Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a business owner who needs to hire a vendor? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson discusses what to do when you are ready to hire vendors for your business.

Choosing the right vendor can really make or break a business. It is important to think about a few different things when considering a vendor. Tyson shares how it is important to ask the right questions. One of these questions is to ask about a trial period, so you can test and see if the vendor is the right fit and meets all of your business needs. Another question is to ask if their product or service works with the systems of your business. This will allow you to find out if the vendor is compatible and has everything your business needs. Questions like this will ensure you are not wasting money on a vendor that is not a right fit. If you plan on working with a vendor for a long time, it is crucial that you are covering all of your bases and getting all your questions and concerns addressed.

Researching a vendor is another important thing to consider before signing a contract. Ask the vendor for their annual reports or data to show their results. Reach out to individuals or other companies who have worked with them and who have provided good and bad reviews. This will give you a first hand account of how the vendor has worked with other companies. If you are hiring vendors for copywriting or research, find out if you can get samples of their work as part of the research to see if they are telling the truth when it comes to how good they claim to be.

Take a listen.

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 Ask the right questions when interviewing vendors
  • 4:00 The importance of insisting on a trial period
  • 5:52 The significance of doing thorough research for potential vendors
  • 7:55 Importance of ensuring that vendors have experience in the specific niche

Resources:

Transcripts: What to Ask When Interviewing Vendors for Your Firm

Hey, it's Tyson. I'm back with another Byte Size episode that is with this one, hopefully packs a punch, we're going to be talking about something that might save you tens of thousands of dollars and lots of headaches and time and what to ask when interviewing vendors for your firm. And so I'm going to get into some things to ask and some topics to delve into. And whether you're talking about an SEO expert to boost your online presence or a bookkeeper to manage your books.

As many of you know, and some of you have probably experienced, choosing the right vendor can make or break you, can make you a lot of money, it can cost you a lot of money. And that's why I want to talk about this. Before I dive into this episode though, before I dive into this episode though, I just want to remind you, check out Maximum Layer Minimum Time. It's something that Jim and I put together. We're really proud of it. It's a unique roadmap that we put together for law firm owners. We're giving stage one.

absolutely free to our listeners. Just text stage one to 314-501-9260. When you join the guild, you get all three stages for free and we'll be adding on to those as we go. But stage one, absolutely free for you. Cost you absolutely nothing. All you have to do is text us and you will get that absolutely free. Okay, so let's talk about the topic for today. And before I get into that, I'm gonna talk about an experience I had with a vendor. I won't use the vendor's name or…

even what category they're in. But, um, last year, early last year, we, we paid them as about 20, or just over $20,000 upfront. Okay. We gave them a lot of money and we thought that they were going to do a lot of good for us. They had a nice little slide presentation that they went through and they were, um, we thought it was going to be great. We thought it was going to be good. We, we had seen some other people, other law firm owners that I trust using them and

We thought for sure it was going to work out. And we'd asked a lot of questions. Um, our CTO, Kashif was on all of our calls. We asked lots of good questions and, um, what, where we went wrong, we had two things that we, we wanted that we did not get before we paid them. One was we wanted, we wanted a demo. We wanted not just a demo, but we wanted to be able to

Tyson (02:38.462)
have a trial period and we just asked for like a week. Okay, we didn't ask for like, you know, months and months of trial. We asked for a week so we could test it out because we wanted to make sure that we could test it out and that would work with what we, for what we needed it for. The other thing is, is that we wanted to make sure that it worked with our systems and we let them know, we showed them all the APIs that we were using and let them know that we needed to make sure that it did the specific things. And again, I'm not going to get into too many more details so it doesn't reveal who it is,

We told them all of our specifications and they promised us, they assured us that those things would happen. That would all work. Well, we got nine months down the road after we had gone back over and over and over again, we just pulled the plug. We said, this just isn't going to work. This is absurd.

long story short, they've refused to give us the money back. And so we're out of the time, but I care less about the money than the time that we've wasted on it. And it's just one of those things where it's very frustrating. And if we had stuck to our guns, I wouldn't be talking about this right now, but we had not stuck to our guns. So that's my first topic I want to talk about is if you have specifications that you have, first of all, especially if it's a software.

demand and don't budge on this and forever we won't budge on this. I talk about this in another episode when it comes to software. You got to have a trial. You got to have a trial period of it that you can use it to make sure it works with your systems just because some sales rep says that it does, doesn't mean that it does. We'd even had, what's interesting is we had conversations with not just the sales team, but we'd had with conversations with their developers, everyone that works on the backend and they all made all these promises. So.

Insist on a trial period, stick to your guns. The other thing with this too is though, just because they promise it, make sure it's in writing. Okay, make sure it's in writing. And we have emails back and forth where they do say things that it's in writing, but make it a part of your agreement. And that's something we probably should have done. We probably should have said, I want to, okay, I understand you're saying this via email, but we should have this in writing. That battle's not over with by the way, but you know, that's not the topic of today.

Tyson (05:00.542)
So make sure that though you're sticking to your gun. So if you have specific requirements, you need to ensure that those things with your vendors, whatever the vendor is, many of us are using many, many softwares these days. And so many of the software, many of the vendors are softwares, but it doesn't matter, make sure whatever your requirements are, ensure that those things can be met, do your homework too. And we, what's interesting is we've done our homework. We've done a lot of homework with this company.

And we had interviewed people, we'd asked people, we'd interviewed them. And it's one of those things, sometimes you get it wrong, but definitely do your homework though. Make sure you're asking around, get recommendations from people. Sometimes they don't pan out, and that's just how it works sometimes. Whenever you are interviewing them specifically, and I definitely recommend having multiple interviews. And…

especially when you're talking about someone that's like, you know, an SEO company or it's a bookkeeper, someone that you are going to hopefully be working with for several years, that's gonna have a really substantial impact on your company. You need to have multiple conversations with them, sit down them, ask them lots of questions. You're gonna go through all the topics like, you know, the experience, the track record. When I'm dealing with…

Any type of marketing company, I'm looking for data. You show me data. And if they refuse to show you data, run. Okay. You want to see results. If they have the experience and they have the track record, guess what? Their customers are going to be happy to talk about it too. Get recommendations from other customers. I wouldn't, and I also wouldn't just ask for the references because they're obviously going to give you the best references. Go look at…

If they've got Google reviews, look at their Google reviews. See if you can find any other people that they didn't recommend that you know uses the product and they just cold call them or send them an email. Ask for their honest feedback. But figuring that out and looking at the data, data is going to tell you, data doesn't lie, right? Of course you can sort of take data and skew it a little bit, but results are what matters and get the data to show that, especially when it comes to marketing companies.

Tyson (07:17.33)
bookkeepers, get examples of other types of books that they put together. They can give you screenshots, they can do a lot of other things where they're not revealing who their actual clients are when it comes to CPAs and all that, but get examples of their previous work. So whether that's data, or if it's someone that's doing copywriting, whatever it may be, get samples of their previous work. Because that's going to help you.

make a lot of your decisions. I would say also make sure that you understand your niche. That's another part of this. And understand what their niche as well. Just because they work with law firms does not mean that they work with personal injury law firms or criminal defense law firms or trademark attorneys, whatever it may be. The accounting for an injury law firm is substantially different from a criminal defense firm. Okay.

The way we manage our money is just different. We front a lot of expenses. Criminal defense attorneys to my knowledge don't do that. You're not advancing a lot of costs. We're advancing hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year. Sometimes in multiple months, we're putting that much money in just one month. So it's just different. And so make sure that they have worked in your niche before.

Okay. That's a really key part of this. Cause I've heard people say, oh, you know, I'm a bookkeeper for lawyers. Well, are you, cause we've interviewed bookkeepers. Well, have you worked with personal injury attorneys before? Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, tell me how do you manage this situation? I would give them situations. So role play with them. That's another way is like you give them fact-based scenarios that things that have happened to you in the past and ask them how they would work with it. That's how we ruled out a bunch of bookkeepers because we said, okay.

Here's the situation." And then they give us an answer that just is clearly not acceptable. And then we rule them out. That's another way that you could do it. All right, one of the last things I wanna get to is just communication and reporting. And so figure out when you are interviewing them, how are you all gonna communicate? How are you gonna get updates on things? I mean, think about how you…

Tyson (09:36.754)
If you were a client of your firm, how would you want to be dealt with? Right? Same thing with when it comes to you're going to be a customer of these vendors. Okay. So how are you going to be communicating? How are you going to communicate with them? How can you get ahold of them? How are they going to get ahold of you? And then what's the reporting look like? So how are they going to report the results back to you? What is it? What is it that you're going to get out of it? What is it that you want out of it? Okay. What are your goals? Figure out what your goals are. And then how are they going to report back to you?

whether or not they're actually achieving those goals or getting you close to those goals. That's a biggie. Okay. Then the last thing other than trust your gut. So I'll get to the other thing last, but trust your gut here. I did not have the greatest feeling whenever I was dealing with that vendor. And I should have trusted my gut, but what I did was I figured…

Okay, I've got good recommendations from attorneys I trust and they like them. And I just had in my gut, it's like, this just isn't going to work and it didn't work. So trust your gut. And that could have saved me a lot of money. But the other part is pricing. Make sure that you know exactly what the pricing models are. There are many people have heard about the lawyer tax. That is the real thing. Discuss pricing upfront. If you can.

If you can mask what profession you're in, that's really hard to do by the way. It's easier to do when you're talking about VAs. If you, sometimes I'll do this on Upwork, I won't tell people what the business is and the pricing changes drastically. So if you can figure something like that out with vendors and just shield what you actually do, that could be a way to save you money. But no matter what, figure out what the pricing is upfront and make sure that there's nothing that's gonna escalate. What is it, what's it gonna be in five years?

Figure out, okay, this is what I'm charging, being charged now, but does that price go up over time? Figure out things like that. Figure all that up upfront. That way you're not stuck in, especially with bookkeepers, SEO companies, things like that where you're gonna be with them for several years potentially. What you don't want is you're so entrenched with them, right, you're there with them for a year, and all of a sudden your prices go up 20%. That's a problem. Be careful about things like that. All right.

Tyson (11:59.31)
That is all I have for today. Obviously selecting the right vendor. It's an absolutely important decision, especially with many of those that I mentioned, it can have lasting impacts on your firm's trajectory. So be very, very careful. Take your time, ask the hard questions and that way you can make an informed choice. As a reminder, if you have something you want me to cover on the Saturday shows, just shoot me a text, let me know what you want me to cover. 314-501-9260. And I'll get to it if I can.

Until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Are you someone who has a goal for the New Year but unsure if you will achieve it? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, CEO Becca Eberhart discusses the importance of keeping promises to oneself for personal growth and goal achievement. 

A new year means new goals and achievements. For many people, they are confident that they will achieve their New Year's resolution. For others, they make that promise and then let things fall behind. Becca shares how important it is to not break promises to yourself. In order to see change or growth, the key is to make commitments that are possible in order to get to your goal. 

For example, if you have a goal to lose 10 pounds in 3 months, make a commitment to go to the gym 1 hour a day or meal prep for work days. The follow through is the only thing that will keep that promise. If you struggle to keep promises to yourself, Becca shares a few ways to change this. One way is to change your mindset to respecting yourself the way you do others. Most times, people will not let a friend down so don't do it to yourself.

Following through with promises is more realistic if it is documented. It is so easy to just say in your head that you will lose 10 pounds or eat healthier. Write the promise down on a sticky note or in your notes app on your phone. This is a good way to hold yourself accountable and turn the promise from a thought into something tangible. Holding yourself accountable also shows in being realistic in your goals and what you can actually achieve. Don't set too big a goal if you truly know you can't deliver!

Take a listen to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 Becca discusses the significance of keeping promises to oneself
  • 2:24 Becca offers advice on how to make changes
  • 3:25 Becca explains the importance of writing down promises

Resources:

Transcripts: Stop Doing This for Lasting Change

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Becca Eberhart (00:00:24) - Welcome to another episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast and Happy New Year. I'm Becca Eberhardt, CEO at Maximum Lawyer, and this week we're kicking off 2024. In today's episode, we're talking about one way to make this year different from the rest. And let's be honest, there's a ton of things that you can do to make this year different or better, and it can be something different for everyone. But I do think this one thing could help anyone, and it's a great thing to reflect on and ask yourself, where do I stand on this one thing? And that is, do you break promises to yourself? I was once on a coaching call and they asked us, how confident are you that you'll meet this goal that you set for yourself? And they were a little surprised when I confidently said, oh, I'll meet it.

Becca Eberhart (00:01:10) - I don't break promises to myself, but it wasn't always this way. Truthfully, this confidence came from becoming sick and tired of self-sabotage. I've always tried my best to keep my word to everyone else, but when it came to myself, it wasn't nearly as important. That was until I was able to identify that I wasn't growing as quickly as I wanted, and I wasn't seeing the progress I wanted in my life, and that was because I was consistently breaking the promises I made to myself. So often we make promises to others and try our best to keep them. Yet when it comes to the commitments we make to ourselves, the follow through can be a bit more elusive. The truth is, we've all broken promises like this and it might feel like no big deal. After all, the only person you're letting down is you. Author Scott H. Young said it best. Breaking promises to yourself has the same cost as breaking it to other people, except the person you trust. Less is you. Breaking promises to yourself almost guarantees that you'll continue to do it because you subconsciously believe yourself less and less every time you say you're going to do something and then don't follow through.

Becca Eberhart (00:02:24) - You might be thinking, yes, keeping promises to myself sounds great, but how do I make the change when I'm giving my all to everyone else and I feel like I don't have the time or energy left? And that's what makes it easy for me to break the promises I make to myself. First, you have to flip your mindset. If you don't hold the belief that breaking promises to yourself is a bad thing, you won't stop. But if you can put your self-respect on the same level as everyone else in your life that you consistently do things for, you'll soon see changes in what you accomplish next. If you make a promise and nobody heard it. Did it really happen? The problem with making promises only in your mind is there's no trail, no accountability, and no consequences when you fail to follow through. The entire act of breaking promises to yourself can seem like not that big of a deal when this is the way you go about it. But this is why we need to change how we make our promises.

Becca Eberhart (00:03:25) - If you set out to do something, it needs to be written down somewhere. Maybe it's just a sticky note on your desk where you can see it every day. Or maybe you love a good to do list, so you put it in the notes app on your phone or in a task management software. I really like adding goals into task management software like asana, even if it's for my personal life. This way you can set it to recurring if it's a habit you're trying to incorporate, or at a due date. If it's something more like a project that you can complete by taking your promise from a mere thought to writing it down, you turn it into something tangible. Finally, in making this change stick is to commit to less. Wait, what? You said this was about making this year better? Well, in this case, less is more or better. You wouldn't schedule an appointment with your doctor when you couldn't go right? So don't over schedule or overcommit yourself to yourself. Be as realistic as you are with others when you tell yourself you're going to do something.

Becca Eberhart (00:04:27) - It's human nature to want to think about future possibilities and dream big. But there's a reason most people don't keep their New Year's resolutions by being someone who agrees to less but regularly follows through, you'll cultivate more self-respect, trust, and confidence. And when you say no to a new promise, you'll be saying yes to investing in the promises you've already made. That's it for this week. Cheers to 2024, a year where keeping our promises to ourselves becomes the foundation for the lives we want to live, and the businesses we want to grow.

Speaker 1 (00:05:04) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast to stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who needs help with managing finances? In this podcast episode, Jim and Tyson converse with Jessica, a CPA from Silver Peaks Accounting Service, who specializes in accounting for law firms. They discuss common accounting mistakes that law firms make.

As a CPA who works with attorneys, Jessica shares things that lawyers should not be doing when it comes to keeping their books straight and finances in order. One thing is not having accurate trust accounts. It is so important to ensure accounting firms specialize in law firms because if not, the numbers will not be accurate. Getting monthly reports will allow for law firms to stay on top of what is happening and ensure their numbers match. Another thing that many people fall behind on is creating a system to keep and log receipts for expenses. It can be as simple as taking a photo of a receipt and sending it to an assistant or adding it to a folder on your phone. Find a system that works for you!

Jim, Tyson and Jessica discuss what law firm owners need to do when it comes to profit. Jessica emphasizes the importance of ensuring expenses are not higher than the profit a firm is bringing in. To find this out, law firm owners can look at their profit margin percentage over time. Understanding this will also help decide if a firm can afford to bring in more employees to help the profit margin increase. The profit margin will also show if it is time to cut expenses. With that said, it is important to have a good balance when it comes to focusing on the profit margin. Jessica shares an example of a client who was so focused on cutting expenses for their firm, that the firm made less profit that year because the focus was not on making money.

Finding a tax professional that shares the same goals and morals as you is key to having great finances. Think about the kind of business owner you are. Are you conservative, aggressive or frugal? It is best to find a tax professional that shares those same ideals. The worst thing a law firm owner can do is find an aggressive tax professional when the firm is looking to save money. The business relationship will not last long if both sides don't agree.

Take a listen to learn more financial tips from Jessica!

Jim's Hack: Write down on a notepad what he wants to change about the direction of his firm. Spending 15 minutes everyday has brought more insight to bring change.

Jessica’s Tip: Keep things simple. Do what works for you and what will bring you happiness and success.

Tyson's Tip: Watch this Youtube video where Chris Williamson interviews Alex Hermosa. There are some great and valuable insights given.

Episode Highlights:

  • 2:57 The common trust account issues that law firm owners have
  • 7:57 Practical tips for managing expenses and receipts
  • 10:15 The importance of profit margin and tracking financial metrics
  • 11:40 Exploration of being overly focused on cutting expenses
  • 13:07 The concern of adding employees and the need to develop a plan

Connect with Jessica:

Resources:

Transcripts: Law Firm Owners and Accounting with Jessica Gonifas

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Jim Hacking (00:00:24) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:28) - And I'm Tyson Matrix. What's up Jimmy.

Jim Hacking (00:00:30) - Well your microphone sure sounds good Tyson.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:32) - Thanks, man. So does yours. I, I feel like my my cold is clearing up too, which is, which is nice. I don't even know if I'd call it a cold. I just like something wrong with my, uh, my voice today. But I feel good, so it's good. But yeah, I think the audio quality is fantastic. So how are you doing? How are you feeling?

Jim Hacking (00:00:48) - I'm great. I'm excited about our guest today. It's our old friend Jessica. Jessica is with Silver Peaks accounting service, the Empress, helping law firm owners build their kingdoms into empires. And she was a sponsor of our recent Miami mastermind.

Jim Hacking (00:01:02) - And I just saw that you left a note for each person who attended the mastermind. How kind of you, Jessica.

Jessica Gonifas (00:01:08) - Thank you. Yeah, it was great getting to meet folks and participate in a tiny part of your guys's amazing world that you built, so I'm thankful for the opportunity.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:17) - I can't wait for you to talk today. And I know that you're we were talking before the show, but you like to be prepared and have everything ready. But, uh, we'll ask you some nice, insightful questions. Hopefully that will allow you to shed all of your wonderful knowledge that you have, uh, about accounting. So before we kind of wait.

Jim Hacking (00:01:36) - Hold on, hold on. Jessica was on the show once before, so we've already heard.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:40) - I do know.

Jim Hacking (00:01:40) - That that's okay, because I remember the episode. I remember the episode. I was on a softball field in Iowa. I think when we recorded, I remember I was standing out in right field talking to Jessica. Right?

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:51) - So we.

Jim Hacking (00:01:52) - So sorry. Sorry. I didn't want to.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:53) - Interrupt your fight. No, it's fine, but I do not. Everybody's probably heard that episode, so just give a very condensed version as to who you are and what you do. And and then we'll kind of dive into a little bit more of that. But I just want to make sure that people have an idea as to who you are.

Jessica Gonifas (00:02:09) - Great. So yeah, I'm a CPA and our firm specializes in law firms, and we really work on the monthly accounting and bookkeeping side and also fractional CFO. So we want to help you understand your numbers, learn your numbers, and really be able to use that information to leverage your growth in the way that you want. So you can have the firm and the life that you dream of.

Jim Hacking (00:02:40) - Jessica, you do work with a lot of law firms. What are some of the things that you see law firm owners not doing correctly when it comes to their accounting?

Jessica Gonifas (00:02:49) - I think it's the trust account. I know you guys have probably heard that a million times, but it's a pain.

Jessica Gonifas (00:02:57) - You have to be very detailed. And I think the hardest thing is we get a lot of new clients that thought their accountant was handling it or thought it was being taken care of. And I can tell you in about 30s by looking at your financials, whether it's accurate or not. Um, so a lot of accounting firms will tell you, yeah, we're doing your trust accounting, but they just don't specialize in law firms. And we, uh, we recommend that you get a summary report from your account every month just to show that it balances. And that's going to give you a lot of peace of mind. But I would say nine out of ten, if not more of our new clients have trust account issues.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:45) - All right. So I've got a I've got to ask you this. So what are you whenever you you're looking that first 30s. What like what do you see on those financial statements that you're like okay, that's that's an issue. Like how like because like maybe by you talking about it, people can see it on theirs and see if there's an issue.

Jessica Gonifas (00:04:00) - So there's three things. One is your checking account balance for the trust needs to equal your client trust liability. So those two things are on your balance sheet. There are there is the option to track that separately off balance sheet. But most of our clients are already doing that on the balance sheet. That's the way I prefer to do it. But look at those two numbers. Does your checking account match that? It's usually called something like client trust liability or something along those lines. And then both of those numbers also need to match a report that comes out of your practice management system that shows you what your trust balance is in there. And that's the listing of every client and how much their trust is and the total for that. So those three things have to match. And most of the time we just got a new client. I was working on our stuff yesterday. Her checking account match the trust liability, which was great because usually that isn't matching. But then we pulled the report out of Clio and it's off by like 50 grand.

Jessica Gonifas (00:05:03) - So she's still got a trust issue because Clio says the clients have. I'm making this up 150,000 in trust. But her financial statements are showing only 100. So those three pieces have got to match. And that's got to be checked every month because we all make mistakes. Even my most meticulous clients, a mistake happens. And that's why we do that reconciliation every month.

Jim Hacking (00:05:30) - All right. So that was pretty exciting way to start the show. So let's continue. Let's continue the fun with what about corporate structures Jessica, do you do you have advice for our listeners, either for people getting ready to start their firm or who have who have started an LLC or what's your what's your thoughts on structure from a tax perspective?

Jessica Gonifas (00:05:50) - Yeah, I think the LLC is a given. Right. Everybody does that or a PLC just depending on your state, which is great. Um, but as far as the tax election, I think one thing that is confusing for non finance people is an LLC is not a tax collection.

Jessica Gonifas (00:06:06) - That's simply your business structure. And outside of that, you have to make a separate election for how you're going to be taxed. So the default years when folks are starting out is you're just a sole proprietor. You file a schedule C, and that works fine for a while, usually for a couple of years, depending on how aggressively you're growing. But at some point you really need to look at a higher level tax structure, which usually comes in as an S corporation. And we usually suggest that. And you have to look at your profit, because at that point you have to put yourself on payroll and you have to take reasonable salary. And there's some other pieces in that make things a bit more complex. When you do, that's corp election. But there's also some partnerships. But it's usually best, especially as the partnerships are growing, to go ahead and do S Corp election and change that partnership into an S Corp. So definitely talk to your tax person. And if you're kind of in the middle where maybe an escort makes sense, but you're not really sure yet, we recommend you talk to your tax preparer every year to see when they recommend that happens.

Jessica Gonifas (00:07:20) - So it's really about that open line of communication with your tax preparer.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:24) - All right. So I'm going to ask you I promise some more high level conversation or questions later on. But this one I'm asking more of a granular one. Do you have any practical tips on on managing expenses? And what I mean by that is like managing like the receipts of those expenses, for example, you go and you fuel up the vehicle because you're going on a trip or whatever, something like that. Like, like do you have some practical tips on dealing with things like that? Like we, we use a service called divvy, which actually makes it kind of easy. So we usually we'll snap a picture of it and it uploads it and it kind of links together and all that. Are there any other tips that you might have?

Jessica Gonifas (00:07:57) - I think you have to find something that works for you. So I always recommend when it comes to the accounting, at the end of the day, you need to have that receipt somewhere, right? And it needs to be somewhere that you can easily access it if you do get audit or need that information.

Jessica Gonifas (00:08:12) - And so for everybody that's going to look a little bit different. And I'm an advocate of creating the simplest system that's going to work for you. And depending on how many purchasers you have, you know you can get more complex. And I'm not even going to talk about risk assessment and risk of fraud and that sort of thing in this discussion, because that's a whole nother piece with receipts. But we have clients and I do it myself. I just snap a picture of it and email it to my assistant, and she keeps them in a folder by month. So it can be as simple as that is complex is your businesses. You can make these systems and processes as complex as you want, so find what works for you. If you are a paper person, then put a stack of them and give them to your assistant to scan and file. If you're not great about taking the pictures for me, the pictures work because I just do it instantly. It's done and I don't have to think about it again.

Jessica Gonifas (00:09:09) - But that's I guess that's my recommendation. Look at yourself as a person and what are you actually going to do? Right? Are you going to follow through and what's going to help you get that done as efficiently as possible and make sure you do have the receipts?

Jim Hacking (00:09:26) - Let's talk about profit and the difference between gross profits and net profits. And how business owners, law firm owners sometimes confuse the two. Get screwed up about the two, or don't look at the right things. What should what should we as law firm owners be looking at when it comes to profits?

Jessica Gonifas (00:09:44) - I'm always going to talk about net income. So the bottom line right. The overall profit I think I was just talking about this this morning. We can get so wrapped up in the revenue side. And how big is your firm. Oh my firm is $2 million a year and the revenue is great. Of course you don't have a business without the revenue, but at the end of the day, it's the profit that's really the leverage that you are going to have to reach your financial goals.

Jessica Gonifas (00:10:15) - It's on the profit side. So you can have a $3 million firm and have a very small profit margin, and you are not any further ahead than the guy in the. Office next to you that has a law firm and has $1 million firm, but they have a higher profit margin, right. So I've also run into the case where folks have grown their firm and their revenue numbers increasing, but their expenses are increasing at a rate higher than their profit. So they're working harder and they're making less money, which is not any anywhere any of us want to be. So it's that constant evaluation, what's working, what isn't working, and making changes in adjustments. You need to to make sure you're maintaining the profit that you want out of your firm.

Tyson Mutrux (00:11:12) - So what are what are some of those things that people can look at. So if an attorney is, you know, looking at their firm like what are some of the the financial metrics that they can look at to identify really if they're, if they're in this danger zone or if they're on the right track, is there anything like simple that they can look at, they can track to monitor things?

Jessica Gonifas (00:11:32) - Well, I think looking at that profit margin percentage over time is going to be very helpful for you.

Jessica Gonifas (00:11:40) - So I had I had a client that came in, and part of the reason he needed CFO was his firm had been growing, but he was getting less and less profit every year. So he wasn't really looking at the profit. He was just looking at what was happening in his bank account and. If you're tracking that over time, you know how it feels. So you know how it feels to run the firm today as compared to a year ago. And looking at that profit number over time is going to give you more of that data and that insight into exactly what's happening financially for you. So I think the profit is a big one. We talk about revenue all the time. And, um, you know, we can also get hyper focused on expenses. I've had a client that was just obsessed about cutting expenses. And what ended up happening was he was so focused on the expense side, his revenue dropped because he was spending all of his time figuring out how to save money. And his profit margin didn't get any better because he was cutting costs that he really needed to bring in more revenue.

Jessica Gonifas (00:12:47) - So it can really go both ways.

Tyson Mutrux (00:12:50) - I wonder how much of that has to do with people cutting overhead when it comes to employees, as opposed to like, cutting other expenses? Or are you, you know, generally able to connect the dots to cutting employees usually decreases revenues versus increasing revenues. Do you have any connection with that at all?

Jessica Gonifas (00:13:07) - I don't really on the cutting side, but on the growth side, that's probably the number one concern that folks come with is I want to add an employee, but I don't know if I can afford it, and I'm not comfortable and confident in how much more money they can help me bring in in my business. So that's a lot of the confidence and counseling and understanding your numbers process that we go through, and also the planning. So we develop a plan and help them feel comfortable monitoring that as they're going through the year as well. So I don't have a lot of correlation on the cutting side. But it's huge, huge, huge. On the growth and adding side.

Jim Hacking (00:13:54) - Jessica, what as a business owner, have you had to learn about yourself or about growing your accounting firm that might not be in that sort of traditional CPA mindset that we were talking about earlier?

Jessica Gonifas (00:14:07) - Oh, that's a good one. Um, a lot of things. Um, I just had a coaching call this morning with my coach where I downloaded on all of my new level, new devil issues. Right. So this is we continue to grow and we're growing rapidly. And we've, you know, we have more clients, which is part of growing. And there's a lot of new things that are surfacing with my team. And, you know, we're finding it takes a different skill set to manage 40 or 50 clients than it took us to manage 20. And there's also some clients that we currently have that don't really fit in with our model of where we're at now with 40 or 50 compared to, you know, 20 or whatever that number was. So I think it's probably, oh my gosh, so many things.

Jessica Gonifas (00:15:00) - Mindset. I could talk about mindset for ages and I think accountants and lawyers or have similar personalities and that, you know, we just want to get the work done and make the money. And there's not a lot of awareness of mindset. So that's probably been the number one thing that I have been a student of that has made my life successful. It is today. And I'm not just talking about money success, I'm talking about work life balance and all of the things that I have today that I never thought were possible five years ago. So I would say a couple of things mindset. And then the second one is you're kind of in this if you want to grow, you're in this sort of constant improvement cycle, and it can get exhausting because it's like, okay, I hit the goal, I hit the revenue goal, I hit the profit goal. But oh my gosh, we're, you know, losing this type of client now because we're not doing as good of a job at X, Y, and Z as we used to do.

Jessica Gonifas (00:15:58) - And so we need to readjust that. Or maybe this kind of potential client that I thought was going to be a good one doesn't fit in our model anymore now as we're growing. So it's that constant evaluation of where you're at in your firm. And it can get exhausting, especially if you're a type A personality. You have to figure out how to balance all of that, and you're not going to solve all of the issues today.

Tyson Mutrux (00:16:22) - So there are there are three things that I hear a lot, probably more than that. I hear you see your TikToks, you hear people talking about it on Facebook and Instagram, like Twitter, whatever X now I guess. But you hear like, okay, I hear you should you should put your kids on the payroll. You should hire your spouse to be on the payroll. You should buy a truck. You should wrap your vehicle like there's like, I hear all these different things. How much of that is because of what I just said and how how much of that is.

Tyson Mutrux (00:16:50) - Oh, yeah. If if it's I guess if it's ethical and legal, you should do it, I guess so. So give me your give me your thoughts on that because I hear it all the time and I'm like, I don't know, it sounds really.

Jessica Gonifas (00:17:01) - Actually, I think it comes down to two things. The first one, and this comes to mind when it's putting your spouse or your kids on payroll, is are they actually doing something? I mean, if you get audited by the IRS, they're going to ask you what your kid was actually doing for your business because you were paying them. And if you can stand in front of an IRS examiner and say, you know, my kid was stuffing envelopes, my kid was shredding documents, my kid was cleaning the office. Um, my kid was actually posting things on social media. Absolutely. Do it. Just it's it's a no brainer. Same with your spouse. But if you're putting your two year old on payroll because they show up at a open house that you have once a year and they're cute, I can't.

Jessica Gonifas (00:17:49) - Personally, I couldn't sleep at night knowing that that's what I was coming forward with.

Tyson Mutrux (00:17:54) - The one I hear all the time is take photographs of your kids and put them in your marketing materials, is what I hear. That's I hear that all the time.

Jessica Gonifas (00:18:01) - So sure. But you're going to pay them as a model for one time. At what would you pay a model to be in your brochure? You're not going to pay them $500 a month just because they're pictures in your brochure. And you took their picture once and it took 30 minutes, you hear?

Tyson Mutrux (00:18:18) - You heard it here first. Guys.

Jim Hacking (00:18:20) - I've never heard of this as a as an idea.

Jessica Gonifas (00:18:24) - Um, so that's my piece on the kids. And, you know, what can you sleep with at night? And that's always my check with myself. If I'm doing something that I should or shouldn't be. So that's kind of on the kid thing, the vehicles and stuff. My big thing, and I've done videos on this before is if it's needed, if it's necessary, you're going to spend money on it anyway.

Jessica Gonifas (00:18:51) - Do it. But if you don't. So we're getting towards your end and I hear this spend your money, spend your money. My accountant told me to spend my money. But do you need to spend your money? Right? Because let's say you're spending ten grand and you're in a 20% tax bracket. You're saving $2,000 to spend ten grand. Is that something you actually need to spend ten grand on? Because at the end of the day, you're out $8,000. Did you need it? Does your business need it? And furthermore, the IRS says it has to be reasonable and necessary to be a business expense. So I always try to run it by that to reasonable and necessary. Those are the two things an auditor is going to look at when they're auditing your business expenses.

Jim Hacking (00:19:39) - One of our members the other day floated the idea of sort of on a regular basis, sending his, like last two years of taxes to other CPAs to see what they think and whether they could save them money and all that stuff.

Jim Hacking (00:19:54) - What are your thoughts on that, Miss Jessica?

Jessica Gonifas (00:19:57) - There's a lot of areas in tax law that are kind of gray, which is a little scary. And different tax professionals are more aggressive and some are more conservative. So I think it's important that you find somebody that fits in with where you're at now. I'm on the very conservative side, and I would that's the kind of tax person I would hire. And I have talked to other law firm owners that are like, I want someone that's aggressive. I'm fine. I'll justify it if I have to, if I get audited. But I want somebody on the aggressive side and that is completely okay. If that fits in with your personality and where you want to go. So I think it's important to find somebody that fits in with where you're at. He could do that, but he's definitely going to get a different opinion every single time he does it.

Tyson Mutrux (00:20:48) - Probably I love it. That's great advice. All right Jessica, we are getting close to time.

Tyson Mutrux (00:20:52) - So I am going to start to wrap things up. If if people want to work with you, what's the best way of reaching out to you and trying to get something set up?

Jessica Gonifas (00:21:00) - Probably just go to the website. So Silver Peaks, CPA comm, and we have tons of places for you to submit a request or schedule a time to chat with us. So that's probably the easiest way. If you're on Facebook, you can message me. I'm on Facebook a lot, not on LinkedIn as much, but definitely Facebook is kind of my go to. So you can always message me on Facebook or email me and the email is on the website as well. So there's tons and tons of ways, I think, to get in touch with us because we're on all the social media places.

Tyson Mutrux (00:21:36) - Love it. Thank you so much, Jessica. Hopefully people will reach out to you. I mean, you just demonstrated, uh, your a ton of knowledge already, so hopefully, um, people reach out to you.

Tyson Mutrux (00:21:46) - Uh. Excellent stuff. Uh, all right, let's get to our tips and hacks. The week before I do that, though, I want to remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group. Just search Maximum Lawyer and you'll find us there. If you want a higher level conversation and the ability to meet with us at quarterly. Your minds. Go to Max Law Guild. Com as Jim said Jessica, they they sponsored the last quarterly mastermind in Miami and it was a wonderful success. So thank you so much for that Jessica. And so yeah join us at Max law gil.com. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Jim Hacking (00:22:19) - So I have been a little frustrated with the direction of the firm lately, and I'm trying to get to the root of it. So I pulled out a legal pad, and every day I'm writing with an ink pen for 15 minutes, just taking notes on what a what it is that I want. And I'm about 12 days in. I'm getting insights every day. I still haven't gotten to the whole thing, but I've figured out a whole lot of stuff.

Jim Hacking (00:22:42) - And I think there's just that, that whole brain hand pen connection that just there's no substitute. You can't do it on your phone in the same way.

Tyson Mutrux (00:22:50) - Why not a pencil? I'm so curious.

Jim Hacking (00:22:52) - I don't know, I hate pencils.

Tyson Mutrux (00:22:54) - Well, you emphasized ink pen, so I was just wondering if there was a reason behind it, so I was. That's why. Okay. Very cool. I like it writing stuff down. Like, whenever I use my remarkable I do I just I do enjoy writing like it's instead of typing something down. I definitely enjoy writing something down. There's there's something more of a connection to it. I really do like, so good stuff. Uh, all right, Jessica, you know the routine because you've done this before. We always ask our guest to give a tip or a hack for us. So what you got for us?

Jessica Gonifas (00:23:22) - I think it would be keep it simple. Like we can have so many systems and processes. And I was just talking to a client the other day.

Jessica Gonifas (00:23:32) - He's like, I don't think I have enough key performance indicators I'm tracking. And I said, yeah, but are they giving you the information you need? Absolutely. Okay. Then you have enough, right? Like I think we get bombarded with iOS and I think iOS is great and all those systems are great, but do what works for you and makes you happy and gives you the firm that you want.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:53) - I think that is fantastic advice. I 100% agree with you. Uh, excellent. So my my tip of the week is a YouTube video. It is a fairly long one. It's almost three hours, but it's it's Chris Williamson interviewing Alex Hermosa. And it is it is really, really interesting. I just in the first ten minutes I got some really, really good insights and valuable insights. And it's a really deep conversation and hopefully people will check it out. It gives me a different perspective. And I've always liked Alex Hermosa, but it makes me respect me even more. Just here to talk about some of the things that he that he does.

Tyson Mutrux (00:24:30) - And, um, there's definitely some Burn the Boats feels in there as well, so I recommend that you check it out. I was really I was just fascinated by the entire conversation. So hopefully you check it out. But Jessica, thank you so much for coming on again and sharing all of your awesome knowledge and for being a wonderful sponsor to the Guild, and we can't wait to continue working with you because you all just just wonderful to work with.

Speaker 1 (00:24:54) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who needs more financial tips to grow your firm? In this final episode of a five-part series, Jim and Tyson discuss financial strategies for law firms. 

Jim shares how it is a great financial hack to diversify revenue streams so you are able to get cases from different areas. There are probably dozens of cases that would never enter the door if you did not seek them out in different sectors. This will allow for a wide variety of cases and clients that could be beneficial for your firm. Another way to diversity is something called “white labeling”. This is when you offer something to a client in partnership with another law firm. This could be offering your client a package from another firm, where you get a percentage of what is sold.

Tyson shares a tip of cutting costs where it makes sense. Review all of your expenses, which includes subscriptions and softwares and really iron down what you are actually using for your firm. If you know something is not useful, cancel that subscription so more money goes into your pocket.

Listen in to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:16 The importance of exploring new sources of income
  • 4:08 Tips to save money and increase profitability
  • 6:00 Emphasizing the importance of having a work-life balance

Resources:

Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Finances

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is the final part of our five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you in setting your firm up for next year in one hour per day. If you haven't listened to episodes one through four, go back and listen to them first, then come back here. Today's hour will be spent on finance. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:00:23) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:46) - Day five. It's Saturday and we are talking about finances, Jimmy. And this is one where some of you might want to say, oh, it's Saturday. I don't want to do any work, but this might be the most important day of all of them. And because your finances getting those in order are important. So where are you starting, Jimmy? What are you doing with that hour?

*Jim Hacking * (00:01:07) - Well, this might not be a big surprise to you, Tyson, but I don't have a lot of fun or energy behind budgeting or cost control.

*Jim Hacking * (00:01:16) - Those things are just sort of not my bag. We have other people in the office, especially Amani, my wife, who's really good at those kinds of things. I tend to gravitate towards things like diversifying revenue streams. Where am I going to get new lines of cases? In fact, at our mastermind in Miami this year, I was listening to a fellow immigration lawyer talking about a type of case that we don't handle that I thought could actually fold into nicely into our firm. And it also is seasonal and it has sort of times of the year where it's busy. And it happens to be that those times of year aren't really busy for us. So I thought that that might be something new. So so, you know, Dean Jackson would say, get out your legal pad and just sort of brainstorm on sources of revenue that you might be ignoring at your peril that you could have been using or that you can use in 2024 to, like, try to bring a new business, might be that you've gone completely digital and try to get all your cases electronically.

*Jim Hacking * (00:02:13) - Well, maybe we should spend a little bit of time focusing on, you know, referrals and meeting other lawyers and finding cases that way. So I think that diversification when it comes to income streams, marketing and where potential cases come from is always going to be time well spent.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:30) - I think that that's great. Let me ask you something. If I am in the United States, so I, I move from let's say I move from India, okay? And I bring my kids with me, and then I ultimately become a U.S. citizen. Do my kids become a U.S. citizen or do they not become a U.S. citizen?

*Jim Hacking * (00:02:49) - So if if, uh, there's rules on that and when you entered. But basically, if you become a citizen before they turn 18 and they're living with you in their custody, they have a green card. Basically, they're going to become citizens by operation of law.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:03) - Interesting. Okay. But let's say that they by the time you become a U.S. citizen, they're like 22. What happens then?

*Jim Hacking * (00:03:09) - Well, assuming they had a green card, they would have to apply on their own.

*Jim Hacking * (00:03:12) - So like Adele's mom naturalized. But when Adele's mom naturalized Adele was 19. So Adele had to go through the naturalization process herself actually, while she was working with me.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:21) - Gotcha. Okay, so the reason why I was asking is so I think if I were so your initial answer changes a little bit, but I think what you could do is, uh, if her personal injury attorneys especially, we could white label. And this is just, um, based on what you're talking about when it comes to, like, finding different revenue streams without actually handling probate or not probate cases, uh, estate planning cases, we could white label something with another, another law firm, or we could partner with another law firm to offer something to our clients. So, like, if someone came to you, Jim, and said, and you may not, you know, agree to do something like this, but let's say that they came to you and they said, hey, offer this estate planning package worth $5,000 to your to your email list, and let's say we'll offer it for, you know, $4,000, and we'll give you a third of it or something like that.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:08) - Well, that could actually be a significant amount of money in your pocket. So that's just one suggestion based on what you said. But you can there's other ways that you can find revenue streams without actually taking on a completely new case type. So I think that that taking that time to think about those things is time well spent. But I am going to go more towards the the cost control strategies is where I'm going to go, Jim. And during this time, this one hour is is a way that you could add tens of thousands of dollars into your pocket without lifting another finger, without getting another case, without doing a whole lot of work just by cutting some costs. And so if you go through so review your vendor list and like Jim was told to identify those renewal dates, but and see if, if there's a renewal coming up like for example, I know that we have a renewal with RingCentral. We pay them yearly. It's coming up soon and I need to make sure that we have got that canceled because we're switching to another platform.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:04) - You look at those recurring expenses and see where you can cut those things and actually determine if you truly do need those things and do you actually use them. There's a program up top of my head where I keep telling myself I'm going to use it, but I've been locked in at such a low price, I've been keeping it. The reality is, is that we just need to get rid of it because it's we're just not using it and then find like once you've gone through that list and you've cut these things, cancel all those all of those items that you're paying for on a regular basis, you're going to be so surprised by how much more money you're going to put in your pocket. At the end of the day, it's going to make you mad, actually. So if you're not doing that on a regular basis, use this time to do that. That way you can can save yourself a bunch of money and. And make more money at the same time. All right, Jimmy, any final word? So this is now we're a couple days before New Year, so I guess happy New Year, everybody.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:53) - Merry Christmas, everyone that, uh, celebrates Christmas. But any any final words from the Jimbo.

*Jim Hacking * (00:06:00) - Yeah. And that would be enjoy the other seven hours of your business day. Don't feel like you have to do all this stuff. Um, one thing I've learned this year in 2023 is that you get a lot more done when you do less. You're a lot more effective when you're not overloaded. So we we really were trying to be purposeful about how to spend these hours for that week, um, one hour each day and that you make sure that you're getting good sleep, you're having fun, you're relaxing with family, you're seeing your loved ones, you're enjoying the holidays, and you know there's a time for everything, but don't feel like you have to slave away that whole week when your office is closed.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:39) - Yeah. And whether you use our our examples or not, use that one hour each day and just knock it out of the park. You're you're going to be so much better for it if you do that.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:49) - So spend that time one hour a day, get it knocked out and just be happier for it. All right, man, uh, let's end it and have a wonderful day.

Speaker 2 (00:07:00) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your host, and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Do you know how many softwares and subscriptions your firm is using? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Jim and Tyson discuss the importance of implementing systems in law firms. This is part four of a five part series where Jim and Tyson help firms launch in 2024.

Jim and Tyson delve into the best ways to systemize firms. A lot of firms spend money on softwares and subscriptions to help with workflows and organization. But, some firms are spending too much on duplication or systems that are no longer helping the firm succeed. A great tip is to do an inventory of all the softwares that your firm uses and think about what can be removed. Another thing to do is keep track of renewal dates. Maybe there is a software that has a renewal date on January 1 and you realize you no longer need it. Go ahead and cancel that to save your firm money in the New Year.

Tyson shares the importance of coming up with a process for system checks. There can be times where something goes wrong that you are not aware of. Are your birthday texts being sent to clients? Are your monthly newsletters going out? Make it a habit (maybe once a month) to go in and check systems to make sure they are functioning properly. 

Take a listen!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:45 Discussion on the importance of systems
  • 2:05 Advice on reviewing and assessing software subscriptions and monthly expenses
  • 3:22 Ensuring that all systems and processes in the law firm are functioning properly

Resources:

Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Systems

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is day four of a five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you and setting your firm up for next year in one hour per day. If you haven't listened to the first few episodes, go back and listen to them first, then come back here. Today's hour will be spent on systems.

Speaker 2 (00:00:20) - Let's go run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:45) - All right, Jimmy, let's move on to our next topic, number four, which is systems. And I think systems is one that you and I are both heavily in the middle of right now, and one that you and I are working on this. We'll both be done. Be ready to be done with this pretty soon. But where where are you going to start when it comes to systems?

Jim Hacking (00:01:10) - So when my kids were little, I loved taking them to the Saint Louis Zoo.

Jim Hacking (00:01:14) - The zoo in Saint Louis is one of the best, and we always like to go see the hippopotamus. They have a nice place called the River's Edge, and the hippopotamus has all these little fish or some things that just like, eat all the barnacles and all the stuff that sort of grows on the side of the rhinoceros over the course of the year. And that's what you need to do with all of your technology. You need to pull out your credit card statement, your bank statement, and figuring out who are all these bastards I'm sending money to every month and ask yourself, do I have software on here that I'm not using anymore? Do I have duplicate software? As an aside, I'm pretty sure Tyson, right now that we have two different people taking care of our lawn and they just call me up and they say, hey, it's time to take care of your lawn. Oh, okay. Okay. Go ahead. I'm pretty sure that there's two different sets of people doing that, but that happens with Firm software.

Jim Hacking (00:02:05) - And my wife this year had the marketing team, I'm sorry, the accounting team go through and actually do an inventory of all of our software and most importantly, keep track when renewals are. So sometimes doing this in December isn't the best time because you're in these contracts and Imani has these stringent rules that the whole firm knows about. Now, no contracts more than a year. Everyone needs to know 90, 60 and 30 days before it expires. Are we still using it? Do we still need the same number of users? And you'll find this not just with software, but you'll you'll have these charges and you'll just be like, what in the hell is that for? Like I got one the other day for something called Insta page. I don't think we've used Insta page in a while, so it's just you gotta you gotta do that time and that hour of quiet. If you can't delegate, it is a great time for you as the law firm owner, to go through and do that inventory and assessment of your monthly expenses.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:59) - So you said both of the things that I was going to say, but I can give another one too. So those are, those are those are both fantastic. So I'm not going to add anything to that. Those are excellent. But I will add something different. And that's Jim. Have you have you ever had something that wasn't working when it comes to a system, but you didn't know about it for months.

Jim Hacking (00:03:19) - Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. Things like that.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:22) - Yeah. Exactly. So what you need to do is come up with a process for systems checks. So during that hour. So we're talking about it's Friday, it's day four. And you've you've done what Jim just said. But now spend some time on what is your process for checking systems. What is your system for checking systems okay. Because you need to be able to go through and identify if things are not working, if they're not firing off. We did not realize that our birthday text messages were not going out and we we fixed it, but it was not working for months, which is very aggravating for me.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:59) - But it it's something that we fixed and so clients are getting those. But if we had had a system in place for checking these things, we would have known that we didn't get we didn't get a notification from Twilio, we didn't get anything. We just just wasn't working. So now Kashif is working on putting together a system to check on the systems. That way something like that does not happen, but the system for checking systems is something you should have.

Speaker 2 (00:04:26) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE 

Are you a firm owner who is struggling with solving operational issues for the firm? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Jim and Tyson discuss strategies for law firm success through defining operational clarity and efficiency. This is part three of a five part series discussing how firms can have a successful launch in 2024.

Jim shares that he would spend his hour going over the organizational charts of the firm to see what the 5 most important things for each role are. It is important to meet with each person and get an understanding of how they are doing and if their roles or responsibilities have changed since they began. This will provide more clarity on what that role consists of. Law firms are always changing and the way people did things a year prior or the responsibilities staff have will change as time goes on. It is important to ensure this is being reviewed each year.

Tyson shares the need to think about a strategy when you choose to grow a law firm. Growing a firm is expensive, especially if you want to create a new team. For example, a team or a pod can consist of a case manager, an attorney and a litigation assistant. That is a team of 3 people with 3 salaries, which can be expensive if you want to grow. Think about how to expand in order to get that new team without hiring everyone all at once. Also think about who should be hired first and where to leverage across other areas until you are ready to hire the second and third person. Tyson also delves into looking at processes and where to trim the fat. Looking at areas where too much is going on and where workflows can be improved is another way to get clarity and efficiency for a firm.

Listen in to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:00 The importance of assessing each person in the firm to see how they're doing
  • 4:05 Focusing on evaluating processes and optimizing workflows

Resources:

Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Operations

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is day three of a five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you in setting up your firm for next year in one hour per day. If you haven't listened to the first two episodes, go back and listen to them first and then come back here. Today's hour will be spent on operations.

Speaker 2 (00:00:21) - Let's go run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:46) - All right. So let's now go over to operations Jimbo. So we are now on day three. It is Thursday. This would make it the 28th. And you've got your hour Jimmy. Go.

Jim Hacking (00:01:00) - So if I have one hour to look at my operations, I'm going to spend that hour looking at our accountability chart or org chart, trying to figure out what are the five most important things for each role.

Jim Hacking (00:01:12) - I'm going to ask myself, are these five things being met? How regularly are they? How would I score them on this? We just did this with our whole team. We assessed each person in the firm to see how they're doing and how the requirements of the job are being met or not, and you'll just get great clarity if you understand what the five most important things are for that job. Hopefully you've done that work already. If you haven't, then I think if you don't have clarity yourself as a law firm owner as to what this person's role is and what they should be doing, then how can you expect them to have clarity on what they're supposed to be doing? And a lot of times it's simply because people are doing too many things right. So one of the nice things about having areas of responsibility and things that people know that they're in charge of is that it reduces overwhelm and it allows for accountability. So I think being crystal clear as you come out of the gates as to how your firm is operating now, because it's fundamentally going to be different than just 12 months ago.

Jim Hacking (00:02:16) - So just I think you surprise yourself. For us, there's been growth, but there doesn't necessarily have to be growth. It just turnover or, you know, changes in functions or, you know, greater prioritization given to other parts of the firm. So I think that, you know, a law firm, an LLC, a corporation is a living, breathing thing, just like a family or a person. And you've got to be able to track those changes that have happened, the growth of the firm and then adapt accordingly.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:45) - Yeah. And I would say this be thinking about what your strategy is if you do choose to grow. So we we have actually a very, a very specific way that we, we are adding each team. And it's something that we, we had to sort of think out because anybody that works in pods, if you think about it, it's very expensive. Every time you had a new team, okay, every time you had a new team, you're especially people that have three or 4 or 5 people in their team.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:12) - If you've got, you know, 1 or 2 people, it's cheap. Or if it's one person, it's not a team. But if you have two, two or more, you know, it can be pretty expensive. So instead of adding a case manager plus an attorney and then maybe, you know, litigation assistant like that's three people. That's a lot of salaries. That's a lot of overhead. How are you going to expand to get to that new team without having to add that team all at one time? So be thinking about things like that. How are you going to whenever you're looking at that org chart like Jim's talking about, um, how do you how do you do that? Which person do you hire first and then which one do you hire second? Which one do you hire? Third. And then how do you make sure that's a separate team by itself. So those are the things you're going to be thinking about especially. And that's one of the benefits of using the pod system is it's also sort of the downfall too because not downfall, but one of the downsides where it can be more expensive to add that team, but it does give you that flexibility that you don't have to just add a team at a time.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:05) - With my hour, though, Jim would would all be. It's interesting because you you were focusing on people. I would focus on process where I'm I'm going through all of our processes and figuring out where can I trim the fat, where, where are the things that we're just doing extra things, or where are their redundancies? Where are their issues with the workflows? Right before this call, I had just gotten done working meeting with Blue Team, and I was I got a lot of great information from them when it comes to workflows and maybe switching where tasks need to be. So, you know, some tasks pop up whenever we change it to one phase, and maybe it should be the phase before that. So figuring out, looking at each one of these, looking at and and if you don't have all these in some centralized location, maybe you spend your hour working on that where you put everything in one place. That way you have an idea to, you know, what is the what is everything look like? What do all the workflows look like? Obviously, you're not going to get all of your workflows in one place in one hour, but you can at least start on it.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:01) - Or you can get big picture of what it looks like. So during that time, that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at, you know, it's process optimization. How do my workflows look and what what needs to change?

Speaker 2 (00:05:13) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host, and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Do you need to reevaluate your firm’s intake process? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Jim and Tyson discuss ways to improve the intake process, which is part of a series aimed at preparing law firms for the upcoming year.

The intake process is a very important part of the client-lawyer relationship. This is when a client is first coming on board and it is used to see if a lawyer will take on a case. Jim shares how lawyers should spend time looking at their firm’s process and focus on analyzing how fast or slow it takes for a client to sign up with the firm. Speeding the process up will ultimately lead to more money.

Another part of the intake process is focusing on the sales aspect of it. Make a list of the common objections and questions that you receive in your intake process and then address them as you are marketing your firm to potential clients. An example is while on the phone speaking with someone who would like to take some time to review a contract, have the intake person ask if there is anything that needs to be addressed on the spot. This cuts out the need for someone to call back asking for more clarity. As firm owners, you have a wealth of knowledge that your intake staff might not have. So writing down responses to those commonly asked questions for your staff to have as a script is a great way to ensure more clients are coming through the door.

Listen in to learn how to improve your firm’s intake process!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:56 Discussion on evaluating the firm's intake process
  • 2:47 Exploration of common objections during the intake process
  • 5:08 Importance of providing information about the firm's background to enhance credibility

Resources:

Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Intake

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is day two of a five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you in setting up your firm for next year in one hour per day. If you haven't listened to episode one, go back and listen to it first, then come back here. Today's hour will be spent on intake.

Speaker 2 (00:00:20) - Let's go run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:45) - All right, let's move on to the next one. Let's talk about intake Jimbo. So this is the 27th. So December 27th it's Wednesday. It's your time to take action on intake.

Jim Hacking (00:00:56) - So with intake you definitely want to spend this hour looking at your process and figuring out how fast or how slow does it take to sign up with my firm, I would spend the first ten minutes looking at the last five cases I signed up, figure out when did this person come into our world? How did we reach out to them? How long did it take for us to reach out to them? What message did we send to them? How easy was it for them to talk to somebody who knows how to sign up the case? How did we gather the facts about their case? How fast did we send them the contract? How quickly did they sign it, and how quickly did we either start to get paid or start to work on the case? You really need to speed that process up.

Jim Hacking (00:01:39) - Every time I've sped that process up, we've made more money. So we've we've gone through, identified the places where there's friction, the places where it's bottlenecked. I used to have this long, complicated process where someone in the office would talk to a lead. They would say, yeah, this guy needs a contract. I would go find the most recent similar contract. I would change the names. I might make some mistakes. I would send them the contract, they would sign it. Then we'd have to physically open the file. We'd have to open up the matter and file line. And then in QuickBooks, now that's all automated. So somebody signs that contract in which they receive while they're on the call with us. Once they sign it a matter is open in QuickBooks. It matters open in file line. Those get created automatically. An invoice is generated, a payment link is sent. They can make the initial payment and authorize us to charge their credit card for the rest of the of the legal fee.

Jim Hacking (00:02:35) - It's all very automated and very, very quick. So I think you'll learn a ton by assessing how you've done on your recent contracts and where things are slowing down.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:47) - So the thing I want to talk about when it comes to intake is it relates to what you're talking about, is focusing on the sales part of it. And you could in that one hour, you could easily come up with a list of the most common objections that you get and address those through sales techniques and give your people on the front lines ways of answering those. For example, one of the common things we we get is because we send the with the contract right over the phone like, well, we're while we're talking to them and they say, well, you know, I want to review this, I want to review this. Okay, well, I completely understand that you want to review it or is there anything specific that you're looking for that I can address right now that we can I can answer those questions for you, and maybe they'll give you a couple things and you address them and boom, there's no no more need for them to, you know, have you call them back.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:34) - Because if you if you let them off the phone, you know, the chances of them hiring you drops quite a bit, doesn't mean that they're not going to hire you, but it does drop quite a bit if you can keep them on the phone, get them while they're on the phone. It's it's going to increase. That conversion is going to speed things up like Jim's talking about. So that's what that's what I would focus on during that time is coming up with a list of those scripts for your people so they can address those objections. And I wouldn't have them read from a script, but it does give them a general idea as to how to respond things. We were actually, you know, working on that today on a few things. And we we stole an idea from Jim that he told me about a while ago is where you were talking about how you all are doing your, you know, trainings daily. Amy's been doing trainings with, uh, sales techniques, uh, with our, with our cares team on a daily basis.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:25) - That's been really, really effective. So you can come up with that script, those scripts, those those objections and those responses to those objections easily within that hour, uh, that you could do. And then also, I would recommend testing your phones whenever you're, you got that time off, too.

Jim Hacking (00:04:41) - And make no mistake, as good as your intake specialist may be or your people talking to leads may be, they're never going to be as good as you or as comfortable as you, or have the wealth of knowledge that you have. So to the extent that you can get the things that you say when facing an objection out onto paper so that they can learn them, it's just going to be invaluable because that's going to allow you to scale, and that's going to give you the leverage you need to to grow your intake team and grow your firm.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:08) - Yeah. And steal a steal a page out of the ultimate sales machine book where give them information about your background so they can say these nice things about you too, because that's another way of boosting the ability to get the sale is you.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:21) - They you know, Jim, he has handled tens of thousands of immigration matters. I don't know what the number is, but, um, he has argued in front of the eight Circuit Court of Appeals, the, you know, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, he has won X number of cases. He just had a case last week that he won in front of, you know, the Seventh Circuit, like things like that, where you you give them a list of things that they can say that just, you know, boosts your. Your credibility to that, to potential client.

Speaker 2 (00:05:49) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who is hoping to better market your firm? In this podcast episode, Jim and Tyson introduce a five-part series aimed at preparing law firms for 2024, with the first episode focusing on marketing strategies. 

Marketing is all about convincing people to buy what you are selling. For law firms, it is about getting your name out there and telling people why they should hire you if they are in need. Tyson and Jim share how it is important to understand what your competition is doing in order to assess what is being talked about already and what marketing strategies other people are doing. This way it can be used to inform your strategies. If you are trying to improve your marketing for the new year, spend an hour doing this work and make some goals. Think about how your firm is different and what else you can offer.

Auditing your firm’s website is another thing that can help with marketing. Tyson and Jim share how many companies who have not audited their websites have numbers and addresses that are out of date. This is so important because if this information is not reviewed or updated frequently, people will not be able to find you and not become clients to the firm. Auditing can be done on your own or through hiring an SEO person. It is a key aspect of marketing so people know who and where you are.

Take a listen!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:00 Assessing marketing strategies for law firms.
  • 8:12 How to evaluate market positioning as an expert.
  • 9:22 The importance of auditing your website.

Resources:

Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Marketing

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is day one of a five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you in setting up your firm for next year in one hour per day. Today's hour will be spent on marketing.

Speaker 2 (00:00:15) - Let's go run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:41) - Jimmy, how are you doing, man? We're. We're talking about the secret plan to launch your firm into 2024. I wasn't sure if you were going to start, so I jumped right in. So what's going.

*Jim Hacking * (00:00:50) - On? You sort of threw me for a loop because I thought we were recording this, like a podcast. But that's okay. It's always good to be with you, Tyson. And I'm excited about this topic that we've come up with. We're going to present today the five days of Christmas, the five days that you use to get ready for 2024.

*Jim Hacking * (00:01:08) - We're going to show you how in one hour a day, for the five days that hopefully your office is closed between Christmas and New Years, that you can come out of the gates running right into next year and get yourself situated for a kick ass 2024.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:23) - So let's talk a little bit about the, um, the origin of this and then kind of the mindset behind it, because we were we were sort of talking about, okay, like, what would it be like if you were to sit down during the time that your people are away? Right. All your team members are away because a lot of us give people that week off, and there's not a lot going on. If you just took that uninterrupted time and you, you just dug in and you just took action and you kind of either if you're at a starting point like early on stage one, you, you kind of build up your firm, your you're building your firm at this point or let's say that you, you're more established stage two, stage three, and you need to revamp things like what are the things that you would do.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:05) - So that's kind of like the genesis of that. So yeah. And I to me, I don't know about you, I, I've really enjoyed kind of going through this and thinking about it. I don't know about you.

*Jim Hacking * (00:02:16) - Well, so I've certainly had years where we were out of the country between Christmas and New Year's. I think last year or two years ago we went to the Dominican Republic. But I can also remember specific years, usually after I've moved offices or done a big software switch, which we're doing right now, that you just don't get that time in the office by yourself. That's nice and quiet where no one's around, and you can really sort of plan and think and not be pulled and dragged in all these other directions. So I think it's it can be a really special week. We didn't we certainly want to encourage people taking time off and enjoying time with family. Like for me, what I was positing was that this would be the hour that you do before everybody else wakes up.

*Jim Hacking * (00:03:00) - If you're old like me and you have teenagers who sleep in or you do it after the little kids go to bed. If you're if you're younger, like Tyson, and have small kids who hit the hay around 7 or 8.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:11) - Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like there's there's a lot of power in taking that time off and spend time with your family and everything. But you are right, though, and I think that some of the things we're going to talk about, pick what you want from them. You can, you know, take what you want, leave the rest. But you should be able to do some of these things in a in a fairly short amount of time, hour a day, two hours a day, if you want to, um, you don't have to do all of them. I definitely encourage you not to do all of them, but that I think that's right. So let's let's go ahead and jump right in, Jimbo, and talk about the secret plan to launch your firm into 2024, one hour a day like you're talking about.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:47) - So take this one hour, pick whatever you whatever day you choose. Um, and the army they called, if I remember correctly. So once person's injured, the golden hours, that hour after they're injured. Because you've got to get them, get the bleeding stop. Get them under control because like, that's that's like where you can save their life. So this is where you save your firm's life. It's like golden hour that you can do one hour a day. So we divided this into five days in the in the first day we're going to talk about is marketing. You can divide your days however you want, but uh, the first day we're going to talk about is marketing. So Jimmy on on day one marketing, how were you how are you going to spend your hour?

*Jim Hacking * (00:04:29) - So I think I think we might want to be do a little bit of a dramatic pause in between each one, just so that we can set the stage for, um, the format. And each day, uh, starting on December 26th, we're going to release each of these as a mini podcast so that people can listen to it and, and take action in that one hour.

*Jim Hacking * (00:04:49) - And. I think that when it comes to marketing, there's no substitute for spending that hour seeing how you're doing, assessing how you're doing as it relates to your competition. So I know that we spend a lot of time thinking about how do we make our firm better, but I mean, actually digging in and seeing what what am I doing? Well, what am I needing to improve? What are other people doing better than me? And really just I would spend that hour thinking about how can I improve my game, how are we doing in the community, how are we doing in our practice area, and really digging in deep to try to figure out with just a pen and paper, how am I doing, sort of scoring ourselves on what we're doing each day to improve when it comes to marketing, how we're doing on k signups, what our goals are for 2024 and then how we're going to get there. So you have to design sort of what you want case number wise. And then I would say boosted by 20%.

*Jim Hacking * (00:05:52) - Make yourself uncomfortable so that you have a little bit of a stretch goal and then deconstruct in that hour how you're going to get to where you want to be.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:00) - Yeah. And whatever. I mean, whatever your goal, I'm not going to tell people what their goal should be, because for some people it could be, you know, you're taking your take, actually taking on less cases, but you're taking on more high quality cases. But I do I do like the idea of, okay, you started this with self-assessment, and then you start with the goals and then you can start to kind of reverse engineer what you're going to do. And I think that that's the best thing you could do when it comes to this. So how would you you know, how are we doing on marketing. What are the what are the you know, what are the year look like? How are our revenues? Things like that. How many how many cases do we bring in. And if you do want to increase, you know, the number of cases you're bringing in by 20%.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:38) - Okay. Now let's figure out the things that you need to do to to really do that. And so something that and I want to get to email this in a little bit because I want to see what you think about this. But something that I was thinking of is you might want to revisit your avatar. And because I think this is something really simple, that you might be attracting the wrong people and like your, for example, your avatar is Muhammad, right? And this is a really good time to okay. Is this the right avatar for me? Is this working out for me? And then how are write down what you're we talked about we've talked about unique selling proposition a long time ago. But what is that USP like. How is your firm different. And because and the reason why I wanted to talk about those a little bit, Jim, is that if you if you think about it, most of us and I'm including you and me, we've become just like every other firm out there.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:33) - And there is um, I can't remember her name the over the book, but, uh, she talks about different is better than better, right. And when you're not different, you're just like everyone else. And that you can't you cannot differentiate yourself. And so everyone's just going to go with, with whoever. Right. But if you can differentiate yourself. So how are you different. What how are you better. And if you can outline that and you can figure out who your avatar client is, you can adjust your marketing. And so I think starting with those things, who's your avatar? Is your avatar the right avatar. And then how are you different? I think if you can start with those. And and part of this is assessing where you currently are. But then also where do you need to be?

*Jim Hacking * (00:08:12) - I think that's a great point because a lot of times, you know, we think we're different, but does the marketplace think we're different? And the market doesn't lie, the market doesn't care.

*Jim Hacking * (00:08:20) - The market doesn't isn't emotional or sentimental. The market goes where they the greatest perceived value is and the greatest expertise is perceived. So what are you doing to make sure that people view you as an expert? View you as the go to lady or the go to guy? I mean, I always think about Steve Bartel and about how he was just kicking butt from these well-established family law attorneys because he had done the right things to increase his number of reviews, to increases better Business Bureau score, to make sure that Google was pointing to him when it came to people doing search. So I think this is a good time for self-reflection and for self-assessment. And I think that that's one of the great things about the special hour you have when it comes to marketing on Tuesday the 26th.

Tyson Mutrux (00:09:08) - All right. So let's get into some maybe some nuts and bolts a little bit too, because we gotta make sure we've got enough time to get to everything. But since you mentioned the website, I want to I want to mention one of the things that you could do because, I mean, your digital presence is the important.

Tyson Mutrux (00:09:22) - So that's not going to change. But one thing you can do, even if it's not you, you could have someone else do it. Audit your website. So we just hired a new SEO person that is in-house. So we've got our own SEO person now. And the first thing he did audit our website. And he was able to identify some very key things that can be done fairly quickly to help boost our rankings. And even though we I think we did 90% of the things we we were in the green. But, you know, like there's some. 10% of the things we were in the red or the orange. So but starting with that, that, that audit of the website, for example, I bet that a good third of the people that are watching this or listening have not audited their website and years and years and their phone numbers or their emails or their addresses are wrong on their website because they've moved offices and they've not updated them. So there's things like that that you can go and you can audit the website and fix those things, and you can do it uninterrupted.

Tyson Mutrux (00:10:16) - And even if you don't do it yourself, you can hire someone to do it. And this is a good time to also update your email list where you can clean it. And if you've never used your email list, you can update it. So clean and organize your email list. You can do that with, uh, with your CRM if you've got a CRM.

Speaker 2 (00:10:32) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson Mutrux recommends the book "Make Your Bed" by Admiral William H. McRaven. He discusses key principles from the book, such as starting the day with a simple task and being your best in your darkest moments. Tyson emphasizes the importance of staying optimistic and working as a team. He shared that the book was a beneficial read for individuals and teams, especially in the context of running a law firm. Tyson concludes by encouraging consistent action to achieve goals.

Episode Highlights:

  • 02:23 Starting the day with a completed task
  • 04:01 Life isn't always fair, and sometimes you have to accept setbacks 
  • 05:45 Even in the worst circumstances, it's important to stay optimistic

Resources:

Transcripts: If You Want To Change The World

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:24) - Hey, it's Tyson! I'm back with another quick episode today. I'm going to be talking about one of my last book recommendations for the year. I guess it will be my last book recommendation for the year. And it is Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven. It is a book that I recommended on the big podcast, but I'm going to talk about it in more depth today before I dive in on that book, though, for those of you that have not gotten your hands on it, we've got this really unique roadmap that Jim and I have put together called Maximum Lawyer Minimum Time. And this is something that we give to guild members for free. Whenever they join, we give them the entire course. We're going to give you stage one of maximum lawyer and minimum time to our podcast listeners, absolutely free.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:08) - All you have to do is text stage 123145019260 and it'll go to you automatically. So check it out. All right. So let's get back to make your bed. And if you're going to read one more book the rest of the year this is the one to do. It is less than 150 pages. It's a really quick, easy read. It's something that was written by Admiral William H. McRaven. He's a retired US Navy Seal, and it's a book that he wrote based on a commencement speech that he gave at the University of Texas in 2014. And you might have seen the speech. And if you've if you're not going to read the the book, I do recommend that you go and you listen to his speech on YouTube. It went viral. There's, you know, millions and millions of views of it. Definitely check it out. I would I would do both. I watched it and I read the book. It's a it's a really good listen and it's a good read. But what McRaven does is he goes through ten principles that he learned during his time as a Navy Seal and during Navy Seal training that have translated over into his real life and beyond his military career as well.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:23) - And I'm going to go down some of my favorites. I'm not going to go down the full list. I'd like for you to go read the book and check it out that we, uh, you know, you can you can get a little bit more detail, but then also you can help support him because I don't want to give away everything in the book. I'd like for you to go read it, but the first one is and it's you know, this is kind of like the title of the book. You might get an idea. This might be the first tip, but it's start your day with a simple task that's completed, and he talks about making your bed. And there's something about how you can take that little small task and just making your bed. And it'll help give you some momentum into the day. Let's say it's not making your bed. Maybe you'd like to keep your bed unmade, or maybe someone makes your bed for you. I don't know, but start with some other simple tasks to start the day.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:10) - Maybe it's working out, but start with something that's simple to give you that momentum. And maybe you have problems working out or doing something early in the morning. Okay, well, try making your bed and see if that'll help give you that momentum. That way you're not tempted to get back into bed, but it'll it'll give you that momentum into the other task of the day. The next one I want to talk about, and it's one of my favorite parts of the book. He talks about get over being a sugar cookie, all right. And the whole idea of a sugar cookie, it's it's this punishment for whenever you do something wrong in the seals, and you have to get yourself wet, and then you have to roll around in the sand. And as you might imagine, that's a very uncomfortable thing that you've got to do. But the point of it is that life's not fair. Sometimes you have to just you end up being a sugar cookie and you gotta get over it, okay? You gotta get the move on from it.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:01) - Just keep moving, okay? Things suck sometimes. Just move through it and eventually you'll be fine. The next one I want to get to is be your very best in your darkest moments. These are the times whenever we should show the most strength and. And I want to make sure that I. There's the whole thing. You know, you should always, you know you know, do the right thing at all times. I'm not really talking about that here. What I'm talking about is, is that something? Things are going to happen bad when you're running your law firm or whenever you're an attorney. They're just things are going to come up and it's not going to be the best. But that's whenever you should try to draw some strength from that and say, you know what this is? I'm here because of because of moments like this and take strength from that. And that way you can persevere through those moments, okay? Try to find strength in those moments. And and sometimes you have to tell yourself just sometimes you have to lie to yourself, say, hey, I enjoy this.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:57) - This is these are the moments I'm made for, okay? And it's going to help give you some of that strength that you might need. The next one I want to talk about. I've got two more. I love this part of the part of the book. Start singing when you're up to your neck in mud, because he talks about how they were in this cold water. They were up to their necks in mud and water, and people were wanting to quit. People were wanting to go up and ring the bell and what they did. Was. And they knew. The instructors knew that, hey, this is the point when people start to break and what they started to do, they banded together and they all just started to sing together. They all knew that they were there together with each other as a team, and it really helped to motivate them to, you know, people would want to help. No, no, no, get back in this water. Don't you ring that bell? We're going to we're going to get through this together.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:45) - And and so sometimes what you have to do is you have to stay optimistic even in the worst circumstances. And when you're, you know, buried all the way up to your neck and you're just going to start singing, right, you gotta start singing band together, keep moving. And then the last one is, don't ever ring that bell. I understand that running a law firm is really difficult. I completely get it. I run a law firm, I know how it works. And not everything's, you know, rosy. And you're making cash every day. Sometimes it can get really, really tough. But don't ever ring the bell, okay? In Navy Seal training ring that bell means you're quitting. Okay? What you have to do, though, is you have to keep persisting. Real life. We have our own bells that we ring. Right? And sometimes people say, oh, you know, I'm not I'm not cut out for this. I can't run my own law firm. I need to go work for someone.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:31) - That's not true. Don't ring that bell. Learn the tools you need. Keep going through the training. Keep getting all the knowledge you can and you can persevere through it. So there's a couple of reasons why I'm recommending this book. One is it's awesome read. It's it's really something you're going to get something out of. But the other thing is, is that give it to your team. So as you begin to to grow and some of you may already have, you know, decent sized firms, give it to your team. We did this as part of our book club and everyone loved it. Everyone got something out of it. They really enjoyed it. It's a super short read. It's simple by the book for everybody and and watch them grow and watch how much they're going to love it too. So part of it's for you, part of it's for your team as well. All right. I'm going to wrap things up as a reminder though. If you have something you want me to cover on the Saturday show, shoot me a text and I'll try to cover it if I can.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:21) - It's we've got a lot of topics that we've gotten from people. If you've got one that's really good and it's relevant and timely, I'll definitely get to it. When I can text me at 31450192603145019260. Just lots of great suggestions every single week. But until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care. See everybody.

Speaker 1 (00:07:49) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

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