very personality driven and likes to be in front of the client and on their feet. And that's the only way that I can do, which is the other book I mentioned from Mike Michalowicz's Clockwork, and the goal of that book, if anyone's ever interested in reading it, is that you set your business up to run without you for four weeks and, as a business that runs on a very monthly cadence, I can't do that without somebody that can do what I do.
Speaker 1:Whenever anyone is introduced to that concept, particularly lawyers and, I assume, cfos, cpas it seems almost impossible and for those of you who are listening, the object is okay, maybe you'll never get there, but putting in place the systems and the people that could help you get there, because we never know Like you could get hit by a truck and be out for four weeks and not have any choice over the matter.
Speaker 1:I was talking a recent interview which is not published yet but people will hear is the lawyer lost his 50, I think eight-year-old COO to a sudden unexpected heart attack death right, I think, eight-year-old COO to a sudden unexpected heart attack death right. Fortunately this lawyer is very organized and the COO was very good and so very sad because the COO was a best friend of the lawyer. But the firm isn't hurt because systems are in place and that takes work. So even if you never get to four weeks where you want to go and leave because we all get, we're hard, especially that's hard, especially with kids, spouses, if you have like their schedules it's hard, but being able to build a place where you could do that, that's an awesome place to be. Danielle, anything else that I haven't covered that you like and are passionate about talking about to small biz owners, I think in terms of debt.
Speaker 2:When we were talking about the debt, I will tell anyone and everyone that will listen that you should have a line of credit and if you don't, you need to go get one before you need it. They're very difficult to get when you do need them, but I can promise you, from a money mindset perspective, being able to fall back on something instead of take everything and anything you can get is a completely different place to be if times do turn.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And do you have a suggestion or recommendation as to size of line of credit vis-a-vis either profit or revenue?
Speaker 2:It is going to be very dependent. It's actually usually dependent on your receivables. They want to know how much money is sitting in the receivables that you haven't collected or how much money is sitting in the bank. They're going to look at your balance sheet more than your income statement or P&L. And just getting enough, the goal of any business or in personal, you usually go for that. Three months of operating expenses. That's the goal and if you can get them to give you that, it gives you the runway to pivot when something happens.
Speaker 1:A lot of our members have had much more success working with small local banks in this topic area versus the big branded banks. You're nodding your head. Yes, Absolutely yeah, and having that relationship in advance, and particularly for those of us. For example, our firm is 99.99999% contingent fee right, so we don't have accounts receivable per se. We have an inventory of cases and we've got a 40 track record of turning those cases into cash, but it is like banks.
Speaker 2:Banks are definitely a little more red tape than, say, a local credit union where you know someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, Well, great, If folks want to follow up with you, check out the website, perhaps have a discussion with you about. Well, let me ask you this Do you work? Is your work state agnostic?
Speaker 2:I work anywhere nationwide, okay.
Speaker 1:All right, and so where could people go to find out more about you, danielle?
Speaker 2:The best place is. We are going to set up a landing page just for you guys, and it's going to be the number four, not the word. The number four corners cfocom slash Ben Glass.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. So somebody, either you or somebody behind you, knows marketing and tracking and all that sort of stuff. Yep, that's very good, very cool, all right. Well, look, it's been great to talk to you today. This has been very informative. Again, this is a space where lawyers are generally weak, unless one of the partners just is a numbers nerd, but that's relatively rare in our space, I think, and so this is a great service to lawyers. So hang on for a minute because I want to ask you a question.
Speaker 2:When we go offline, but thanks so much for being with us on the podcast today.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me All right. 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.