What are you doing to become the best?
Lawyers have the ethical and moral obligation to be the best in their practice areas. You have got to be striving constantly to improve your practice, your knowledge base and your systems. If you are not doing this, you might be having a problem, but if you are, it’s perfectly ok for you to use that in your marketing. If you are striving to be the best, you have a moral obligation to PROTECT your clients from those other attorneys who are not.
If you don’t feel like you are delivering the best client experience and the best representation to your clients, then that’s going to impact your mindset when you are meeting with clients. It’s gonna telegraph that you feel shaky about what it is what you do. Be confident on your skills. Use your reputation as your favor. Don’t seem desperate. Don’t lower your fees.
Hacking’s Hack: A Chrome extension for Google Mail. It allows you to compose while hiding all your inbox. Protect your focus. https://inboxwhenready.org/
Tyson’s Tip: HyFy, Also a Chrome extension. It’s free and it records your chrome tab and your voice. http://www.hyfy.io/
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Transcript: Become The Best Lawyer
Jim Hacking
I am in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today, I did something I never did before I ran across a bridge to Kentucky. And I ran back. It was a great little route that Weston gives you these little cards with a map of where you can run and it was a nice little three miler,
Tyson Mutrux
you know, we’re just talking about less than how like, that is a great thing. Whenever we were in Arizona, I stayed the Western with you. And they had a little maps that give you it’s really cool. Maybe the balls of water they let you did you use their shoes and clothes? Or did you bring your own?
Jim Hacking
I brought my own, but they do. Yeah, I mean, the Western does it upright, you know, they have that smell that I love that I am thinking about pumping into my law office, because I think it’s so addictive. And I’m drinking that bottle of water that you mentioned, I just think they do everything. Everything right, I think they’ve really thought through the travel experience. And I’ve only had one bad experience at the Westin, and that was in Tampa Bay, it was one that they had just bought. And they were remodeling it. So we went to the other one in Tampa and had a great experience.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and just so people know what we’re talking about with the clothing. So if you want to run at A West, and all you have to do is you have to call downstairs, tell them your shoe size and your shirt and shorts size. And they will deliver and put on your door, some clothes and all you had that you run on them. I think it’s $5 super cheap. You run on them, you put them back on the door, and they come pick him up. It is awesome. I think you’re right. I think that from start to finish, they completely adopt the the process. And I think that that’s something we should probably do in our own practices.
Jim Hacking
I think it’s really instructive for lawyers, I think lawyers can have a lot to learn from the service industries, especially hotels, you know, my man, Dean Jackson would talk about the stuff that goes on on the stage and the stuff that goes on backstage. And you really if you envision the times that you interact with your client and try to maximize it, for them to give them the best experience possible, then that’s going to give them something that’s remarkable when they’re thinking about referring you,
Tyson Mutrux
for sure. Well, today we’re talking about basically, in a nutshell, and this actually goes along with what we’re talking about with Weston, you know, if you are the best, don’t be afraid to say it. If you’re not why aren’t you? Do you want to explain you’d come up with this topic? What do you want explain kind of what we’re talking about.
Jim Hacking
I think that any lawyer in any practice area has almost an ethical or moral obligation to be the best in their field, I think that if you are not striving to be the best immigration lawyer, personal injury lawyer, bankruptcy lawyer, divorce, whatever, that you have got to be constantly striving to improve your practice, to improve your knowledge base and to improve your systems. If you’re not doing that, then that’s a real problem. And if you are doing that, then I think it’s perfectly okay for you to use that in your marketing. And you might not be the best lawyer for every kind of client. But once you’ve identified your target client, your avatar client, then I think you owe it to yourself and to your client to be the best. And then I think that can come through in your marketing, in your consult in your practice, and your request for referrals.
Tyson Mutrux
So it’s funny, there’s two things I kind of want to address what you just said, the first part is becoming the best if you’re not the best. So striving to be the best. I think it’s hard for anybody to disagree with that statement. But I think what happens is that people the uncomfortable, they think that they kind of know their practice area, and they stop learning. And that’s a bad idea. And as I think it’s extremely poor, that’s why we do CLE is things like that, but get outside of your comfort zone and learn some new techniques. If you try cases, like I do, get out and learn some reptile techniques or some other techniques that may help you learn some new deposition techniques. You don’t know everything, things are changing constantly. So I think that’s extremely important. So the people, most people whenever the listeners are gonna say why and you’re right, yeah, of course, you’d be the best one you strive to be the best, but what are you doing to become the best? So that’s what you’ve got to ask yourself, What am I doing to continually strive to be the best? Am I going to seminars? Am I learning new things? The other thing I want to talk about is, you are completely right. We do have a obligation to say we are the best. I think the reservation what people are gonna say is but we’re different. They’re gonna say but we’re different. We’re attorneys. We can’t say that we can’t say we’re the best because the ethics rules that we You can’t say that. But I think you and I would agree, there are ways of pounding our chest, say, Hey, we’re the best, I think, the protection to the client. So if there’s resistance, if you’re listening this and there’s resistance, I want you to think about the people in your niche practice area. So let’s say it’s Jimmy and with immigration, I’m sure, Jimmy, I’m sure, you know, a lot of immigration attorneys or people that say that their immigration attorneys that are terrible attorneys. And so your obligation is to tell people, Hey, I’m the best because I’m striving to become the best or I am the best because I put in the work to know everything. And so, if you’ve got this reservation, I shouldn’t do that. You’re protecting the clients, because you’re putting in the groundwork to do the best job for these people. And in a way, you’re protecting them from these posers out there that say they do everything and they don’t really do anything very well. Anything that I just said there that kind of hits on anything for you.
Jim Hacking
Absolutely. And I guess I want to emphasize I’m not talking about like, putting up a billboard saying that you’re the winningest lawyer, that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, shot across the bow. I know that
Jim Hacking
is the mindset, okay, so here’s why it’s so important. If you don’t feel like you’re delivering the best client experience and the best representation to your clients, then that’s going to impact your mindset, when you’re meeting with clients, it’s going to telegraph, that you feel shaky about what it is that you do. But yeah, if you’re if you are the best, or if you’re striving to do the best job possible. And if you think you are better, as compared to as you call posers, who maybe are not as good as you, then I think that you do sort of have a moral obligation to protect your clients from those other attorneys. And I think that you need to fight for the representation, I think you really want to show that you are the best and to tell people, you know, what it is that makes you different, and why your experience with us is going to be different. And I think that it both serves you and it serves the client better.
Tyson Mutrux
You know, it’s something I do. So we’ve all had those meetings where we’re sitting out with a client, and we’re just feeling it, you know, we’re having that we’re confident, and we’re not we’re getting that client, if I ever have a client or potential client on the phone, or a medicine person, or let’s say they’re considering me and someone else that just kind of dabbles in personal injury, when I tell them and here’s the competence part of it, I tell him, I said, Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Look me up on the internet. And I want you to call around and ask about me and ask about this other person, and do your research. And I’d say the vast majority of the time I get that client, because I’m willing to say listen, I’m the best, I don’t say that. But I say in a way where Listen, call around, ask about me, ask about me, see if people have a good view of me, look me up on the internet, see what my clients have to say about me. And so that’s a another part of this is that if you make sure you protect your reputation online, in your in your community, that’s going to protect you as well, it’s gonna help you get those clients, it’s going to show the clients that you are the best that you take, basically your reputation very seriously. So you’re going to work even harder for that person. Because if you do have a very, very good reputation, and you take the reputation seriously, the clients know that because you’ve done a lot to protect that by taking care of those clients, and you’re going to do everything you can to take care of those clients to make sure that your reputation remains intact.
Jim Hacking
I think he raised a really good point. And it’s one that comes up in consults. And it takes a certain experience level. And, you know, having sat through a number of consults with clients. And that is that when you meet with a client, I think you absolutely have to be able and willing to turn away the client or to telegraph to the client that while you’d be very, very happy to represent them. If they don’t hire you, it’s not the end of the world for you. You’re not going to jump off a bridge or be sad, because someone chooses not to have you represent them. I think clients can smell it a mile away when an attorney is desperate to get a case. And I think that, you know, maybe at first you have to do a little bit of posturing. But I think that if you make it clear to the client, that you’d be happy to represent them. But if they don’t choose to do business with you, you’re going to be just fine. I think that really is a powerful sales technique.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and something that goes with that is your fees. Don’t lower your fees. If they’re shopping, let them shop. Tell them that say if they ask you to lower your fee, just tell them no. So see I why I worked my butt off for a reason. My fees are set at a at a rate for a reason. And so I don’t deter from it.
Jim Hacking
I always like to say that clients come into your office the way that they’re going to be as clients throughout Europe presentation. So if they’re late to their first appointment, if they come on organizer bring you a bag of documents, and they’re sort of haphazard about things. And that’s how they’re going to be throughout. And I think that’s also true for the attorney. I think that if you meet with a client, and they’re going to want you to be their advocate to be in your case, fighting with an insurance company over money, and if you’re willing to fold in that very first consult, then there you’re telegraphing to them that you’re a pushover, and you’re gonna fold when the insurance company’s sort of holding your feet to the fire.
Tyson Mutrux
Absolutely. Another part of what you were saying is, it’s how the client presents themselves and how the attorney presents himself. If you’re the best activist, don’t be a slob. I feel like we’re almost feel like we’re being their mothers talking on this, but it’s a part of it. Part of what you’re doing part of what your marketing is, if you are the best, you need to act that role, you need to play that role. Part of what we do is playing a role, especially as a trial attorney trying cases. I had to play a role. You as an immigration attorney, we were just talking it’s really kind of funny. You were playing the role. I was asking you what you were doing in Cincinnati what your role was. And you said, well, a lot of these times all I have to do is to sit in the back and crack jokes. Well, that’s your role because you are trying to make this process as easy as possible. Make sure that that what are they called a an officer that’s reviewing them? Yeah, immigration officer immigration, you have to make sure that the immigration officer is happy is in a good mood because you want them to approve your client. So you’re
