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In this episode, Jim & Tyson interview Jonathan Hawkins, Outside General Counsel to law firms and owner of Law Firm GC. Jonathan is always seeking to avoid lawsuits, has litigated and tried contentious lawyer breakup cases. Listen as they talk about his journey having been through a law firm dissolution himself having an up close the issues that arise and the effects they can have on a law firm and a lawyer’s practice.

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Topics:

• About Jonathan
  • Business lawyer for lawyers
  • Represents lawyers and law firms
  • Business related to an issue of a lawyer or a law firm can encounter
• More details
  • Three types of law clients.
  • 1)Counseling
  • 2)Project based engagements/Set up partnerships and draft documents “Print ups – Documents all law firm should have”
  • 3)Law firms breakup/Mitigation and law practice
  • Grew up as a business litigator/Business divorces of other types
  • Drafting agreements to avoid fights
  • Bargaining work and legal out practice leave for experts to handle
• Representing lawyers/Lessons learned watching lawyers
  • Father attorney/Handled many law firm brake ups in small town
  • Father’s suggestion to look into large city
  • Reading articles and cases
  • Talking to everybody
  • Lawyer friends asking for help
  • Seeing lots of law firms from the inside/Different set ups and models
• Ideal Client
  • Big firm/Big operation
  • Small firm attorneys/Project based engagements
  • Not big international firms/Have own in house team
• Reaching Jim and Tyson’s podcast
  • Their podcast fan/Recommends
  • Trying to build a team
  • Perfect a subscription model
  • Put together the value proposition for lawyers
• Vision of subscription and level provided > Go back to Joey Vitale’s interview
  • Contacting him with daily issues
  • Quarter program service
• Suggesting Jess Birken’ interview. Interesting subscription model and info product/Provides educational videos before encounter
• Suggesting Lee Rosen’s interview. Another subscription model option/Variation of podcast
  • Get team together
• Farm out mitigation to another firm
• Delegating
  • Taking on an attorney
  • Rather work in business than court
  • Working on finding a part time litigator
• Mitigation components
  • Partner breakup/Each hires an attorney
  • Lawsuit files and lawsuit allegations
• Getting a full time lawyer
• Farming out mitigation/Taking on an assistant/Basic guidance for subscription model
  • Educating and communicating value proposition
• Drill out in what you are selling/Solution offered/Figure out people
  • Firm brings in a young associate
  • Gains experience and clients/Leaves and clients go with him
  • “Clients always choose who they are going with”
  • Provisions put in place/Slow process down
  • Give law firm owner time to react
  • Set fees in place/Agreement with attorneys
• Dean Jackson and Joe Polish > Entire profits of keeping a client/Educating before contact. Jonathan’s Lawyer education
  • In person, CLE talks, lunches, periodic emails on various topics or website
  • Lawyers spread word out
• Podcast idea > Telling story of reported cases/Train wrecks or disolutions between lawyers or how to avoid mistakes (Murder book podcast by Michael Connelly). Contact new attorneys and refer to business

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Jim’s hack: Listening to James Schramko /Make a green list/Signs for a good client

Jonathan’s hack: “Give up and loose” “Don’t read, don’t listen and don’t watch”/Negatives on the news

Tyson’s tip: Stop spending time on social media

//

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Transcripts: Building a Law Firm For Lawyers with Jonathan Hawkins

Jonathan Hawkins
The good thing about this practice is, I see a lot of law firms from the inside. And they’re all different. It’s really interesting to see how they set up comp structures, partners and associates, and others in the firm. And it’s also interesting to see the different types of lawyers represented. Yeah, attorneys, insurance, defense firms, real estate, closing firms, you name it. And they all you know, there are a lot of different business models that work. And there’s a lot of lawyers that are doing pretty well, in a lot of different ways, you know, from the advertisers to the pure referral based practices. You know, there’s lots of different ways to do it. The key thing is you just got to stick with it.

Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm, the right way, the right way. This is the maximum liar, 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 lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.

Tyson Mutrux
nutrix What’s up Jamie

Jim Hacking
Tyson. You know, we’ve always talked about our big following that we have in Cleveland, Ohio, thanks in large part to our buddy will, Ed and will, Norman. But we also seem to have quite the following down in Georgia. And today, we have a very interesting guest, a lawyer for lawyers. His name is Jonathan Hawkins. Jonathan, welcome to the show. Glad to

Jonathan Hawkins
be here. Thanks for having me.

Tyson Mutrux
All right, Jonathan. So I got the really detailed message that you sent to Jim talking about what you do so tell people what it is exactly that you do? And how you got to that point.

Jonathan Hawkins
So I guess the short answer is, I’m a business lawyer for lawyers. So I represent lawyers and law firms from formation of a law firm, all the way to dissolution and everything in between. So we can get to the details. But basically, any business related issue that a lawyer or a law firm would encounter, I help them with that. I’ve got really three types of clients, lawyer clients. So I’ve served as outside general counsel for a number of larger high volume, sort of PR firms here in Atlanta, they’ve got hundreds of employees, that employment issues, ethics issues, got conflict issues, trademark issues, all sorts of things that come up, just running the firm. And so represent those types of clients. And then another type is, is just sort of project based engagements to partners or to to lawyers come together to form a partnership. I help them, you know, talk through the issues, set up the partnership, get the governance documents, drafted that sort of thing. You know, I call those really prenups. Because, you know, we’re building the agreement for the day when the two attorneys may break up. And we really want to set out the process for what’s going to happen. So that’s very important document, in my opinion, that all law firms should have if you have partners. And then the other sort of area, had all sorts of relationship documents, you know, partners, associates, you name it, co counsel, and that sort of thing. And then the other group of clients is really when law firms break up. And that’s more of a litigation practice. And that’s really how I got into all of this. I grew up as a business litigator, doing business, divorces of other types, and then started doing law firm breakups. And there’s all sorts of weird issues that are peculiar to lawyers, that aren’t really issues for other businesses. And through the work of seeing a lot of the fights. I started saying, hey, why don’t we draft these agreements to help minimize or avoid a lot of these fights? So that’s really how I got into the transactional piece of it. And then just through doing it a bunch, just talking a lot of lawyers, I started getting more and more clients and handling different aspects of the law firm practice. I will say there’s two things I do not do. And that’s like bar grievance work or legal malpractice. You know, hopefully, I help avoid that. But if it gets into that, I’ll let the experts handle that part.

Jim Hacking
Jonathan, how did you get into representing lawyers and what have you learned watching lawyers practice that you think our listeners should know? Maybe the more successful lawyers what are the things that you’ve noticed?

Jonathan Hawkins
What’d you know how I got into it? I mean, this is just truly a bootstrap practice. So my dad is an attorney down in Alabama. And he, he had handled a number of law firm breakups. And in a smaller town, and he said, You know, I’ve done a lot of these in a short amount of time, you’re in a bigger city, Atlanta, there’s got to be tons of these, you may want to look into it. And so I literally just bought a bunch of treatises, read them, started reading larvae, articles, cases, just immerse myself in it, I started to write a book, I thought I was gonna write a book. And that really forced me to learn it. And then I just started talking to everybody about it. And, you know, got a lot of lawyer friends, and they started asking me for help. So helping them and it just slowly grew, I probably started about eight years ago. And now that’s, that’s all I do. The good thing about this practice is, I see a lot of law firms from the inside. And they’re all different, it’s really interesting to see how they set up cop structures, or partners and associates and, and others in the firm. And it’s, it’s also interesting to see the different types of lawyers. So I’ve represented PR, attorneys, insurance, defense firms, real estate, closing firms, you name it. And they all you know, there are a lot of different business models that work. And there’s a lot of lawyers that are doing pretty well, in a lot of different ways, you know, from the advertisers to the pure referral base practices, you know, there’s lots of different ways to do it. The key thing is you just got to stick with it. Have number of clients that literally drove to Atlanta, with nothing but a car, and a law license. They didn’t know anybody here, they had no experience in Atlanta, and they built their practices, and they’re very successful now, just through sheer hard work and determination. So Jonathan, what is what is

Tyson Mutrux
your ideal client look like? And how did you come to determine what that client looks like?

Jonathan Hawkins
You know, it’s really two ideal clients. One is sort of the big firm in the sense that it’s a big operation, that’s usually one or a handful of owners, with a lot of employees. So the high volume, personal injury firm, high volume, residential, real estate, closing firm, anything that’s high volume, that you have a lot of staff and you just have a lot of issues. That’s the first type. The other is, you know, solo or small, firm attorneys, that, you know, really, they’re forming their firm, or they’re breaking up, or they’ve had an issue. It’s really, those are more project based engagements. You know, they’re typically not big enough to where they have issues every month. So those are the two main types of clients. I’d say, you know, the big national international firms, those are not my clients. They’ve got their own in house folks. I got, you know, 1000s of lawyers, they know what they’re doing. They’re not really the type of client that comes to me.

Jim Hacking
All right. So you reached out to us, Jonathan, because you had stumbled across our podcast, I was wondering how you first learn to the podcast, and then what are some things that you might be struggling with, or something that we could help you with?

Jonathan Hawkins
I love podcasts. I just I love them. And I can’t remember how it came across yours. But, you know, Alex did a lot of business podcasts, legal podcasts. At one point, I wanted to do a podcast. And then I came across your podcast. And after listening in the office, this is the podcast that would want to make you guys we’re already making it. So I’m a big fan of Dean Jackson and that crew. And so I liked a lot of things you guys were saying early on, and I got hooked. And so yeah, I recommend your your podcast to a lot of folks around here so much. Thank you guys doing a great job. You know, I’m trying to build a team. And so that, you know, I think building the firm is not easy. You got to find the right people for the right positions, and you got to get them worked in. So that’s something I’m working on. Now. Another thing I’m really trying to perfect is the subscription model. I don’t like doing it our as best I can I try not to. And you know, I think this practice is scalable. And I think a good way to do it would be through a subscription model. And I’m trying to figure out, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of lawyers about it. And a common response I get is why would I pay for a subscription every month when I can just call you then pay for it and then and so I tried to put together the value proposition for lawyers

Jonathan Hawkins
providing something they’d want to pay for every month. That’s really my focus for this year. So any any suggestions you guys have, I’d love to hear from Jimmy. This sounds a lot like the conversation we had a few years ago with Joe Vitale before he launched his subscription based model, which I think is doing pretty well, and has nothing to do with what the advice Jim and I gave him on jelly. So at some point, you need to reach out to Joe Vitale, but I think what we need to do is probably chisel down a little bit more on what you’re wanting to provide. So what do you envision would be under that umbrella for that subscription model?

Jonathan Hawkins
And then what levels would you provide? So one part would be just, you know, they can pick up the phone, send me an email, whatever, for any issues, anytime you just call me that’d be part of the subscription. A common issue is conflicts, you know, potential conflicts, ethics issues that just come up. And in a lawyer’s day to day practice, that would be something I think would be included in subscription. Another piece that I’m sort of thinking about is, you know, when when a lawyer or when lawyers start a firm, and there’s a few things you really need to do at the beginning. Once those are done, there’s some things you sort of need to do later. And then as the firm grows, there’s there’s different things that you know, provide a stack of services, but law firms don’t need them all at once. And so toying with the idea of, you know, creating basically is sort of a program where, you know, you come in the first first quarter, we do X through your firm, and then the next quarter, we implement some other things that you need for your firm, and just sort of go through the process. That way, you know, a lot of lawyers were busy. And so you know, if I went to them with a list of 15 things they need to do, that’s going to probably scare them off. So it probably be better to sort of spread this out anyway. But yes, I don’t know

Jim Hacking
if you’ve had a chance to listen to this pop up episode that we posted over the weekend. I interviewed Jeff Birkin, I was down at lawyer forward with Mike Whalen last week. And Jeff is a attorney for nonprofits in Minnesota. She does nonprofits all over the country. But she has an interesting subscription model and an info product. So I think that maybe what you could do if you’re always doing sort of the same thing for startups, maybe you could just say, how could I systematize that? How could I productize it make it into a package. If you’re doing the same thing every time maybe walk people through that. And that’s sort of one things. What she does is she she tried to sell that as a standalone product. But it didn’t really work. It didn’t really take off because she couldn’t find the people that were wanting something like that. So what she did was, she made it an upsell on people that scheduled a consultation. So she sends them through this, I think it’s like a 90 minute set of videos and they educate themselves before they come to the consult, and they pay an extra I think was two or $300 for that over the regular consults, that that might be one thing. And then with a subscription model, she has all these nonprofits, that she when she meets with a new nonprofit, she offers them the subscription model or the flat fee. And she said that since she started offering that that no one has chosen the pay as you go, everyone has gone for the subscription model. So you might want to check out that episode. You might want to talk to her about that.

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah, I did hear that episode. I thought it was apple. That was a good episode. And I did take some notes from that. I think those are some good ideas for sure.

Tyson Mutrux
So I was talking about this too. So this is the sort of piggyback off what Jim is talking about. A little bit different. Today, it almost sounds like is kinda like coaching in a way. But there’s also other stuff involved in it that that you’d need to provide for them. You could do something like knee Rosen does knee Rosen has this everything behind a paywall where it’s a subscription based model. And you go through and you can watch videos and you have access to forms and information. So you could create kind of what Jim’s talking about, and then put it behind a paywall where they can have access to all this stuff on a regular basis. And you can continually add content to it, which will also kind of satisfy your desire to want to do your podcast at some point, you can do a variation of that, behind that paywall. And if you haven’t seen what Lee Rosen offers, you should you should check that out as well.

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah, I think that’s that’s a good idea to that comes back to my first issue that you know, get a team together. I mean, you guys probably have have encountered this over the years. It’s just a lot of ideas, a lot of things to do, but just not enough bandwidth to do them all.

Tyson Mutrux
You know if you’ve mapped out your processes from start to finish on every single thing that you do,

Jonathan Hawkins
not everything but I’ve gone through a lot of it but I hadn’t hadn’t gone through everything. I need to do that.

Jim Hacking
What’s holding you back from building your team. What is the is it 20 nancial is not wanting to let go of all the work. I mean, what are some things that you’re doing that you shouldn’t be doing that you could have someone else either outsource it to or bring someone in house. So I just

Jonathan Hawkins
started, have a part time attorney starting, I guess last Friday, she’s been doing some work for me, but she’s sort of come on full time part time now. So that’s helpful. I’ve worked with them before. She’s great attorney. So there’s trust there. So I have no problem hand this stuff to her, you know, big issue I’ve seen. So you know, I grew up a business litigator, trial attorney. And so I still do a decent amount of that for law firms in a variety of contexts. But between you and me, I’d rather work on the business and not be in court and be beholden to judges and their schedule. And finding a part time litigator is just, it’s hard. You know, they’ll write briefs and do research projects. But secondly, start asking a part time person to sign pleadings and go to court. Go to depositions, that it’s just they’re just hard to find. That’s my biggest challenge right now finding a part time litigator.

Tyson Mutrux
So I maybe I’m confused here. entire time that we’ve been talking, I didn’t really receive your what you do is litigation stuff.

Jonathan Hawkins
So is there a large litigation component to what you do? It’s not large. But here’s where it happens. I said, you know, you have a partner. And you guys have a couple of million dollar C cases, and that you guys decide to break up and you’re fighting over those games. They’re worth fighting over. And so each side is hires an attorney, and lawsuits are filed. And there’s all sorts of allegations of breach of fiduciary duty and stealing clients and this that the other, so that that is a piece of my practice.

Tyson Mutrux
So why don’t you farm that part out? I don’t understand why you don’t? Because it doesn’t seem like that’s what you want to do. Why don’t you farm that out to another firm?

Jonathan Hawkins
Let’s not Yeah, that’s not Yeah.

Jim Hacking
Yeah. Especially if that’s what you don’t want to be doing. If you don’t want to be doing that, then then that seems like a good call. Now. One thing that I’ve noticed, and that Amani, my wife and I have been talking around here lately is, you know, we farted around with part time, paralegals and part time lawyers, and those people certainly have their roles, but there’s really no substitute to having someone in your office five days a week, it’s just a fundamentally different mindset. They’re more available, especially if they’re gonna be doing courtroom stuff. I just think that you might want to think about going all in and getting a full time lawyer. Yeah,

Tyson Mutrux
that makes sense. Makes sense? Okay, so I guess a couple of things, I think you can free up your time to do the things you want to do, like jettison the litigation stuff, get rid of it, farm it out to some I’m sure you know, many trailers out there that are willing to do it. And they’ll do it for usually at that point, they’ll do it for less than what they normally charge because a lot of the work has already been done by you. So all the pre litigation stuff, you can do farming out farmer litigation stuff out, get in touch some partnership with another firm or a couple other fairs. Hit that’s about the other stuff is I mean, I don’t know, I’m not so sure you need a lawyer, I mean, you can bring in a paralegal or a legal assistant to come in and do a lot of this stuff. I also think you sort of need a plan, I’m not sure how much of a plan in place to implement some of this stuff. So maybe you’ve got some really good ideas, a lot to go off. But I think you need to sort of build that port out first, and maybe start with some virtual assistants who don’t like the term, the subscription stuff, you know, you’re not, you’re not needing legal help, you’re needing, like, support staff to help build that stuff out. So go on up work and hassle or build out a site or whatever you want to do, or the subscription based model, we need the payment system, how are you going to take payments, and you get all that stuff set up? Once you get the bones set up? I think it’s a pretty simple thing from there, it just kind of fall into place. And you get I think you can automate a lot of what you’re wanting to do. And what I mean by that is one of it’s time to get guidance, and not necessarily sitting down and drafting documents. Some of that is, but I think if you were to just give them that basic guidance via video that they can access it on demand. I think that’s going to free up a lot of your time to do do other more time intensive stuff.

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah. Yeah. The other issue I found, you know, most lawyers either don’t think they need to help or don’t realize they need the help. So that’s another issue is educating and communicating sort of the value proposition in the first place.

Jim Hacking
Let’s talk about that. Yeah, because, you know, my hairs on the back of my neck start to stand up when people start talking about situations where they’re trying to sell something that people don’t understand or know that they that they need. And so, you know, Tyson and I were in a mastermind I grew up here in St. Louis back in the day with our friend Anthony. And he had a business that he banged his head on the wall trying to convince people that they needed what he had to sell. And I think that anytime you’re in that kind of a scenario, you’re really setting yourself up for a lot of headaches. And I’m just wondering if you could drill down a little bit on on what it is that you’re solving what solution you’re offering, and then figuring out a way to find the people who need that I don’t think you want to say every lawyer needs me and they just don’t know it. I think that’s a real dangerous trap, I think you need to really be specific. And say, this is the problem that I solve. This is how I solve it. This is how I can take you from point A, where you’re in discomfort to point B, where you’re feeling much safer, and and then figure out who are the people that find themselves at point A?

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, let me give you an example. So especially in the personal injury realm, so I don’t know how it is out there, but I figured is probably similar. So what we see around here is you have an established attorney or firm, they bring in a young associate, that attorney, you know, gains experience, gets to know clients and then decides they want to leave, and they leave. And inevitably, some clients go with them. And so there, you can’t have non competes with lawyers, clients always get to choose who they go with. But there are agreements you can put in place and certain provisions you put in place that can’t prevent it. But you can slow the process down, give the law firm owner time to react, perhaps salvage the cases, etc. And worst case scenario, if the case leaves, you’ve got an agreed upon fee split in place that’s enforceable, you know, otherwise, you’re sort of an attorney lane, or you’re fighting about what the value of the quantum error value that the Old Firm put into the case, etc. And there are ways to do it that are ethically permissible, are enforceable and locked in a courtroom, etc. And there are also ways that I’ve seen attorneys try to do it, that are just completely unenforceable on their face. So that is a situation that when I talk to lawyers about it, they immediately realize, yes, that’s something I need. And that’s something I want. So I do a lot of agreements, you know, between attorneys. And that’s, that’s a problem that’s out there. And a lot of people don’t, I think, maybe don’t realize, but once I talk to him about it, they all want it. So what do you think so So Jonathan, you

Tyson Mutrux
you like the like Dean Jackson, and Joe Polish, and I’m assuming you’ve listened, I love marketing. And very, very early on on their podcast, they talked about the I can’t remember what they call it, the eight principles or something. But basically, the entire process of getting a client keeping in play and educating clients. And the biggest thing that they talked about that is educating a potential client until they are ready to contact you, is a bedrock principle for marketing, basically. So my question is, how can that’s really what you just said, that was really freaking interesting, because I’ve had three conversations in the last two weeks with three different lawyers, about hiring Associates, and how difficult it is because especially in PEI, what you do is you you train them up, you get them ready to go and to help your client. And at that very moment is whenever they’re ready to bet. So it’s a very, very big job. So my question to you is, how are you educating lawyers, so that whenever they’re, they’re in that position, or they need you, that they’re ready to call you.

Jonathan Hawkins
So right now, it’s in person, you know, lunches, drinks, breakfast, that sort of thing. Occasionally, I’ll do sort of a CLE type talk, I do have an email list that I send out periodic emails, on various topics. I try to my website has a little bit on there about it. But other than that, that’s pretty much all I do. And I’ll say this, you know, I have enough former and current lawyer clients out there that have sort of experienced it, that they’re, they’re spreading the word out there as well.

Jim Hacking
Alright, so I think you might have a hard time getting back to your podcast idea. I think you might have a hard time getting lawyers to come on and talk about their foibles or mistakes or the ways that their law firm broke up and they wish they’d used you so I think that might make hard for for hard podcast, but I wonder if I wonder if you couldn’t do a different kind of podcast maybe like cereal or this one I’m listening to now by my favorite crime author Michael Connelly called Murder book where it’s not so much an interview format, but more like a telling a story. And I wonder if you couldn’t just pick reported case As and make a podcast out of train wreck dissolutions between lawyers or you know, just stories that would sit in your practice area that people would find interesting. I’m thinking like a 10 or 15 minute episode, where it’s just you, and you just sort of tell the story of, of what happened. And I think that might be a way to raise awareness.

Jonathan Hawkins
That’s a really good idea. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Because that gives it context, it gives it you know, characters, I think that’s something that people would would relate to,

Jim Hacking
your expertise would come through, you know, it’s not like, every time, you’re just saying, This is what I do. I’m such a great lawyer, but just when you put your own spin on it, you present the story, you talk about maybe how they might have done this differently, or that differently, or I mean, I would find that interesting. I’d like to hear about ways that people make mistakes or ways that I can avoid making mistakes.

Jonathan Hawkins
When I tell you, we’ve got a daily legal newspaper here in Atlanta, that they love to publish those kinds of stories. And the lawyers that are involved probably do not like those stories being published, but everybody likes to read them. And I

Tyson Mutrux
think you could also, I mean, Jimmy, don’t you think he could interview the attorneys that represent the attorney in those situations, so you get a reported case, you sort of develop a story, and then you reach out to the attorneys that represent them, and interview them. So they can give a little bit more context into what happened.

Jim Hacking
Yeah, and there’ll be a total side benefit to that, too, is you’d be introducing yourself to lots of new attorneys who could refer you business. And they could, you know, lawyers who are defending those kinds of lawsuits, I would think would be the right kind of people that you’d want to know. Because they’re going to have conflict work or fee to work. I know, you don’t want to get involved in that same, those same types of litigation scenarios. But I think that it’d be a real symbiotic relationship, and people love to talk about themselves in their cases, especially lawyer. So I think that’d be a great byproduct as well.

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah, I’m warming up this, I like this idea.

Tyson Mutrux
I think the idea in general, whether you do that or not, I think you just need to have some sort of content model because you don’t have the content model. I know, you said you said he was lawyers, and I periodically do this, that just means you’re not doing it. I mean, if I’m sitting down to have lunch with you, or talking to you, and you’re telling me about your business, the entire time, I’m gonna get annoyed and bored with it. So my guess is, you’re not gonna be able to do it one person at a time, especially if you’re trying to build a subscription model, you’re trying to build a subscription model, you need to produce content of some form. So whether you do it via video, and they give me a Tod S, or whatever it is, I think you just need to produce content. So I think your next steps need to be okay, what, what, what’s my content channel going to be? How am I going to produce it, just start doing it, and then everything else can fall into place? Once you’ve got into your payment systems down? He had the people in place, it’ll all sorts.

Jonathan Hawkins
Let me ask this. Jim, your idea. They’re about sort of basically case studies. What about, you know, sending, you know, maybe a couple emails a month? And there’s a featured case study? Would that be annoying to you getting that in your inbox? Or would that be something you’d be interested in reading?

Jim Hacking
No. And that reminds me sort of, of the emails that I get from our buddy Wayne has when from COPO strategies, who does the, you know, PR spin on what lawyers can know? And I think that, no, I would find that helpful. And I would I you know, as long as it’s, as long as it’s interesting, I think it’s, I think it’s funny what you said that, that lawyers don’t like to see their names and the papers on those kinds of cases, but that everybody reads them. You know, I think I think that’s really, really true. And I think that would expand into whether you do video or or, or email or audio.

Jonathan Hawkins
Yeah,

Tyson Mutrux
Jim, I think I think Wayne is a great example. So if you do not describe the Wayne Pollock, Topo strategies, newsletter, you definitely should because it’s, it’s legit. I mean, and I send them an email about once a month, whenever I get Okay, another great newsletter. It really isn’t. It’s long form, but it’s, it’s fantastic. And he draws you in the subject. We had a really good subject line every time. So you need to go through and just use limited subject lines, I’m sure. I don’t know if he’ll mind or not. But they’re really freaking good. So I think you should do that. Alright, so I think we could talk all day about this. But we all have work to do. So. I’m gonna wrap it up. Before we do I want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group get involved in there. We’re pushing 850 I’m not sure if we’re 850. Yet, we got a lot of people in there producing, contributing and adding content. So join us. Also, if you don’t mind, give us a five star review. You’re like Jonathan, you’ve been joined us for the beginning. Plenty of now you’re in a five star review. Please do so take 10 minutes and do it now. Jimmy, what’s your tip of the week? Your hacking the week?

Jim Hacking
Before I get to my hack of the week. I want to remind everyone that early bird pricing for Maxwell comm expires on the last day of February 2019, we extended it out a little bit because we were assembling our speaker list and our topics. And that is done. And the topics should be posted. By the time you hear this topics will be posted. I’m getting really excited. And about the speakers. As the topics are coming in, I was thinking to myself, you know, I hope Tyson that while we do this conference, if we keep doing it year after year, I mean, I’m gonna be sitting in the front row taking notes, because just for an example, Michael liner is going to do one on going all in on LinkedIn. And that’s something that I’ve been tinkering around with Ken and I’ve been working on LinkedIn. So I’m really excited about the topics as they’re coming in. So make sure if you’re thinking about joining us, the price goes up to its highest price after February 28. So if you’re thinking about coming, now’s the time,

Tyson Mutrux
real quick that Jamie, I was talking to Michael before he decided to finally do that topic. And he’s doing it, he’s actually going to do it, he’s testing it out. He’s doing testing and tracking is testing. So whatever he presents at the conference is going to be okay, here are the numbers, he’s gonna give you data to show you this is working, or this is not working, do this and don’t do this. So that one alone is gonna be really, really valuable.

Jim Hacking
All right, so for my hack of the week, I was listening on the elliptical yesterday to a podcast with my guy that I really liked James Schramko, from Australia. And he did a whole episode on green lists for your clients like which which clients, you know, we all have our, like red marks on clients, and he did one on green marks. So in other words, thinking through and sitting there trying to figure out what are the what are the signs that this person sitting across from me, would be a good client? We’ve actually Tyson I’ve actually had episodes in the past where we talk about, you know, what are the signs of a crazy potential client, but he James has spent some time thinking about what are the hallmarks of really good clients. And I think that’s something that we could all benefit from. We’ve touched on that before it prior from retreats, but I think I’m going to sit down and really look at the characteristics of what makes an ideal client and then seeing how we can spot that during the initial console. Because one thing that I’ve been absolutely convinced of over the last two years is, the way someone comes in as a client is the way they’re going to be throughout the process. So if they’re a pain in the butt, with their scheduling, or paying the fee, or whatever, they’re probably going to be that way throughout the entire representation. So looking for those positive things, those signs, I think it’s a really good idea.

Tyson Mutrux
Love it. Good stuff. by Jonathan, you know, the routine, what’s your tip for hacking the week?

Jonathan Hawkins
This is what I’ve been trying for the last month. And I commend that, listeners try that. So give up the news for a month. So don’t read it. Don’t listen to it. Don’t watch it. You know, I was a news junkie. So it took me a few days to get get out of routine. But But I tell you, I just freed up more time. So I’m not reading the news. And it’s you know, I’ve got more mental clarity and some of the angst that sort of has seeped in over the last year or so, in the news is gone. It’s great. And I figure if it’s, if it’s important enough, my wife will tell me, or someone else will tell me. But all the daily negative chatter that’s in the news. I don’t know about it. And I feel great.

Tyson Mutrux
You know, it’s funny job. And I’ve sort of been doing the same thing for a while. So Tim Ferriss has talked a long time that not, you know, watching the news, and he doesn’t like to listen to music, don’t don’t listen to talk radio, they’re doing that. So sort of while I haven’t really, I don’t pay regular attention to the news. It’s something they haven’t been watching this for that time. Otherwise, I don’t really watch it. So I’m with you. I mean, here’s your stress level goes down. I mean, if something big happens, you’re gonna find out. I think that’s, that’s a really, really good piece of advice. So Jimmy, I’m gonna bring it sort of back a little bit. I think we’re always No telling people about products or apps. I think what I’m instead today, what am I tell you to do? Here, here’s my suggestion. But one thing in your life that you should stop doing, whether it’s using an app, or watching the news, or getting on Facebook for eight hours a day, apparently, the average person spends an hour or 15 minutes on Facebook, every single day, the average person on the high end, it’s like eight hours. I don’t know what the average is 15 minutes. So leave it like that 15 minutes is that you can get worked out even if you work out fitting into better or if you read a lot of things one thing in your life that you can stop doing over the next week. And then hopefully, they’ll turn it over the next month or next year. So just pick one thing in your life to stop doing and then hopefully, Jonathan, thank you so much for coming on. We really really appreciate it. Hopefully God people got a lot out of this episode because we get to dig deep on a couple of things with you and I think that that maybe will help a couple others People. Thanks so much for coming on Jonathan.