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
Niche Mastery: Building a Multi-Million Dollar IP Portfolio with Rick Martin
Join me in this episode of The Renegade Lawyers Podcast, as I interview Rick Martin, a seasoned intellectual property attorney, who shares his journey from general practice to becoming a niche specialist. Discover how Rick leverages his expertise to help businesses build multi-million dollar IP portfolios. Explore his innovative fractional IP counsel program and the strategies behind his successful marketing methods.
Whether you're a lawyer, entrepreneur, or just curious about intellectual property, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration!
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.
Let's talk about the shape, the deliverables and how you figure pricing. I think lawyers often have a hard time figuring pricing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pricing thing can be a little bit difficult and it's subject to review. The contract and pricing is subject to review on an annual. So if I overestimate or underestimate and the client renews the following year, then we can adjust the price up or down. But basically we go in and we look at what they have. Then we can adjust the price up or down. But basically we go in and we look at what they have where they are in the process. Do they have existing patents that need to be maintained? Do they have ideas in the pipeline that we're going to have to file new patents on? Do they have brands that need to be protected with trademarks, new things to file? What's their field like as far as their competition? We evaluate all of that.
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.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, this is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode I get to interview very interesting people inside and outside of legal people who are dinging the world. Today I've got a great guest. Rick Martin is one of my Great Legal Marketing members, one of our in-person Mastermind members. So I've gotten to know Rick over the last couple of years and he represents a little bit the unusual in that most Great Legal Marketing members have consumer-facing practices. They're either statewide or, you know, small or sort of regional. Rick's got an intellectual property practice the Martin IP Law Group and so he actually serves business owners and businesses across the United States based out of Indiana. But it's a little bit of a different practice and so there's different challenges in terms of marketing and building something like that. Rick has recently published a brand new book how to Build a Multi-Million Dollar IP Portfolio. We'll talk about that. It's up on Amazon and he's in the early stages of using that book as a lead gen and client attraction tool. So, rick, hey, welcome to the program today.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks, ben, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell us a little bit. So in the great legal marketing world, right, those lawyers are doing like some sort of tax law or franchise law or, in your case, intellectual property law, like we make cross referrals. So tell us a little bit about who your avatar is as a client, rick, and then what it is you good at and can either help the client solve a problem or run with an opportunity.
Speaker 2:So, ben, I'd say my avatar client would be a business somewhere in, I'd say, a small to medium-sized business or a growing business, anything from a startup up to a business that might have 100, 200 employees, really looking to fit that niche. Where they're big enough that they're growing, they have some IP needs, but maybe not big enough to have an in-house attorney full-time, maybe not big enough to have an in-house attorney full-time. Or, if they do have an in-house attorney full-time, it's not somebody that's well-versed in IP. A company that's maybe developing some products, has some patents that they should be pursuing that's really my ideal client and, again, anywhere from startup up to that point. We're trying to fill the niche of really being more proactive with them rather than reactive, and we have our fractional IP council plan where we come in and strategize and plan with them to grow their IP portfolio. That's really what a lot of the book is about too.
Speaker 1:All right. So there's a lot to unpack there. But let's talk about this program, fractional IP Council which is, I'm sure, going to be different from one-off. You need this. I charge you hourly or flat fee and we do this. It's a much broader program and this is a really good idea Anyone who's serving small biz market. I think there's space for it in some areas of lawyer-to-consumer law direct-to-consumer. But let's talk about the shape, the deliverables and how you figure pricing. I think lawyers often have a hard time figuring pricing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pricing thing can be a little bit difficult and it's subject to review. The contract and pricing is subject to review on an annual. So if I overestimate or underestimate and the client renews the following year, then we can adjust the price up or down. But basically we go in and we look at what they have where they are in the process. Do they have existing patents that need to be maintained? Do they have ideas in the pipeline that we're going to have to file new patents on? Do they have brands that need to be protected with trademarks, new things to file? What's their field like as far as their competition?
Speaker 2:We evaluate all of that and then really get an idea of, okay, how much time are we going to have on a regular basis in this over the course of a year. And then I set the price and it's a flat fee for them, which is great for the client because they can plan and budget for the next 12 months knowing this is going to be our flat fee every month for IP counsel. It's not going to be $20,000 this month, $10,000 next month. It's going to be pretty regular and consistent.
Speaker 1:Do you find yourself today, the clients you have today, talking mainly to general counsel or mainly to founder CEO, chief technology officer, chief intellectual property officer?
Speaker 2:It depends a lot of times just on how the company is set up and organized and how big they are. There are some that I work with where I do, my primary interface or point of contact is an in-house general counsel. It might be the head of the engineering and R&D department at another business, depending on what they do. It could be for smaller companies it could be the president, ceo of the company. So it really just depends on the size of the company and the way they're structured and organized.
Speaker 1:How did you find this space? Were you a science and technology nerd yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had an engineering degree undergrad was my background and then I actually worked, went to law school at night at Catholic University in DC and worked at the patent office as a patent examiner during the day, full time. So that's kind of how I fell into the IP area.
Speaker 1:In your legal career, did you ever work for anybody else or did you leave the patent office to start your own firm?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I worked for. In fact I signed up the last year and a half of law school I worked for a large Texas-based firm, fulbright and Jaworski. I worked for them out of their Washington DC office and then later, when I graduated, they transferred me to their main office in Houston where I spent a few years and worked for another firm or two down in that area. In fact, it was that last firm that I worked for. That kind of left I won't mention them by name, although they don't exist anymore but that left that bad taste in my mouth, of working for someone else and not having that control.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that, because a lot of the lawyers who come and become Great Legal Marketing members have had a similar journey. I worked for 12 or 13 years with a firm, got a lot of experience trying cases and being a good lawyer. But let's just talk about that sort of decision-making process, because a lot of lawyers also freeze. At that point they go I don't know if I'm good enough, or I don't know if I know enough to go start my own firm. What was that like for you and, essentially, how long ago was that?
Speaker 2:That was about 20,. It was 1999 that I left there and started my own practice. So that's 25 years. It's been quite a while.
Speaker 1:All right. So if you can remember back to starting your own practice and that's about the time I started Ben Glass Law, so maybe I'm a year or two older in the practice than you are what was running through your head as you were leaving firm to go start your own gig?
Speaker 2:And I tell you it was exciting and scary at the same time, and at that time I actually didn't start my own practice. My father was an attorney back here in Indiana, had a general practice, so I left the job there that I had in Texas came back home and went into more of a general practice with him for a period of time and I continued to do some IP work and then, probably about six or eight years ago, transitioned back to exclusively IP work.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was, you know, the fear of just kind of the unknown and kind of starting over and doing something and picking up and moving back to my hometown was a little daunting. And picking up and moving back to my hometown, it was a little daunting, leaving what had been a well-paying job for something that had some uncertainty as far as the financial side of it. You know, it was stressful but at the same time freeing in and I get to decide what cases I take, how to work those cases, and at that point I'd been out of law school for five, six years. I think working for those firms was great experience and I learned a lot, which kind of helped me to go forward, but at the same time I think it was time.
Speaker 1:And then there came a point where you decide to niche down or maybe go back to your IP roots and a lot of lawyers get jammed up there too, especially like I don't know how big the town was actually, that you were doing this. But we often talked about the riches are in the niches. But as you were making that decision, I imagine I really like IP, like that's where I was born to do. I'm curious what you saw as challenges or fears to say no to other general practice work and just say I'm only going to work on intellectual property matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a very good question. So I guess the biggest fear I had in making that transition was the city I live in or the area I live. Evansville is about 250,000 metro area, so my immediate concern was is there enough work in the IEP field to keep me busy and occupied and to maintain the level of lifestyle that I want to make? So two things really.
Speaker 2:Once I got into it there were probably two things that helped me overcome that fear. One I was really the only guy in this market specializing in IP and I would constantly run into lawyers at the courthouse when I'm out there doing everything else that had no idea that I did IP work until I quit doing everything else and decided to specialize in IP work. Now everybody in town and probably everybody in 50 mile radius of here knows that I do IP work and that's what I do. And then you know the other side of that is the fact that it's a federal based practice and I'm not limited to just this market and getting clients either. So those two things really, you know, kind of fairly quickly opened my eyes to the possibility of yeah, I think this thing can work.
Speaker 1:In a couple of minutes. I do want to talk about the book how to Build a Multi-Million Dollar IP Portfolio, because I know we did a lot of idea workshopping in-person mastermind group. But prior to that just say in 22 and 23 and 24, before the book was published how were you getting clients and what would that client journey look like? When someone got attracted to you, got a referral, found you somehow, what were you doing to get clients?
Speaker 2:I'd say the vast majority of it was just referrals and networking. We did some social media. We had an email newsletter that would go out, so we did a lot of those things too. But as far as new clients and new business primarily just referrals or people finding us on the web, whether at the time I'm assuming that most of those were probably organic searches because we weren't running a lot of paid stuff at the time and again, part of that benefit is being the only guy that does and specializes in intellectual property. Somebody searches patent attorney near me. If they're within 50 miles of here, I'm the first guy that pops up, so that's a big advantage, I think, in that regard.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I'd say probably the two biggest are just organic search and referrals.
Speaker 1:It's somewhat similar in our ERISA practice, which is national, but we are the dominant player here in this region and we push that fact all the time because we can show objectively, through PACER filings and stuff, that we are the biggest player in that space and so that's a really good place to be, because you compete against a lot of big law. I'm sure like big law does IP too, and they have these training teams and here's Rick Martin IP Law Group competing against these big companies. So do you use that at all? I mean, they would never want to be like cheap or the lowest price in town, but there can be a vast difference, I imagine, between a guy like you who's running not a big law firm and a big law firm in terms of patents and protection of other intellectual property. Do you use that?
Speaker 2:To some extent. I mean the advantage I have here being in a smaller city, if you will is my overhead's pretty low. I don't ever market that I'm the cheapest or I'm the lowest cost, but I think if you compare my prices to big law firm prices, we're going to beat them every time. The things that I do promote and that we do market is the fact that we are a smaller firm. You are going to get more personalized attention and you're getting 30 plus years of my experience, plus my experience as a former patent examiner, which gives me that inside look at. You know I've been on the other side of that, so I know what they're thinking sometimes and what they're going through in the process of should we allow this patent or not?
Speaker 1: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 built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives with 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 greatlegalmarketingcom. What are you using these days to regularly keep up with either prospects or clients, besides the legal work and doing that, like because you mentioned newsletters I don't remember whether, frankly, whether you have a print newsletter or it's print and or digital what are some of the ways you are keeping it, staying in front of these clients and prospective clients?
Speaker 2:So the print newsletter we're in the process. I've never done a print newsletter yet, but we are in the process of getting that launched and I think the plan is sometime in the first quarter of next year to launch our first print newsletter. We have and again I'm a little short staffed right now, but we have in the past done a biweekly email newsletter. We're planning to resume that here shortly and probably ramp that up to even weekly. But social media we do a lot and probably ramp that up to even weekly. But social media we do a lot and I've got an outside marketing team that I switched and brought on recently that handles all my social media marketing and things like that and I think they're killing it. They're really doing a great job of putting together stuff and keeping it out there and getting it in front of people.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we're doing and I know you've heard me say this before that we're doing and I know you've heard me say this before and you can get into this habit is every single new client conversation that I have, and I get to consult a lot with doctors and entrepreneurs all over the country. We're making sure that conversation gets turned into a story. Obviously, identity is completely protected pseudonyms and mentions of different places other than where the client actually is. But we've done this pretty cool process of recording all these calls, running them through some very specific prompts on ChatGPT to create, like the next call web story but then to build the portfolio for the next book. And so one of the books we're coming out with is in Q1, because I'm speaking to a bunch of dentists at the end of Q1, is, you know, stories from doctors. We're talking to doctors I forget exactly the title, but it really is an accumulation of consults I've done with these doctors who are thinking about going out on disability, often have complicated financial lives, and so that's a thing to do, like anybody who's listening to this, like developing some system of just capturing these stories and even if you don't have the people right now to rewrite, or the technology to rewrite at least capture the story right and capture these transcripts so that when you do have the people and the time space, you've got really this is newsletter article material, then book material and web material so that there is an idea for you.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the book how to build a multimillion dollar IP portfolio. I know that we for several months in the in-person mastermind we helped you nurture the book how to build a multimillion dollar IP portfolio. I know that we for several months in the in-person mastermind we helped you nurture the idea, helped you workshop title and probably technology to get the book done. But share with our listeners a little bit, rick, your process for going from. This sounds like a good idea. I need a book and now you have launched it and it's on Amazon and you're getting some leads from it, so I think people would be interested in hearing about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great. So it was kind of a long process. It didn't have to be this long. But I started out probably a year and a half, two years ago writing the first draft, and that was as part of a mastermind challenge with our group. We did a month-long challenge to do something every day for a month and my commitment there was I'm going to write. And it's been so long I don't remember how many pages or words or whatever of the book was, but I'm like I'm going to do this many words every day on my book for the month of May or whatever month.
Speaker 2:We did that and I did, and we had a Slack channel going where we would check in every day and say done, got my words written, or whatever. And everybody else in the group, whatever their challenge was, they were doing the same thing. So we had that accountability built in and I banged out that first draft in 30 days. It was rough, it was very rough, but I got it done. So I had words on paper, which was really tough to do, and that was a big first step. Then I got busy with other stuff and really just had this mental block of oh my God, I got to go through all of that and edit it and reorganize it if it makes sense, and it probably sat for close to a year, which I shouldn't have done, looking back on it.
Speaker 1:Your next book will be quicker.
Speaker 2:Next book will be quicker. But it sat for a year until I came back and then I did a couple rounds of editing, found a publisher let them do some editing to it, did some fine tuning, they came up with kind of the cover design and some of the other things which I think turned out fantastic. They did a really nice job. So once I got back going with it after that first draft, probably four or five months of back and forth with the publisher, the book was finally in print.
Speaker 1:And I know that you, because we had a call a few weeks ago and you were telling the group about getting leads from it and requests for it and I know that you have a hard copy, you've got a digital copy, hard copies on Amazon but tell our listeners how you are using now the tool of the book to drive leads and business.
Speaker 2:So we initially did a big launch on social media, running ads here and there and posts when the book was first released, and this has just been the end of September, so we're looking at just a little over two months ago that the book was released. Really, the big first promotion we did outside of that was we recorded a video and it's out there somewhere, but basically the video we're giving away a hundred copies. So click on the link, sign up below, give us your contact information and we will mail you a copy of the book for free, and that was kind of the big first promotion for the book and we picked up again. I think we've hit 100 now, so probably the last of those are going out, I think, this week. So we've shipped 100 books out, which that's 100 prospects that we've gathered information on in just the last two and a half months. So that's been great.
Speaker 2:I am in the process of trying to go on some entrepreneurial-based podcasts to promote it.
Speaker 2:In fact, I discovered you gave me a good tip you don't have to listen to all of them, which was about to kill me, right?
Speaker 2:But the other thing with podcasts is it turned out to be harder to find contact information for these podcasts than I thought. So I compiled a list of 20 or 50, I might have even been closer to 50 podcasts. I'm like, okay, those would be good ones for me to be on with this book. And then I spent a couple hours trying to figure out okay, how do I reach out to them? What's their email address, and it's not that easy to find. I found a source here and I just found this yesterday called Listen Notes, and I haven't gotten a list from them yet, but for about $250, I was able to put some search parameters in there and supposedly they're going to send me a list of and it was well over a thousand podcasts that are entrepreneurial based and email contacts for the podcast. So, assuming that works out, that's going to be a huge time saver, and for $250 to get that list and contact information for podcasts I think is well worth the spend.
Speaker 1:And then you created the Rick Martin one pager, the Rick Martin podcast one pager yeah, that's a good idea. I don't know. I have people pitching me all the time, so somewhere somehow they're finding right, and sometimes it's agencies that are pitching to have guests come on the Renegade Lawyer podcast and that's pretty cool, all right. So, as we're kind of wrapping up, what advice? Because your first book did take a long time. There were some gaps there. You're a busy guy doing a lot of things. What would be your one or two top level advice for someone who's listening to this? I don't have a book, but I do have an idea and I do have a practice that could be marketed with a book and we think every practice could like. What did you learn from that process that you would impart to somebody who's listening?
Speaker 2:I think the way I started it out at least that first draft was a great way to kickstart it and again, it really helped me not only to to make that commitment but to have accountability partners in there too to say, okay, did you get your pages, did you get your words written today? That's a great way to start it. I would advise people, once you've got that first draft, don't wait like I did, just keep moving forward and get it done. It's interesting because I really didn't think at the time I was writing the book. I didn't realize the impact I guess it would have on other people and just you know, in general it was funny because the book got published. I've been working on it for two years. It finally gets published and my daughter said Dad, I didn't know you were writing a book At the time, it was just something I was doing, another tool to promote my business.
Speaker 2:So I didn't think of it as a big deal that I'm now a published author and I wrote a book. But once it's published and it's out there, it's amazing that people look at it and say, wow, you wrote a book. That's amazing, that's impressive and I just didn't think that at the time, but it's a big job. Find a good publisher is probably another good tip. I used Word Association. Tom was really good to work with and deal with there, so I was very happy with them. They did a good job on the design and getting the books in print. So those are probably a few of the tips I would give.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that people in America still respect authorship, and books are very hard to throw away. It's much more powerful than a business card and there's just so many things you can do. One of the things we talked about before we went live is our next book the two different versions to promote the long-term disability practice. The online version will have clickable links to our YouTube videos and other landing pages, and then the print version will have QR codes to those videos and landing pages. So the point is, every time that we lawyers use something like a book, we can just build on stuff that we've done before. And if you've got because you have other videos too on YouTube right. So if you've got these videos and there's ways to link the assets together, really to make it so that the reader forms a conclusion in their own head that you are the wise man at the top of the mountain for this space, so this is awesome, rick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so people can go on Amazon, right. How to build a multimillion dollar IP portfolio, get the book on Amazon and, if they want to come, check out your website, which I know is constantly under construction. Yeah, because I know your team hasn't even got the book up there yet, but I think it'll be up there shortly. What's the website they can go to check you out and or refer someone, because lawyers, no matter what your practice area is, once you've been doing this long enough, one of your clients is going to come and call you and say I need a trademark or a patent lawyer or I have questions about this, and oftentimes like we don't know who to send people to right. But you can help them answer their questions, no matter where they are. So what's a good website to give out Rick?
Speaker 2:So our website is ipsolutionslawcom, and there you can find out information about all of our offerings patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, our fractional counsel plans and soon. I've got my marketing guys and my web guy working on putting a page on there so that you can download a PDF copy of the book too.
Speaker 1:And I'll also say Rick has been very helpful. I work with a charity called Love Without Boundaries and I'll also say Rick has been very helpful. I work with a charity called Love Without Boundaries and every so often someone tries to rip them off, steal their customers, build duplicate websites, and Rick has been very helpful to the board there and to that organization. So on behalf of the organization, I want to thank you for that You're certainly welcome Good people to work with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're good people. Well, look, this has been awesome. It's been great to have you on. Good luck in continued book promotion and figuring out what the next step is. We look forward to seeing you in the new year and just thinking, hey, how can we leverage this book even more and move even faster? Rick, all right, yep.
Speaker 2:All right, see you next month, ben.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir. All right, have a great rest of your day, buddy, it's good to talk to you.
Speaker 3:All right, thanks for having me on. 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.
