In this episode, Jim and Tyson will look back on some of the episodes that they’ve had, talk about the things that they’ve learned running the podcast and where do they see things headed in the future.
Hacking’s hack: Video Fruit by Bryan Harris. http://videofruit.com/
It teaches you how to get attention and how to build your email list. Awesome tools, check it out.
Tyson’s tip: https://gazelles.com/
All about strategies and planification.
Scaling Up – How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t
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Transcripts: Back to Basics
Tyson Mutrux
The way we market the way we practice is constantly changing. And the way we did things seven years ago is not the same way it’s going to be next year or the year after that it is the year after that. Things are constantly changing.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum layer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson Meatrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m tasting matrix. Hey, Jimmy, you’ve got a price for me as to what the topic is, so I can’t wait to hear it.
Jim Hacking
Well, we’re just about a year of broadcasting the awesome podcast known as maximum lawyer we’ve had a lot of guests on, we both had some transitions in the last couple weeks. You with starting a merged firm with your buddy Chris Vinnie, and me with a mani Nadella really taken over and working on systems with me sort of on the sideline cheering them on, I thought that we could look back a little bit on some of the episodes that we’ve had talk about the things that we’ve learned running the podcast, and sort of where we think see things headed in the future. I was laughing this morning, because my buddy Brian Harris, who has a great website called Video, fruit, and the name is sort of strange. But Brian Harris is really, really good about building your email list. And I highly recommend him and he’ll probably be my tip of the week to follow Brian but he was talking about on Twitter today, what happens with podcasts, and I’m just gonna sort of paraphrase it and explain what he’s meaning. So he has this quote at the start of the tweet, it says, Hey, new podcasts about subject x. And then it says episodes one through 10, cool interview about that subject x. And then Episode 11, through 100 Random interview about why from someone who may or may not have ever done X. And I bring that up, because it’s easy to get far afield when you’re hosting a podcast, especially when you’re sometimes looking for content or things to talk about. And so I just thought it’d be good for us to bring it back to basic to talk about the things that we’ve learned and the topics that we’ve covered that it really sort of stood out for us over the course of the past year.
Tyson Mutrux
I like it. That’s a good one, our 52nd episode, which will be the one year episode, you’ll need pretty awesome, I think so we’ll get to that later. But I’m actually pulling up the old podcast as you were talking because I had no idea what we were going to talk about until you said it just now is a really good idea. And it’s looking at our first 10 episodes. And it’s really you know, the first was introduction, things like that. And then you know, working on the law practice instead of in the practice and branding, managing growing pains and niching down, viewing your law firm as a business lawyer web videos, sort of a flashback. It’s kind of cool, because when we first started this, we didn’t know whether it was going to pick up any traction or anything else. It really has. I guess my biggest takeaway is that I learned a ton myself, just from you and our guests and everything else and really talking about I’ve had improved, my firm has improved and we obviously merge but still I’ve been I’ve improved as an attorney in the firm has been better off because we’ve sort of gone through this process. I guess that’s the biggest takeaway is that I’ve learned a lot and I’ve gained a lot from it. So that’s that’s my my biggest takeaway. I think there’s a lot of cool episodes. I think my favorites, it’s probably the one that stands out the most is the one that where we did the the roulette, the website roulette. I think that was actually my favorite episode. But what about you?
Jim Hacking
That was certainly the most fun? Yeah, for me, it’s interesting, because you and I sometimes record these episodes three or four weeks before they air and I would say that I have listened to 90% of the episodes after they’re released. And I learned from re listening to them. I learned about myself, I learned about things that I said and promises that I’ve made. I learned about things that I might gloss over when I’m talking to you or to a guest because I’m sort of focused on the next question. And there’s just no substitute, I think to having these little mini snapshots of where you are at a particular moment. There have been times where I’ve recorded this podcast, sort of in a bombed or downstate, and by the time I get to listen to it, I’m sort of up and excited about things again, and vice versa. There’s times where we talk about a subject and I get all fired up listening to it, and then a recording and then I hear it again later and it just sort of turns me back around.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and it’s sort of worked as a matter of hey, I completely echo what you just said because there are times where we record these sometimes early in the morning, some of the afternoon but usually early in the morning. If you’re not feeling the greatest you or you’re just stressed about work. And it’s sort of a, it’s a really good break from work. I enjoy doing it, I think you do too. So it’s a it’s a nice break from, from the day to day grind that sometimes we have to go through. So is really sort of nice. It is really cool. Go back and looking through these, these episodes, it’s really as neat. Going back in whenever I go back and listen to I listen to every single one of them. And I it was sort of weird to hear my own voice on the podcast the first couple of times. But I think the biggest one of the big things that I do whatever I’m listening to it is my sort of my BS detector to make sure I didn’t say something that I didn’t mean at the time. And usually, it’s what basically whenever we’re talking about a topic, I think in my head, okay, what are my thoughts on that topic? And then because I want to make sure that what I’m saying is on the podcast is what I really feel. And I mean, it’s very rare that what I said in the podcast is not really what I meant, because sometimes a topics thrown out, and we’re sort of just talking about it. It’s sort of stress stream of mind kind of thing where you’re, you’re talking about the topic, you’re answering the question right then and you really haven’t a chance to think about it. Sometimes a lot of times we have but sometimes you haven’t. But I just want to, whenever I’m answering his questions, I want to make sure that what I’m saying is truly what I feel, and 99% of the time, that’s true. So luckily, my BS detector doesn’t go off that much. Because I think there are a lot of sort of what you were talking about with what your tip of the week should be with your camera guy you just mentioned. But there’s I think there are a lot of podcasts out there. People don’t practice what they preach and do what they say and things like that. So I want to make sure that people know that we do what we say we do. And we do the things we talked about. I mean, not all of them, because sometimes we just give advice on certain areas that we’ve either read about we’ve done in the past, we no longer do things like that. But we didn’t really do try to practice what we preach and what we’re talking about.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I think to the one of the reasons people have enjoyed the podcast is I do you think that we’re pretty authentic, I think we sort of are honest about our own mistakes, we talk about issues that we’re struggling with. And I think that that really resonates with people. I think, as always, the practicing law can be a pretty solitary endeavor, especially if you don’t have a partner. And just having a place to bounce off. I bounce ideas off each other. Plus, you and I know each other pretty well. So if our BS detectors aren’t going off on ourselves, we can least call each other out for things like, I’m still waiting for your newsletter to come out. So I’m really excited about getting the weekly Tyson email newsletter and things like that. So I think that’s one thing. I also think that in some of the lunches we’ve had with people and talks we’ve had sort of off air and then even when we have guests on the air, who are struggling with things, I think it’s made you and I better at analyzing a situation. And really coming up with some solutions quickly when I spoke at St. Lucie law school last week, there were three different students who raised their hand during the course of my talk, they threw out a topic that really interests them in the law, one person wanted to talk about criminal law, one person wanted to talk about how the adoption system is sort of broken and how she views her role as a future lawyer in handling adoptions in a little bit different way. And the third person talked about her real passion was healthcare that prisoners receive and sort of the inadequate care and, you know, how can I return that into a law practice and, and I just stood there, you know, with no notes or anything, and I just brainstormed with each of them about how what I would do if I were going to jump into that field. To me, that’s just a lot of fun. I like doing it here on the show. I like doing it with you, and with our guests. And I think that just getting in the sort of weekly pattern of regular thinking about things outside of getting the daily grind work done, has really made us both better analysts and better thinkers, and just better lawyers
Tyson Mutrux
yet, so I speak at SLU on the 29th. I was just pulling this up. And I mean, they always bring in the best for last for the capstone of the of the course. Just see you know, Jimmy, and my favorite part about speaking at the law schools are one of these people, these kids know nothing. It’s really interesting to really see back like I remember I was in one of those seats whenever you were teaching me in that class. I knew nothing. That’s that’s the one thing they they know nothing when it comes to running a law practice because it’s not taught in law school. The other thing is, is that they’re full of ideas. They’ve got a lot of great ideas, and I love hearing the new ideas. Because the way we market the way we practice is constantly changing. And the way we did things seven years ago is not the same way it’s going to be next year, the year after that or the year after that. Things are constantly changing. People are advertising and marketing on Snapchat these days. I mean, that is not something that you and I do, right? I mean, but Snapchat is a way of marketing. And these, these kids know how to do it. So the way we get to people is completely different. And it’s that part of it, that Snapchat part of it just reminds me how important it is to go to these conferences, because in 2014, there was a guy that spoke at icon for Infusionsoft talking about how Snapchat was an Instagram and all these other social media outlets that aren’t Facebook, or Twitter, were going to be emerging. And I remember thinking at the time yet, right, but it’s true. I mean, things like Snapchat, and Instagram, are these emerging markets. And so you start to learn these things, as you go to speak to classes, or you go to conferences and things like that. So it’s, this is a great learning process. And I’m truly, truly grateful for it. It’s such a valuable asset to me as a, as a marketer, because it’s something we have to do to run our practice. That’s the number one thing is marketing. It’s not practicing law, because you can’t practice law, unless you have the cases. I think that’s a very, very good point. I feel like I’m rambling. And I’m not directly responding to what you said. But there’s so much I want to talk about, because it’s such a broad topic once I’m the only done of last year.
Jim Hacking
So I think you raised a good point about speaking to new law students. And when I spoke to them last week, and I mentioned the lead magnet, they all looked like a deer in the headlights, they didn’t know what a lead magnet was. And it was a reminder to me that one of the things we’ve talked about on here a lot is that, and amongst ourselves is do we produce this podcast and share our message and the kind of message that John Fisher shares with everybody and hope that some people get it? Or do we just sort of focus on the people who get it. And during that talk at the law school, and in general, you know, our message is not for everybody. And our approach is not everyone’s cup of tea. And I think that it’s just so freeing to acknowledge that, you know, there’s, there’s a small chunk of people who are going to get what we do and who like our podcast. And then for all the people that don’t, all the haters, or even just the people that are neutral to it, I think that it just really frees us up to say whatever we want, and to realize we’re not going to be the solution for everybody. But I think that we’ve learned a lot in focusing on the people who quote unquote, get it that people who hustle people who want to build a practice people who don’t want to be slaves to their, to their firm, and people who want to, you know, develop good systems to make their firm as great as possible.
Tyson Mutrux
This point, because very early on, we were trying to identify a market and for our listeners were and who our Avatar was, and we were trying to figure out, you’re right, do we go bigger market where there’s a lot more people that don’t know as much, because there’s a lot of attorneys that know nothing about marketing, they know it’s zero, they were very, very like me whenever I first got to law school are very much like you, whenever you started your new practice before he started church, teaching yourself all these new marketing tactics and reading a lot and all that. And I think or do we go like really high end, high level stuff, we’re really digging deep into these topics. I think we sort of fall in somewhere in between there. But I think the best part about our listeners is they’re all action takers. That’s the coolest part about is they’ve listened to this. Because they’re listening to multiple podcasts, they’re reading constantly, they’re bettering themselves and their action takers. And I think the evidence of that is from our guests, and from our Facebook group. And a lot of there’s a lot of over overlap with John Fisher’s Facebook group and his mastermind experience. And so these are all action takers. And so I think that we’ve really settled on a really good match where we’re not too advanced. So it’s over ahead of most of our listeners, and we’re not too basic. So most of the listeners are turned off because we’re it’s just too basic stuff. And so I think we’ve got this nice niche of listeners. That’s really nice. So I think if listeners want us to go high level more high level we can I think you and I have the capability of doing that. But I think that where we are now is sort of where we want to be because I think that’s where it benefits most of us because this is where most of the listeners are sort of like us, like you said. So we’re sort of we find a kind of hit that that nice groove.
Jim Hacking
Well, I think that when you and I had lunch of my garage is one of the times when we were talking about even starting the podcast and sort of what this little adventure that we’re on. We did sort of sit down and come up with who’s our avatar client. And to me it’s so funny. Or avatar listener, I should say, to me, it’s so funny that our avatar listener in reality is well Norman, you know somebody who is in a firm situation, who experiences some kind of shake up and is going on out on their own, either because they wanted to, or because they they have to. And that was our highest rated episode that that was the one that got the most downloads. You know, we spent two weeks on it, we spent a lot of time with will. And that was really where our energy comes from. I also think that if we look at that, as the sort of the Avatar client, everybody else sort of is close to that in different ways. You know, John Fisher has been on his own for a long time, he has a lot of systems. So he’s sort of in a different on a different end of that spectrum, join homes we had on which is also really popular episode. And she was able to, you know, explain to us, you know, she has a very different practice than the two of us, but she has the same energy, that same desire to learn. And I think that it’s really when we tap into the people that are close, that are close to our avatar, that really resonate the most with our listeners.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah. And actually will normally John Fisher have very similar stories. I mean, they’re not identical, but they’re very similar stories and how they started their their firms. And there was a break from another entity of some sort, you know, John Fisher, was a partner in another firm and broke away, will Norman was a partner in a firm and broke away, they do completely different practice areas. But I think most of these guests that were attorneys sort of started the same way, whether they broke away, or they were starting from scratch. And so the main thing is that they all started from essentially nothing, you know, they, some of them may have had clients when they started, but they had no firm, they had no idea what they’re doing. When they first started out, they sort of had to figure it out. And so hopefully, this is a good resource for people as they listen through and get some ideas on how to run their firm. I mean, we don’t, we don’t talk about everything, and we can’t talk about everything. And we don’t claim to be able to talk about everything. But hopefully, it’s a good starter course for people to then go through the episodes, they’re not that long. And they can learn a thing or two to help them along the way. Because a lot, it can be tough. I mean, and a lot of this is stuff that we’ve learned along the way as mistakes that we’ve made, things we’ve done, right? I think if people listen to what we’re having to say, maybe they can avoid some of the mistakes and sort of get on the fast track to success. Because I think that’s what we want more than anything is just people to be successful. I mean, why else would we do be doing this? We don’t, we don’t get paid for of it. So it’s not like we get a compensation. So it’s so we really want people to be successful. And I think that that’s from the feedback we’ve gotten, I think the people have gotten a lot of good from it.
Jim Hacking
I think that’s a really good point. And one of the things that Seth Price said to me early on, and about what he liked about the podcast is really, we’re not selling merchandise or or pitching and programs are things like that, we’re just sort of exploring this and seeing where it goes. And I can see in the future, us doing things like a mastermind group or having a retreat. For people, I think that would be really fun, I think to get some of our listeners together and sort of deep dive on this stuff would be fun. But I mean, we spent, like you said, we spent zero time thinking about how to monetize this or anything. And we’ve just been more on just sort of learning and growing and and building the audience. And you know, any of that stuff will come down the line. But do you see any changes in the future for this show, or any things you’d like to add or supplements to what we’ve been doing?
Tyson Mutrux
Well, I wouldn’t really change much about the actual approach or the avatars anywhere else. But we will have more guests on the on the podcast. Something that’s interesting going on within the podcast world is it’s becoming more and more difficult to get guests. I think about a year or two ago, you could have gotten a lot of famous guests that you can no longer get because podcasting has gotten so much so much bigger. So I think if people are expecting those very, really, really big guest, we will try to get them the famous types what I’m talking about like the Gary Vaynerchuk bucks. I bet two years ago, we could have gotten Gary on the show, I bet it probably would have been possible these days if you go to his website is not possible. So I’ve submitted a submission to get him on the show. There’s no chance it’s just not happen. So I know I personally tried to get Ryan Deiss on the show. They he’s extremely busy. Now he’s he does the circuit on a bunch of the more general business based marketing based podcast, it’s more and more difficult to get those types of guests and so we will have a lot of guests and I think that they’re going to be very practical type guests where they can help you in your day to day they help in your marketing and helping your business help you get better and help you improve. So would you would you agree with that about the guests? I think I think it has become more and more difficult to get guests on the show.
Jim Hacking
I think that if you sort of follow the Gary Vee approach and do the Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook if those that as you sort of share their content and make your mark with people. I think that that’s how I got Tom singer I sort of tweeted out a lot of his things and talked to him through direct message on Twitter and sort of build a connection, I think, a cold call to a website, asking for someone like Gary Vee to come, I think you’re gonna have to do something really exceptional to get Gary V’s attention. And I actually have some theories on how to do it. One of which I’m gonna put into place this fall, and maybe we can get him on the show. But, you know, he still practices that go giver mentality. He probably doesn’t say it that way. But he does a lot of podcasts on other people’s shows. And, you know, just getting him for five or 10 minutes would be tremendous.
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, absolutely. And he does do pretty so much content. He’s such a busy guy. I mean, he is very high energy. And I that’s, that’s something who is someone who I sort of aspire to be with that energy, because the energy can take you so many places. Energy is something if you can keep your energy high, your energy level high, it can benefit you so much. I mean, it is one of those things where if you’re sort of down on the dumps during the day, you don’t get things done. If you’re high energy the whole day mean you’re just producing all the listeners can sort of think about that if you’ve got that energy up the amount of those days readers knocking out whatever you’re doing paperwork, motion motions, pleadings, whatever it may be, you’re just knocking out a bunch of stuff. It’s an it’s an energy thing. So keeping yourself motivated is a strong part of that. So even aspire to be Gary Vee Gary Vee. You can not kind of botch you can that you’re in like a lot of money. But let’s say if you can get up on the show, Jimmy, I will bow down and I will I will say your king, because that would be amazing.
Jim Hacking
So I haven’t planned, it might just be me bum rushing him and recording with my phone for a couple minutes. But I know that I know that he’s going to be in the state of Missouri in November and I have a plan on how to talk to him.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, if you bum rush him and do it that way, I will not save your cake.
Jim Hacking
But I’m not going to bumper should No, no, no, no, it’ll all be by consent I here’s my plan. And this goes along with Gary’s whole approach. So Gary, as you may or may not know, his, his you know what his ultimate goal is what to do with all of his money. You know what he really wants to do? No idea wants to buy the New York Jets. And New York Jets fan takes four hours off every Sunday, he goes to every chess game Home and Away since 1995. And so I have voted for the Jets even before the Rams game in St. Louis, that just have been my favorite team. So I have a lot of jets, sort of memorabilia, a lot of just card football cards from when I was a kid. And the Jets are playing the chiefs in November. So my plan is to take the boys up to Kansas City and figure out a way to reach out to him before and while he’s there and see if I can talk to him for a couple minutes.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, you and I need to have a bet then I’m a huge chiefs fan. And so I’ll go to that game with you if you’d like. Okay, that way. I can take my boys and we will route against the Jets.
Jim Hacking
That’d be great. Because he would like that just as much. I think so well to figure out a way that would be fun. Well to get tickets and both make that happen. We can we can make a road trip the boys and I could come pick you up in mom’s minivan and we can make a road trip out of it’d be a lot of fun.
Tyson Mutrux
Sounds good? You know we got a new Chrysler Pacifica so we can take the Chrysler Pacifica it’s pretty sweet. It’s the new one. So
Jim Hacking
one of our new sponsors of our show that a little product placement.
Tyson Mutrux
I wish Chrysler was sponsoring this show, but no, it’s not. But I will tell you it is killer. It is sweet. You want to wrap it up.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, that sounds great. I have my hack of the week. And that is Brian Harris. I encourage all the eyes to find video for Brian Harris. We live in a world of eyeballs Gary Vee and others would tell you that it’s all about the eyeballs. And if you can get 1000 loyal fans, you can accomplish anything including winning a contest to get Google reviews that it’s all about the eyeballs now getting people to watch you to find you interesting and to to agree to receive information from you. There’s there’s no greater compliment that a potential client can give you I think then following you. And Brian Harris teaches you how to get the eyeballs started how to build your email list. He’s got a great little free Chrome plugin that will show you your follower count. And every time it updates, you can set goals for yourself on how to increase your your mailing list. And I’ve used that tool for a really long time. And I think that he provides a really unique way of explaining things about how to build an audience. And I really liked the way he presents. They’ll do these 14 hour intensive email growing with procedures. And if you follow along, it’s sort of done in real time. It’s really, it’s really cool when it goes these things.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s really good. I like it. My tip of the week is something you may have heard of Jimmy, I don’t know. But it’s from the book scaling up by Vern Harnish was someone you like, if you go and I don’t know if he owns Gizelle but GE as GA Z E L L E S. think it’s good. old.com is where you go to but they’ve got a packet called growth tools.com. He looked at the back of the book, scaling up and there’s a scaling up that calm that I just searched gazelles. And I’d seen something in the packet, we’d gotten an icon and looked into this. And it’s called growth tool that they’ve got a bunch of handouts. And it’s called One Page Tools for scaling up the business. It’s really interesting, I actually printed it out and bound it, putting the binding because I think it’s great. Sorry about the Gizelle sporty framework, the one page personal plan, function, accountability, chart, process, accountability, chart, strengths, weaknesses and trends. It’s sort of like a SWOT analysis, but without the opportunities in the seven strata, one page strategic plan, process for productivity drivers vision summary, the who, what, when Rockefeller habits, checklist, cash acceleration strategies, and an interesting one, from a recent podcast, the power of one, it’s interesting to look sort of down at some of the principles, it plays a little bit with what you were talking about in your power of one a few weeks ago. But it’s a really interesting, it’s, there’s a spot in the back for taking notes, I’m guessing there’s probably a video that accompanies that. But it’s something I’m gonna go through this week, with my partner, I want to talk a little bit about this. We’ve already gone through our vision and things like that, or five year goals, everything else, but this is something that’s it looks like a lot of them dig a little deeper in some of the stuff. So it’s something I recommend quite a bit. It’s really cool. It’s a really cool packet. Free doesn’t cost you a dang thing. Now to recommend, I think we’ve may have recommended this book on the podcast scaling up. So I guess that’s a bonus if we’ve not recommended it. Growth tools and scaling up are both really great tool. So anything else Jimmy.
