This week on the show we have Mike Allbee (AKA Big Mike), one of the group’s oldest members and owner of Allbee Law Firm, a North Texas injury firm. In this episode we’ll talk about starting a law firm with $50, prioritizing quality of cases over quantity, and having the faith to gamble on yourself or a new hire. https://www.callbigmike.com/ Hacking’s Hack: Rocket Fuel-A book on how to get the visionary and the implementer together. It’s exactly what our firm needed. It’s a pretty short book so you can knock it out fast. Tyson’s Tip: Give 7 compliments to 7 people over the next 7 days. It means a lot more to people than you might think. Mike’s Tip: There’s a website called Google flights that lets you search by geographical areas and see where places are cheapest. Every time I travel it is a bargain. For more content from us please subscribe to our Youtube Channel Don’t forget to sign up for MaxLawCon20! 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.
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Transcripts: Big Hustle in Little Texas with Mike Allbee
Mike Allbee
If I waited for the perfect time to get married or have kids or do any of that it would never want to happen. It’s never perfect. And I think that happens with law firms as well and businesses in general. I mean, it comes down to are you confident in your ability to hustle and get it and generate the business? I mean, that’s the thing when I hire an associate, it’s not like, Oh, cool. I’m bailing out early, and I’m not gonna work my hours at the office. It’s okay, what can I do now to take things to the next level? Run your law firm the right way.
Unknown Speaker
This is the maximum layer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking, and Tyson Meatrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum ROI Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m Jason matrix. What’s up Jimmy?
Jim Hacking
Oh, Jason, I just got back from a strategic coach. This time I went to Toronto. I got to sit next to Dan Sullivan at lunch. Had a lot of great ideas. And I’m excited about coming back and implement some of
Tyson Mutrux
them. Are you running around? What are you doing?
Jim Hacking
I’m walking up to the bus stop.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay, are you going to do the podcast on the bus? Or is it the kiddos? Pick up kids? Okay, cool. All right. Well, we’ve been it’s been way too long since we’ve had this person on the podcast. Our guests. It’s, I think most people by now probably know who were who this person is. But Big Mike Alby, how’re you doing buddy?
Mike Allbee
Doing great. How
Tyson Mutrux
are you? Doing good man doing? Well, we were just talking about this other guy who got some superhero website that is similar last name, that there’s the the spelling just a little bit different. So I I’m sort of embarrassed. We’ve, it’s been this long, because we’ve had you on the show. So I’m glad you’re finally on.
Mike Allbee
I’m thrilled to be here. I’m very happy. I’ve been on the show for quite some time and just an honor to be here. Cool.
Mike Allbee
Mike, it’s great having you on. You’re one of our favorite people. We love it. When you come to the conference. You’re always lots of fun. Tell our listeners for those who haven’t met you at the conference or who haven’t heard of you. Sort of your story after college and law school?
Mike Allbee
Sure. So when I graduated law school as a bit of a late bloomer, so I already had three kids. When I graduated law school. I worked for a couple of high volume firms for about three years, tried a ton of cases, I’ve lost track of how many I’ve tried them, somewhere around 150 jury trials. And then about six years ago, I jumped out and went on my own. It was definitely a leap of faith. My wife was a stay at home mom at the time. And we had about $1,000 in savings. And we were living paycheck to paycheck. And I took 60 bucks to open the business account. And I had a list of things that I could sell if I really needed to. And thank goodness, I didn’t have to sell anything. And we’ve just been moving forward ever since. And I’m in Arlington, Texas. And that’s right between Dallas and Fort Worth. And I do personal injury.
Tyson Mutrux
Damn, Mike, like, You all must be trying a case every other week down in Texas, you’re it’s hard getting a case to trial in Missouri. That’s crazy. What what’s what’s the, what’s the deal with so many trials in Texas?
Mike Allbee
I’m not gonna name names. I’ll say I did have at least one former employer, I’ll let them guess who it is who I used to joke. If you had a pulse, they would take your case. So we had a lot of cases that weren’t, you know, five star cases. And so the insurance companies will say, okay, great. Yeah, let’s see put this case on. And that was kind of their business model, too, is we just litigate. And that really helped me though, because when I went on my own, I didn’t even have I know, we went to the wrong website or looked at that other guy. I didn’t have a website for about a year and a half, because all I did was take litigation referrals from other attorneys. And so for me, I don’t freak out about trial. I’m gonna try a case. That’s my job. I’m a lawyer, you know. So it’s kind of the cases you pick. But now that I’m on my own, I’m more selective with my cases. And I tried a fraction of what I used to try back in the earlier days
Tyson Mutrux
will tell some of the younger guys that don’t have a budget yet how to how you were able to survive taking PII cases without no without any money.
Mike Allbee
So I did some criminal defense early on. I got really lucky I made a contact with a guy who would you know, he’s Some marketing for another firm. And just as a result, you would get DWIs and stuff. And so I would get some of those, I’d get them on payment plans. And, you know, at one point in time early on, it was difficult. I mean, I went to one Lady’s office who was referring me cases, and I came back with, like, 25 cases that she wanted me to file suit on. And so I’d have to balance that out and figure out, well, I gotta pay the mortgage. And then, you know, how can we how many can we file this month, and just space them out. But it was challenging, but thank goodness, you know, I have the criminal defense cases. And eventually, my PI cases ripened. And I kept those things going, and we reached a point where we realize we were going to be okay. Mike, what was it about you that
Jim Hacking
made you want to open up your own shop and not just go to work for somebody else.
Mike Allbee
I like to say that I’m a salesman, who happens to have a DD hanging on my wall. So I’m an entrepreneur, my dad, he’s always said, you can chase your dreams, or you can chase somebody else’s. And so I’ve just heard that my whole life, I’ve always wanted to own my own business. And ironically, my dad works. So kind of cool, because he’s, in essence, chasing his dreams while helping me chase mine. But I’ve just always been an entrepreneur, I’ve got a sales background. And it’s just, you know, now if I’ve got a problem, it’s not because somebody’s dumping it on me, it’s because I’ve created the problem. So my problems are more manageable, and quality of life is good. Today was the first day of school, I dropped all three kids and my all three of my kids off at school at three different schools. I get to have a good high quality lifestyle. So good money, good lifestyle, it’s perfect for me.
Tyson Mutrux
So I guess talk a little bit more about how you’re able to balance that litigation schedule was running a firm, successful firm. I get it done and having three kids having a why. Because you’re definitely if you if you if you follow you on Facebook, you’re definitely a family man. So talk about balancing all that, you know,
Mike Allbee
so when I came back from Max law, con 2019. Things had been lopsided had been out of town away from my family. And so we actually did a little staycation for the weekend and went to this really fun little hotel that has a waterpark. And I was thinking about it. And I called it being what I call love, be lopsided. I can’t remember the exact term but things were lopsided. Oh, I have drawn a blank anyways. But basically, having an unbalanced balance. That’s what it was. So sometimes I need to go heavier. Sometimes I need to work and you know, we’re going on vacation or something, I need to put in a little bit extra time, make sure things are good. But when I’m on vacation, I’m on vacation and things are lopsided pro family. So I’ve learned to just do what I can when I can, and move it on down the road. You know, for me, I eat dinner with my family every single night. I go to school function, but at the same time for being honest, I can’t just pluck out two hours from the middle of the day and not make it up somewhere. But I do have enough self discipline that I’ll be able to, you know, move that chunk of time around. But the other thing too. I’ve gotten much better at having systems and staff that follows systems. I’m in a position right now I’ve got great staff. When I went on vacation this summer, I went to Australia and New Zealand for about 18 days. And I told my wife, I said, I think they’re conspiring, they’re not sending me tasks, I logged in a handful of times and just kind of see if there’s anything going on. And I said I think they’re gonna just bombard me with messages. When I get home, like the night before. They didn’t they held it together. So I think having systems having good staff, that’s, you know, I’ve got staff in certain ways, I’ll admit they can run circles around me in certain areas. And I think that’s a big thing is having a great team and good systems.
Jim Hacking
Mike, talk to us about your team and about your tech stack, what software you’re using, and tell us about.
Mike Allbee
Sure. So I have, as of last week, three employees that are full time and then to contract employees. And I’m starting to get set up to work with virtual assistants. My newest employee is hopefully the Texas version of 10. And I’ve really struggled with marketing I had some things that created complacency and so that some of those things have changed and so now I’m really trying to get after that and So that will help with the marketer. I’ve got my dad who works remotely for me out of California. And early on back in the day, I work out of my closet, because there’s three doors between me and my kids. And it wasn’t fair to have them, not be able to make a peep all day, right? Inside work there. And then I had a virtual office, I paid 50 bucks a month for that. And people would say, you know, I’ll come meet you and say, Well, where are you at live in Grand Prairie? No way. I’m going there this afternoon, I’ll swing by your house, I would do that. And I was really concerned with my dad working remotely out of California and me having a virtual office that we didn’t even use his last name for a long time. So we would just, you know, have virtual offices, but now we’re legit. We run with file binders. I like using Google products. Biobank is great. For me, though, I feel like it really helps me keep on top of what’s going on with my staff.
Tyson Mutrux
I love filebot. And they just today launched the Zapier integration in beta. Yeah, so that’ll be coming. That’s gonna be going out to everyone pretty soon, I’m sure. All right. So you mentioned of complacency with with marketing and things like that we talk a little bit more about what that was, because I think this might help some of the people of newer firms and younger lawyers. What was what was some of that complacency? And then how did you get around it?
Mike Allbee
The biggest issue has a really good resource. I don’t want to kind of get into it in details, but I had somebody send it to me consistently, we parted ways when it came to my attention that there were some things that I thought were unethical and questionable. I didn’t want to have my name associated with that. But it was enough leads to more than pay my bills make things good. And it created a situation where I was working in the firm instead of on the firm. And so I’ve had to become more organized, delegate more, and try and do things that will help me grow my firm, instead of just keep trucking along at the same pace.
Jim Hacking
So that reminds me of the fact that you are a first member of the maximum lawyer guild who we’ve had on the show since the guild started. And obviously, what we talked about in the guild is confidential. But I think that one of the things that we all were sort of I opened about was that we were talking to one of our members about sort of what I would call low expectations on the number of cases that the members get each month. And you you latched on to that, would you mind talking a little bit about that?
Mike Allbee
Yeah, so first of all, I want to say I love being in the guild, I think the frequency of it is really motivating me to actually execute and get things done. I’ve been in John Fisher’s mastermind, I love John the pieces, I get value from his mastermind, but there’s something about the frequency of this group and knowing that my heartbeat coming up, at some point that it’s really driving me to get things done. I, you know, without getting into personal details of anybody, like you said, I do think that oftentimes we think we’ll shoot, if I’m x, if I can get x plus five, or x plus this or that, and we shoot low. Whereas if we consistently act in a way that gets us 5075 100 cases a month, maybe it’s gonna take some time for that to catch up. That’s understandable. But at some point, it’s going to pay off. And I think sometimes I don’t know if it’s self sabotage, or guilt, or whatever it may be that we try and talk ourselves down. And so yeah, there was something said, in the last mastermind that really just resonated with me, because I have been that kind of thinker. Many times, I’m like, I just want to bump up a little bit more, and then everything’s gonna be magical. And then after that, I’ll bump some more, but why not go for it? You know? So
Tyson Mutrux
Mike, what do you think? If you were to look back at your career, what something and I’m talking about the party or career researcher firm, if you can, if you can go back with something you would have done differently that you think would have helped your business.
Mike Allbee
So when I first started off, I was a rich on time and poor on TASH, and I hustled and I made things happen. But at the same time, there was a point where I became almost proud of how cheaply I could do things. And I feel like I would have benefited more by not just throwing money around but spending it more efficiently to get things done. You know, there’s one year where I felt like, you know, I was doing the job of me and a paralegal you know, and I There’s enough money to pay apparently on, I think that would have freed me up to have things snowball sooner, if you will. So I feel like I’m still snowballing. I will be for a long time, but I like the direction I’m going. But I think things would have moved quicker and stronger and faster. If I didn’t go so cheap, and try and, you know, scale back. And I was the guy though that, you know, initially I was thinking, everything would freak me out, like, oh, shoot, I gotta get a part time employee, oh, I need to get an office, oh, I need a bigger office. But you know, every phase for me, has done that. I’m at the point. Now I had a great talk with Jim, when we’re listening to the band back slot con. And that really resonated with me to about working towards getting an associate because I think I’m, at that point are really freaking close. And I’m actually happy to say that it’s not overwhelming me at this point. It’s running the numbers and saying, Yeah, I think this makes sense. Which is a great spot. Because when you look back, like I said, every single expense, or every increment, that expenses went out there used to freak me out. Alright, so talk to
Jim Hacking
us about that a little bit more. I mean, what, whether there’s a mental gymnastics that you do in order to convince yourself that now’s the time for more office space, or for an associate or for barely go, because I think so many of our members get caught up in thinking about this really big number that they’re gonna have to pay over the course of the year, as opposed to thinking about this, the next two payrolls.
Mike Allbee
If you backtrack it, like, if I waited for the perfect time to get married, or have kids or do any of that it would never want to happen. It’s never perfect. And I think that happens with law firms as well, and businesses in general. I mean, it comes down to, are you confident in your ability to hustle and get it and generate the business? I mean, that’s the thing when I hire an associate, it’s not like, oh, cool, I’m bailing out early. And I’m not going to work my hours at the office, it’s okay, what can I do now, to take things to the next level? So, you know, I think you need to just realize it’s never going to be perfect. And ask yourself, Are you do you have some hustle? Are you gonna do I mean, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out either. I mean, I, that’s always a fear I’ve had the past, I don’t want to lay somebody off in six months if this doesn’t work out. But at the end of the day, I do what I do to provide for my family. And if I had to do that, I would part ways with somebody, I would try and make it as good as possible. But I’d rather swing and miss than just sit there and not do anything. And I think we need to get out of our comfort zone and do stuff. I mean, it needs to be a calculated risk, you can just be a fool. But, you know, just realize it’s never going to be perfect, I kind of get like edits, there’s a certain point in those decisions, where I feel this excitement, it’s almost like I’m kind of going against the grain mildly. And I’m like, Oh, this is good. This is good. This was gonna lead to good things. But it does take a leap of faith and just just doing it as a key.
Tyson Mutrux
Man, you’re talking about, you know, adding people and it just I think everyone has the same feeling. You know, you think about the salary that you’re paying them and all the expenses and like, it’s overwhelming. And I think it is important that you get over that, you know, that that feeling, because if you’re doing as an investment, as opposed to, this isn’t some expense that you’re not going to get return on. So that’s one of the biggest freakin struggles that we don’t that we all deal with. But, so, five years from now, 10 years, and what’s
Mike Allbee
the firm look like? I want to be their traffic controller of the firm.
Mike Allbee
I’d like I trying case 151 doesn’t make me feel or feel any cooler than 150. You know. But I really want to be a firm that has a good strong reputation. In my area for providing outstanding customer service doing right by the client. I want to have multiple associates working for me in the support team that would help them out. Even further, my 11 year old daughter wants to take over the firm someday. And it’s funny when she did this project for school. And her teacher says So is it going to be Big Mike and little Abby? And she says no, it’s gonna be Big Mike and big Abby, I’m gonna show them. So I want to create a firm that my daughter can take over and run with and that will help her achieve her goals as
Jim Hacking
well. Mike, I consider myself lucky to have niched down into immigration when I did and they have sort of the expertise to deal with current realities. But one of the things that occurs to me when I talked to other personal injury lawyers about how much more competitive it is than the immigration bar, most immigration lawyers aren’t thinking about getting that many more cases. They’re just sort of happy with the cases that come their way. And I’m wondering, how do you besides the big beard, how do you stand out in I’m sure what’s a very competitive market and the Dallas Fort Worth area
Mike Allbee
You know, I don’t want to throw any former firms under the bus. But I do try and operate differently. You know, we even have this thing that I’m sure other people have said it. I call it proactive communication. You know, instead of letting the client say, Wait a second, what’s going on, you said that we should have this check in a week and a half, and it’s been a week and a half, we pick up the phone and call them and say, Hey, I know we said week and a half is what we were shooting for. But this is what’s going on. It’s much easier to deal with than having them boil over. So we try and provide great communication, we try and do what’s right by them. And I’m me, you know, I mean, if you look at my Facebook post profile, 90%, maybe 95% of my posts are public. And I’m counting on people googling my name and saying who is this Mike Albie character? Oh, look at him, he dropped his kids off at school, Oh, lucky drives a Humvee Oh, lucky. He’s kind of goofy. I am. And so for me, I’m a very sincere person. I provide customer service off the charts. And I’m really focused on doing right by the client. So you know, we don’t let cases I used to, in the early days, this is a flaw of mine, I’d let cases kind of take their their own course. We do a more of a full court press. Now. We’re setting stuff up, we’re pushing it through. I want my clients doing depositions when they still remember what happened not a year and a half later. So we’re really pushing on getting money in their hands quickly. Do what’s right by them, you know, if we need to file suit and walk that walk, we just got a great settlement today. Because we jumped through the hoops. And that’s what what the client needed. So we’re known for doing what’s right. We have a lot of happy clients. And we just need to keep that going and scale it up.
Tyson Mutrux
All right. So you’re Big Mike, you’re always smiling. You’re always positive. You’re traveling all over the place. You’re doing well with your firm. What do you struggle with the most
Mike Allbee
having a goal almost Stroud, about a month ago, and I was out on my boat, my wife and kids. And we got in a bad situation. I was able to help rescue my kids. And I almost drowned in the process. And I’m a guy that grew up in Southern California and swam on a swim team and played water polo, and, you know, was an athlete, and I’m morbidly obese. And my biggest fear is I’m going to build something strong and good for my family and not be there to enjoy it with them. So my health, sorry, I wasn’t planning on getting emotional. My health is a big issue. And I’ve recently got a treadmill desk in my office, and I’m working on that each day. And I’m meal prepping and planning but I’m in a bad spot, health wise, you know, and I’m mentally strong, and I was able to jump in. Physically, I couldn’t be there for my family. And that was a slap in the face. And so that’s, I need to take care of myself so I can see my kids grow up and be there for them physically. And even more so down the road later in lives with grandkids and all that stuff. I’m really struggling with not taking care of myself physically and a big problem.
Jim Hacking
That is a big problem. Big Mike and I feel your pain. I’ve got the same problem. I’ve put on probably 50 pounds
Mike Allbee
since we got married and it’s not easy. It’s shameful. It’s, you feel guilty and,
Jim Hacking
and it’s hard. You know, our man, Paul Jakob bitis. He’s been doing a great job with that 75 day challenge he’s been doing maybe need to take a page out of his book. But yeah, it’s a it’s a, it’s a good lesson to us all
Mike Allbee
that. You know,
Jim Hacking
we don’t take care of ourselves nearly as well enough as we should. And we keep pushing for one more case or one more
Mike Allbee
win. And it takes a toll. Yeah, it means nothing if I die tomorrow, you know, and I got to change the direction and I have the ability to have the means and I’ve actually to be honest, actually connect this with the guild, even though we haven’t gotten into this so much. Just because I’ve really after the couple of hot seats. I’ve really stopped and reflected and tried to analyze where is my room for improvement? This is definitely one of them.
Tyson Mutrux
I make so I think I know we’re we’re gonna go in the guild with you. A couple thing couple of topics so that’s good. I did i Listen, man. I think it’s awesome that you shared I think that that’s it’s a tough thing to do whenever you’ve got people all over the all over the Country and are in and and and other countries listening to this. And so I think that was really, really strong of you and awesome. And thanks for sharing that. I there’s no good way to segue into this. But I do want to wrap things up. Before I do want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group get involved there, Mike is there, a lot of other great people are there. And they’re sharing all their other best secrets. And so get involved. It’s a great Go Giver environment. Also, if you don’t mind, go to Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, give us a five star review. That would really be awesome. Jimmy, what’s your hack of the week? All right. So again,
Jim Hacking
I want to thank Big Mike for coming on the show and being honest and vulnerable. I really appreciate that. And and I think we have the next couple hotseat set, but I know who’s next up after that. So good to have Mike, where he can’t escape. And we can go deep on this stuff. So, you know, many people in our group have talked about the book traction. And it’s a great book. I don’t know if anyone’s talked about this next book that they have called Rocket fuel, which is sort of how to get the visionary and the implementer in your firm working together. And as someone who is sort of a visionary and works with a implementer, who happens to be married to this book, which I’m listening to on audio, and then I actually just went ahead and bought the physical copy too. So I can mark it up and start implementing it is just what we needed at this time in our, in our growth of our firm. And if you haven’t read it, it’s a short little book. The audio is four hours in the book itself, probably 150 pages. It’s terrific.
Tyson Mutrux
Excellent, good stuff. All right, Big Mike, what you got for us, but
Mike Allbee
All right, so my tips a little untraditional. As lawyers, we have a skill set that allows us to at least potentially make more money than the average Joe. And if we’ve arrived at the end of our lives with a big pile of money, we haven’t lived life, we’ve missed the boat. So for me, one thing that I enjoy the Alps to come back to work in smile and be ratty is traveling. And I’ve got a couple of three kids and a wife. And it’s not the cheapest thing to do. But there’s a website called Google Flights. And what you can do is you can search by a geographical area, you can hover over Europe and see where it’s cheapest to go. And then you can even zero it and more and find dates that are cheaper. So if you leave Saturday morning versus Friday night, it could save you 150 bucks or something. But we recently bought tickets, Italy for 225 per person roundtrip and every time I travel, it’s a bargain. So enjoy the fruits of your Labor’s get out travel, live life. And this is one way to can make it even more affordable.
Tyson Mutrux
Excellent, I love it. Alright, so my tip of the week is ZZ actually fairly simple. So I want you to think about the last time you given your spouse a compliment or thought about the last time you’ve given an employee a compliment. And for some of you may that may have been quiet for quite some time. And those compliments mean a lot more to them than you think they do. And so I want you to give one compliment each day for the next seven days not doesn’t have to be the same person. That’s what I’m talking about to a new person. So seven compliments to seven people over the next seven days. And I think it will, I think you’ll start to see how much people really appreciate the small compliments. Hey, good job on that. I really appreciate the work you did on that. I’m glad you stayed extra five minutes. That really means a lot to me. Like that. It means a lot more than what you might think. And so go out and give those compliments and it’s gonna make you feel good and it’s gonna mean a lot more to your people. Big Mike, thanks so much for coming on. Next year maybe we’re gonna call you slender Mike because we’re gonna get that yeah, this medium like, medium like I like I like medium like so. Thanks, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for being vulnerable. Thank you sharing all the credit.
