In this episode, Jim and Tyson have “the original streaming lawyer” Mitch Jackson as a guest! They will go over his background, his career, his strategies and marketing tactics! Awesome episode, lots of nuggets and takeaways!
Hacking’s hack: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ Excellent content about social media.
Mitch’s tip: A book: Adversaries into Allies: Master the Art of Ultimate Influence. Author: Bob Burg
Tyson’s tip: An app to use on your presentations! Whiteboard! https://itunes.apple.com/es/app/doceri-interactive-whiteboard/id412443803?mt=8
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Transcripts: Mitch Jackson: Helping Others
Mitch Jackson
It came from literally, you know, 2025 30 years of doing this and learning what works and making mistakes, and learning from your bad decisions, and out hustling it out working the other side. And I think the same thing applies to social. It’s just a matter of going all in and understanding that, and I can speak from experience the efforts that we’re putting in to the social media platforms. I’d gotten out of it. You know, tenfold what we put into it.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. We’re back on the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m tasting musics. Jimmy, we had a interesting one today. So you want to talk about a little bit?
Jim Hacking
Well, we have the original streaming lawyer, Mr. Mitch Jackson with us. I’m very excited to have Mitch with us. I’ve been a member of his legal minds mastermind group for about a month now. And I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of value about it. Mitch has recently reopened the store and is allowing new members in I don’t know that it was ever actually closed. I just like to feel that way. But I’ve learned a ton from Mitch, the members of the group we’ve had so much fun, and I’ve learned so much. And it just every week when we meet. I’ve just been getting energized and lots of new ideas. So Mitch, we’re really happy to have you on the show.
Mitch Jackson
Jim, thanks. It’s good to be here. Tyson. It’s nice to meet you. And once you got involved with the group, Jim, things have never been the same. I’m so glad that you’re part of it. Who are you dived all in? And you’re shaking it up a little bit? And that’s what I want from everybody in the legal minds mastermind group. So it’s good to be here, guys.
Tyson Mutrux
Absolutely. All right. So Mitch, for the people that don’t know who you are, I guess, talk about the legal minds, and then also talk about
Mitch Jackson
your firm. So you know, I’ve been practicing law for about 30 years, we focus on catastrophic injury and wrongful death. But the fun part, and the reason I’m here today is, we all have something in common. And that’s digital and social media, and building our brands, marketing our services, showing our human side, using the social media platforms. And that’s, that’s why I’m all in and that’s why I’m here today, I just love what’s happening with with social media. And it allows all of us to take our local brand, and convert it into a global brand. It allows us to meet people that we might not otherwise not meet. It allows us to to help people on answer legal questions, not just one on one, but maybe one to 1000. And so, you know, back in 1996, we threw up our first front page website, and about eight months later, our first seven figure case came in through the internet via that website. And, you know, Tyson, we’ve never met before, I don’t think we’ve met before. But I’ve never been accused of being the brightest bulb in the lamp, okay. But when that happened, I’m like, I’m like, there’s something to this internet thing. And so I’ve been all in ever since with traditional blogging and your traditional bulletin boards and things like that. And then when social media came along, it really just opened up my eyes to building better relationships on a global level, helping answer questions and frankly, showing another side to being a lawyer. Right? I mean, a lot of consumers out there, you know, until they need us, they’re not big fans. And that’s always bothered me, I’m the first professional in my family. First one to go to college. First one to become a lawyer. I’m married a lawyer, I love lawyers, I met my wife, my partner in law school. And I happen to know now lawyers are really, really cool people. And so what I noticed was social is it allows us to show our human side and let the consumer feel comfortable enough with picking up the phone, dropping us an email, reaching out on a private Twitter DM, a Facebook Messenger, whatever it might be, and connecting with us as another human being. And so for me, the exciting part about practicing law is watching it develop and fast forward to where we are today. And then because of that, I like doing everything I just said, whether it’s in the office, or whether it’s speaking from the stage around the country, traveling with my wife, I just like everything about it. I’m more excited today about getting up and coming into the office than I’ve ever been in my life. And you’re not going to meet many lawyers that have been practicing for three decades who can say that, so that tells me I’m doing something doing something right. And I’m loving every minute of it meeting guys like you, you know, it’s it’s fun. It’s like this mastermind. We got people Jim will tell you from all over the world, right sharing experiences and sharing challenges. And inevitably, each and every live video session, somebody steps up and has an answer or a solution to somebody else’s challenge. So for me, I get a kick out of that. I mean, it’s just fun.
Jim Hacking
I love it. Mitch. Mitch, what do you think it was about you that took that leap in 1996? And why do you think you’ve been drawn so much? What about your background? What about your history that you think sort of led you to this spot where you’re now a real leader? are in the social media world when it comes to lawyering?
Mitch Jackson
I’m not sure do you, um, I’ve always been kind of a tech geek. I mean, that’s always fascinated me computers and things like that. And when the internet came along, we were actually doing a lot of investing back in the 90s, and Dell and Microsoft and Intel and companies like that. And I was watching these companies just explode in value, especially when it comes to market value. And once again, it opened my eyes to hey, there might be something with this type of technology. I’ve always been interested in doing different things growing up. You know, in high school, I played traditional sports, football, baseball, tennis, those types of activities. But I also raised motocross. And I raced motocross for 38 years, that was a little bit different than most people in high school, I obtained my hang for hang gliding license, which is an expert rating. There’s a there’s a hill next to the football field in my high school, and I watched these guys fly off a mountain. And I just needed to do that I needed to find out what it was like to fly like a bird. So I did that for about 10 years did a lot of scuba diving down the Sea of Cortez Mexico with my dad, I’ve always done different things. And I think social media in digital, it’s that same type of mindset, right? It’s putting yourself out there trying something new that a lot of other people aren’t doing. And if we circle, you know, bring it back full circle into our businesses and our practices. It’s the type of activity that we can all enjoy and engage in on an on a daily basis, not only to build relationships, but also to improve our businesses and to increase firm revenue. And so I don’t know, Jim, I think it’s just a mindset, I’ve always done things a little bit different than everybody else for, you know, good and bad. You know, there’s been a lot of you know, I’m gonna go down this path, and it did not work out. I’ve failed a lot more than I’ve succeeded. And you’ll hear a lot of entrepreneurs tell you that. So growing up in a family on a guest ranch in Tucson, Arizona, where my mom and dad had a guest ranch, and people from around the world would come and stay and play cowboy. You know, for a week, we had guests like John Wayne, Walt Disney, rock, Hudson, Morley Safer from 60 minutes just just to name a few people. And I was able to meet with these people and chat with them. And kind of understand that the reason they were successful is because they did things different than everyone else in their industry. That’s what allowed them to stand out. And, Jim, as you well know, one of the things that I I try to preach, or at least encourage is for lawyers to do things differently than everyone else in town. If you’re marketing your practice, like everyone else, if you’re trying your cases like everyone else, you’re probably going about it the wrong way. If you want to stand out, in today’s noisy world, you’ve got to be unique. You’ve got to share your unique personality, you’ve got to be different. It doesn’t mean you can’t be professional, but what it means is, you know, reach into yourself, figure out what’s your interest, what’s your passion, what’s your hobby, what unique value do you bring to the table, depending on the situation, and then just go for it. Give yourself permission, just to put it out there and be yourself. Don’t worry about what other people think. Because there’s enough people out there, especially on social media today, where they’ll connect with you. Because you’re different, because you’re unique, not because you’re like everyone else. I think that’s that’s kind of all part of the mindset that I’ve become very comfortable with. Good and bad.
Tyson Mutrux
Jimmy the first thing I’ve learned on this podcast is that Mitch has much cooler parents than us. That’s that’s the start. But But, Mitch, totally. How do you manage your time? I mean, I’m so impressed. You’re always on Facebook, you’re always doing something and you’re, you’re traveling all over the country, and yet the legal masterminds, you’ve got a really successful firm. How do you manage all that?
Mitch Jackson
work my ass off? I wish I wish I had a secret answer to that seriously, Tyson. And you know, by the way, I’m not that type of parent. Lisa and I are not that type of parent with our kids. For safety reasons. And you’re right, I look back. I’m like, How the heck did I make it through all of that? Listen, here’s the thing, I intentionally when I come into the office, I don’t separate practicing law from building my brand. I don’t separate working on a file. And in dealing with clients from social media and the digital platforms. For me, there’s a big blur, it’s illegal business, entrepreneurial, social blur, and so all day long. I’ve got, you know, the system running, I’m connected. I’ll work on my pleadings for 30 minutes, push them aside, hop on digital for 10 or 15 minutes, update the platforms. I’ll try to listen to what’s happening. I’ll try to share good value. I use technology for example buffer to try to share in the schedule interesting post to different portions of my audience throughout the course of the day. So it’s just a matter of rolling your sleeves up, working your butt off and just trying to connect with as many different people as you can and add as much value as you can. You know, Tyson I tried A lot of cases, and I’ll have young lawyers come down to the courthouse and watch this try case. And if we’re fortunate to get a good verdict for a client don’t come in and just watch the closing argument. Okay? And when it’s all said and done, they’ll come over and you know, where did you learn how to do that? Or how did you come up with that argument? I mean, they’re looking for an app are an easy solution. And what I tell them is, it came from, literally, you know, 2025 30 years of doing this and learning what works and making mistakes, and learning from your bad decisions, and out hustling it out working the other side. And I think the same thing applies to social, it’s just a matter of going all in and understanding that, and I can speak from experience, the efforts that we’re putting in to the social media platforms. I’ve gotten out of it, you know, tenfold what we put into it. But there are times where I just want to go home because I’m tired. I’m not going to I’m not going to be sad. It’s a lot of
Tyson Mutrux
I can’t blame you for that. Yeah, absolutely.
Jim Hacking
Mitch, one of the things I’ve noticed in the group, and in general is that I really feel like you are extremely generous with your time, and that you get a lot of energy out of helping new attorneys and sort of I know, within the group that with the younger attorneys, you really get a kick out of mentoring them. And can you talk a little bit about that, especially as your daughter is now about halfway through law school?
Mitch Jackson
Sure is? Well, thanks, Jim. I mean, I do enjoy it. And I think that’s one reason. I’m having so much fun with that particular mastermind group. But I also mentor lawyers down and I had a couple of attorneys who took me under their wing back in the day. And it meant the world to me how they took me aside and showed me, maybe they taught you how to do it that way in law school, but let us show you how it works in the real world. It’s completely different. And these are the three reasons why. And the things that they shared with me when I was just starting off, helped helped me in my career, he helped me make literally critically game changing decisions in a positive way as to which direction my career took. And I’ve looked back over the years, and I’ve thought to myself, if I had not had that type of advice, where would I be today, I mean, what I think it would have taken a lot longer. So today, that’s always been my mentality, Jim, I, for example, have always enjoyed coaching my kids in sports. Now, I was always that Dad, where I’d leave the firm at 330 in the afternoon, and I’m down at the Little League park or the soccer field or the basketball courts, you know, getting ready for practice. It wasn’t just watching, I was always coaching. And it was because I just liked being involved and getting my hands dirty, I guess that’s what it comes down to. So when it comes to what we’re doing today in our mastermind, or just helping other lawyers, and formally, for me, that’s where I get a just a great amount of joy, with helping others. You know, it’s one of these things where I think because of our profession, and because law school is so competitive, I mean, at least it was when I was in school, you’re going for the juggler, everybody’s out to you know, to have the best grade in the class, to write the best brief to be the outstanding advocate, moot court. And I think a lot of lawyers go through the career with that type of mindset. It’s when at any cost. It’s take no prisoners. And it’s that type of attitude. And I think, as you guys know, that’s the wrong type of attitude to have, if you turn things upside down, and you’re that lawyer who’s, who’s genuinely and I mean from the heart, because we can all figure out who the bullshit artists are out there. But if you genuinely want to help somebody else, if you’re selectively transparent when you’re doing this, especially on social media, which means you don’t have to put together correct, properly worded sentences, you don’t have to be in a business suit all the time as a lawyer, you can broadcast from the sand while flying your drone, you can broadcast while walking into the courthouse right now in my office, what you guys are doing, if you’re selectively transparent, and you’re being real, and you’re showing your human side, and you have the mindset that you want to listen and help 70% of the time on social media. For lawyers, that’s really, really hard. I mean, shut your mouth and listen to what other people are saying. It means watch their body language, when they’re live streaming it means feel the pulse of their Facebook news. Dream as to whether or not somebody is having a challenge or a problem in their life. There are all types of different ways to actively listen. And then and only then step in and share a solution or share some advice or help with a link. don’t promote yourself, don’t include a call to action, just be a good human being that’s trying to help somebody out. And as lawyers, if you do that, you’re going to stand out from everybody else because most lawyers don’t do that.
Tyson Mutrux
Jimmy he’s talking to you. So I’ll write down notes. Make sure all right If I may still okay, so when I see you when I see you miss you, I mean, you’re very clear cut me every time I see you, you’re very positive, you’re always having something good to say. Here’s like, here’s one. Because I know people, everyone that sees you see the exact same thing. Successful attorney, great podcasts, you’ve got your legal minds, like what do you struggle struggle with? Like, what’s your biggest trope?
Mitch Jackson
So I have a lot of challenges. You obviously were not on my Twitter feed last night during afternoon NFL football while political news was breaking. But right now, but my biggest challenge is learning how to keep my mouth shut, and balanced. That was sharing my opinion. Okay, so if we’re talking about social media, it’s about being real. But it’s also about having a filter to a point. Because sometimes you can say too much, I probably tweeted a little bit too much. But I’m not taking in any of it back. And I mean, every word I said. Now, having said that, my challenges are probably with delegating, if you can believe that, I understand how important it is to delegate, and how important it is to have systems. But for me practicing law, trying a case, it’s almost like being an artist, we all have different ways of doing things. And so for me, I’m just one of those guys where I’ve got to get have my hands on the file, I’ve got to be the one to talk to a witness. You know, that’s been my success secret is being involved in my cases. So Tyson might suggestion or advice is understanding those limitations of my inability to delegate on my files, because I want to intimately be involved. What I need to do and what we have done is we’ve we’ve reduced the number of incoming new files into the firm. And we’ve been selective about the cases that we’re taking, we focus on big cases. And I’m referring out a lot of cases that are smaller cases, to friends of mine in town, were here in California, the state bar encourages the payment of attorney to Attorney referral fees. And so we’ve basically included that as a business model, a business revenue source in our firm, because we refer out a lot of cases every single week. So learning how to say no Tyson, to every single opportunity that comes along, has been a huge asset, with me being able to deal with my other challenge, and that is the inability to delegate. But I’m learning and I’m working on it. And the more my wife Lisa encourages me, because there are consequences, the better I get at it.
Tyson Mutrux
Jimmy’s learned the exact same thing, aren’t you?
Jim Hacking
And that’s exactly what I wanted to bring up next. So Mitch, I haven’t really talked to you about this before, but my wife joined my law firm A year ago, we also met in law school, I held the door open for her on the first day of law school. And we were on. Yeah, we were on the Law Journal together. So you and Lisa started your firm. I think pretty early on what advice do you have for someone like me, who is now working with his spouse? What have you learned and what? What tips do you have for me, if any?
Mitch Jackson
Oh, what a loaded question. Okay. So I realized early on, when you know, Lisa’s mom and dad had a dairy distributorship when leases gas started off loading milk crates on the back of a milk truck. It was the milkman and by the time I met him, he and his wife had, had bought and developed a dairy distributorship. And he retired at 52. But the advantages I came into to the practice in my law firm, having, you know, been grown up with two parents that work together, and so did she. So we understood that dynamic is what I’m getting at. It’s a dynamic where you have to appreciate what each other’s doing and, and being respectful and staying out of the way when they want you to stay out of the way and getting involved when each other wants the other to get involved. I will tell you, I realized long ago, Jim, and this is the truth. Lisa is one of the smartest human beings I’ve ever met. She’s one of the most gifted Trial Lawyers I’ve ever seen in court. And so when she has a suggestion, or she offers a bit of advice, I stopped talking and I just listened. And that’s, that’s, that’s the honest answer is I value her input. And it’s 99.99% of the time, it’s been the right advice. And every time I put my foot down, Jim, and every time I decide I’m going to do something my way, it’s usually the wrong way. So even if it’s the right way, so you read between the lines on that, I just basically make sure that that I tried to do my best teaching every day. And that’s all she can ask for. And it seems to work out. There are no secrets. You know how it works. I will tell you, I know this is real talk right here. We’re not talking about branding or marketing. But listen, here’s the thing. The beautiful thing about practicing together is that we don’t get stressed out and ready for trial. I mean, I love trying cases, it’s like Friday night football, right? But it’s stressful because you know, it’s all going to come down to 12 people who you’ve never met before. I’m going to conservative County and it’s challenge to get big verdicts. So Lisa knows when I’m stressed, and she goes out of her way to make sure that everything’s taken care of, and that she’s running with the ball and everything else. And it really helps me out. I do the same with her. And it’s because we’re both in the same profession that we, that we understand those dynamics, I’ve seen challenges with one professional, who, you know, you have a professional and then the other spouse, him or her is not a professional, and they don’t understand how much pressure is on our shoulders with what’s going on. And that’s where I see some friction sometimes. And so it actually I think, makes the practice of law easier. I guess it’s coming, what I’m getting down to, because we both know what the other is going through. And we’re always we’re always there to try to make it work. You know, I posted last week, in my email, Jim, Mike, the milkman is three delivers his three keys to success, right? And this is relevant to today’s show, when you asked me that question, Mike, the milk man’s three keys to success are number one, you take care of yourself physically, and you take care of yourself emotionally, unless you’re healthy, you’re not going to be any good. Anybody else. Number two, take care of your family, your partner, your significant other, and your children. That’s number two. Number three, take care of your occupation, your profession or your job. And as long as you keep that order in the right order, things are going to work out in the long term, when you’re married to the person you’re doing business with. It really helps with keeping all of that in order. It’s a daily reminder. And I haven’t I wish I could turn the camera because, and this is a little tip to your listeners and viewers. But I’ve got too much stuff over here and some attorney client stuff. But I have a credenza over here with family pictures for big pictures. And then you know, a frame that changes every eight seconds or 10 seconds. And every time you guys I have to make an important decision that’s going to take time away from my family, or my wife. I’ll look over at the credenza, and it really helps me put things into perspective as to whether or not the answer to that new client or to that dinner invitation or that speaking engagement should be yes or no. So that’s that’s worked really well for me over the years. And I highly recommend it. It’s called a credenza with family photos
Tyson Mutrux
of it. This is fantastic. Mitch, okay, I’ve got an interesting one for you. Alright, so if you’re gonna get Mitch Jackson, the 25 year old Mitch Jackson advice if you could go back, what would it be? Great question.
Mitch Jackson
So the 25 year old Mitch Jackson was just starting law school. All right, and I was running hard. And I was running fast in Newport Beach, California. And I would say, if the internet was around back then and social media, I would tell Mitch Jackson to stay home. We haven’t met before, but I love your attitude. You know, it’s one of those things where things have changed, right. And I got out of the University of Arizona, I, you know, I managed to squeeze a four year degree into a five year experience. And my roommate was the original Van Wilder view of a he took him nine years to graduate, and he wouldn’t have changed a thing anyway. So I went up to Lake Tahoe and worked at Caesars for a couple of years, front desk, evening manager and then eventually the night manager the property 2000 employees, skied every day and in the winter and sailboard at every day in the summer. And, you know, for a couple of years, I thought that’s what I wanted to do is follow in my parents footsteps in the resort industry. And then I realized, you know, 17 hour days, low pay. And if you’re really good as a general manager, what they do is they move you every six months to another property to help open it up. That’s not very conducive to a healthy family situation. So I moved back to Tucson, and met a lawyer up in Tahoe that convinced me Mitch, this is what you want to do. Go to law school now before you have too many financial commitments and large overhead. It’s just easier to do it now when you’re young and stupid, right? So I went back to Tucson to study for the LSAT and started law school 25 moved back out to California to go to school, and didn’t know anybody in town except one person. But we used to play around a lot. I mean, it was all good stuff. You know, billboarding off the Newport Beach doing a lot of motocross racing in Southern California, we have great tracks on the other side of Lake Elsinore. So I get a lot of that kind of stuff. And I think my advice, you know, today would be to slow down just a little bit, maybe focus a little bit more on school because although I did get lucky once I got out of school, and managed to make things happen, I think it was luck more than anything else. And I’d rather have my future a little bit more, you know, in my control, as opposed to what I do perceived to be a little bit of luck involved. So how about you guys? What changes would you guys make looking back? That’s, that’s a loaded question. And I’m curious what you guys would do differently. If anything, Jamie Go for it.
Jim Hacking
I would have gone out on my own sooner. I love owning my own firm. I’m like you, Mitch, I’m energized to come to work almost every day, I would have gotten involved in the internet sooner, I think that you’d been on the web and 1996 was tremendous. And, you know, I just love all the stuff that’s going on right now. And frankly, when I hear about the future, when you start talking about AI, and all that other stuff, it just sort of makes my head hurt, I’m struggling, and that’s struggling, but I’m enjoying the technology that exists today. So I would have just encouraged myself, you know, I was right in that area. I had a Commodore 64 When I was a kid, I was on chat rooms, and I loved all that stuff. So I would have merged those two things sooner.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, what I would have done is I would have gotten into video whenever I thought I should have gotten into video. Because I mean, tonight, we’re still we’re still ahead of the curve. But I mean, we would have been lightyears ahead of the curve. Because sometimes you see an idea idea, and you know, it’s the right idea. But you wait, you wait, you wait. And I waited, I should have done until whenever I knew it was the big thing. And I didn’t, but we’re still doing okay. I mean, the videos are doing really well. But I think I missed it by about two years, it should have been two years earlier.
Mitch Jackson
So here’s the thing, though, think about this, the three of us are whether you think it or not, we’re 99.99% of all the other lawyers and professionals out there. Okay, they’re not using digital, they’re not using social. And you need to give yourselves a pat on the back, you guys are already knee deep in this stuff. And it’s changing quickly. What was around five or six years ago really isn’t even applicable anymore, other than the people skill side of it. So the fact that you guys are all in right now, five years from now. I mean, you’re going to be so far ahead of the curve. It’s unbelievable.
Jim Hacking
So that’s a great point. And we’ve been back and forth about that. I want to riff on that a little bit. So Mitch Tyson and I have bounced back and forth. While we’ve had this podcast on for over a year now. Do you think that and we don’t really have a big agenda with the podcast itself, we’re just doing it for fun. We like talking about this stuff, we get energized by each other. And we thought we’d sort of share our conversations with the world. But do you think that our time and energy is better spent focusing on attorneys who already get it? Or is our better path to educate the attorneys who don’t necessarily get it already? Does that make sense?
Mitch Jackson
It does. And I would just be true to my song. In other words, do with the two of you enjoy doing it, and the why behind why you guys are doing this, keep doing it, don’t worry about trying to tailor your message to a particular market. Look, here’s the problem. Lawyers are a hard sell when it comes to social media and digital. And I’ll let you guys in on a little secret about four or five years ago, I gave up uncle I mean, honestly, I, I have friends of mine that if they were on social, and if they were doing with their personalities, if they were doing a podcast or a live stream, they would be killing it. Okay, they would be known around the world, but it’s just not for them, they don’t get it. And I’m just done trying to preach to them why they need to incorporate, you know, podcasting into their daily routine, because they’d be superstars right now, what I found it the enjoyable is just, you know, sharing doing your podcast, why you guys like to do it for the reasons that are personal to each of you. And everything else will fall into, into place. I don’t know who your podcast audience is, other than you know, just listening to a few of them and checking out the website and Jim talking to you, you know, on some of our other platforms. But I will tell you that if you use your podcast to share really interesting people, even if they’re not in the legal industry, people that are disrupting industries and change and changing the world in a positive way, with your audience, they’re gonna dig it, your audience is going to dig it. And it’s also a good opportunity for you guys to make new connections with with global leaders that aren’t even involved in the law. And those connections will result in relationships, those relationships will result in referrals in ongoing a new business. I mean, there’s just so many parameters to doing a podcast. So you know, it’s not a simple answer. But I think the answer is you guys are doing a great job, you’ve got a great dynamic back and forth. And and the key is, is to continue doing it a lot of I’ve helped hundreds of companies and hundreds of entrepreneurs start up and the ones that are successful, almost without exception, are the companies where they’re true to who they are. But they consistently on a daily basis, engage in take action, they have great ideas, and that’s fantastic. But they execute on those ideas. And they do it over the long term and you guys know and Jim I know you know because I’ve talked about this before, social media is not a sprint. And contrary to what people say social media and digital, it’s not a marathon either. There’s no finish line to social media. This is more like exercise or working out, if you want to have a a global digital social media footprint, which I think every professional should strive to have. That’s mobile, responsive and mobile friendly. And we can talk about that. You simply need to engage in add valuable content on a consistent basis, whether it’s daily, whether it’s weekly, whether it’s several times a month, that’s the key, you do that over the long term. And that’s when you start seeing good things happen. Jim, you know, as well as I do from some of the conversations we’ve had in our live videos, and legal minds that there are a lot of good ideas out there. But there aren’t a lot of people executing on them. And one of the examples would be I had the podcast challenge. I said, I’m starting a podcast, I’m gonna lay out all the details. We’re starting a podcast, and I had my podcast up and running in about a week. But 80% of our group didn’t take any steps to start the podcast, although they wanted to, not rocket science, you have to take action to make things happen. So
Tyson Mutrux
this is great. Actually, I want to I want to talk with this for a second because I talk to other attorneys about this, and I give away my forms to other attorneys, I give it away anything. And they say, Well, how do you do the videos? I tell them how to do the videos, people tell me? You know, why do you do that? You know, why do you do that? You know, you’re giving away all your secrets? And I say, Listen, most people aren’t gonna do anything with it anyway. I mean, you can tell them all the secrets in the book, I can give them a playbook play by play. And you’re right 80% of them aren’t going to do that. So what is your thought process on giving away your content, giving away your ideas?
Mitch Jackson
Absolutely, I’m with you, Tyson give away as much as you can, as often as you can to as many people as you can. It’s not just $1 and cents, I’m giving away a form. So I’m missing out on that $99 fee, it has to do with your building your brand of being that likable, go to professional that others can trust someone that’s going out of his way to build relationships to, to help people that need help. That’s the kind of reputation and brand that you want. And so that’s what separates you, as a lawyer from most of the other lawyers in town, they don’t have that mindset, they don’t have that mentality. And and you know, when I first started playing around on the internet, and with the website, and with blogging and things like that, I didn’t do that. I was like every other lawyer, if you’d like my free report, you know, you have to fill out your name, your email, you know, I put them through the whole dance, right? And things like that. Everything firstborn, you know, and then I’ll think about it. And what I’ve noticed and what what works well, let’s just talk about what works well, this isn’t theory, what works well, whether you want to hear it or not. And your professional is, the more you give, the more you listen. The more you give for free, the more you’re going to get out of social media and digital people will will interpret what you’re giving away. Whether it’s information or, or answers to questions. And what’s going to happen is you’ll start building a perceived expertise in your industry in your profession. And that perceived expertise is more important than anything you’re going to charge for a document, or to watch a webinar or something like this, that perceived expertise has unlimited value to it, especially if you continue to build your brand on social media. So I’m with you, Tyson. I’m a firm believer of giving until you just can’t give any more and eliminating the gateways to all of the great content, you know, on our websites and blogs and social media sites. In fact, for lawyers listening to, you know, how do you get started, pick out the top 20 or 50 questions that you’re asked each and every month. And do a blog post or short live video and share your secret sauce, answer those questions, and share that answer on your blog post and tweet it out and share it on Instagram, share it on LinkedIn, Google Plus Facebook, all the different platforms, share links, break it down into little sections that link back to your original video or blog post or both. And over time, with seeding social media and seeding the internet, not just with good content, but also with your personality. Also with your goodwill. That’s how you build your brand on social and that’s how you get the big cases referred back to your office.
Jim Hacking
Tyson you don’t know this. But Mitch and I’ve been talking about this giving away content with with no strings attached for about the past week and a half and I’ve really sort of enjoyed thinking of this over. It’s funny too, because Tyson and I have had this podcast for over a year now and we don’t have an email opt in. We don’t have we don’t sell anything. MIT, our friend Seth price in Washington DC. So the thing I love about your podcast is you guys don’t have any big agenda. You’re just putting out good content and, and our numbers keep growing. So I know it’s funny that we’ve, on this podcast, it’s sort of dawning on me that what you’re saying is is 100% true? I want to shift gears for a minute, because I want to respect your time. And I know we’re, we’re getting close.
Mitch Jackson
I’m good. Let me ask you a question, Jim, real quick before you switch, because it’s very relevant to the listeners. And so you’re doing the podcast in you’re sharing this content on your maximum lawyer Facebook page, correct? Correct. Okay. And we’re also you guys sharing this podcast, whether it’s the entire podcast or links or bits and pieces of the podcast, I’m just that
Jim Hacking
so yeah, that’s so great, because we just sort of shared out hit or miss, we don’t have a real content calendar, or we don’t you know, Tyson, Tyson sat down with Buffer, I think it was something equivalent to it this week. Yeah, Hootsuite that put out all of our older episodes, just with a link and the numbers for the subscriptions just went through the roof. So we got to do more of that stuff. We, we don’t, we haven’t been pushing out the content more than just the week that it shows. So we can definitely do a lot more of that.
Mitch Jackson
That’s what I was getting. If you’re giving it away. You know, make sure you’re sharing it on every single platform that you’re on, and that you should be on. Right? I mean, I don’t know if you guys have an Instagram account. But look Instagrams blowing up. And there’s no reason why you know, each episode and little clips, little 62nd clips aren’t uploaded to your, you know, maximum lawyer in your individual Instagram accounts. And live streaming while we’re doing the show right now. One of you pops on, and you’re live streaming right now to Instagram, certain sections of the show, or you’re taking you know, stills or videos and sharing those on Instagram, I would be taking this program, and absolutely bringing it over to Instagram, and Snapchat, but primarily Instagram along those lines. I think that would be huge for you guys. If you’re not already doing it. So no, we’re not.
Tyson Mutrux
We actually were it the way we were doing it was whenever we recycled the old episodes, or what I was doing was I went through HootSuite and HootSuite makes it really easy because you with Instagram, you need the image. So they have their own doc library that you can choose from. And so we just set them out and what we scheduled we scheduled the first 28th I think Jimmy and I just went through each one of them selected an image for each one Oh, and it pushed it out automatically. And then with Zapier, Zapier, that allows you to once it goes from the Facebook play up post, like she shared to other plethora of other areas. So a lot of other tools out there that allows us to push it out to multiplayers places now that where we’re lacking is probably nice, we’re lacking is probably pushing out.
Mitch Jackson
I’ll tell you right now, that took me five seconds, and I’m going to share it on Instagram to 6000 people with a link to your maximum lawyer podcast is the edited profile. Right. And I mean that literally took it’s gonna take 15 seconds. So you don’t need a lot of fancy stuff. But for those of you listening to the audio, I’m showing them a picture that I took on my smartphone while Tyson was talking with the microphone in front, which I think gives it kind of a cool texture. But you don’t want to you know, try sending me an interrupt you but you don’t want it right. You don’t want to overcomplicate it, you want it to, you know, be real. And if you’re if you’re at a community event, you know, or a Friday night football game or, you know, down at the courthouse walking into the courthouse, people are interested, they’ve never been inside a courthouse before. And these are all quick Instagram pictures and Snapchat pictures that really have a lot of long term traction to them. But Tyson I apologize for interrupting
Tyson Mutrux
that no offense to that want to get your comment on something. All I was saying was that we’re really bad about actually putting it out as they go out. We put it on Facebook, we put on LinkedIn. Other than that we don’t do a very good job of pushing it out. But you mentioned something and I want to talk about it. I think a lot of attorneys, especially the ones that listen to this, they’ve got this idea in their head that when they when they do video, when they do the podcast has been really, really polished. And I think that that’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s a proven study after study after study. The rough stuff is what leads right like the like Jimmy put out a couple of years ago, cuts of all the bloopers of his videos and people loved it. People want that stuff so So talk about the stuff that not being polished is all I want to talk
Mitch Jackson
about. Yeah, so we’ve you know, I’ve been on video since even before YouTube came out and the original videos we were doing guys were quasi professionally done videos in the office with green screens and I’m looking back and they’re I think they’re really cheesy now and and it is what it is and we connected with some of the consumers some potential clients that way. Having said all that Tyson what you just said is gold. In other words, it’s more and more Aren’t you just be real, it’s more important just to, you know, pull the curtains back and show the audience show your show your social media following. You know what’s happening behind the scenes. You know what, what does a trial lawyer look like, before he puts on a suit. In other words, you’re going out for an early morning pre trial run, to get the adrenaline going, right, you haven’t shaved, you’re in a dirty tank, top baseball cap, maybe do a couple of selfies and let the world know you’re getting ready for trial, maybe stop about halfway along your run and shoot a two or three minute Periscope or Facebook Live. You know, I’ll be back in two hours, guys and gals. And I’ll be all spit and polish, you’re going to love the dark blue suit I’m wearing today. And by the way, if you’re lucky, maybe the judge let me show you guys what it’s like inside the courtroom where I’m about to kick some serious ass. I mean, depending on your personality, you can have fun with it. And I agree with you. That’s the kind of stuff that that really takes off. I did I did a video. You know, like you just mentioned, hadn’t shaved, I’m sweating. I’m out of breath. And it had to do with how important it is for trial lawyers to try to stay in shape. It’s not easy, right? The older you get, the harder it is, trust me Tyson, you’re young. But you and Jim are both young bucks, okay. But as you get older, it gets a lot, it gets a lot harder. But my point was, you’ve got to have the endurance so that you can keep that enthusiasm so that you can be the leader in the courtroom, you know, from start to finish on a two week trial, it’s hard. And so we need to get our butts out there. And we need to try to stay in shape. And I want and that video really got a lot of traction more so than some of the professional ones that we’ve done. Now I’ve got some green screen videos that have 6080 100,000 views on YouTube, that’s great. I can’t stand them. I don’t even promote them anymore. They’re embarrassing to look at. It just looks like I’m your typical lawyer, commercial or lawyer ad. And that’s not who I am or who I want to be. I want to be the guy next door, I want to be that the guy next door that a juror would feel comfortable sitting next to because that’s who I am. And so that’s important. The takeaway for your audience is when you’re doing video, be prepared, you know, be prepared, understand the product, have a message, it’s a message that you can share quickly. And with some level of precision, be effective. Engage your audience, when you’re live streaming too many professionals will look at their device, and they won’t respond to the comments that are being shared in real time on Periscope and Facebook Live. You know, engage the audience, it’s a different way to speak. It’s a more conversational type of presentation. So get your act together, be prepared. You don’t want to waste anybody’s time. But you know what, it takes five minutes to do everything I just said. It’s not like giving an opening statement or a closing argument. You literally can look at a breaking news story. wrap your head around the angle that you want to share an opinion or commentary on that breaking news story. Hop on Periscope, share it add value, engage with your audience, pop on off, and then take that link that’s already on Twitter because Periscope will broadcast live on Twitter, take that content and repurpose it on your other social media platforms or have somebody in your office do that. And you’ve already done more than most lawyers do all year with one single live stream. That’s how quick and easy it can be. Professionals overthink the process, because they want to come across a certain way. And guess what, the way they want to come across isn’t the effective way. It’s coming across as who you are, is what connects you as human beings. Hey, Jim, I cut you off earlier, you’re gonna take this another direction. And I don’t want to leave you out standing on the sidelines here.
Jim Hacking
It’s all good. And I think this will be my last question. I really appreciate everything that you’ve told us, Mitch tonight. I think it’s just been a great episode. I think our listeners are gonna love it a lot of great nuggets and takeaways, a lot of good little Instagrammy quotes that we can pull out of this. I think we could really work this one up. Well, cool. I wanted to ask you about an opportunity that you had about a month ago that I thought sounded really, really cool. And that was when you had the chance to go with your friend David Meerman. Scott to the Tony Robbins event. And if you could tell our listeners and our viewers about that, how that came about and what that was like, I’d really like to know what it was like to be in there at Tony’s event and sort of what you got out of it.
Mitch Jackson
So for those of you that don’t know David Meerman Scott, he’s a gifted speaker, consultant and author and his books on social media are some are taught in universities around the United States. One of them has been translated into 18 different languages around the world. He’s great to my daughter, who is a summer intern with a local business was up in LA and helping out with some video interviews. And when she came back I asked AJ and that’s who Jim was referring to. She’s in her second year of law school at USC. As an agent, how’d your day go? She goes down It was cool. I got to meet LeVar Burton from roots and Star Track the actor. I got to meet with his name, I think David row from dirty jobs. The gentleman that does Dirty Jobs micro micro micro micro goes. But dad, I really get to meet this fascinating guy whose daughters about my age, and we hung out all day together and this naves, David Meerman. Scott, do you know, I’m like, Are you kidding me? Do I know him, I read his books, I love his blog, and everything else. So in the reason I’m sharing this is because your viewers can do the same thing. Okay, this is a social media story. So I reached out to him on Facebook or Twitter and said, Listen, thanks for taking care of my daughter today. She had a great time meeting you. And the dance began, you know, he messaged me back, I have a daughter, Allison about AJs age. And that was a couple years ago. And we’ve stayed in touch ever since. During that time, Jim, he was looking for something different to write about in his books. And so he reached out to me to interview me about how our law firm is using newsjacking, which you’ve heard me talk about to build our brand and expand our sphere of influence. So we were in his last couple of books, we’re friends, we have a lot of things in common. And he reached out to me, you know, six months, eight months ago, and he said, I’ve got a chance he speaks to Tony Robbins, he does it all the time he goes, I’ve got a chance to introduce a new topic at the business mastery event in Las Vegas, are you interested? And I said, Of course, I’m interested. And he said, Well, there’s going to be about 2000 people. At the Tony Robbins event, they’re each paying about 10 grand a pop, it’s pretty expensive, exclusive event. And we’re going to be on stage and talking about newsjacking and some other things. I’m not sure how much time will have. But I’d love to have you join us. So we were there. And we did that in gym. You’re right. It was a wonderful experience. I mean, it was a first rate run ran event. I said that correctly. It was exciting. It was polished. Tony brings in these two semi tractor trailers that are basically moving air conditioners, and he pumps cold air into this conference center. That’s just huge. And it was an exciting event. And what’s cool about it is it gives you a chance to take those online relationships that you develop, and, frankly, that we’re developing right now, and to take those relationships offline into a completely different medium that has resulted in, you know, a ton of new contacts for me and, and I don’t know if I told you this, but they invited me back next August at the event. So I’ll be back next August at the next event. But that’s how that started was something happened offline. We then took the relationship online. We then took it back offline at the Toba Tony Robbins event. So it was kind of cool. You know, and I mean, there’s there’s no better way to, to build your reputation, to build your brand to stint you know, to have that perceived expertise in whatever it is you’re talking about, then to be on stage, and to be on the right stages. And Jim, you and I’ve talked about this, it’s really important for lawyers and professionals in today’s world, to start getting out there put themselves out there, speak at as many events starting with the local Rotary or Chamber of Commerce, whatever it might be, and start speaking and start talking about unique things. Don’t talk about you, or your practice, pick a hobby or a passion that you’re interested in. And maybe somehow incorporate the law into it. If you’re a baseball fan. Maybe as a lawyer, you can talk about baseball contracts are in negotiation, negotiating stadium leases, or whatever it might be the life of an agent, and share your two cents worth on that particular topic. Take it from a small venue to a large venue, it takes time to do that. If you can write a book, that’s a great calling card, especially if you want to build your brand by speaking and and start reaching out to 10 or 20 Different groups or organizations each year, share a interesting topic and start getting on stage. And I think all of these things working together in a synergistic way really will help build your brand on social media. There’s one element that we haven’t talked about, and I want to wrap it up with this element because I think it’s key, especially when talking about lawyers, and that is we all have opinions, right? As lawyers, we all you know, whether it’s legal, political, whatever it might be, be careful with what you say, and be careful with how you say it. One of the biggest mistakes I see late lawyers make on social media is they fail to separate the issue from the person, you know, be kind to people, be tough on issues. And if you do that on social media, people will respect you. It’s when people cross the line. And they’re hard on people and they’re hard on issues is where you have problems. When lawyers are assholes on social media. That’s a problem too. So and I don’t mean to be so blunt about this, but it’s Something that I see happen all the time. And you know, we take a step back. And we focus on being human beings, and helping others as opposed to those other elements that are out there. I think that’s the key to long term success on social media.
Tyson Mutrux
You nailed it. You nailed it. Jimmy and I talked about this a few episodes ago, just about being positive on social media and not being so negative. So like, we couldn’t have said it any better. And we didn’t say it any better. So great job. Alright, Jimmy. So I want to wrap the show up, because we I know we were way past time. But this is great. Hopefully, people rewind this and take notes, because it’s a lot of great information. Before we get to your hacking week, Jimmy, I do want to remind everybody to go to the Facebook page, join our group, interact with us there. There’s a lot, a lot of great discussions going on, check out legal minds, it’s fantastic. And then also, check us out on iTunes, give us a five star review or wherever you get your podcasts. Jimmy, we do your hack of the week,
Jim Hacking
I don’t want to understate how much of an impact legal minds has had on me. I feel like I know a lot of this stuff. But I’ve learned a ton. So everyone should be sure to check out legal minds while Mitch has it still open. But my hack of the week comes from the group. It comes from one of our discussions in a recent week. And that is I’ve been tinkering and getting ready to start doing some Facebook advertising. And Mitch pulled me aside on the group and pointed out that there was a podcast that I should check out. And it’s from Social Media Examiner. And it’s an interview with Mari Smith about the future of Facebook marketing. So I’m gonna put a link to that in the show notes. I listened to it this morning. And it’s a real good primer on where things currently are and where they’re probably headed.
Tyson Mutrux
tested. And Mitch, I don’t know if we told you but we asked for our guest to give a tip of the week. So do you have a tip worth
Mitch Jackson
a tip of the week? Yes. My tip of the week is to get Bob Berg’s book adversaries into allies. Everything we talked about. Everything we talked about revolves around people skills, right. And as lawyers as professionals, the better our people skills, we’re not born with them. I think the better our results in court and outside of court. So Bob’s written a book, it’s adversaries into allies. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve ever read. When it comes to people skills, skills, or soft skills. That’s my tip of the week, get it, you’re going to enjoy it, and then connect with Bob, on Twitter at Bob Berg. Gil, he’s very receptive. And you can start the relationship dance.
Tyson Mutrux
You know, this human speaking to my heart the entire episode, because the Go Giver is maybe my favorite book. If it’s not, it’s more of my top three books. So yeah, I love that book. And so I read it in one day or website one night, I took it home read it, it was gifted to me, I loved it. So it’s bumper is fantastic. I think it’s really great. You know, my, my tip of the week is not nearly as good as either one of your roles, but I have a new app that I was playing with. And it’s something I can use at trial if I need to, I’ve not had a chance to but I know I can use it depositions. And it’s just called whiteboard. It’s an it’s an iPhone app. And so it’s as simple as it can be, it’s, you can’t really see me writing on here or the video. No, you can’t. But it’s really good. And you can actually take where you can use it in depositions is if you have a map, an aerial view, so let’s say let’s say take a screenshot on your iPad or on your iPhone, you can actually right over that image. So you can either do that, or you can do with doctors depositions, if you’re looking at different parts of the body. There’s a variety of ways you can use evidence, it’s a pretty easy to use app, and you can actually send a copy of whatever you drew drew onto your email, text message, whatever it may be. So she’s called whiteboard. It’s really simple. So I like to use sounds Yeah, anything else? It’s pretty neat. So yes, anything else? This is pretty awesome. So this is a
Mitch Jackson
Can I ask you a question about whiteboard? Because I love learning something new each and every day. So if I screenshotted a contract that had some key language in it, and then maybe expanded the words on my screen, circled something and underlined it, and can I show it to the opponent doing it that way? You can mark it and then mark it as an exhibit. Absolutely. And then how do you get it out of your phone to the court reporter? How does it all you do?
Tyson Mutrux
There’s a simple button right here, you click on it, and I’ll actually give you the option of sending it and you can send it via email, write that. So it’s perfect or depending on the court reporter you can send it as a text depending on how high tech the reporter is. So you know, and actually, I haven’t even tried it. They’ve got an iPhone, you might go to do an airdrop Yeah, you can do an airdrop, if they’ve got if they got an Apple device, so it’s really easy to do.
