The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Finances

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who needs more financial tips to grow your firm? In this final episode of a five-part series, Jim and Tyson discuss financial strategies for law firms. 

Jim shares how it is a great financial hack to diversify revenue streams so you are able to get cases from different areas. There are probably dozens of cases that would never enter the door if you did not seek them out in different sectors. This will allow for a wide variety of cases and clients that could be beneficial for your firm. Another way to diversity is something called “white labeling”. This is when you offer something to a client in partnership with another law firm. This could be offering your client a package from another firm, where you get a percentage of what is sold.

Tyson shares a tip of cutting costs where it makes sense. Review all of your expenses, which includes subscriptions and softwares and really iron down what you are actually using for your firm. If you know something is not useful, cancel that subscription so more money goes into your pocket.

Listen in to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

• 1:16 The importance of exploring new sources of income
• 4:08 Tips to save money and increase profitability
• 6:00 Emphasizing the importance of having a work-life balance

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Transcripts: The Secret Plan To Launch Your Firm Into 2024: Finances

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Today's episode is the final part of our five part series to help you launch your firm into 2024. Each day this week, we're dropping a new episode to guide you in setting your firm up for next year in one hour per day. If you haven't listened to episodes one through four, go back and listen to them first, then come back here. Today's hour will be spent on finance. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:00:23) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:46) - Day five. It's Saturday and we are talking about finances, Jimmy. And this is one where some of you might want to say, oh, it's Saturday. I don't want to do any work, but this might be the most important day of all of them. And because your finances getting those in order are important. So where are you starting, Jimmy? What are you doing with that hour?

*Jim Hacking * (00:01:07) - Well, this might not be a big surprise to you, Tyson, but I don't have a lot of fun or energy behind budgeting or cost control.

*Jim Hacking * (00:01:16) - Those things are just sort of not my bag. We have other people in the office, especially Amani, my wife, who's really good at those kinds of things. I tend to gravitate towards things like diversifying revenue streams. Where am I going to get new lines of cases? In fact, at our mastermind in Miami this year, I was listening to a fellow immigration lawyer talking about a type of case that we don't handle that I thought could actually fold into nicely into our firm. And it also is seasonal and it has sort of times of the year where it's busy. And it happens to be that those times of year aren't really busy for us. So I thought that that might be something new. So so, you know, Dean Jackson would say, get out your legal pad and just sort of brainstorm on sources of revenue that you might be ignoring at your peril that you could have been using or that you can use in 2024 to, like, try to bring a new business, might be that you've gone completely digital and try to get all your cases electronically.

*Jim Hacking * (00:02:13) - Well, maybe we should spend a little bit of time focusing on, you know, referrals and meeting other lawyers and finding cases that way. So I think that diversification when it comes to income streams, marketing and where potential cases come from is always going to be time well spent.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:30) - I think that that's great. Let me ask you something. If I am in the United States, so I, I move from let's say I move from India, okay? And I bring my kids with me, and then I ultimately become a U.S. citizen. Do my kids become a U.S. citizen or do they not become a U.S. citizen?

*Jim Hacking * (00:02:49) - So if if, uh, there's rules on that and when you entered. But basically, if you become a citizen before they turn 18 and they're living with you in their custody, they have a green card. Basically, they're going to become citizens by operation of law.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:03) - Interesting. Okay. But let's say that they by the time you become a U.S. citizen, they're like 22. What happens then?

*Jim Hacking * (00:03:09) - Well, assuming they had a green card, they would have to apply on their own.

*Jim Hacking * (00:03:12) - So like Adele's mom naturalized. But when Adele's mom naturalized Adele was 19. So Adele had to go through the naturalization process herself actually, while she was working with me.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:21) - Gotcha. Okay, so the reason why I was asking is so I think if I were so your initial answer changes a little bit, but I think what you could do is, uh, if her personal injury attorneys especially, we could white label. And this is just, um, based on what you're talking about when it comes to, like, finding different revenue streams without actually handling probate or not probate cases, uh, estate planning cases, we could white label something with another, another law firm, or we could partner with another law firm to offer something to our clients. So, like, if someone came to you, Jim, and said, and you may not, you know, agree to do something like this, but let's say that they came to you and they said, hey, offer this estate planning package worth $5,000 to your to your email list, and let's say we'll offer it for, you know, $4,000, and we'll give you a third of it or something like that.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:08) - Well, that could actually be a significant amount of money in your pocket. So that's just one suggestion based on what you said. But you can there's other ways that you can find revenue streams without actually taking on a completely new case type. So I think that that taking that time to think about those things is time well spent. But I am going to go more towards the the cost control strategies is where I'm going to go, Jim. And during this time, this one hour is is a way that you could add tens of thousands of dollars into your pocket without lifting another finger, without getting another case, without doing a whole lot of work just by cutting some costs. And so if you go through so review your vendor list and like Jim was told to identify those renewal dates, but and see if, if there's a renewal coming up like for example, I know that we have a renewal with RingCentral. We pay them yearly. It's coming up soon and I need to make sure that we have got that canceled because we're switching to another platform.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:04) - You look at those recurring expenses and see where you can cut those things and actually determine if you truly do need those things and do you actually use them. There's a program up top of my head where I keep telling myself I'm going to use it, but I've been locked in at such a low price, I've been keeping it. The reality is, is that we just need to get rid of it because it's we're just not using it and then find like once you've gone through that list and you've cut these things, cancel all those all of those items that you're paying for on a regular basis, you're going to be so surprised by how much more money you're going to put in your pocket. At the end of the day, it's going to make you mad, actually. So if you're not doing that on a regular basis, use this time to do that. That way you can can save yourself a bunch of money and. And make more money at the same time. All right, Jimmy, any final word? So this is now we're a couple days before New Year, so I guess happy New Year, everybody.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:53) - Merry Christmas, everyone that, uh, celebrates Christmas. But any any final words from the Jimbo.

*Jim Hacking * (00:06:00) - Yeah. And that would be enjoy the other seven hours of your business day. Don't feel like you have to do all this stuff. Um, one thing I've learned this year in 2023 is that you get a lot more done when you do less. You're a lot more effective when you're not overloaded. So we we really were trying to be purposeful about how to spend these hours for that week, um, one hour each day and that you make sure that you're getting good sleep, you're having fun, you're relaxing with family, you're seeing your loved ones, you're enjoying the holidays, and you know there's a time for everything, but don't feel like you have to slave away that whole week when your office is closed.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:39) - Yeah. And whether you use our our examples or not, use that one hour each day and just knock it out of the park. You're you're going to be so much better for it if you do that.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:49) - So spend that time one hour a day, get it knocked out and just be happier for it. All right, man, uh, let's end it and have a wonderful day.

Speaker 2 (00:07:00) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your host, and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.