In today’s episode we’re looking at Maximum Lawyer and our firm’s years in review, saying goodbyes, and breaking down the prospective client’s decision process.
Hacking’s Hack:
Look at your entire process from the client’s perspective and smooth out any pain points.
Tyson’s Tip:
Rethink how you are buying your vehicles-break down the cost of owning the vehicle on a yearly basis, and figure out how you can write-off work related vehicles.
For more content from us please subscribe to our Youtube Channel
Don’t forget to sign up for MaxLawCon20!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/maximum-lawyer-conference-2020-tickets-62992819218
Thanks so much for listening to the show! If you want to know more about this and keep on maximizing your firm, please join our Facebook Group or like us on Facebook and comment!
You can also go to MaximumLawyer.com or, if you’d prefer, email us at: info@maximumlawyer.com
Interested in being on the show? Shoot us an email at support@maximumlawyer.com or message us on Facebook!
Welcome to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up, and maximize your firm.
Resources:
- Join the Guild Membership
- Subscribe to the Maximum Lawyer YouTube Channel
- Follow us on Instagram
- Join the Facebook Group
- Follow the Facebook Page
- Follow us on LinkedIn
Transcripts: “Becoming the Client & Year in Review” with Jim Hacking & Tyson Mutrux
Tyson Mutrux
He walked me through the entire process. And I felt so much better about it. And I liked him so much because of that. And I think that that is a big part of it is just explaining the process to them. So they’re comfortable. They know what to expect is a big part of it. I mean, isn’t that doesn’t that get us like 75% of the way they’re
Unknown Speaker
run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking. And I’m tasting mujer exclusive. twice and as I said, I am out of town. I’m not telling you where because you accused me of being a jetsetting humble bragger. So I will not say where I’m at today. I
Tyson Mutrux
will also tell people, you were in Toronto yesterday, and you’re in Dallas today and you’re gonna go see Mike Alvey for lunch. How about that?
Jim Hacking
I’m pretty excited about that. That’s sort of the highlight of the trip.
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, no question. He gets the Big Mike. I’m really jealous about that. Because I don’t care about Toronto and Dallas, I care about seeing my galbi. So that’s exciting. Listen, you’re having a good week, you didn’t travel a bunch and you had nothing. Nothing wrong with that forever, like, Oh, I gotta fly to LAX more. That’s, that’s the funny stuff I like. How are you doing? Good, man. That’s good. It’s been busy lately, but get some trials gearing up at the end of the year, and then early next year. So it’s gonna be a busy next few months. But doing well, things are going great. So
Jim Hacking
when I worked with a plaintiff’s firm before I went to law school, they would set cases for trial every month. So like they had a schedule so that they made sure that their cash flow was good. Do you do stuff like that?
Tyson Mutrux
Now, we’ve talked about that before? I would like to do that. I really would. It’s hard to do that with the city of St. Louis, just with that roll over docket, I guess you could try to plan and see if you can hit the target, right. But with the rollover doc, and you could have three or four on the same docket that two of them could get called out and only one of them would go because two gets pulled out. So it would be hard to do it that way with the City, St. Louis. But at some point, I would love to be able to get to that to that point.
Jim Hacking
Well, I’m excited about our show today, we’re getting towards the end of 2019. And I thought that today since it’s just you and I, we can talk about how our year has gone, where we’re headed for next year with our firms. And then also talk a little bit about the show and the conference. And then I had an interesting exchange with a young man on a plane, he was looking for a lawyer. And I had an interesting reaction to this question. So we’ll talk about that.
Tyson Mutrux
I mean, I think it’s a good idea. So why don’t you Why don’t you go first, why don’t you talk about the year interview and and where you’re headed.
Jim Hacking
So last Wednesday, Amani Adela and I were out of the office for a full day. That’s our leadership team. And we started going through creating a scorecard for the firm, evaluating where we were as a firm, and sort of coming up with our biggest priorities. And it’s become crystal clear. And this might not be a surprise to you, that the one thing we really need to focus on is systematization. And we had a big debate whether the word is systematization, or systematisation. But in any event, we have now sort of three teams of a lawyer and a paralegal. And even after lo these many years, we still have people doing a lot of improvisation. And having little not secret to do lists, but little separate workflows, they they sort of hacked, the way to get a case ready and no one is being very consistent, and it’s leading to inconsistent results. So that’s, at least for the next 90 days, or 12, week, year, whatever you want to call it. That’s what Adele and Imani and I are focusing on is getting that a workflow for our most popular type of case, to just nail it down to make it foolproof and to streamline the process.
Tyson Mutrux
It was really surprising to me about you that your your systems, you don’t really have the systems in place that you should have because you like your like your practice is formed like this, which is mind boggling to me, is it it’s formed driven, and so I feel like it’s always like something that would be far easier to systemize so what do you like why do you think it’s not yet
Jim Hacking
fully systemized? That’s a great question. Number one is because it’s not my strong suit, and it’s not something that I’m very good at. So Amani Nadella is sort of taking that over. They’ve instituted systems. But we’re at a point where people aren’t necessarily following the systems and they’re just sort of doing things their own way. But you’re right. I mean, when it comes to what we’re doing versus litigation, which can go any which way. It really lends itself to that. But, you know, just like Kelsey and I spent all that time building out the lawsuit system that I have for my lawsuits. Now, we got to turn that to each practice area. That’s one part of it. And other part of it is that things keep changing and immigration. And that can be a crutch that can keep you from ever taking the necessary action. But really, I think the fundamental problem is taking the time to work on the process, as opposed to fixing the fires of the day.
Tyson Mutrux
How does he or go for you?
Jim Hacking
We’ve added probably two team members this year, I haven’t dealt with going through and making a list of everyone started and they’d because I’d like to know our size at certain junctures, because as we grow, I want to sort of have a running understanding of tying caseload to people load. And we’ve added two people, but we’ve also increased the number of cases, you know, the last couple years, my goal was to open 365 matters a year or one a day. And this year, it looks like right now we’re on pace to hit about 575. So we’re having a lot more cases with the same team, roughly. And so that’s always going to put your systems at stress. So we’re trying to use process Street to do that. But the year overall, obviously, we’re busier. And that’s one big part of it. We also Amani is moving into more of a managerial world, but right at hand. So here’s the kicker, here’s the joy of owning your own law firm. So we went last Wednesday, we had our off site work day. And then on Friday, now just on Monday, one of our associates told us she’s moving to New England, and taking a job with a firm up there. So that’s one quarter of our attorney loads. So luckily, we had someone we’re just about to hire, so that it’s not even gonna be a push, because the person we’re hiring doesn’t know anything about immigration. But that was sort of, you know, you have all these great plans, and then and then someone tells you that they’re leaving. So it’s sort of a kick in the head.
Tyson Mutrux
That always kind of sucks. We had my leave earlier this year that in she was she was great. She’s for health reasons she had to leave and so it just kind of bungled things up a little bit. So what are your plans? Like when you go into it? When are you gonna move to San Diego? Like, when are you gonna open the office in San Diego? That’s the real but I think that’s what everyone really wants to know, when do you when are you going to open an office in San Diego and move out?
Jim Hacking
So Amani and Adela have, and I think rightly so, asked me to, you know, keep that on the front on the back burner, but to let them make the systems right, so that what we don’t need right now probably is more growth, I’m sure that I could get tons of cases from San Diego or Chicago if you open any of those areas. But they don’t want me to do that until the systems are really nailed down so that we can scale again.
Tyson Mutrux
Fair enough. That’s fair enough. The other last weekend was really, really cold. I ran the whole San Diego by idea by Amy. And she’s like, you know, if you want to move, I would move with you. And I was like, well, it’s there. So I think you’re just kidding. She’s not really what I thought was cool. That’s awesome. So I it’s nice having that supportive spouse, right. So it’s good that you have that. But it’s also good that she’s level headed and like we need to backup Jim, let’s let’s make sure we have this in place for so let’s get things rolling first. I like that. I’ve always liked the money for a reason. She she’s very level headed.
Jim Hacking
She’s a lot like you. And you know, one of the great things about doing that off site work. And the difference I think that we did this particular time is that we made a list of all of Jim’s great ideas. In fact, I had a spreadsheet of about 65 of them that I brought to the off site. And we decided to focus on for for the quarter. And that’s huge for us because we’re always jumping in, you know, one I have shiny object to there’s always something a muck in immigration land. So it’s easy to bounce from thing to thing. And so for us to commit to working. So every Monday, Kelsey Adela and I are going to be working on building out this process for the one case type. And I think that’s going to do us a whole lot better by saying no, too many more things. It’s going to free. So to actually get things done. It’s interesting.
Tyson Mutrux
So I have a list of ideas too. I’ve got a list of ideas, and then I’ll list a marketing idea. And when I hired me, I basically just share the sheet of marketing ideas and it’s amazing how whenever you get the right people in the right seat things start happening. It’s so things are getting done now that I wasn’t getting done because they were just on my list. And so I think that’s a really good point that you didn’t I don’t know if you meant to make but you just made just hiring the right people and putting getting them doing the right things like you have now I have Kelsey doing specific, specific things, implementing certain ideas. Amani is implementing certain ideas, Adele is implementing certain ideas, you have all your getting the people to read books in the right seat. And I think that that’s really awesome. And I’ve actually had a front row seat to actually kind of see progress from after start, but I’d say you know, middle of your life, your firm to now. So it’s kind of cool watch.
Jim Hacking
I think that’s a good segue for you to start talking a little bit. I know you brought me on, but also how was 2019 for the matrix injury firm.
Tyson Mutrux
This has been our best year yet. So I’ll start with that. from a revenue standpoint, we’ve got really high revenues, the best we’ve ever had. But with growth also comes you know, massive overhead. So we’ve we’ve definitely increased our overhead quite a bit. It’s alarming a little bit whenever you start looking at the numbers, but once you start looking at the revenues, and then the production, it’s a good lesson just to kind of trust the process, you know, like, it’s just going to sort of trust the process and know what’s gonna work but end of 2018 sucks, right? I mean, like I had the firm split up. And so we’re trying to reorganize everything. And I had an I basically blew everything up. And it was a great opportunity because I was able to blow everything up and then put the pieces back together the way I wanted to, because I had learned lessons along the way. And I was able to put it back together the way ilish should have started the firm. And it was really nice. And I adopted the pod system, the Algonquin Anthony van use, which is incredible. If you don’t use the pod system, I definitely recommend that you use it. We’ve added team members, I’ve had to fire team members, we’ve had leave, I think we’ve finally gotten to that spot where we need to be. So we had gotten. Anyway, at one point, we were up to 14 virtual assistants. And then two times two folks are three full time employees. We are now at four full time employees. And then we’ve gotten the number down to 10 virtual assistants, I think we’ve kind of hit that nice sweet spot. The next step is going to be hiring a lawyer, one of the biggest hires was my wife, Amy, making her the marketing director and she’s getting a ton of stuff done, that I wasn’t getting done. So she’s implementing a lot of the ideas and she’s bringing a lot of her own ideas to the next she has got a journalism background which which which helps quite a bit because University of Missouri’s got a really good journalism program from everyone in the country, you Northwestern grads will argue that you’re number one they go back and forth is number one, but it’s really good program. And so she has a lot of the skills that she learned at Mizzou, which is, which is really nice. And so we got a lot of growth, it’s been great. It’s just also you know, whenever you have that math and growth it is it’s stressful because our SIS there is there is a period of this year where we were setting up three cases a day, which is a lot of injury cases for our sides firm. And it was you’re talking about straining system, it was very, very stressful. We’ve we’ve leveled out, which is probably good for us. That’s actually probably a good thing that we’re taking on less cases. Now. Over the last because this is something I’ve been tracking, I’ve been tracking my cases over the last two years. Now when it comes to average case value I’ve been because I was able to plug in all the numbers through file vine, and then Domo, our average fee has increased by about a third over the last 18 months. Which is, which is awesome, because it’s just a lot more money for the firm. Part of that maybe a little bit of it is actually taking on better cases. But I don’t think that that’s the main maybe like 10% of it. The major part is just making it one increasing client communication, but then also just changing some of the processes and how we use send our demands. Following up on those demands. It’s a variety of things that I’m testing out, but I’m pretty sure it’s the quiet communications, the number one factor, and the number two factor is how we send our demands and follow up on or delay it. So we have changed a lot over the last year but actually, it’s been stressful, but also pretty, pretty rewarding. Our buddy Jim and I were talking about redoing our firms and he had an interesting thought exercise he said if your firm burned to the The ground and you had to rebuild it from scratch, what would you do the same? And
Jim Hacking
what would you do differently? And it sounds like you had that opportunity last year. And it sounds like you have things structured the right way.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and I definitely I had to do I just like, You know what, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna do it, I have an opportunity to do it. And why not? I mean, it this is, it’s weird. It was like, it was a sucky time for everything to happen whenever we the firm split. But it was also at the same time, the perfect time for it all happen, you know, it just everything fell into place. I wasn’t in a bad financial situation wherever the firm’s split. Because I can see how you know, things were going really, really terrible. If I would have I would have had to make different decisions if I was in a bad financial situation. But luckily, I was in a good financial situation, the previous firm was doing well, too. And so it allowed me to spend extra money on certain things and implement certain certain hiring more people allowed me to hire more people that allowed me to get the right software’s and do a lot of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do.
Jim Hacking
What did you struggle the most with in 2019?
Tyson Mutrux
It was it was getting the right, the right team together. And so Candace and I have been calling it like our all star team. And we finally hit that point, because we I made two massively bad hires, I am talking massively bad. And I remember they were it was, I mean, I, the one was made, I made a bad decision right off the bat. Because I, I was sort of desperate for people. I needed a person right away. And it was a bad it was a bad bad decision. And I, I know, we talked about red flags and all these things about, you know why you shouldn’t hire person. And I skipped right over them, and ignored them, and hired the person anyways. And I did the same thing with the other with the other employee. And they were terrible. They were terrible. It was it was just bad. I’ll back up with other bad hires. And the other one made a really good hire. But she had health issues. And she had to go back to Chicago and it really sucked because she was great. Clients absolutely loved her. And she got it about bringing in clients. She really understood it, but just it was just a what that was not a bad decision. Just unfortunately, she had had health issues. We’ll pause for a word from our sponsors.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks to our sponsor, Smith AI Smith AI is a superior receptionist service for law firms trusted by many maximum lawyers, including me and my immigration practice, the hacking law practice and this friendly US based receptionists respond to potential clients and English or Spanish screen and schedule new leads, and even take payment for our consults. The best part is that they don’t just handle these conversations by phone. They also have live agents and chat bots capturing leads on our website through their chat widget. They serve as our friendly gatekeepers, where my team and I work uninterrupted. We get new clients and we get work done. How awesome is that? If you’re in a solo or small firm, I know you’ll appreciate this plan started just $70 a month for calls and $100 a month for chats. They even offer a totally free chatbot so there’s no excuse. Try Smith AI today and see for yourself why attorneys like me say Smith AI receptionists are the secret to business growth. Smith AI offers a free trial and maximum lawyer listeners get an extra $100 discount with promo code Max law 100 That’s ma x l Aw 100 Sign Up To Learn more at www dot Smith dot A I trust me when I say don’t let another day go by try Smith AI
Jim Hacking
you’re listening to the maximum lawyer podcast and I’m talking to Tyson. He’s filling us in on the 2019 wrap up and looking ahead to 2020 So speaking of 2020 Tyson, what do you have on your agenda for the first couple quarters of 2021 major
Tyson Mutrux
thing that I learned over the last year is that my systems work and they work well. And they I would not be in a really, really bad situation right now if they didn’t. And so I’m fortunate that they do work that all that work that I put in to lay the foundation was actually been great. So I will not be improving on the system that much over the next year or so. But over the next quarter, so we are going to be making a big move in marketing towards growth. And so we’re going to be getting into we’ve got the newsletter, it’s actually going out this week, Jim dawg. So we are actually going to send out a paper newsletter. We are going on sending out an email newsletter. These are these are things that Amy put together that I wasn’t able to do because I was just busy. I’m going to hire a lawyer. I am going to hire a lawyer with an Next, I think three months or so, I just, I’m going to take my time hiring a lawyer, hire lawyers before, they didn’t necessarily work out, I’m going to hire some more, hire a lawyer or two. So I can kind of step out of some of the litigation stuff because it is bearing me at this point, we are going to get into we’ve taken a big step in SEO, we’ve got blue shark on and those numbers are starting to elevate. And so we are, we’re adding we’re going to start adding on to the growth is basically what we’re going to do implement a lot of these marketing ideas. We’ve, the social media game has been stepped up quite a bit since since they came on board. So the focus is gonna be on marketing the growth part of it. It’s funny how you and I, I usually go towards the system stuff usually go towards marketing, but for the next quarter, so we’re flipping as to what we’re going to be focusing on. And so that’s what we’re gonna we’re gonna be focusing almost exclusively on the on the before unit is what we’re gonna be doing.
Jim Hacking
That’s so funny, because when you were telling me about your new newsletters, I was like, Ooh, maybe they should send me a draft of that, I’d like to take a look at it. Maybe I could tweak it a little bit. So maybe, maybe we should outsource you to my firm for a quarter and I’ll come work with you and Amy for a quarter.
Tyson Mutrux
I think our wives would probably like that they would probably enjoy it. Because you know, I do I do. It’s interesting, like the whole working with a spouse thing, you have to feel it out. First, you’ve got to, you’ve got to get used to it. Because you’ve got to be careful how you talk to each other and things like that. It’s something that you don’t realize right at the beginning, and then yes, I made some mistakes. And you know, she’s made some mistakes. And we’ve we’ve kind of figured out how to work together. But I think now we’re melding nicely, but it can be tough, right? That part of it can be tough. I got
Jim Hacking
into Dallas, I was tired as a dog, I made it to the hotel. And a client sent an email talking about a case that I had passed from me to money and the client wanted answers. And I made the mistake of sending it to Omani. So here we are at 11 o’clock at night both exhausted talking about this client. Okay, so yeah, it can be hard.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah. And like in so it’s funny. So you know, we’ll be sitting in bed. And like last night, she was like, she was asking me questions about marketing stuff. And like, I have a lot to talk about. Right now. It’s when I go to bed and sleep. But it’s so you do you bring more of that work life home, but you’re doing it together. So it’s sort of worth worth. And we we talk more about firm goals and stuff now. So I think it’s I think that part of it’s pretty cool.
Jim Hacking
All right. Well, let’s talk about maximum lawyer for just a little bit before we get to my situation that I had. So why don’t you tell everybody? Maybe your thoughts on how the year went? And then we can talk about what’s going to be on the agenda for next year.
Tyson Mutrux
This year has been pretty awesome. We’ve we started the guild, Max law con when way better than I think you and I expected. We I was I don’t know that I was terrified that MacBook on the 19 was I just thought I was gonna be I supposed to be a bust? For some reason, man, I was so worried about it. He was I think it was because you and I had just watched that show on Netflix about that big event that that just went Firefox or fire festival. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what if people don’t come to it? You know, what if it’s awful, we don’t we’re not event people. Like last year when we put on MacBook on the first one. It was smaller. It was at a law school, you know, and it was very manageable. But whenever we went from that to like a real event space and started spending real real money, it was a different ballgame. And I was terrified man, I really was. And then it went so much better than I could have expected. I mean, and the speakers and the community was just amazing, man, I just, I am so grateful. The people that came and that listen, and it’s just, it’s awesome. You know, and then we’ve got the Guild, and we haven’t we’ve we’ve, we’ve we’ve been testing out over the last six months or so. And it’s I think we were feeling it out. And we’re getting better with with how we address things and how we approach things and how we ask our questions. And I think I was a little hard on people in the beginning and I’m backed off a little bit and you know, I think I’ve learned some things I don’t think you would have learned things on how to go through the guild. I think that’s really cool. We launched Maxwell Media, which I don’t know how many people we’ve shot now to this point. But we’ve we’ve done quite a few video shoots and the Kinsta amazing job doing those videos and getting those out and the ones I’ve seen was great. And so our listener numbers and so I’m gonna kind of I’m kind of hitting all the different components maxbox the numbers and the listeners are going up every A month, which is cool. And then also the Facebook group is amazing as ever. So I feel like it’s been like it’s been good, but at the same thing with growth, it sort of pulls more of away from our firms. So we’re, we’re spending more time on Maxwell this year that we were I mean, I would even venture to say maybe double what we were spending last year timeline. I don’t know what were your thoughts on that. But we’ve taken a lot more of our time. But I think it’s worth it. I think, the community that we built in the in that that our community members have built together, then it’s all worth it. So what are your thoughts?
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I think you hit all the highlights. Of course, by the time this episode airs, the folks will know that our good friend Kent has decided to move on to work for a company in Pennsylvania. He’s moving from St. Louis. So he won’t be involved with Max law, but we certainly help him for thank him for all the help and growth He’s given us over the years and to the to the cause. And that has given us opportunity to do some other things like we now have an actual VA for the for Max law, and Annika Lucia has been a rock star in helping us set up maxeon 2020. Convention, and I’m excited about where things are headed.
Tyson Mutrux
I have to the hiring someone was somebody that’s long overdue, really, as long as they do it’s in and it’s sad to see can go. I think cancer was a great addition. And I think you did a lot of a lot of great things for us. So I can’t you’re editing this now. So we’re sad to see and go. We wish you the best of luck. It’s great. It was great. It’s been great having to Annika helpful Callahan because she’s gotten things done that we wouldn’t have gotten done to this point. Yeah. So she, she’s, I mean, we are just signing the paperwork away from having our venue announcing the venue. And so with that would not have happened if it was just me and you. So we’ve got to be very, we’re very, very grateful for ourselves. Yes, we are. All right. So
Jim Hacking
here’s what happened to me on the airplane. This was a very interesting situation. And it really threw me for a loop. I’m sort of embarrassed by what happened. So all right. So I my flight got rerouted, I had to fly to Chicago, then Chicago to Toronto, I get an emergency row See, which I always been happy about. And there’s a space in between me and the ILC. So I ended up talking to this young guy from Dayton, Ohio. For the entire flight, we talked about my job, we talked about his job. He works for a company that does like fixtures for commercial spaces, like the gap or things like that, like they do the wall ornaments and fixtures and everything. Anyway, last March 2019, he was in a really serious car accident. And he was going through a green light, he had a green light and some 85 year old lady hit the gas instead of the brake and she hit him at 70 miles an hour, she actually jumped over the median and crashed into him and shattered, shattered his knee. So he was in the hospital for a while he was on some pretty heavy drugs. It’s had a pretty serious effect on him. His wife had just had their first baby, really nice guy really clean cut. So, you know, I haven’t I haven’t thought about a plaintiff’s case in a really long time. So I sort of had to remind myself of the right questions to ask him and sort of see what’s going on. So it turns out that the older lady had and there’s a video of the whole accident. And he said it looks pretty much like it’s entirely her fault. He had the green light, she ran the light. And she nailed him. So I don’t know what he could have done differently. But she had 300,000 and insurance he had 150 in underinsured. And I think so here’s the kicker. And here’s where the the woman that came in. He said to me, Jim, I don’t know any lawyers where I live. I don’t know any lawyers at all. And so what I did was, Who do you think he asked about how to find a plaintiff’s lawyer, not knowing any lawyers?
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, who did? Yes, I would have a family member. And
Jim Hacking
he asked his insurance agent.
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,
Jim Hacking
I didn’t I didn’t think so. I mean, I can see why somebody would do it. But an insurance agent is always going to be looking at things from you know, minimizing claims. I mean, maybe he’s a the agents a good person, I don’t know. But he sent him to a guy. And I said, Okay. I want to ask you one question. And this question will tell me whether or not you have the right attorney. My question was, does the attorney do anything other than personal injury? And he looked at me said, Yeah, he does real estate and I think he does wills. And I was like, all right. He said, That’s not how I would have gone about trying to find a lawyer. So then he said, Well, what would you have done? And that’s the question I posed to you, because we’re always talking on this show about how great marketing is, from our perspective, but from someone who, for someone who isn’t familiar with the legal system views everything as a hassle and a problem, you know, how would you suggest that someone find an attorney when they don’t know anybody in the area? And all everybody’s websites look the same? Which is what he said?
Tyson Mutrux
Well, I would look, if I can get into the weeds for a second. So we’re, we’re not looking about we’re not talking about how to how to, like, actual go on Google and look, right, we’re talking about how to select that at that specific attorney, that we’ll
Jim Hacking
have to talk about how to select Yeah, how to how does a regular person differentiate between lawyers? I mean, one thing one thought I had was, I would see who in Ohio has, I’d find the list for the last three years of the biggest verdicts. And then I would, I would see which law firms show up on that on that list, and then maybe look at their website and see what they focus on.
Tyson Mutrux
So I wouldn’t focus. I wouldn’t, I would, I would, I would say, yeah, the focus is right. But whenever it comes to personal injury, some of those mean lessons like, like one of those biggest unkept secrets, that the, like, a lot of these, these verdicts are bogus, I mean, some somebody? Yeah, the little mushroom collect on it. And so we saw, I mean, there’s a firm down in Springfield, they put on a they make sure they put on their advertising, I think is fantastic. They actually put, like, these gigantic verdicts, and like what percentage they’ve collected of it, which I think is really, really smart idea. Like, these aren’t bogus, bogus judgments, these are legitimate, where she got the money from the client, I would focus on the number of jury trial. And instead of the into, whenever I would go to speak to get attorneys, I would go and ask, you know, when’s the last time you’ve actually been at core to K, that’s a big part of it, especially with these with these algorithms with the insurance companies. You know, if you haven’t been in the courtroom and try these cases, they’re, they’re gonna bump you down the algorithm and start paying less money until you’ve actually proved yourself. So the biggest one is, there’s number in the the number of trials, you know, people ask success rate, and I think that that’s, that’s fine. I mean, great here, like, how many trials? Have you worn kind of a thing? I guess that’s okay. But, you know, the reason why that’s sort of a method question, juries are fairly unpredictable. And that’s, that’s what makes it makes it harder than that you can ask for success rate and number of jury trials. If now, if I were a client, I would ask this, I don’t know if we would be allowed to ask to answer this, you know, what’s your average settlement amount? What’s the average amount of money that I would receive as a client? Do you get paid before or after medical bills? Those are all all educated questions. Now, I think 99.9% of injury lawyers get paid before medical bills are taken out. But they’re not going to know to ask these questions. So I know to ask these questions. I’m not sure they would ever know that this question. So this is really tough. I mean, this is a tough one. Yeah. And that’s a good question.
Jim Hacking
But it’s what you and I talked about with our members all the time, and it just sort of really threw me for a loop. And I was a little embarrassed. I was like, I have a podcast for lawyers. We talked about marketing, we talked about how to get our name out there. And I don’t know the answer to this question. I’m sort of stymied. And it was, it was because I was viewing everything for the first time completely through his eyes. I wasn’t I mean, I don’t do personal injury, but I wasn’t looking at from the lawyer’s perspective, what’s easy for me or what works for me, or what makes me feel good about marketing myself, it was, here, I have this guy. He’s got a serious accident. He’s frustrated with his current client, he doesn’t feel like his current clients doing anything. And he wants to make a change. How can I empower this kid that I liked, who I’ve talked to, for the last two hours, make the best decision possible? It was a, it was a fundamentally different approach to things.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay, so let me let’s think about this from any service, right? Any type of service, and you want to know, you want to know what to expect? You know, you want to know what the communication policy is, how often am I going to hear from you? How long is this going to take? I think you want some predictability. Right? So you want to you want to have the expectation that I went to a body shop because my wife’s vehicle had some issues with the paint is a fairly new vehicle, and so it’s covered under warranty. And so I I went to the Body Shop two days ago, and the guy I was I was just it was it was I don’t know why I was just blown away. He just walked me through the entire process. Just you know, here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s a price there’s going to push back on this and here’s what our response is. Gonna be, he walked me through the entire process. And in I felt so much better about it. And I liked him so much because of that. And I think that that is a big part of it is just explaining the process to them. So they’re comfortable. They know what to expect is a big part of it. I mean, isn’t that doesn’t get us like 75% of the way there? Sure it does.
Jim Hacking
Sure it does. But obviously, I mean, other than buying his house is probably one of the big biggest decisions he’s gonna make. And so picking a good lawyer was important to him. Now, interestingly, half when we’re sort of done with this part of the conversation, I realized the date is only an hour from Toledo. So I referred into our friend, Chuck boy. And I think he was very excited about that to have the referral and not have to do all that work. So that’s a whole other lesson for us.
Tyson Mutrux
Absolutely. And Chuck book, big announcement yesterday, I didn’t see the big announcement. I did not. Chuck boy just merged with a big, another big firm in Ohio. So congrats to you, Chuck like you. It’s it from what I look. I mean, Charles has a big firm. Yeah, I mean, so in merging with another one is a big deal. So congrats to chuck, that. That’s really great news for you. But yeah, referral that that is a I don’t know about you. I don’t know, I don’t know if a referral you actually get. But whenever we get a case to the internet, I don’t have to do a sales job. Because I think the way we handle the calls, it sort of sells itself. But sometimes I kind of do have to do a little bit of a sales job. But whenever I get a referral, it’s I mean, there’s no, basically where do I sign sometimes, like they don’t even they don’t even want to read the contract. Sometimes it’s kind of crazy. So getting that referral does. It eases some of the pain and so I think you’re right about that focusing on those referrals like, like John Fisher does, is a big thing. I was wrapping up before I do a remind everyone register for Maxwell con 2020. Also registered for the ZAP Athan, if you want to get dig into Zapier and into automation, we’ll have Chelsea pressure on and big announcement file vine will also be on hand there. So any of you five line users that are going to be a good resource for you, Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
Before I get to my hack of the week, I do have one other bit of news on this episode, Zapier is actually going to send to someone to to bring us some swag and talk through with our visitors at those applicants. So that should be
Tyson Mutrux
pretty cool. That off, right. But this is the first time here. So that’s fantastic. I know you talked about reaching out. So that’s great.
Jim Hacking
All right, for my hack of the week, something that came up in coach yesterday that my peeps were talking to me about and that is go through your own process. If you use an intake form, actually sit down and fill out an intake form. Call your office, see how the process works. From the perspective of the client. A couple people said filling out Intake Forms sucks. And so if there’s ways you can make that easier for people, or to streamline that for them, I think looking at everything from your clients perspective as they go through the during unit will really boost your performance.
Tyson Mutrux
So let me ask you this. Do you fill out the intake sheet? Or do you have them fill out the intake sheet? The clients fill it up. This always I don’t ever have a client fill to the intake sheet. It because they sometimes will fill it out wrong. And as far as I’m always just curious, why is there a reason why you have them filled out as opposed to filling it out. Because
Jim Hacking
I can’t work efficiently trying to track down where somebody’s mother was born. There’s a lot of inane stuff in immigration land that we need to get from them. And there’s certain clients that will help with it. But we always feel like we should actually charge more for that, because we just can’t You can’t scale that. But you might
Tyson Mutrux
be right. I think I didn’t tell you that virtually are they filling it out in person?
Jim Hacking
They’re filling out their house. It’s a Word document, they just give us all the information.
Tyson Mutrux
Gotcha. Okay. I don’t know. I just to me, it would make more sense. And because the way we do it, so I’m set in my ways, but we walk them through and ask them question by question by question over the phone. So if I actually do end up meeting that person, I will have all that information in the sheet. So I’m not actually writing it and they’re having to write it down. I don’t have to decipher their handwriting. I don’t have to correct an answer because they didn’t understand it. I don’t know it just it’s just interesting, interesting thing. Now some people do a decline filter as opposed to you fill it out. My tip of the week and I don’t even know how to really, you know, categorize this tip. But it’s about spending. I’m looking for a new vehicle and For the longest time, I wanted to get a truck, I wanted to f150. But I travel a lot between St. Louis and Columbia a lot. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, right? It just doesn’t make a whole lot of mathematical sense. It’s kind of a dumb purchase. And so, though I’m looking at this from a different perspective, so I guess maybe that’s my look at whenever, because all of you are going to probably buy a vehicle at some point. And I do think that there’s an element that whenever you’re you’re meeting with a client, especially personal injury attorneys, that we go to the client’s houses a lot, we all meet in place, and you’ve seen investigation, I do think appearance is is somewhat important. And if I, if I showed up in 1998, for tempo, they would I think that they would have a different, they wouldn’t shoot the same clip, I wouldn’t think I was that good of an attorney. So I guess my kids just rethink how you’re buying your vehicles, because this is a way for you to save money in, kind of figure out how long it’s going to, you’re actually going to own that vehicle, and then break it down the cost per year. So my tip is break the cost down per year. And if you’re comfortable at that price, fine. Go ahead if you’re not move on to a different vehicle. And that’s that’s how I’ve been analyzing this car purchase processes. And I’m trying to figure in your mileage, how long the vehicle is going to last for some vehicles are lasting longer than others. And you can find all that information online. And so it’s just a different way of looking at it. And I’m actually going to buy it from through the company. So it’s going to be a tax write off. And I think you should talk to some accountants who think you can get more of a tax write off, if you do certain things like wrap your vehicle like Ryan Sargent out in California, he’s actually purchased a truck and then wrapped it as well. So there are caps when it comes to write offs, but I think you can actually increase that. Just talk to your accountant about that. But the whole point of my tip is break down the math. If it makes sense. Don’t just go buy a nice, expensive car just because you like it and get emotional about it. You might regret the decision later. Alright, Jimmy, that is my tip of the week. It’s been a good podcast. That’ll be a good week. We’ll have a meeting in in like right now. So I’ll talk to you, but the journey
