Are you? Because your systems are gonna be tested at their weakest and busiest point.
In this episode Tyson interviews Jim about his immigration practice and go through the importance of being ready and having effective systems during busy and difficult times. Great lessons and huge takeaways!
“It has suddenly become cool to be an immigration lawyer in America”
“There times when you become part of the spotlight, or your practice area becomes highlighted or in the public eye…you have to be ready for situations like this”
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Tyson’s Tip: The Mevo Camera! It is phenomenal!
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Transcript: Are You Ready?
Jim Hacking
For a lot of our listeners, there are different times where they can become sort of part of the spotlight or their practice area might become highlighted or in the public eye. And it might just also just simply be dealing with times of excess dizziness. And I think there’s some lessons for all of us about sort of why you have to be ready for situations like this.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar, podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking, and I’m tasting music. Oh, there’s a fun Super Bowl. I know that our listeners will have thoroughly digested it by now. But it was quite a game last night. It was
Tyson Mutrux
and I don’t know if people realize what they saw. Probably the greatest circle ever. I mean, it was incredible. I mean, the turns the twist, it was fantastic. It was such a good watch
Jim Hacking
after the game Tom Brady who I am no fan of was talking about how his team has a lot of mental toughness. And I mean, I remember one time the Cardinals came back in game five of the playoffs that game that I was at in DC when they were down six, nothing in the first to come back and win. But to have that mental toughness to know you’re still in the game. I mean, they were down 28 to three, and they came back they needed two touchdowns with to two point conversions and they pulled it off and the owner of the Falcons was standing down on the sideline like a fool. It was something to behold.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, I actually really felt bad for him. I didn’t know who I wanted to root for. I didn’t really have a rooting interest in the game. But I like Matt Ryan, I like to honor the fact that I can’t think of his name right now. But they’re blank. Or they’re blank. Yeah, I feel bad for him to be worse than sitting down on the sidelines. Like, you know, I think he was waiting to go get the trophy. And he’s a little premature by about a full quarter. But yeah, it was, it was rough for him. And I feel bad for him at that time. But listen, man, New England, they pulled it out. It was it was a hell of a game. Let’s talk a little bit about mental toughness. And we sort of teased this on the last episode, because you’re going through some stuff with your firm. And so I don’t know how we want to set this up. We floated this idea last week. And then we finally made the agreement to do it this week. So basically, what I’m gonna do is I’m going to interview you, you got some stuff going on MLA, you set it up, and then I’m going to interview you as we go. Sounds good.
Jim Hacking
Yeah. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, he got on the call that it has suddenly become cool to be an immigration lawyer. And what do I mean by that? Well, with the
Tyson Mutrux
first second, I will tell you, you’re never going to be cool. Jimmy. Okay. So even though you think it may be cool to be an immigration attorney, I’ll let you have your day in the sun. It’s really never called me an immigration attorney. And you’ll never be cool. Just say no. But you go ahead, go ahead and complete your sentence.
Jim Hacking
This is just like I love marketing, where I’m like, nice, Dean Jackson. And you’re like mean, Joe Polish. So last week, he tried to take my words out of context and make it out like you’re smarter than I am. But in any event, what’s going on. So with the election of Donald Trump, I had not anticipated some of the consequences of that. And one of the consequences has been that our phone has been ringing off the hook. And we have been signing up cases left and right. And we are really getting stretched to a point where I might have to start turning down some cases or figuring out something else to do. A lot of people are, and rightly so completely freaked out. And they are finally moving on cases that they should have moved on a long time ago. They’re just finally getting started. When we’re meeting with people during consults, we’re not getting any pushback on our prescription for what they should do. We’re not getting any pushback on the fee that we want to charge. And so people are just saying, Yep, go do it. And so it’s really an interesting time. And I think that it would be good for us to talk about it today. Because I think that for a lot of our listeners, there are different times where they can become sort of part of the spotlight or their practice area might become highlighted or in the public eye. And it might just also just simply be dealing with times of excess busyness. And so you know, like, for example, when our friend Mike Campbell, ran his DWI campaign over New Years, suddenly the focus was on him and, and I think there’s some lessons for all of us about sort of why you have to be ready for situations like this.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay, that’s actually the first line of questions where I wanted to go down was, were you ready for this? And if you were why, and if you weren’t why?
Jim Hacking
I think in a lot of ways, certainly from the getting the message out part of the component of you know, positioning us now in this new scenario, I think we were well positioned and then thinking about this over the weekend is that, you know, luckily, we really had a lot of our systems in place to get our message out there. And what I mean by that, well, I can flip on our phone, or flip on the camera, and shoot a video about what’s going on with Trump’s changes to the immigration rules. And I’ve done that a couple of times over the last two weeks. And we’ve gotten a ton of YouTube video views. And Facebook views, one of our videos that I just shot on the back porch had 2000 views over last weekend, and people are really hungry for the information. So that’s sort of one thing is just the ability to just sort of dive right in, we also had been kicking around starting this Muslim immigration podcast. And so I now have another podcast that I’m doing. And it’s very, very timely. And luckily, we were sort of had that in the pipeline when things started to change. So we’re able to distribute our message very easily, I gave a talk on Friday night at a local mosque, it was about an hour long, and I had it up and on the web within 12 hours. So just having that ability to sort of dive right in. This is why you have to have the marketing systems and the messaging systems in place ahead of time for when you really need to get your message out there quickly. From a work standpoint, I think that I don’t know that you can ever be ready for something like this. I mean, we’ve literally opened up one case a day since about the middle of December. So it’s pretty unusual for us. And so luckily, we do have a lot of systems in place for production for producing results for people. But as my friend Dave frees a great Estate Planning Attorney from Pennsylvania, who by the way, has agreed to be on our show in the next couple of weeks, as he always taught me is that you know, you got to be really ready, because your systems are going to be tested at their, at their weakest points. And at their busiest point, sort of like when you were at Disney World a couple of weeks ago, and you’re talking about how you were there over the Christmas holiday it was when they’re very, very busy. And so one of the employees sort of snapped at you. And I think that’s a lesson for us.
Tyson Mutrux
I think that what’s important to point out is you had multiple channels of getting your message out, which was really cool, right? Yeah, you had the newsletter, you have your social media videos, you have your YouTube videos, you’re speaking about it. I think that that’s really, really important. And like you said, you basically can just plug and play, which is really great. you package your message, however you want to package it, and you send it out and you’re able to communicate with these people. You also have your Facebook page that gives the private page now where people can ask questions on which is, I’m assuming probably building up with a lot of questions. So you’ve got a community that you’re building their tribe, talking about that book last week, Seth Godin, you’re building your tribe, and actually, you built your tribe, and now you’re leading them, which is really kind of cool. But at some point, the media has contacted you. Right,
Jim Hacking
right. I sent out a sort of a Twitter storm last Sunday about sort of the executive order and things like that. And the main columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, which is our biggest paper here in St. Louis, Tony messenger asked me if any of my clients would be willing to tell a story. So I have a client, she’s from Rolla, Missouri, which is sort of outside St. Louis. She’s married to a man from Iraq, they just had a baby. And he’s stuck in Iraq. And she is trying to get him here. And he did a page to a article on her, which happened to mention me and the work that we’re doing. And then I sort of fed that out into my social media world. So it sort of becomes like the cycle. And another example, that was, I knew I was given this talk at the mosque. And so before I went on Friday morning, I sent out to that Facebook group, which has now grown from a couple 2030 people and out to like, 350 people in the group. I just said, Hey, what questions should I be ready to answer when I go to the mosque tonight to talk about the executive orders? And so I came in, ready? That’s
Tyson Mutrux
great. So you I mean, you’re able to get the feedback, and then and then address those questions. So that’s great. You did mention that our systems are tested at their weakest point. What would you say is your weakest point right now?
Jim Hacking
I think that the it’s just a capacity issue. It’s just the sheer numbers thing. And we are one thing we are doing is if things are not completely in our wheelhouse, people are asking me to do sort of some things that sort of touch on immigration, but we’re just really having to dive down and do what we’re really good at. And I’ve been turning down a lot of things that are sort of one offs. So that’s sort of one thing. And then another interesting thing that happened to me, Tyson last Friday, so you know, at our office, it’s my wife and I, and then I have an associate who’s been out of law school for about a year and a half. And he’s a great guy, an excellent young attorney, very passionate. His name’s Andrew, about his clients and he does really, really good work for us. Well, of course, when it rains it pours his wife is a genius and she’s at Washington University finishing up her doctorate and she just got a teaching a tenure track position at the University of Wisconsin. So there’ll be moving to Wisconsin In the summer, and Andrew came to me. And you know, he’s doing as much legal work as I am for sure, if not more, and he has floated the possibility of us opening up a satellite office in Madison, because he likes working here, so much of him doing the work that he does here and, you know, trying to develop new business from Wisconsin. So we’re just sort of starting to have those preliminary discussions, but it’s just a very, very interesting time.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. It’s turning lemons into lemonade. But I want to ask you about something else. So was there a point where you were just flat fearful because of what was going on?
Jim Hacking
That’s interesting. So you know, we have both read bits and pieces of Tim Ferriss Tools of Titans book. And I’ve actually listened more to him talking about the book than I’ve actually read the book. But he talks about a lot of the people profiled in the book, do this thing where they listen to the same song over and over, so as to get into a state of flow. So I made this little playlist on Spotify, it’s about six songs. And the one song that I find myself returning to over and over, and I’ve listened to it for a couple hours at a time is RMS at the end of the world as we know it. And I listen to it sort of loud, and it really helps me focus. I haven’t been fearful at all, really, I wrote a blog post on my personal blog, Jim hacking.com, last week about how everything is an opportunity, I believe that everything that happens to us is an opportunity. There have been some times in my life where really bad things happened. And I’ve pushed through and I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I’ve grown. So I as troubled as I am with some of the things that Mr. Trump is doing is hard it is on some of my clients. And as complicated as immigration has quickly become, as the dizzying pace continues, I could throw up my hands and say, Oh, what was me This is terrible. You know, I’m really sad. And I don’t know what to do. But I really haven’t had that I really had this really centered, sort of giggling approach to how crazy it is. It’s just so crazy, that you just sort of worked through it, and you just keep going. Does that make sense? No, it makes
Tyson Mutrux
complete sense, I get it. And I think you’re done a fantastic job. And there is something I read not too long ago about whenever the competition gets really, really, really tough times get really, really, really tough, whether it’s competition, whether it’s just something like this crises, basically, what happens is, is that the top 20% of the industry will remain, and everyone else will start to either leave the industry, or fail or whatever it may be. And so this could be a very good time for the immigration systems to to sort of flush out the bad attorneys and keep the good attorneys and, and flush out the bad law firms and keep the good law firm. So not only as long as you can wade through this and be successful, and continue to do good work for your people. I think, even in the long run, even if even if the immigration system has gutted, you have positioned yourself very well to where you can do well in the future. And so I think that it’s a testament to your systems, which is really great.
Jim Hacking
One thing that struck me and one of the reasons why I’m sort of not freaking out is that I really feel like, you know, I started the firm 11 years ago, and I’m glad that I did them in that now. I really feel like we had our systems in place. Like he said, we had our messaging in place. But most of all, like when I was standing on that stage, or sitting at that, on that stage at the mosque, there were about 150 people there Muslims and non Muslims, people that care about immigration issues were there, the room was packed. And I would say that the concern, maybe even the fear was palpable, and to have everyone turn and look at you on stage, and to be able to talk rationally and calmly and tell people that we’re going to make it through this, that everything’s gonna be okay. And to sort of be a voice of reason. It not only helps me with my own fears, but it really helped put the fears of other people. You know, I was very realistic and very candid. But at the same time, I think that it was a real gift for me to be able to just help people get grounded and centered and know that, you know, we lived through the aftermath of 911 that we, we’ve been in situations before and just to be able to articulate in a meaningful way and to know my stuff. You know, when I got up there, I wasn’t looking at notes. I wasn’t having to think about things I just talked, there were two other people on the panel, but I talked for the most of it. And I just talked because I knew my stuff. And so I think that had a calming effect on people.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, it actually makes me think about another Seth Godin book, his newest one, what to do when it’s your turn, is that what it’s called? Exactly the book and it’s your turn and you’ve stepped up which is great, which is really awesome. So you’re ready and I think that that’s a good lesson for people be ready things happen like this in your industry can be flipped upside down, and you have to be ready to lead them. So that’s, that’s really great. I I’ve got some odd questions for you. Right? So have you had to increase the number of hours you’re working?
Jim Hacking
Yes, I’m definitely working a lot more.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay. I only ask that because sometimes I didn’t know how much you’ve automated your during unit because I know that more, it made it a lot more money than you have yours. I just curious if you had to actually actually increase that sounds like you have, have your Skype meetings gone up?
Jim Hacking
Yeah, councils have definitely gone up Skype councils have gone up. And I should say to that, you know, we have that independent contractor who’s working on forms for us. So that’s a really important point that I wanted to mention, during issues like this, you know, I had that situation a couple of years ago, where I had that pro bono criminal case. And I sort of turned off the marketing. And I turned off the focus on the firm. And I think one thing that’s really important is that, you know, it’s fine to be in these big quote, unquote, battles over immigration, but you got to make sure that you know, the bread and butter of your practice that all the other cases are still going that all the other clients are getting attended to and taken care of. And so it’d be very easy when you’re in quote, unquote, crisis mode to forget about, and I have in the past forgotten about the day to day stuff. So I think that that was a real important thing that I wanted to mention is that you’ve got to keep your eye on the ball. And you got to make sure that, that everything that’s supposed to be happening is happening, we’re still having a regular meetings, we’re still getting the team together and talking about cases. And so I think that’s really important.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s a great point. Very good lesson. Now, with the influx of calls and the new consoles, anything like that, you know, you’re talking about you had keep your eyes on the ball, which is good. You talked about the contract employee that you’d been using, did you do anything else to beef up to make sure everything was going smoothly? Or is everything just been running through the firm as it normally has been?
Jim Hacking
No, it’s been running, you know, we got to develop my paralegal extraordinaire, came back about three months, two months ago. So she’s been getting her work done. And we haven’t had to do much else. As far as scaling up, I am doing sort of odd hour consults. And the other thing is, is that, you know, I generally wear a black T shirt and cargo shorts to work every day, unless I’m going to immigration and I’ve actually been doing consults that way this week. And I’m like, if you want to meet with me, you want to talk to me, you’re lucky to come in and see me and that’s just how it is. And maybe there’s gonna be some people that are turned off by that. And maybe some of our listeners are turned off by that. But I just don’t have time or the inclination to do anything other than then crank. And I want to be comfortable when I do that. So I’m happy to meet with people, but I tell them, I’m dressed like a bum. And I hope you’re not offended. And everyone seems to be pretty cool with it.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s great. I know, whenever I meet with clients, whenever I’m in jeans or something like that, most of them appreciate it. They know that you’re a human being and not some suit, which is good. So I’d imagine that most of them don’t don’t care at all. So this is a question I’ve been rolling around in my head for about two weeks. In the Dean Jackson interview, whenever he had you on this podcast, when he asked you about the number of cases that you could handle the number of cases you want to handle. And he really he kind of struck a chord with you. Does this open your eyes to realize that you really can’t handle a lot more cases?
Jim Hacking
That’s a great question. Yeah. I mean, I think we get to the point of stretching. But yeah, I mean, I think that eventually, if you if you come up with a model, where you know that if the phone rings this many times, and if you have this many consults, and you’re going to bring in this many new clients, then it’s easier to try to scale. It’s more justifiable, it’s more understandable, it’s more, you’re better able to see the writing on the wall and say, Okay, if these are my numbers, then I know when it’s time to expand now, Lee Rosen was really when I met with him, he was really encouraging me to get more output from the people that we already have myself included. So I think right now we’re in that mode where we’re all digging in and pushing. But yeah, I think that because we’ve been doing so much of this remotely. And because I’m handling cases all over the country right now. And because so much of it’s coming off Skype, that it does make me think that there really is no limit on on what we’re doing that, you know, you correctly pointed out that he said, What would be an ideal number of new cases for you in the year and I said, Oh, by 200? And he said, Well, what about 2000? What would have to happen for it to be 2000? And that sort of that dancehalls and 10x stuff? And I get it. But yeah, I think that I’m starting to see the patterns and the trends and the scope of how we can make this work. And Evander moves to Wisconsin and we can make it work with him there then I really think the physical restrictions, the real world physical restrictions on a law firm like ours and immigration practice that we can do anywhere around the country. I think then it really changes.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s awesome. What you just said is great. I don’t want to go any further because it you really capsulated a lot of what I wanted to ask you in that that answer. What is your hack of the week.
Jim Hacking
So speaking of crowdsourcing and getting good information from Facebook groups, my hack of the week comes from our Facebook group. I wrote a little post on Facebook this week about you know if you get to One emails a day for things that you subscribe to that you never actually read. And then you click, click, click, click click to delete them all or to archive them all, without ever actually reading them that if you do that for like 30 seconds a day, that’s, you know, two and a half minutes a week. And you know, just sort of all adds up of waste of time and stuff price, our good friend reminded me of an app that I’ve used in the past, which is called unroll me on U N, R o, l l.me. And if you get that app, it’ll search through all of your emails for hyperlinks that say unsubscribe, and then you just go down the list and click the little boxes, and then it runs them out. And then unsubscribes you from all those actually package them together into one digest email, and it unsubscribes you if you want. So it’s a pretty sweet little free app, unroll. Me,
Tyson Mutrux
unroll me is great. I’ve been using it for a couple months now. And I agree with you, it does miss a couple emails from here and there, but it’s for the most part really good. And the digest is really easy. I would recommend that if people want to keep the email, just keep the email and don’t put in the digest. Because I I find myself tending to just sort of lump that in with the other spam I get and just delete it right away. And but there’s there can be some valuable emails in there. So if you will check out the app. There’s also an online desktop version too. But if you check it out, you’ll know what I’m talking about because it can kind of get lumped into your other stuff. So I think that’s a good one. Mine is I think I’m gonna make it jealous. I met with our mutual friend guy Porter last week, and he showed me the Mevo camera, which he had talked about in our group meeting couple weeks ago, or Infusionsoft group meeting, and is phenomenal. It is so cool. You hook it up to your iPhone or your iPad. And it just sits on a desk or tripod or whatever you want. And you can move around a room and it will pick you up you can interview people and it will pick up their voice and then zoom in on them and then zoom and zoom in on you. It doesn’t turn. But what it does is it’s got a wide angle shot. And then it will basically cut out the rest of the picture. That’s the easiest way for me to describe it. And it looks like someone has professionally cut your video. It is so awesome. I got it on Amazon and it’s 399 and I can’t wait to use it. I actually think I get it today. So obviously, it is so cool. And I can’t wait to show you. It’s pretty awesome.
