The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Profit First for Lawyers: RJon Robins on Building a Successful Law Firm
Join me, Ben Glass, on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast as I sit down with RJon Robins, a veteran in the legal coaching space and author of "Profit First for Lawyers." We discuss the essential differences between running a law firm and practicing law, the importance of financial control, and why your business should work for you, not the other way around. RJon shares invaluable insights on hiring, marketing, sales, and why your CPA may not be your best friend. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that could transform your practice.
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.
That's like the most important thing if you want to build a really successful business. Law firm is a business. It's a type of business. You got to make sure that your business excites people right. And if it's going to excite the right kind of people, it's going to excite the wrong kind of people. And you got to make a decision. Who are you going to? Who you live in your life for right? Are you living your life for the people who it excites them in a good way, or are you living your life for the people who you excite in a bad way? Or are you going to try to live your life for the people in the middle or say, fuck it all and live your life for you? Which is really what I advocate is your. We have one precious life, right, we have one precious life and you know not to get religious, but we don't know what comes next. This is all we know we've got.
Speaker 2:Hey there. I just want to take a quick break from today's podcast to tell you about an event that we're hosting August 1 and 2. I'm going to be hosting a small, intimate event for solo and small firm lawyers here in our offices in Fairfax, virginia. If you've never been to a great legal marketing event before, or even if you have, this is going to be the place for you to start. If you're running a small law firm and you're looking for ways to attract more clients without spending a lot more money, we're going to be diving deeper over those two days into all the little DIY things you can do, even if you have a small team. This is going to be perfect for a law firm that's doing between about $500,000 and a million dollars in top line revenue. If you're making more money than that, good for you. You're doing a lot of things right, but this event isn't for you.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what this is not. This is not an event where, under the guise of a seminar, we're going to be selling you websites, pay-per-click ads or other digital marketing media. That's not our space in the market. This is where you're going to learn how to effectively use your next hour and your next dollar in growing your law firm. We'll be part lecture and part workshop. There'll be some prep work to do before the event and some post-event follow-up so we can answer lingering questions and keep you motivated to building a better life for you and your family Together. Let's figure out why you're not making more money, getting better cases and converting more of your leads. Again, this is August 1 and 2 in our offices in Fairfax, virginia, and if you want to be on the early list of people who are getting up-to-date information, just shoot me an email at ben at greatlegalmarketingcom.
Speaker 3:That's ben at greatlegalmarketingcom and I'll make sure you're one of the first to know. 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, Thank you, hiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone. This is Ben, welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast where each episode I get to interview people inside or outside of legal who are making a ding in the world. And today's going to be another really special episode where I'm catching up with a longtime friend of mine and you all are going to pretty much be able to just listen in to our conversation. I'm going to talk today with my friend, arjun Robbins. Arjun and I go back at least 15 and maybe 20 years in this entrepreneurial journey of helping lawyers. Arjun's got a new book, profit First for Lawyers A great deal, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Arjun, with our friend Mike Mihaljevic, the original author of Profit First. Arjun, of course, is a co-founder and the president of how to Manage a Small Law Firm. He's got over 600. They're managing which is really cool Not just a coaching organization but managing and helping to manage over 600 law firms across the country. That number may be small, may be increased. By now Our John was just telling me he's got actually a waiting list and he's really been around the space for a long time and he's built a tremendous organization in how to manage a small law firm. And you know, honestly, now you've built another whole orbit.
Speaker 2:I think I see with your digital media and your podcast, that's associated with Profit First. For those of you who are listening, I was holding up a copy of the book Profit First and so I want to talk about all of that. So thanks for carving out some time to be with us. It's good to see you again, because you and I haven't. We saw each other in Miami like a year and a half, maybe almost two years ago, briefly, but I just want to catch up a bit. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing. Great Thanks for having me on the show. I'm at an event in a hotel and I was able to commandeer a room that they'll be setting up for an event later tonight for someone. So if you see my eyes darting off, it's because behind me they're setting up the room and I'm trying to stay focused.
Speaker 2:I wondered about the fantastic backdrop there and I knew this wasn't your standard office. Well, look, you have really been someone who's had a very prominent and impactful role in the space helping small law firms. You know, in my words, like compete against the 800 pound gorilla. Have a life, be profitable, build something for yourself and for your family, don't let me forget. I want to talk about Ayn Rand and the doctrine of sacrifice as well, because you and I are very much aligned there. But for anyone who doesn't know you hasn't followed, you hasn't maybe been a member tell us a little bit about that background. Coming out of the Florida Borrower's Office of Law Firm.
Speaker 1:Management.
Speaker 2:Yes, dealing with all the lawyers who I think got in trouble and helping fix them so they wouldn't get in trouble again. But talk to us a little bit, Arjan, about your journey, man.
Speaker 1:So, before we get to that, let's hook everyone with a big promise and, by the way, this is completely unscripted. So we just decided we're going to get on a call and talk. Let's hook everyone with a big promise. Let's make a promise. Let's promise that, whatever we cover today, we're going to share something that's going to help them with their marketing. We're going to help them with their sales. We'll help them with their staffing. We'll help them pull more profit out of their business. We'll help them have a better work quality life. So, if any of this stuff matters to you, stay with us, because I'm sure we'll wind up talking about all different kinds of things, but let's make sure we at least deliver on that big promise.
Speaker 2:We'll probably upset somebody, although not my audience. They pretty much. I mean they're aligned, the whole renegade lawyer brand. We may upset people that are in the standard bar associations or in these sort of running standard law firms, and we're going to upset CPAs as well. So let's not worry about a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1:Sorry, that's like the most important thing If you want to build a really successful business. Law firm is a business. It's a type of business. You got to make sure that your business excites people right and if it's going to excite the right kind of people, it's going to excite the right kind of people. It's going to excite the wrong kind of people and you got to make a decision.
Speaker 1:Who are you going to? Who you live in your life for right? Are you living your life for the people who it excites them in a good way, or are you living your life for the people who you excite in a bad way? Or are you going to try to live your life for the people in the middle or say, fuck it all and live your life for you, which is really what I advocate, is your. We have one precious life, right, we have one precious life and you know not to get religious but like we don't know what comes next. This is all we know we've got and we've got to make the most of this one precious life we have and use our business to help us have the very best turn we can on in this life and I'll riff on that and you don't know if you have tomorrow, obviously, right, we're recording this in june of 2024.
Speaker 2:I'm about 11 weeks after triple bypass surgery where and my listeners know like with zero symptoms needed a major operation. It didn't really cause me to rethink my life because I've pretty much been aligned with just what you just espoused a second ago is that you have to live for yourself first and what you and I think try to give lawyers permission to do is to accept that gift. Try to give lawyers permission to do is to accept that gift that you're allowed to live for yourself first and your family. It sounds selfish. That's a whole philosophical discussion we can have.
Speaker 1:I go one step further. I go one step further. You owe it to your family and you owe it to your clients to show up as the best version of yourself. And how can you show up at the best version of yourself If you're embracing the doctrine of sacrifice? How can you show up as the best version of yourself If you're broke? How can you show up as the best version of yourself If your marketing is sporadic and you don't know where the next client's going to come from? How can you show up at the best version of yourself If you don't have a great team of people supporting you? How can you show up as the best version of yourself if you don't have a great team of people supporting you? How can you show up as the best version of yourself if you don't have financial controls?
Speaker 1:Your business is a tool. Your business look, you've got core values. I've got core values. I don't necessarily resonate with all of your core values and you don't necessarily resonate with all of your core values, and you don't necessarily resonate with all of my core values. But the reason that we can get along and the reason we've been friends for 15 or 20 years is because I respect the fact that you have core values and you stick to your core values and everything you do is congruent with your core values. I know the Ben Glass is going to show up this week, next week, the week after that, because I know who you are down to your core values and same with me. Your business is there to help you express your core values in the world and if you're sacrificing yourself, you are disrespecting everyone who needs you to show up as the best version of yourself and use your business to make a big, positive impact on the world, which, by the way, I realized I didn't even answer the question you asked me, but we'll come back.
Speaker 2:This is better, this is, but who cares?
Speaker 1:about that? Who cares about? At this point? Some of the people in the audience are like this guy's an asshole. I don't like anything he's saying and it doesn't matter about my background. And maybe someone else is like that's kind of interesting and they, they can learn more about me.
Speaker 2:Well, and you talked about, you know, being excited and attracting people.
Speaker 2:And then you know this is so critical Like if you don't like, if now we're speaking to the law firm owner right now if you don't like going to work in the morning and you don't like going home at night, like OK, let's just start there.
Speaker 2:But just as importantly, arjan, one of the things my son, brian, and I have tried to build here at the law firm is a place where people love to come to work, right, Like we'll tell them, like this is the worst part about working here is that this would be the best place you ever worked in your life. And the question we ask them always is how could we make this perfect for you? I can't guarantee, arjan, if you come to work for me, that I can make it perfect for you. But if you don't know what's perfect for your own life as an employee and you can't communicate that to me, then how do we work towards something that's a very exciting place to come to work, Because if you've solved for one, me and my family are happy. Two, your team is happy. Your clients are going to be well served serve.
Speaker 1:The biggest challenge that we have with recruiting employees is you get people who they don't know what they want in life, that's most people.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to motivate someone, it's really hard to lead someone, it's really hard to help. It's really hard to give someone a lot of value in a job or a career if they don't have something they're trying to achieve with their life right? So we're very clear with people about our core values. We're very clear with people about what we stand for, what we're all about, and people come to work here because they resonate with these core values. We've got people who have been with us, for you know, since the beginning, right? Anyway, I just agree with every single thing you're saying, and the beautiful thing about building a more successful business is you get to use the successful business. It's really fun because you can help your employees build better lives too, and that's just such a joy 100%.
Speaker 2:So now we're way off course, but I do want to ask you this because-.
Speaker 1:Your podcast. You lead, I'll follow. You drive, I will ride.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest challenges, I think, these days is the hiring and the acquisition of talent, right, and you just alluded to this. So I'm curious, because I know that you've got processes for trying to understand the person who's coming into, how to manage as an employee, right, but how often do you get that wrong? Because we get it wrong, and I think you know most small law firms get it wrong with some frequency because we don't do it very much right. We don't have a lot of at-bats with hiring, how to manage. You've got more people. You've had more at-bats over time than the average law firm, for sure. Do you get it wrong sometimes? And if so, like you know, you hire somebody you go.
Speaker 2:Ah, not who, I thought it was.
Speaker 1:To hear about my trademarked, patented system for how to not make mistakes when you hire superstars, how to hire a superstar every single time without making the mistake, Because you know, look, if you hire the wrong person, it's going to cost you so much more than money, right? You got to pay for the recruiting. You got to pay for the recruiting. You got to pay for the training. You got to pay for the offboarding. You got to pay for all to clean up all the mistakes. You have to pay for the reputation. You're going to pay for reputation.
Speaker 1:How do you spend cleaning up their mess, right?
Speaker 1:You know, you figure, if you pay, if you hire someone for $100,000 and you got to let them go in 90 days, it's probably going to cost you the full $100,000 to let them go in 90 days.
Speaker 1:If you let them go in six months, it's probably going to cost you $200,000. And if you put it off for a year, it could easily cost you $400,000. So what you're asking me is that, as a former small law firm management advisor with the Florida Bar's Law Office Management Assistance Service, there's not a single person on the planet alive today who's been into more successful law firms than me, and there's not a single person on the planet who's been into more broken, screwed up law firms than me. From my years at the Florida Bar and as the co-founder and president of how to Manage a Small Law Firm myself, with 100 employees plus and managing over 600 law firms, you want to know our system for not making hiring mistakes, because we've got this down pat and if you screw this up, you're a loser, and so you want to know how to not be a loser.
Speaker 2:That's what you want to know your batting average.
Speaker 1:I wish someone could tell me because our batting average sucks. Look, here's the reality.
Speaker 2:You just made a whole bunch of people feel a lot better. Actually, look, here's the reality.
Speaker 1:You just made a whole bunch of people feel a lot better.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm glad that my suffering when you and I and people like us say you know what, if you followed us around for a week, you'd see there's a lot of production, right, but there's also a lot of mistakes, and you and I are both very open. I think about hey, everything ain't perfect.
Speaker 1:Look, here's the reality. The reality is that if you're growing, so the average small law firm in this country just figure this, the average small law firm, our members, they get all bent out of shape about oh my God, someone quit. Oh my God, I got to let someone go and they think that's like a ding against their personal character or something right, think about this the average small law firm grows in this country at 5% per year. Our members are growing at typically 50 to 75% year on year on year. All right, so if you're growing at, let's say, 5% per year, let's say you got one law firm growing at 5% per year, it goes from 100 to 105, 105 to 110, 110 to 120, whatever, that is up to a million dollars in revenue. You got another law firm that's going at 50% per year goes from 100 to 150 to what would that be? 225. I mean, in four years it's at a million dollars, right? Well, obviously the law firm that's growing much, much more slowly is going to have a much lower rate of turnover, because things don't change that much, right, when your law firm is growing that fast, everything's changing, right.
Speaker 1:The difference between how you market a $250,000 law firm, it's very different than how you market a $250,000 law firm. It's very different than how you market a $500,000 law firm. How you manage a $250,000 law firm is very different than how you manage a $500,000 law firm. The biggest law firm that we've got I think it's knocking on the door of $20 million, but the majority of our firms are. We got about half of our members were probably a million to maybe a million to 5 million. We got some other percentage that's like 5 million to 10 million. A few of them are 10 and up, but half of our 600 law firms are under a million dollars. And the way you do things. The point that I'm trying to make is the people who are the best people in the world to come and work for a $250,000 law firm might not be the right people to work for a $500,000. Usually aren't.
Speaker 2:They're usually not the people who get to a certain level are not the people that go with you, and that can be hard in a small environment where everybody knows everybody and you know their families and stuff.
Speaker 1:That's my point. People get all like look, people like to talk about our law firm is like a family. Your law firm is not a family. Stop treating your law firm like a family. It's bad for your law firm, it's bad for your employees, it's bad for your clients, it's bad for your family. It's bad for you. Your law firm is a team. It's not a family.
Speaker 1:Right, think about your family. You can have the biggest fuck up in the world, but if they're your family, they're your family. You have a right to be part of that family. Because you're part of the family, right, a team, you have to earn the right to be on that team and everyone on the team knows it. And no one on the team wants someone on the team who hasn't earned the right to be there, because then the team loses. So, anyway, we could talk, we could do a whole episode on how we have improved our batting average on hiring from God awful to to awful to just excruciatingly, mind numbingly. It could be better, right, but you got to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying and keep trying. This is the only way you grow. And the thing is, once you've got it all completely figured out, if it works, your law firm is going to outgrow everything.
Speaker 2:That's right, and you've got to figure it out all over again. That's right. That's right. New problems.
Speaker 1:So there's some best practices, right, there are some best practices that you could definitely implement and, if you want, you can put in the show notes. I'll share some free resources and I just want to. You mentioned it in the beginning, I'll say it again We've got a waiting list. We've had a waiting list for the better part of two years. I'm not here to sell anyone anything. I mean, I'd love if you went to Amazon and bought my book, but you know I'm not here to sell anything. I just want to share whatever resources I can and, if you want to, on best practices for hiring.
Speaker 1:But the biggest thing is to understand that hiring is marketing, recruiting is marketing, recruiting is marketing, hiring is sales. So everything you do for marketing you do for recruiting, and everything you do for sales you should be doing for the hiring, getting the people to want to take the job. And then you have to do onboarding. So, like we don't let our there's not a single person on our staff who's allowed to do one single minute of productive work in less than their first month. So I invest an entire month of training, onboarding and inculcating into our culture, testing everything, and for some positions it's two months Because you know.
Speaker 1:Think about it like this, ben. If I said to you hey, there's this piece of industrial equipment, right, and if you buy or lease this piece of industrial equipment, you're going to pay, let's just say, $10,000 a month for it, but it's going to produce $50,000 a month of revenue and give you years of profitable service. You want this piece of equipment, right? Yes, I mean, this is a no brainer. So I say, okay, listen, there are some instructions for how the equipment is supposed to be installed. All right, it needs a, it needs a six inch level cement pad reinforced with rebar, and it needs a special kind of electrical service and needs a special kind of ventilation, right? What are you going to do when this piece of equipment gets delivered?
Speaker 2:Well, what you better do is do those three things that you just said. What most of us do is hit the push.
Speaker 1:You know what most law firm owners do. What most law firm owners do is they take the piece of equipment off the truck. They're like oh, a new toy, I got it to work, I got to get it to work, I got it to work and they throw it onto the floor, they plug it into the wall, maybe they open a window for ventilation, and then they wonder why the thing breaks and doesn't work. And it's like come on, we're lawyers, we're smarter than this. You've got to invest in proper onboarding. You've got to invest. This is a person you're investing in and the best employees are looking for an employer who will say to them during the recruiting process this is our plan to set you up for success.
Speaker 1:I interviewed a guy the other day. I interviewed the guy. He's gone through like four rounds of interviews before he gets to me, right, and I say so, what questions do you have for me? And he said none. I'm like right away, I know I'm not hiring this person Right, because how could you have so little interest in your own success to not want to know from the founder, co-founder and president of the company I mean, this is your chance.
Speaker 1:Anyway, big point that I'm trying to make here that I hope everyone takes away is invest in proper onboarding. That month of salary and benefits that you invest to set that person up for success is the best investment you're going to make in your entire life. Better than the stock market, better than real estate, better than crypto, better than anything is invest that first month to set that person up for success and or find out during that month that they got to go and get them out of your firm before they do any damage. Is that your framework?
Speaker 1:30 days, every position. There's no position that they do anything for us. There's a few positions. Where Is that your framework? 30 days? It's a whole program that we do just for our employees to set them up for success, because we've been growing and the limiting factor in our growth is not marketing or demand. Like I said, we got a waiting list. The limiting factor in our growth is talent and I'm not willing to lower my standards just to satisfy the waiting list. I'd rather have a waiting list and maintain my standards.
Speaker 2:And your next set of A players are probably happy working someplace else. They're not sitting around on LinkedIn like waiting to be pitched. I don't think Right, and so that's just another conversation about recruiting.
Speaker 1:and why is Pennywise and Pound moronic not to pay a recruiter? You should grow up and pay a recruiter. Pull up a chair to the big boy or big girl or big person table. Take your business seriously and invest in a recruiter. A good recruiter is worth their weight in gold. Obviously there's a lot of bad recruiters, but people are like, oh, I'm going to save the money and not hire a recruiter. I mean they just haven't done the math. The math clearly dictates the value of hiring a good recruiter.
Speaker 2:We will never get through our whole list of things. Let's move to. You made a bunch of I was going to hear to talk about the book you made a bunch of promises about. We're going to hit all these other seven big points. So, real quick, we can take what we just talked about and really just look at it through the lens of case or client acquisition case or client onboarding you want me to just deliver on the big promises right now.
Speaker 2:Let's do that, because I do want to talk to you about profit, big promise number one was we're going to teach you something about marketing.
Speaker 1:Ready Number one marketing. Lead with your core values, Lead with your values. Lead with your values. Lead with your values. Go out and tell the world, Tell prospective new clients. These are the core values of the firm. This is what we stand for. This is what we believe in.
Speaker 1:The clients are going to fall into one of three categories. They're going to be the bad clients, who you don't want to work with, who disagree with your core values, disagree with your philosophy, disagree with your point of view, and your staff, who came to work for you because they believe in these core values. They don't want to work with these kind of clients and your staff is more valuable to your client. Your staff is more valuable to you than your clients. There's going to be the second group, which is they don't care one way or the other, they're indifferent, they're just there for the transaction value. But the kind of clients you are going to build a multimillion-dollar business from, the clients you're going to build the multimillion dollar business with, who are going to be the best clients to work with, who are going to pay the premium fees, who are going to come back to you for more and more business. Who are going to make the most referrals? Those are the clients who resonate with your core values.
Speaker 1:Have the courage to lead with your core values I happen to have here we were talking. This is my statement of values, and you know you can get this for free online and it just tells you straight up. This is what we stand for, these are our values, this is our statement. This is what we're all about. Right? If you resonate with this, you'll probably like working with us. If you don't resonate with this, let me refer you to someone else. You're not going to like working here, or you're not going to like working with us as a law firm owner right.
Speaker 2:By the way, that's the exact language that we use in recruiting people to the law firm Ben Glass Law. Here's a list of things. If you agree with this, you're going to love it here. If you're not, this isn't a good place for you and you can move on.
Speaker 1:All right, I made the commitment on marketing Boom. If you do that with marketing, your marketing will get better and you can stop wasting money on digital marketing and all that kind of stuff. I mean you should do digital marketing, ok. Next marketing lesson is networking, ben. You know, like, if anyone in the member, if anyone in the audience is not a member of B&I, I mean that's just free money. You're just leaving free money on the table. It's very inexpensive, just leaving free money on the table. It's very inexpensive. You can sub in one of your employees to go to the BNI for you, so you don't even have to go every single week. And it's just and like. Everyone's so enamored with digital marketing nowadays that they're leaving the old fashioned digital marketing. I saw an ad the other day, ben. It was Google is advertising in the newspaper for software engineers.
Speaker 1:I put that on Facebook it was Facebook advertising in the newspaper for software engineers. I put that on.
Speaker 2:Facebook.
Speaker 1:It was Facebook advertising in the Washington Post for engineers Old-fashioned networking, old-fashioned article. I mean, it worked better than ever before. It works even better now than before. All right, sales, you want to convert prospective clients into paying clients. You want to convert prospective clients into paying clients? Here's what you could do.
Speaker 1:Don't be in such a rush to get them in the office. I know everyone's like. I got to get them in the office right away. Right, there's a few practice area like DUI defense. Maybe they're in jail. You got to get them in the office right away. But for most practice areas, you will improve your conversion rate dramatically if you can stretch out the time from when they schedule the appointment to when they show up for the appointment, provided that you make good use of the time in between. Send them a welcome package. Share with them your statement of values. Send them a video telling them what the firm's all about. Don't give them an intake sheet. Do not give them an intake sheet. Intake sheet bad for conversion. You give someone an intake sheet, your conversion rate will go down. It will get worse. You want to increase your conversion rate? Get rid of your intake sheet.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing, Arjan, because the you know, the first time you reach out to like a financial advisor or something is they send you this 50 page single spaced history.
Speaker 1:And lawyers do this to themselves too. Yeah, all right. Look, we're to demonstrate this for your audience. Ready, this is worth. This is probably worth a million dollars to someone watching this right now. We're going to demonstrate this for your audience. Ready, this is probably worth a million dollars to someone watching this right now. We're going to do a demonstration. I need you to play along. I'm playing. You're going to ask me the same question four times. You're going to ask me the question. I'm going to give you the answer. Then you're going to ask me the question a second time. I'm going to give you the answer four times. Ready, ready, go, you are. So the question you're going to ask me is how much did you earn last year?
Speaker 2:Oh, John, how much did you earn last year?
Speaker 1:$100,000.
Speaker 2:How much money did you take home last year?
Speaker 1:$100,000.
Speaker 2:Arjun, how much money do you want to take home? That's the same question. That's the same question, Arjun how much?
Speaker 1:did you put in the bank from your earnings last year?
Speaker 2:Only $100,000. Arjun, when your spouse asks you how much money are we? And you give her your salary.
Speaker 1:What do you tell her? It was 98,700. No, it was 101,000. It was $99,764.87.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm just going to round this up and call it $100,000. Did I give you the same answer Each time? I am four. No, these are four completely different answers. Right, the $100,000 is what you're going to see on the intake sheet, but am I the same person who said $100,000? Or do you want the client who says $100,000? Or do you want the client who says $100,000? Or do you want the client who's like, spends five minutes trying to figure out if it's $99,746?
Speaker 1:I mean, these are four completely different people you're talking to, but the intake sheet hides that. The intake sheet makes you think you're getting the same answer when in fact you're getting four very different answers. And so if you use an intake sheet, you're just cutting yourself off from all the richness and humanity that should happen in a sales call if you want to have higher conversion rates there. That's a million dollar lesson for anyone who's listening to this who has the courage to get rid of your intake sheet. And, by the way, every once in a while I give this advice and someone says yeah, but I heard a recording of you, r John, talking about why everyone should use an intake sheet. Yeah, in 1999 or 2000,. I did do a speech once and I at the time believed that you should use an intake sheet. And guess what? I've learned better.
Speaker 1:So we've delivered on our marketing promise. We've delivered on our sales process promise. We've delivered on our marketing promise. We've delivered on our sales process promise. We've delivered on our staffing promise.
Speaker 1:And what else did we say? Financial controls Use profit first, read profit first, listen to profit first, take your profit first. It's really that simple. Let's talk about the business of a law firm. I'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. Yeah, what is the business of a law firm? I'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. Yeah, what is the business of a law firm? Business of a law firm is to sell and deliver and get paid for legal services. That's the business of a law firm, which is not to be confused with the job of a lawyer, which is to perform legal services. The business of a restaurant is to sell food. The business of a hotel is to rent rooms. The business of a law firm is to sell and deliver and get paid for legal services. The job of a chef is to cook the food, the job of the maid is to clean the room and the job of the lawyer is to perform the legal services. Don't confuse the job of the lawyer with the business of the law firm. They're two different things.
Speaker 2:Why do you think lawyers are so challenged in that regard, in understanding what the business of a law firm is?
Speaker 1:Well, for one thing, they try to brainwash us in law school into thinking that the job of the lawyer and the business of the law firm are the same thing, that the job of the lawyer and the business of the law firm are the same thing. There's about 1,500,000 lawyers licensed in the United States as of today. Roughly 60% 6-0% are in firms of five lawyers, or fewer Half of those 60%. So like 25% or 30% are straight up solos right and 10% are working in big law firms. Roughly 10% work for the government. Roughly 15% work for midsize law firms. So that's 20, 30, that's 35%. About another 10% are, like you know, like me. I would say you and me, except you, still practice law. I don't practice law anymore, so I just run the business. So about 10% are like me, not actively engaged in the practice of law. But the majority are in small law firms and the law schools know this.
Speaker 1:The law schools know that this trend has increasing and increasing and increasing for the last 25 or 30 years and still they persist in telling law students don't worry about the business of the law firm, just be a good lawyer and everything else will just magically take care of itself. And you know what that feels good. I mean, that's a nice fairy tale to believe in. Wouldn't that be great if that was true? Right, that's not reality. But that's what law schools teach inexperienced, naive law students, and you know so. It's no surprise that there's all these lawyers running around who think that it's not true, it's not real, it's not how reality works. But they're taught this in law school. It feels good. It appeals to the ego, it makes them feel like they can evade responsibility, and so they hide out in that belief.
Speaker 2:You may know this stat, but so my view is that law schools believe that they're in the business of providing widgets for big law and that most people who are coming out of law school are not going into law firm ownership as their first path out of law school. They're taking a run at clerkship, big law working, you know, in a mid-sized insurance defense. You don't think so. I know that's not true.
Speaker 1:Tell me Well, big law firms only hire the top 10%. Have you ever in your entire life met a lawyer and maybe you have, I don't know. Have you ever met any lawyers who went from being a successful solo to joining a big law firm? I mean, it happens very rarely, Like one in 10,000, right, 10% of the lawyers go into a big law firm and only a small percentage of those 10% are still working for the big law firm five years later.
Speaker 2:All right, but do you think from the law school's perspective? Do you think they are training lawyers to go the non-big law route? They're not.
Speaker 1:No, they're not. No. Look, the modern law school industry is an industry, right, they've got their endowments, they've got their donations. They're a business just like you have a business, just like I have a business right, you run your business using a P&L. I run my business. Everyone who runs a successful business uses a P&L and a cash flow report and a balance sheet, right.
Speaker 1:And when the law school is looking at their P&L, they've got top line revenue. They got expenses, they got the money that's left over. Okay, so it's set up as a non-profit. Well, fine, it could be a non-profit and the money that's left over could go back into the top to keep cycling through and cycling through. But where do the law professors salaries come from? Where do the bonuses come from? Where do the benefits come from? Where do all that stuff comes from? Revenue less expenses is whatever's left over to run the law firm because they don't do profit first.
Speaker 1:But that's a whole different conversation. The point I'm making is it's a business, they have a product, they've got fixed expenses, they've got variable expenses, they've got static overhead, they've got dynamic overhead and they need to make a profit. And if they don't make a profit, they go out of business. All right. So the law schools are trying to market a product, sell a product, deliver a product at a lower cost than it takes, but then a lower cost than what they're charging for the product. That's the modern legal industry today, and either the law school leadership are extremely out of touch with the reality of how the legal industry has been trending for the last 40 years oh, we forgot to notice. We didn't notice that over the last 40 years this has been trending very much with more and more solo and small law firms, or they know it and they're just not doing anything about it.
Speaker 2:And maybe they don't know how to do anything about it. Well, and they're so yeah, I mean they don't know how to do anything about it.
Speaker 1:Well, and they're so yeah I mean they're so insured they don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:So so, rather than so, rather, look, when I was in law school, I asked my professors the same question that I'm you know. I said, well, I'm here to learn, but I'm like I'm going to open my own law firm someday. Maybe not right away, but someday I'm going to have my own law firm. How do I run a successful law firm? And they said, say, don't worry about it, just be a good lawyer and everything else will magically take care of itself. But that's not true. That's just something you say. That's just something you say to like avoid dealing with the question that you don't know the answer to. So you asked me why do so many lawyers believe that they can somehow evade the practical realities of running a business by hiding out and being a good lawyer? There's my answer to you. This is done to them. There's my answer to you.
Speaker 2:Well, in beginning with a fundamental belief as to what the purpose of lawyers is, and the fundamental belief that the purpose of lawyers is, and the fundamental belief that the purpose of lawyers is self-sacrifice, look.
Speaker 1:Ben, I have been going around since 1999 when I was at the Florida bar. I've been going around saying that there should be bar rules everywhere in this country. There should be bar rules that say that in order to open up a law firm, you should have there should be a financial means test before you should be allowed to open up a law firm. There should be a financial means test before you should be allowed to open up a law firm. And, in my opinion, every year law firms should be reviewed by underwriters to make sure that they're financially viable businesses, because the majority of law firms in this country are being run like fucking Ponzi schemes. They're taking the money today to pay for the work that they got paid for yesterday and then they got to get paid tomorrow to pay for the work that they got paid for yesterday, and it's just one giant Ponzi scheme because they're not being run like profitable businesses, they're just being run on credit.
Speaker 2:And yeah, there's no way for a potential client to figure that out. Worse than that, and if you're hiring a Ponzi scheme, you are at risk.
Speaker 1:Look, it's worse than that, Ben. It's worse than that. You're a lawyer, I'm a lawyer. You know the cause of action.
Speaker 1:Fraud in the inducement. Yes, Fraud in the inducement is when you either hide or fail to disclose something that you know a reasonable person could not discover with a reasonable inspection, and you know that thing that they're not discovering is material to their decision. That's the gist of fraud in the inducement, right? 100%, yes. So now imagine and, by the way, this is why I don't get invited back to bar associations to do talks Because I got my business started on the National CLE Speaking Tour in 2010, 11, 12, and 13. And I went all over the country speaking to literally tens of thousands of lawyers all over the country. And I don't get invited to most bar associations because they don't like hearing this. But this is the reality, this is the truth.
Speaker 1:Okay, a prospective client comes through your marketing channels, comes through your intake, you have a sales call with them and they're about to sign on the line, which is dotted, and you say to them hold on a second. Before you engage my law firm, I need to make sure you're aware of some things. Oh, that's interesting. What do you want me to be aware of. Well, I want you to know that. Number one we don't have a written business plan that explains how this business will still be here in six months or even a year from now. Number two we don't have any financial controls and we really don't know what's going on with our cash flow from week to week or month to month or year to year. Number three we don't have any documented processes or systems or procedures for how the staff is supposed to do their job. We don't have any objective metrics or measurements that we hold people accountable to, and we don't really do any kind of ongoing training. But we hire people from other firms and we hope that they come here knowing a thing or two.
Speaker 2:We don't have a way of recruiting A players. We don't have a way of knowing if people are doing the work that we think that they know how to do.
Speaker 1:And we turn the marketing on and we turn the marketing off. Anyway, the client won't hire the firm Exactly Exactly, which means that information is material, which means not disclosing that information. Knowing that it's material means you're committing fraud. The inducement I tell listen.
Speaker 1:We talked earlier about my son. When he was born he was a cesarean scheduled cesarean so we knew the date and time he was coming and so I met with the doctor that delivered him the day before for the final checkup and I said I want to know what are you doing tonight? And he said what are you talking about? What am I doing tonight? And I said I want you to be in the best frame of mind possible before you bring my son into this world. And I made him promise to like have a nice dinner and go to sleep early and not to spend the night cleaning his fucking laundry or mopping the floor or worrying about shit like that. Right, we got to show up as the best version of ourselves. We tell our clients every day I'm going to show up as the best version of myself for you, my staff is going to show up as the best version of themselves for you, and then we have no systems in place whatsoever to honor that commitment. It's terrible.
Speaker 2:It's funny, I'm laughing. The reason I'm laughing is that on the Friday before my Monday surgery, that's exactly the question I asked my cardiac surgeon what are you doing this weekend?
Speaker 1:Go golfing, have a good time, get a massage, do something that relaxes. You Don't be showing up operating on me thinking about how am I going to pay my mortgage next month. Oh, I accidentally killed Ben Glass. You know that's how shit like that happens.
Speaker 2:No, it's true, it's true and actually, you know, for those who are listening very carefully and I encourage you to go back and listen to this episode again our channel has just given you a great framework for marketing in a world where it is challenging to differentiate yourselves from the next in our space the personal injury, the long-term disability attorney, but it wouldn't matter across practice areas. It's giving some really interesting marketing ideas about getting the consumer to think about asking exactly the questions he just went through, Because, again, most lawyers are going to be a shock to. That question was asked and we're teaching our members sales.
Speaker 1:we do an amazing, we do like an absolutely amazing sales program for our members. I mean, they, their sales conversions go like through the roof. And we teach them how to have non-attorneys converting prospective clients into paying clients for them while they're living their life. And when the prospective client gives you, well, I'm going to have to think about it, and you say, okay, well, you're going to go see some other lawyers. Yeah, I'm going to go see some other lawyers. Okay, do you mind if I give you some ideas, some guidance, some advice on what to look for when you're talking to these other lawyers? Well, sure, tell me.
Speaker 1:Well, you should ask them do you have a written business plan or are you just living hand to mouth? Really, I can ask my lawyer or my prospective lawyer do you have a written business plan or are you just operating this law from hand to mouth? Of course you can. They work for you. You can ask them whatever you want, and if they don't want to answer it, that's a big red flag, right? Okay, you should ask your. You should ask your prospective new lawyer do you have documented processes and procedures for how your staff does their job, so that I can have confidence that when you're not here, my case will be handled properly. Oh, I can ask that. Of course you can ask that. And what am I doing? I'm setting those clients up to be like guided missiles, because they're going to go into that law firm and the answer is going to explode the whole thing. And then they come back to our member and that's why the conversion rates go through the roof.
Speaker 2:It's such a great idea because most lawyers are simply operating on past results, even though it's all above the disclaimer that says past results are not an indication of future results. Ignorance.
Speaker 1:Most lawyers should be down on their knees thanking their lucky stars that the vast majority of legal consumers don't know anything about what to look for in a law firm. Because if you had a halfway sophisticated consumer of legal services, I would say probably half the law firms in this country would be out of business. Because a sophisticated consumer of legal services would want to know. Because a sophisticated consumer of legal services would want to know do you have your shit together?
Speaker 1:You could be the greatest lawyer in the world, but if you're worrying about how to pay your mortgage, I know you're not giving my case your undivided attention. You could be the greatest lawyer in the world, but if you don't have documented processes and systems and procedures I know you don't have anyone helping you be the greatest lawyer in the world. You could be the greatest lawyer in the world who cares more than anyone else about my case and me, but if you don't have proper financial controls in place, then you're not giving my case your full attention, because your full attention is being used to figure out how you're going to make rent and make payroll and pay for your kids' tuition next year. You can't possibly be doing the best job for your clients. You have an ethical obligation to run a profitable law firm and it just drives me nuts that there are so many lawyers who do such a bad job because they don't live up to these standards. That's really what we do in my business a lot.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that's your passion, that is your absolute fire, your absolute DNA.
Speaker 3:It's really helping to.
Speaker 2:Really, at the end of the day, you're serving the world by helping lawyers build real businesses so that they can do what they were born to do, which is, in my view, which is think creatively about the client's problem. How can I solve that problem? And when you have everything that we've talked about on this episode in place and you don't go from zero to a hundred miles an hour all at once, like we know that, because most lawyers come into this space of looking for coaching very ignorant of how to run any kind of a business, they have, by some luck, or because they were chased out of a law firm, they have started a law firm with a buddy, usually because it'll be cool to work together and they're still here, right, and so you're burning passion for this. Let me Seven years, seven years is.
Speaker 1:That's when they leave the big law firms. They leave the law big law firms in their seventh year, because that's the year that the economics stop working and they either got to go up or they got to go out.
Speaker 2:And here's the sad thing I've represented a number of seven year lawyers from big law R John who want to get out of the profession, like something happens physically or they get sick or whatever, and they've never seen this path at all. Going back to our point about what law schools are doing and showing them, I'm like dude, you're making $180,000 working really two jobs and you're on call 365 days a year. There's easier ways to make 180. Okay, and they're like I've had them suddenly like no, there isn't. How could that be, dude? Look, there's this whole world.
Speaker 1:That brings us to the next part, which is the big law firms have no interest whatsoever in liberating their attorneys. It used to be that the big law firm could say listen, you can't go out and start your own law firm because you don't have money for a big computer server system and you don't have money for a big built-in telephone system and you don't have money for a big fancy office and you don't have I office. Back in the day, you needed all that stuff. Nowadays, what do you need to start a law firm? After you get your law license, you can start a law firm with a laptop and a cell phone and you're in business. What do the big law firms depend upon? They depend on fear, ignorance and intimidation to keep the lawyers with their head down.
Speaker 2:All right, now let's take down a list of all the people we've pissed off. A couple of minutes why your CPA is not your friend. Tell us about the book, because I do want to help people get Profit First for Lawyers into their hands. Many, as you know, will not even have read Profit First by Lawyers into their hands. Many, as you know, will not even have read Profit First by Mike Mihaljevic. So give me two minutes on your CPA and a minute on why people should go and get the book, besides you and me saying they should do that, and then I'll let you go because you have some big event at a hotel.
Speaker 1:Look, why should they read profit first? More to the point, why should they take their profits seriously? And this is serious stuff, right? Your business works, should work for you. Your business should work for you. You should not be a prisoner to your business. Your business is not your baby. We work for our children, we sacrifice for our children, we give everything for our children. Your business is not your child, it's not your baby. Your business is more like your mule.
Speaker 1:The reason why the farmer has the mule is to pull the plow and the reason why the farmer has the mule to pull the plow is so that the farmer can produce crops to take to market, to take care of the farmer's family. Your business is there as a tool to help you take care of your family and to make a positive impact in the world. That's why your law firm exists. Impact in the world, that's why your law firm exists. And if you're not running your law firm profitably, then you can't take care of your family. If you're not running your law firm profitably, you can't be the best version of yourself for your clients. If you're not running your law firm profitably, you can't afford to hire and invest in training and giving your staff the tools and the resources they need to give more value to your clients. You've got to run your law firm profitably. There's a long list of people who will all be better off in life when you run your law firm profitably, and there's not one single person who will be worse off when you run your law firm profitably. So that's why you should run your law firm profitably.
Speaker 1:And Mike Michalowicz in his book, profit First, basically teaches an extremely simple predictable. It works. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of law firms that I work with in all different practice areas, in big cities, in small towns. Will this work for me in a personal injury law firm? Yes. Will this work for me in a transactional law firm? Yes. Will this work for me if I'm left-handed? Yes. Well, what if I'm right-handed? Yes, it just works. Profit first If you want more proof, profit first. If you want more proof, more encouragement, more confidence. If you, I wrote the book. So so I I wrote the book essentially to as a call to arms, as I wrote the book to convince lawyers to read and implement profit first. They're two completely different books. I didn't just do like some cheap. You know, profit First and my book have like almost no words in common. My book is all about why you should read it, why you should do it, how it makes your life better. And then my book says Read Profit First. By Mike McAllister.
Speaker 2:And we'll let people go to Read Profit First for Lawyers, to read your rant about your CPA, and I think maybe we'll leave it at that, because that was. It was an awesome, like everything you wrote in your book about your CPA. Like we have felt at some point in the journey. It's like, oh my gosh, and and so I want to thanks. Is there anything else we've left out? How should people follow up? You said you have a waiting list. I get it. Look, I've got.
Speaker 1:Find you how to manage a small law firm, howtomanagecom. Do a google search for profit first. For for Lawyers, there's a podcast. If you want to just like, dip your toe in, super easy, just download the podcast. Listen to the podcast. If you hate the podcast, it's not going to get better if you work with us. If you love the podcast, then it gets even better when you work with us. It's just a real easy way to test it out. You can go to the website, download the we call it our manifesto statement of values. You can read this. If you hate this, you're not going to like working with us. If you love this, you'll love working with us and maybe we'll meet someday. All right, man.
Speaker 2:All right, At some point we'll get together again in person. It's been great to chat with you. Let me I'll end this now in a brief conversation, All right. Thanks for your time, man, thank you.
Speaker 3: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.
