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Transcripts: “Communication and Opening Up” with Robert Von Dohlen

Robert Von Dohlen
they finally decide to go with a lawyer. And then they turn their problem over to the lawyer. And then they have no idea what’s what’s going on while the case is being worked. And so that’s something that I try very hard to do is keep in communication with the clients.

Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar, podcast, podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson Meatrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.

Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer podcasts. I’m Jim hacking. And I’m taxing Music. What’s Up Jimmy? Oh, Tyson. I haven’t done this for a while I’m recording live from an airport. I’m in Los Angeles on my way back Marwan and I came out for an asylum case yesterday that went for about four hours.

Robert Von Dohlen
Very cool. I think it’s funny. So you’re texting me this morning was on the the airport at LAX. I just thought it’s funny you had to put in the airport that you’re actually at because I think it was like a humble brag. You wanted to let me know that you were in Los Angeles for some reason. So I just think it’s funny. I was enjoying the episode where you are in the bad weather like the airport speakers in the background and asking flights and thinking it adds a bit of charm to our episodes. Nice. Alright, so let’s, I know that you’ve got you’re waiting for a flight. Let’s let’s get this thing going. So our guest today is Robert Boland. And he is a divorce lawyer out of Houston, Texas. And from what I can tell, and Robert, you’re going to talk about this a little bit, but it looks you target your target market are professionals that are in getting there. They’re getting divorces, and I I really liked your website. your website’s really cool. Very informative. And so we’ll talk a little bit more about that. But, Robert, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Morning, Jim. Morning, Tyson.

Jim Hacking
Robert, I know from your website, which I agree is awesome that, that you sort of became a lawyer later in life. Talk to us a little bit about your career before law school and then and then after law school?

Robert Von Dohlen
Yeah, yeah. So I started law school at 45. And we could probably eat a whole episode up if we talk about everything I did before then. But immediately prior, I was an insurance adjuster. I did catastrophe work. So I was an independent adjuster traveled the nation and handled stuff like hurricanes, hail storms, tornadoes, freeze, events, across the country, reached a point where I kind of thought I had hit a pinnacle in that and I wanted to go further and law was the most obvious option. So I turned in an application to several law schools. And the first one that took me was St. Mary’s in San Antonio, Texas.

Tyson Mutrux
Very cool. So it’s a Robert it’s really interesting. So I was an insurance adjuster for State Farm Insurance. And I dealt, I was in the fire on the fire side. And so I’ve dealt with a lot of the cattails so seems like you’ll have to really take the job. What I thought was really cool was, is that being a an insurance adjuster isn’t much different than actually being a lawyer, you’re taking a set of facts, applying it to a policy or a set of laws. And so it’s very, very similar. So I’m gonna get your opinion on how do you do you feel like being an adjuster helps you as a lawyer that hurts your lawyer with what’s your are your thoughts

Robert Von Dohlen
on that? From my background? It definitely helped me Yeah, I was a mechanic before that. And I guess I needed the the little extra polish that came from being an adjuster, they extra knowledge. Like, say how to how to apply facts to a set of rules. That definitely helped me understand lawyering a lot better. I feel like I even as a new lawyer, I came into it with with a bit of a head start on that, like you said,

Jim Hacking
Robert, it would seem that you would be drawn more to the personal injury or lawsuit side and how did you get into family law instead?

Robert Von Dohlen
So when I came out of law school, that was what I did, I I took first party cases working as a plaintiff attorney, representing homeowners, business owners, property owners in suing your insurance company to get the full benefit of the policy. We did that for a few years. I’d liked it I liked most of it, but all in all, it just I don’t know. It just left a gap and in my life, it had left a gap in the way i i want to have my work fit me. I just wasn’t a great fit. I happen to not only be a divorce lawyer but I’ve been a divorce client more four times, Four to be exact. I’ve been married and divorced four times. Ladies, if you’re looking for a guy who has been divorced four times I’m available

Robert Von Dohlen
we get a clip that section for the beginning of the show, that is bad dad. But anyway, you know, when you, when you get a practice started, I don’t know how it happens. But everyone in the world with a different kind of problem calls you, when you first open a shop and start getting your name out there, you get the most bizarre different calls. I don’t know if this happened to you guys when you first got going. But I mean, you get landlord tenants, small business, personal injury, family law, and I started to get more and more family law calls. And I just decided at some point, I’m going to move away from the plaintiff attorney role and move into handling divorce law.

Tyson Mutrux
So, Robert, it seems like you’ve niched down within divorce law and you’re you’re handling higher end clients. Is that the case for is that? I don’t want to miss state anything? And if so, how did you? How did you decide to go that route?

Robert Von Dohlen
That’s my goal. We we help mid career professionals find peace on the other side of divorce. It’s our goal to my goal as an attorney, to to not add to the drama of the case. In fact, that’s that’s my tagline divorce without drama.

Robert Von Dohlen
Tyson asked that question again, I’m kind of lost myself. No Sure. Gonna from. So it looks like from

Robert Von Dohlen
your website, that you’re what you’re doing is you’re targeting hiring professionals. And you’re actually sort of not targeting all these other calls that all of us get about just your run of the mill divorce? Seems like you’re, you’re targeting those hiring professionals, you know, how did you decide to go that route?

Robert Von Dohlen
Now, I prefer to help people who don’t really want to go litigate a divorce. I really think that most divorced litigation we’re in. And I don’t mean, the basic process of finding everything out, you need to find out sell it up. But I mean, the let’s not take it into court and and go have a trial over who’s going to get the coffee table. We want to help reasonable people find a reasonable solution as quickly as possible. Frankly, people who have more assets tend to be able to pay a lawyer, as opposed to most people with no assets,

Robert Von Dohlen
find a hard time finding a way to pay a lawyer. Do you guys I don’t know what good way to phrase that?

Jim Hacking
I think he just didn’t phrase it very well. How do you then once you make that decision, how do you position yourself as a professional lawyer for professionals,

Robert Von Dohlen
you know, if you’ve been through my website and seeing any of my marketing, especially on Facebook, we you know, my statement is we help mid career professionals find peace on the other side of divorce so that that mid career professional is who we target in our in our statements. So I try to target my, my advertising my marketing, to find that person. That doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t help anybody. That’s just who we like to target and, and find and help. And somehow when that average centers around that it starts to attract better, or cases that are a better fit for, for me,

Robert Von Dohlen
keep talking about the things that really bothered you, with your previous lawyers and the things that you really liked about your previous lawyers, and sort of differentiate those and take away the things that that you put into your practice to help you out. The first big one is communication. That’s got to be one of the the number one frustrations of the law consuming public is they finally decide to go with a lawyer and

Robert Von Dohlen
they turn their problem over to the lawyer and then they have no idea what’s what’s going on, while the qualification is being worked. And so that’s something that I try very hard to do is keep in communication with the clients. It’s it can be a challenge sometimes sometimes there’s you got a client who’s got some, they may have developed some more nervous issues along the way that make them difficult or time consuming to communicate with them. That’s a challenge in our business to stop what you’re doing and go communicate with that person. And sometimes you develop a fear of making that call to, to reach out to them and communicate for fear that you’re going to tie you up and you, you’re not going to, you’re just going to eat a bunch time and not move your case forward based on what happened. And it’s a kind of fear, we all need to learn how to stare in the face and make that call and stay in communication with those clients. So I’d say that’s the big number one thing that I tried to, to bring to the table.

Jim Hacking
I think having gone through divorce several times that, hey, if I were you, I would be using that in my marketing. I think Tyson raises a good question that you can talk about what you learned as a client, and I’ve been involved in litigation. So I know what it’s like to be a client. I think that’s something that really resonates with people. And I think you could even do something like one one video or story about each of your experiences with a lawyer or going through the process. I think that would be something that would be something that people would find very relatable to.

Robert Von Dohlen
Yeah, I think you’re right. And that’s, that’s a project that’s been in the back of my mind. And here’s the the the dead in the eyes, reason that I haven’t tackled is because of personal shame over that issue. I mean, this is about as much of like, public exposure of that past that I’ve ever made. I don’t talk about it, because I have, frankly, that some shame over that issue.

Jim Hacking
I understand that I can do that.

Tyson Mutrux
But you know, what, Robert, that made me love you so much more, because you’re willing to share it. I think that that this is a great example about how sharing helps people connect to you. And if you were to have those videos, it gives you their experience in the shame, the same shame that you are. And so having that connection is gonna put you far, far ahead of any other lawyer that you’re competing with for getting that client because these are probably high paying clients anyways. And so building that connection would be huge.

Robert Von Dohlen
Yeah, that’s, that’s an excellent idea. Jim, I’ll give you kudos real quick for something that helped me jump over that bridge. And that was at max law con. In June, in St. Louis, you stood up and you opened your heart out to that room full of people. unashamed, unafraid, and just spoke. And I’ll never forget that moment. And that emotion I felt, and that helped me start to conquer some of my emotional constipation, for being able to, to reach in and pull that out and start talking about those things. It’s that moment led me to be able to start shooting some of the videos that I’m shooting, which I you know, I want to build on and improve on but I’ve been scared to shoot the videos.

Jim Hacking
I totally get that. I mean, it’s not like I’m running around telling my life story on YouTube, either. I’m to, um, shoot videos about immigration, but at the same time, I think Tyson is really right, that to the extent that you can tap into that emotion that people are feeling that will really go a long way.

Robert Von Dohlen
So Robert, let’s dig a little bit deeper into your marketing, because it is interesting, your website seems like it just the colors, the styling really does seem like it’s targeted towards professionals. It’s there’s a difference between other lawyer websites that I’ve seen. Is that something that you thought through? Or did you just stumble upon that?

Robert Von Dohlen
I thought through it, but I did not overanalyze it. It’s, it’s a direction I was trying to go with. That’s my third Family Law website. So the first two didn’t quite, I wanted them to do. And this one, I think, nailed it captures. I want to be I do need to give a little credit to the folks over at spotlight branding, for listening to me and helping me capture that. And, you know, we went through some mock ups and in drafts and we finally came up with this.

Jim Hacking
I think it is a very elegant website. And then I also think it’s also very informative. Talk to us a little bit, Robert, about your setup in the office, like who do you have working for you? How do you scale things and what do you enjoy working on the most?

Robert Von Dohlen
So I’m still fairly small. I’ve got one assistant to she’s half time to, you know, scales up a little more if she needs to. And then I’ve mostly to use contract assistance as point I send out all my drafting to one of a few different either paralegals or attorneys to actually do the drafting and for me to review and finalize. If I if I get super busy and I can’t cover all the hearings, etc, then I’ll bring attorney to help me do that. That’s the stage of growth that I’m at right now.

Robert Von Dohlen
The rubber Where are you headed with this? Do you want to maintain the same size that you’re at? Or do you want to grow? Where do you Where are you headed?

Robert Von Dohlen
You know, my personal goal is to build a practice that I work on but not in like managing it. I like building the machine I like a particular particularly like overseeing the marketing aspect of it. Much more than the day to day slug in the success in the court. Alright, we’ll

Jim Hacking
pause for a word from our sponsors.

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Jim Hacking
We’re back with family law attorney Robert Vaughn Dolan from Houston, Texas. We’re talking about his website, we’re talking about his firm. And, Robert, I know you have been active on Facebook, talk to us a little bit about what your approach has been to Facebook and whether it’s led to any real business.

Robert Von Dohlen
Sure, my personal Facebook page. I mostly use it to just sprinkle some some humor out in the world. I post a lot of memes I post a lot a quick one line jokes, that sort of thing. posted a serious article every now and again. And I had been doing that with very little activity on my business. Facebook page. J ruling started a program, flex firm gym that I joined. And it got in the habit of being a better a better curator a better keeper of my business page and posting on it regularly. I’ve got spotlight branding, drafts some content for me. And most of that is call to action content. And we do call to action days on Tuesday and Thursday. And that’ll be a a serious post that’s that’s very well branded, tries to pull people back over to my website. And then on the other days, I don’t have content themes, but I use the other days to sprinkle that with some of the same humor that I had been posting on my personal page. But I try to keep it all family law related to Robert California, the results you’ve had with firm black. The the main result that I’m seeing from firm flex right now is I get a few more inquiries. I haven’t been able to track but I’m getting a large amount of cases from it. But my page is starting to grow. We went from about 14 under blacks. I’ve been doing this for about six weeks now. And I’m at about 13 150 likes. That’s 250 People who are in my ecosphere organically. I really liked that and so at that rate, think I’m onto something, I think I’m building something good that will feed me in years to come.

Jim Hacking
Rather one of the things we’re talking about a lot in our offices intake. When do you get involved in the in the meeting with a potential client? When do you

Robert Von Dohlen
participate in intake? I I subscribe to the non attorney intake system. So

Unknown Speaker
once

Robert Von Dohlen
that appointment is set, I don’t get involved with it. So I actually have a client. So once the appointment is set,

Robert Von Dohlen
they come in and they meet with my assistant, we charge a very small fee for that consultation. And if she accepts the case, then we schedule time and I sit down, I meet with the client, and we actually go over their case and and figure everything out. So Robert, from my last question, what is it that you struggle with the most? Because you I mean, this is basically your second or third career. So you’ve seen quite a bit what what is the thing you struggle with the most with running your practice?

Robert Von Dohlen
At the moment, signing new clients and cash flow. That’s, that’s what I’m struggling with the most right now. You know, like any small business, you just have to do the job of tightening up the belt, you have to have flexible expenses. So when when you hit the Alene time and you’re not signing up as many clients, as you predicted, helps if you can scale down if you’re not into a bunch of long term contracts that

Tyson Mutrux
that are going to drain your budget. That’s a good point, especially with everything these services live a Software as a Service things without these monthly subscriptions, those things can break in each of the death. So being able to drop those things is pretty helpful. Alright, Robert, so I do need to wrap things up Jimmy at the airport, we want to let you get on with your day. Before I do. I want to remind everyone go to the awesome Facebook group, a lot of great activity going on there. Also, remember to register for Maxwell con 2020. We will have the venue announced very soon. We’re super close to getting the contract signed on that. I think it’s gonna be pretty freakin awesome. Jenny, what is your hack of the week?

Jim Hacking
All right, so I’ve been playing around the last two weeks with a Chrome extension. And it’s called Facebook Timeline Eradicator. And basically, it’s a Chrome extension that allows you to pull up Facebook, but you have no newsfeed it just put some inspirational quote and where your new seat is, sort of allows you to see and check on the little red circles for people that have messaged you or posted on your wall. And it allows you to draft a new Facebook post. But it doesn’t suck you into that timeline. And I’ve I’ve, I’ve really, I think been a lot more focused by not having that seat in there all the time.

Robert Von Dohlen
Man, it’s kinda like checking email you get just get sucked into it. So that’s a good one. Robert, what is your tip or hack of the week?

Robert Von Dohlen
My tip or hack of the week is shoot some video, take your phone, don’t over elaborate this, do it while you’re sitting in the car, head into court do it outside the court will take your phone and shoot a 62nd video on on the problem you saw that day.

Robert Von Dohlen
Perfect. Very nice. So my tip of the week is sort of related to firm flags. But it’s also related to something that my wife just did for us for the firm. And it did really well. We did a small costume contest for Halloween. And they got amazing results. And I mean by contest we gave 25 bucks $25 gift card it was actually pretty cheap. And we got a bunch of results, a lot of interaction with people. So my tip of the week is to do a contest of some sort that should be considered around something like Halloween, or some other event, but it was it got a tremendous results. So that is my tip of the week. Robert, thank you. Yes.

Jim Hacking
You call that a small costume contest is that because every custom you wear has to be sized all

Robert Von Dohlen
is still ridiculous is no small, big, little little costume contest. Lots of kids were involved. So you can hate all you want to get great results. But anyway, Robert, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a lot of fun.