Revenue Roadmap
Revenue Strategies for Family Law Firms
Learn from the experts behind the growth of sterlinglawyers.com Anthony Karls, President of Rocket Clicks/co-founder of Sterling Lawyers, and Tyler Dolph, CEO of Rocket Clicks, interview the experts in all the areas that will drive revenue and increase profits for family law firms
Get technical knowledge and learn from the experience of those who paid the price to learn what it takes to grow from an idea to an exclusively family law firm with 30+ attorneys.
Revenue Roadmap
Real Reason Law Firm Staff Retention Fails & How to Fix It
Stop the costly cycle of hiring and retraining. The “grass is greener”' mentality destroys law firms by driving constant turnover and training costs.
Most retention problems stem from poor performance management and a lack of systematic employee development frameworks. This episode reveals the accountability system we used at Sterling Lawyers to build long-term team commitment through structured goal-setting, regular coaching check-ins, and clear career development pathways that transformed our culture and fueled our growth to a 32-attorney team.
You'll also learn why job-hopping indicates deeper performance issues and how intentional leadership development creates the foundation for sustainable firm growth.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@karls.anthony
📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
---
📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Staff Retention: Why Your Team Keeps Leaving
2:31 - The Escapism Problem: When Staff Blame Everything But Performance
6:17 - Job Hopping Pattern Recognition: What Resumes Really Tell You
8:34 - Poor Performance Fuels The Urge To Leave: The Real Problem
14:44 - Goal-Setting Framework: Building Accountability Culture That Works
17:22 - Three-Year Development Plans: Creating Clear Career Pathways
Curious to discover your personalized roadmap to scaling a law firm, no matter where you are in the business?
Follow these steps:
1. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
2. CONNECT WITH US:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonykarls/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerdolph/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocket-clicks
Facebook: http://facebook.com/2311.karls.anthony
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577369996484
http://facebook.com/RocketClicks
Instagram: http://instagram.com/karls.anthony
https://www.instagram.com/tylerxdolph/
https://www.instagram.com/rocketclicks/
3. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT:
Tell me in the comments if you liked this podcast and w...
Are your intake specialists always chasing the next best thing? Are you tired of rehiring and retraining because they think the grass is always greener? This episode is for you. I am Tyler Dolph, CEO of our agency Rocket Clicks. It is a digital advertising agency solely focused on helping family law firms generate more leads and turn those leads into revenue. And with me today is Anthony Carls. He is the president of our agency and also the co-founder of our law firm, Sterling Lawyers, which has grown to over 32 family law attorneys. In this episode, we're talking about the myth of job hopping in a law firm. Why this happens, why the whole grass is greener. Theory is is wrong. And what law firm leaders can do to protect their team from chasing illusions instead of building success where they are. I really hope you enjoy it. think we've talked about this a lot internally at both our law firm and our agency, where, you know, maybe you have a younger, team member, and they get, recruiter reaching out to them and, you know, they hop over to some new company with the thought that it's going to be the greatest thing ever, only to realize maybe it's not. Maybe it's not as great. And so today we're going to talk through kind of five ideologies or theories as it relates to greener pastures. Totally. The first one being that the greener pastures mentality is often just skepticism. Yeah. It's usually. It's usually, escapism. Like, how do you. How do you escape from your current reality and kind of not deal with what's in front of you and kind of, Because oftentimes there's, like, there's always there's always two sides to every situation. Right? And oftentimes we especially in today's culture, we overly become victims and like are conditioned to believe victim mentality is okay. And we kind of have a lot of self-talk. It's really not healthy. And what ends up happening is we kind of get sold by a, a greener pastures. And the reality is like all the problems I have today, they're going to like, come with me to that new place. And I really just need I need to deal with me. I need to deal with me and, like, what's holding me back. I understand, like, why I'm not successful versus blaming the situation or boss or manager or whatever. As the problem. And there might be like, there's always legitimate circumstances there, but we see this like recruiting where you see a job hopping resume that and like, you know, we're talking sales primarily in this series, but this happens with all team members. This is not just a a sales thing. This we've seen this with attorneys. We we joked we joked recently, Jeff Hughes and I about one of our first shoes, our first third hire, maybe fourth. I can't remember what number, but she joined. We looked at her resume. Then she had bounced around. She had like three different jobs for years. Each time she was with us for four years. She then went somewhere else. She signed with them for four years. Now she's somewhere else, kind of followed it. It's like that pattern that it shows up and, and, it's just interesting because it's, it's from our from my perspective, from my experience, it's detrimental to long term impact and growth and earning potential. Yeah. It's interesting. I think it probably follows culture. If you look back at, you know, our parents and especially our grandparents, they were in their job for 20, 30 years. They retired at their first job or maybe their second job. Definitely not the culture anymore. The culture. Today's environment is go to a place. You try and use it as a launchpad for whatever's next, and just try and, you know, get that raise or get that next salary bump job after job. But I think to your point, the problem there is you're not actually developing any solid skills. You're not leveling up as an individual, even if, hey, you're getting paid a little bit more each time. There's got to be a ceiling there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's I think oftentimes in these circumstances, the, you see people that will, will jump around and like continue to, to jump and climb a ladder. And those are slightly different circumstances. But what you'll, what you'll see more often that's like a that's, that's those are what I would call special cases. More often you'll see the same exact title over and over and over again at a whole bunch of different places. And really, what that should be an indication is poor performance. And it's like it's really an opportunity for reflection. Like something about what I'm doing isn't working, because now the common thread is like, I'm in this role continuously. I'm not progressing in this role ever. Like I'm always. specialist now for law Right. Exactly. Yeah, that's that's fascinating. And, to me, the solve is is building a great culture, being able to grow and develop your team members, you know, but there's there's just this, it's it's that there's just a culture of Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think what's really important, unless you know, we do talk about with our sales team, we do it with our all team. If you're not constantly trying to train and develop new skills like you're, you're you're probably doing it wrong. Like there's something off, because if you're not actually trying to get better, other people are. They're passing you off. So like, that's, you know, in a culture where you are doing that, you require that, your team, everybody grows. But those that don't really want to be a part of that, they'll they'll often leave. And the reality is like they leave because they don't want to develop. They want to just be here, be comfortable. I just want to do my 9 to 5. I want to just punch in and punch out. I don't really want to invest. I don't want to get better. I went to school for, you know what, I school and I went to college and I went to law school, and I just want to do this now. Don't bother me. It's like, okay, that's the best, you know, are and you're going to up and you just it's, you know, often that leads to poor performance. And people then want to leave because the situation is the situation isn't working out, quote unquote. And reality is like you're not you're not changing. I didn't change the world forever for all of us, are you? Not if you're not using AI right now, don't be surprised when the world changes and you're frustrated. But that's that's like that's on you. That's not, that's not my fault. It's a tool. If you don't use the tool, you're going to be left behind. And someone's probably gonna have to tell you that I think, you know, our second point here is that poor performance fuels the urge to leave. Right? So let's say that you haven't been growing and developing as an individual, as an intake specialist, or in a sales role or whatever it is. Well, then someone's going to have to give you that perspective at some point. You know, some boss, some manager is going to say, listen, you're not performing, you're not doing what you need to be doing. And in that moment, it's it's fight or flight. It's okay, I'm going to double down and get better or no, this isn't for me. My bosses mean, you know, I better find something else. Yeah. We found that. It's like all, it's all it's an integral. We've had it with Turing's. We have here at the agency with different tools. You know when you, when you have a coach that actually cares, it's critical feedback because they want that person to develop into like what they've said. They want to develop into. Like, if you tell me you want to be I'm not the greatest CEO in the world. When I tell you all your flaws and you decide that you don't really do like, oh, I can't, I can't do this here. This team sucks. They don't know how to grow. They don't know me. They're no whatever you're that's that's a new problem because I you're going to complain about the opportunity. You're going to complain about the team. You're going to complain about all this stuff. And that's typically what what we end up seeing is the it's typically poor performance. Or I want to push this person to continue to grow. And it's like, I don't want that. I don't want to grow. I don't want to get better. And really want your coaching, your your bosses saying maybe not directly, maybe not as clearly as you want to hear it is. I don't want you to get passed up. I don't want you to lose this opportunity. I don't want, you know, the next best person to come in and take your job. So I want you to continue growing. I want you to be here. I want you to grow. I want you to achieve your goals that you filter. So I just think it's really important. I mean, this is, You see this everywhere. Not just in business, but in sports, right? Where a poor performer is either going to double down and step up, or they're going to complain and whine and go to the press and and demand a trade. Yeah, exactly. So our third point is more on the other side of the fence. You know, when you're hiring someone and you kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, is that frequent job changes actually hurt your long term earning kind of maximization? You know, the short term may help you make may changing jobs. You may get that pay bump. But over time, if you're really looking to maximize your earning potential, it's actually going to hurt you. Yeah. I think that's especially true in the legal space with attorneys. Because what the current firm owner is looking for is someone that's going to come in and like they want to grow this business, they want to grow this firm. They want to see that over a season of time that's not insignificant. And that's where, you know, becoming a potential income partner or becoming an equity partner in a firm. That's where it comes from. It comes from that long term, long term investment, long term sweat equity, long term investment of of time that comes from that obviously good performance as well. But like you may you may not be the top performer, but you may be consistently like the third, third or fourth best person in the firm of, you know, whatever size. And but you're always there. You always show up. You always have a great attitude. You're always helping the team get better. You're always saying all the things that actually make the business work. That's the person that's going to get that opportunity. It's so rare. And we see this both at our own firm and with our clients. Firms. You know, they don't ever bring in. Oh, I'm going to bring in an equity partner tomorrow. It's. Well, this person's been here for eight years. They've been consistent. And now we've promoted them to an equity partner. Let's have a Yeah, yeah. So I think they definitely, like you said, I think it can help in the short term, but I think kind of like a bigger scale. It definitely damages long term potential. the fourth point we're thinking about is the idea of focus that if you can, can can be consistent, if you can focus on growth, you are going to win in the long run. And, again, back to just the cultural norms, right? Everybody wants instant gratification. They want it now. They want it yesterday. But that's not how life works. It's not how business works. It's not how law firms work. And so being able to be consistent and stay focused has got to be the key. Right. Yeah. And I would if, you know, we've we saw our growth at Sterling really explode when we got focused. And it's because what ended up happening is all of us started getting reps on the exact same thing over and over again. And, you know, you work. The rule of 10,000 hours comes into play. And the closer you get to that, with all of the different skills that you need, because you're staying focused, you're staying in the same industry, you're staying in the same, you know, type of role, but you're leveling up your skills. You become the expert, you can learn leadership skills, you can start mentoring. You really start to see your responsibilities expand and grow. And so because you stay focused in the long run about where you are, where your path is, you're not looking for something next week. That's often, especially with, with younger folks. You know, we want, instant gratification. Like we a lot of us have been conditioned now with cell phones and social media to, like, Chase the instant gratification of that or even even Amazon, even, you know, Instacart. You can order. Well, I just saw an email come through from my wife. She put in an Instacart order from Costco, and it's going to get delivered to our daughter like it's all instant gratification. Right. So it's hard to like in the real world when I got to build and stack skills over a time period, it's hard to like disconnect from the everything should happen today type world we live in. what you know. Final point. What? What do we do about it? What can we do is, as leaders, businesses and law firms to be able to kind of curb this trend. Yeah. One thing that we do is we are so intentional with with goals. So, I think it's extraordinarily important for law firm owners, especially to start with them and then work with your most influential team members and then work with your whole team on setting up personal, professional, financial goals on a 1 to 3 and five year time horizon and then bring those into coaching like the team member will feel like you care about what they're trying to accomplish in their whole life, and you'll then have the opportunity to hold them accountable to those goals. You told me you want X, how are we doing that? X you know, one of your, you know, one of my one of my goals for this year is I want to I feel like I'm not I'm no longer in this period of my life where I want to be a bodybuilder. Like, I want to get. I'm like, I've been at 275 for about five years and both up a ton. I want to get my weight down. I don't want to lose lots of muscle mass, but like, I want to, I want to get down. So I track it. It's on my PPF goals. It's something that I write down every single morning in my notes. So, you know, if you create a culture like that, you create accountability and you start to see things happen. And oftentimes, you know, there that may be the first time someone's actually invested in, in them. Like, if you're if you're running a law firm, it's very likely they've never had a boss actually ask them what their goals are. But that won't be a surprise. It'll be it'll be surprises. Team member. You might be surprised in that experience, because you'll be probably asked them and then actually had them present. It actually had them hold accountable. And we're going to talk about these every two weeks. And then we're going to develop a development plan for the next year about how we're going to work towards these goals. And it, it just changes changes the game. It helps the team members see where their future could be. You know, especially with our our team members here. That rocket looks you know, I want all of them to have like very clear, very clear pure. My next three moves like I need to develop x, y and z. This is what it's going to mean for me from a title change. Who doesn't mean for me it can't change. And this is what we're going to be talking about. And once I do that, here's the next one. I want to do that. Here's the next one I like I can see like okay, like here's my next three years of development. Like I know I'm going to grow here and that's going to be really rare. And that can really help curb the job hopping, create accountability, create a culture of growth. I think all that's really important. Yeah. I mean, if you're listening to this. This is not just theory. Like we have spent so much time and energy in building this goal oriented, orientated culture, and it hasn't been easy. And, you know, some team members haven't haven't enjoyed the accountability of, like, hey, if you write down your goals, we're going to hold you accountable to them and we're going to talk to you about them. And so, if you're listening to this and you want to implement this, know that, it's going to be bumpy and you're going to take it's going to take time to really shift your culture to more of one focused on growth and development. But it is so worth it. It is so gratifying as a leader to watch your team level up and achieve goals that that maybe they didn't even think were possible when they wrote them down. So it is 100% worth it. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's it's a small thing, and it's easily overlooked. But as a business owner, you know, the thing that you care, the thing that keeps you up at night is like, I got payroll to run, and two weeks I got a lifestyle that I created for my family. I want to I want to make sure that continues. That's really stressful. What what that business owner really wants is someone that is on their team that continues to hit their goals. They see that over time because then they can trust them and that now that's how partnerships get created. That's actually how long term earning potential grows, because now they see it's not just like raising my hand and saying, I want this, I want this, I want this, but I'm not willing to do anything for it. It's I want this. What do you want from me? Here's what I've done. Here's how I continue to support you. Here's how you do so we're both continuing to grow and you just see it. It's just a different it's a different approach. And it takes time. And I think that's part of the biggest issue. It's like you got to be patient. You just got to invest. Like sometimes, I think oftentimes in success, people quit right before they're at the finish line. You're like, yeah, you're like 95 yards down the field and you're like five yards away from the goal and you're like, oh, screw it for the flag. And we're done. We're going to quit. That's like, why are we quitting? Like you're so close, like you've been working on all of this and like, you, you give it up on yourself. Like, don't give up on yourself happens. So. of the accountability piece is that even if you give up on yourself, your team member, your coach, your manager is here to to not give up Yeah, yeah. Help raise your belief lid. Like I think that's part of the problem. Like you have you have, you know, you have really good individual contributors that want to keep one. And basically you're going to give them skills. They're not. You're going to ask them to develop skills are not good at. And what becomes hard is that team member is an A-plus in a bunch of different things. And you said, I want you to I want you to grow here. You're a C at this. And we forget what it took to become an A-plus over here because we're already there. We forgot all the pain that all happened in the past. We had to do the same thing with the C plus skill and get that up. And like, where we. Where you see, that is like the frustration of, like that growth because it's hard and it's not linear. It's like it's almost like circular. And you go forward one step forward two steps, one step backwards forward two steps, one step backwards. And like that's how it should feel. That's how it's going to feel. So being patient with getting in that season and just kind of enjoying the process is the biggest piece of advice I can give. It's so good. I'm, like, just jacked up thinking about all the things we've done and. And the journey that it's taking to get there. If you loved this episode. On the Grass is Always Greener theory. You will love this entire series that we're doing on sales in a law firm, but specifically, you'll love the next episode, which you can find right here, which is all on the commitment it takes to succeed in law firm sales. We're diving into what real commitment looks like and how to build it into your sales culture. Make sure to check it out and we will see you there.
.png)
