Today on the show we have Jim Hart, owner of the Hart Law Firm, a divorce practice based in North Carolina. In this episode we’ll discuss hiring “empty-bucket” vs. “full-bucket” employees, Jim’s experience with Atticus coaching, and struggling with delegating and growing.
Hacking’s Hack:
I’m reading a book called “Scaling Up”, talking about growth he said that once you reach 5-6 employees you have to start delegating things you are not good at, but once you reach 10-15 you have to start delegating things you are good at. The thing that the entrepreneur is the best at becomes the weakness because the entrepreneur doesn’t want to let go.
Tyson’s Tip:
Take a 4-week vacation, disconnect from the business, and enjoy the vacation. It forces you to get your systems in place so that you can take this kind of vacation.
Jim’s Tip:
We all have CRM’s we use, something that I’ve done is I use Less Annoying CRM just for managing referral relationships, separate from the CRM I use for my potential clients.
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Transcripts: Old School is the New School for Solo Marketing with Jim Hart
Jim Hart
The 30 day rule basically says that whatever marketing you’re doing right now, in this current 30 day cycle, is going to bear fruit within the next three to four months. So if you look at what you’re doing right now, and you’re not doing any marketing activities right now, you’re just practicing lawyers working on the cases, that you’ve gotten the door right now, in three or four months, your well is going to be dry, your pipeline is going to be drying your business is going to start to do what what we call an adequate corporate thing. And that’s a dolphin goes up and down. Right? So they call that corporate, run your law firm
Unknown Speaker
the right way. This is the maximum liar, podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson Meatrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m Tyson.
Jim Hacking
What’s up Eisen, my friend? How are you? Brother?
Unknown Speaker
I’m good, man. Good. How are you?
Jim Hacking
I’m doing well. I was just telling you before we got on the show that somebody hacked my credit card. So I got to deal with that. But other than that, life is good. How you been? Great.
Tyson Mutrux
Nothing like coming home after a long day at work to find that your your I didn’t even school. That’s fantastic. Yeah.
Jim Hacking
The scary thing is, is about half hour later, when I got on Facebook, there was an ad for LifeLock on my phone. So
Tyson Mutrux
you don’t like Facebook is weird. And I noticed something that they’re doing recently. And she might be a little lesson for all of us. They already see that report or Facebook portal, where they it’s a person, it’s a real, it’s a real profile of this person. And she posts like, I’m finally getting to see my family. And it’s all because of Facebook portal. And it looks like a real Facebook post. sponsored posts and with closely seasoned sponsored posts. So Facebook is doing some creepy stuff and following us around with different ads. And it’s it’s a good lesson to learn. So I wouldn’t be surprised at some point. If someone on Facebook was doing identity. I doubt that. That’s what’s going on with you right now. But anyways, we’re gonna get to our guest. Yeah, so
Jim Hacking
we have an attorney who’s been a member of our group for a very long time. I think we tried to get him on the show before. We certainly reconnected at the conference. We’re really glad to have him. His name is Jim Hart. He has a big YouTube following. We’re gonna talk a little bit about that. We’re gonna talk about his practice. Jim, welcome to the show, brother.
Jim Hart
Thank you for having me. Jim. I’m Tyson I appreciate it.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, so Jim, talk a little bit about your, your, your background, how you got to where you are now.
Jim Hart
So I I’ve been practicing about 15 years. So I started in. Well, I went to school in Ohio at Ohio State. And then I, we moved down to Florida, because Ohio was just too cold. And I practiced in Orlando, from 2004 through about 2009. And then we decided Florida was too hot. So we came up to North Carolina and found that North Carolina was just right. And I’ve been here practicing since 2010. I’ve been a solo since 2005. And that’s pretty much where I’m at the main thrust of my practice is I’ve got a family law practice. And that’s the main moneymaker for my firm. And as you referenced, I have a YouTube channel that’s somewhat passive. But it does have a big following. And I do some LLC work through that, but
Tyson Mutrux
but that’s basically my practice.
Jim Hacking
Jim, tell us about the size of your firm, who you have on your team, what different roles are.
Jim Hart
So I’m a true solo right now. We went through a period, probably from 2010, to about 2017 or so where we were having kids. And we had a death in the family. And we had some other things happening. And so the practice wasn’t really my focus. And so I stayed small. And that was somewhat intentional. But I’d say in the past 18 months or so we’ve really made an effort to start growing again. I am still a solo, but I’ve been through if you want to talk about hiring, I wasn’t planning on that. But I’ve been through for legal assistants and paralegals in the past year trying to find that right person I feel like for most sellers that are out there. Once you get that that really good Keystone hire, it can really help catapult your business and that’s what I’m trying to do. So right now I’m actually working with I tried a bunch of different ways to do it, but I’m working with a legal staffing company to try and find somebody for that role. And and then we’ll go from there but I do have a use like Smith that AI answer my phones. And I’ve used virtual bookkeepers right now I’m trying to find a new one, I just fired my, my bookkeeper last month, and we’re gonna look for a new one. But I use a lot of virtual people I’ve used for projects and things like that I’ve gone to Upwork or oDesk, or whatever it’s called. Now I can’t remember I’ve used them to do things. I published a book about four or five months ago, I use some independent contractors for that. And but in terms of the day to day legal work, it’s mostly me.
Tyson Mutrux
Jim, I want to talk a little about the just the hiring and firing I probably know more about it than Jim does, just because we’re in a black group together. But I talk at least think the troubles are what do you think the issue is with with the hiring and the firing? Because it means that some some problems with the problems, you’ve had some difficulties with hiring and firing recently, I wouldn’t say the firing, keeping people that are good, or finding people that are good. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I think
Jim Hart
I actually did have one woman who was awesome, she was amazing, I would have kept her I would have paid more to keep her. But unfortunately, she had some personal circumstances. And she lived about an hour away from where my practice is, and she just didn’t want to do the commute anymore was too much. And, but so the other people that I’ve hired, I would say the biggest. So there’s different types of people that you can hire. And I know, Tyson in the factory, we’ve talked about this a little bit, and there’s been debate about this. So you can hire what I will consider an empty bucket person, which is basically somebody who doesn’t know anything, maybe they’re right out of school, or maybe they’re still in school. I think, Jim, for you, Ken was a good example of this, you came out didn’t really know anything, and he’s smart, and he gets it, and you can teach him and, and they can be great. And so there’s that person, there’s what’s called, I would say, a half bucket person, which is they’ve got some experience, but they’re not quite where you need them to be. So they still need some training. And then there’s what I would consider a full bucket person. And from my practice, I’ve been hiring empty bucket people, which can be somewhat hit or miss, I mean, you can come up with a rockstar, somebody, that’s awesome. And that’s empty bucket, and you’ll save some money, at least initially, but you’re gonna have to spend a lot of time training them. And even if they are a rock star, you’re still gonna spend a lot of time training and versus what I’m really transitioned to. And what I’m looking for now is really somebody more of a full bucket, it’s going to cost me more in terms of investment, what am I paid to hire them. But I think, in the long term, I’m not going to have to do as much training because ideally, they would have experienced doing family law here in North Carolina, they would understand who the judges are, and how things work. And so I’m not I would have to teach them, like my systems and values for my firm. And hopefully, they would mesh with that, but I’m not gonna have to teach them as much about, you know, here’s what a motion is, for example. And here’s how we set a hearing, though, because they’re gonna have some familiar familiarity with that. Does that make sense?
Jim Hacking
Yeah, that makes total sense. And so are you practicing in different areas? Are you or is it just in care and carry Are you are affected and
Tyson Mutrux
all over? So
Jim Hart
my, my geographic region is basically wait County, occasionally, we’ll get some which is, which is Raleigh the triangle in North Carolina? Occasionally, we’ll get some cases from Durham County, which is like where Duke University is. And, and But primarily, we’re in Wayne County, we’ve got a big enough County, that I don’t need to go to four or five different counties. We’ve it’s a pretty big metropolitan area.
Tyson Mutrux
So you mentioned the the empty bucket, half bucket and full bucket is are those things that you learned from Atticus? And when you talk a little bit about Atticus, and your experience with that?
Jim Hart
Sure. Yeah. Those are things I learned from Atticus, we did a whole module on hiring. And what what Tyson is referring to is, I am in a program called Atticus, which is in some people have different phrases for But basically, it’s a marketing program. And every quarter, we fly down to Orlando, we fly in on a Thursday morning. We meet with our group, which right now is about 30 attorneys. And we’ve gotten to know each other over the past 18 months because we’re meeting every single quarter in Orlando. And we stay through Thursday evening. We usually have a happy hour. Some of us go out to dinner somewhere. And then Friday morning, we get up early. We we have meetings through the day on Friday, and then we cut off at 330. And then we catch a flight right back to Raleigh in the afternoon. And people are I think the farthest person we’ve got is somebody who’s coming in from I want to say Winnipeg, Canada, maybe and we’ve got some people from Boston and Chicago and Iowa. A lot of people from Florida and There’s another attorney that’s here in my in Raleigh that that we use on the same flight together. So, but that’s what we do. And then months when we’re not meeting in Orlando, we have a call with a marketing coach that basically keeps us accountable and goes through our we do 90 Day plans every single 90 days and to make sure we’re doing what we need to be doing. And you know, my strengths with Atticus is they’ve got different levels for different practice areas. This is kind of the mid level program. And when I do Atticus, my revenue goes up when I don’t do Atticus my revenue sales stay stagnant or dropped. And so, you know, I think there’s a lot of value in it. Other people have different opinions, but But it’s been great for me when I and I’ve been doing it in one form or another probably since I started my law practice in Florida.
Jim Hacking
Jimbo, I really like the description on your homepage or your about page, I guess it is where you just sort of walk through how your parents got separated when you were five, by going to law school, your initial practice and then launching your firm moving to Carolina, and then and then you have a section in there on the future of your firm, a section on personal stuff and then your bio either by I love, I love that the bio is buried at the end. Talk to the our listeners about why you think such a descriptive. I know you like to write but such as descriptive history of you is a good thing to put on your website.
Jim Hart
Well, I think it’s important to establish a connection with the, with the person that I’m trying to work with. And in that being somebody who’s thinking about going through a legal separation and divorce. And if you if you can’t you need to find a way I know Billy Torres to talk about during her her talk at max law calm that when you’re having that initial consultation with people, you want to initially want to find a way in the first like five minutes of the console to connect with the person or compliment them or do something. And so I think that’s really important. And this is just another touch point where, you know, people are obviously going to this page, if they want to know more about me, and they’re thinking about hiring me. And this is a way to kind of connect with him a little bit, you know. So that’s kind of why I
Tyson Mutrux
do that. Jim, talk a little bit about where you do where your firm is headed. So 510 years from now, where do you see it going?
Jim Hart
I would say in five or 10 years, I really want to build into kind of a family law practice that is kind of one of the leaders in Wake County, and potentially North Carolina. But there’s, there’s another firm, a lot of you have probably talked about Rosen, there’s the Rosen Institute, which several members of Max volcon has been a member of. And they’re one of the big competitors, they’re right down the road from me. And I learned a lot from Lee when he was still in Wake County now he’s traveling the world. But I think you had him on the podcast that knew at one point. And but so I don’t know that I want to be to that level. But basically where I want to be with my practice is I want to have a practice that’s comfortable for me that I can take time off when I want to. And, and that I don’t have to be doing the day to day practice where that means I have offices throughout the state or multi states or just wait County, that to me isn’t as important as making sure that my practice is serving my clients, I don’t want to ever grow to the point where I don’t feel like I’m providing tremendous value to my clients. And, and so that I can take time off when I want. And the practice is still running. And potentially at some point, you know, in the next 1015 20 years whenever that that I can groom somebody who is coming up with me to maybe purchase a practice and then off into retirement. I had a very strange
Jim Hacking
sensation at the conference this year when you came up and said to me, nice to meet you. And because in my mind, I met you a long time ago. But it was such a reminder, a stark reminder that for a lot of the people at the conference, even though we had noticed that there for a long time. It was sort of the surreal meeting in the real world kind of a thing. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. And then generally by your
Tyson Mutrux
experience at the conference.
Jim Hart
Well, the conference I just have to hand it to the two of you the conference was awesome. It was hands down one the best conferences I’ve been to
Tyson Mutrux
that I can recall.
Jim Hart
In certainly it was one of the best legal conferences I’ve ever been to. It’s funny I was talking to I went out to drink which is a big thing from my practice like networking. A lot of you talk about online marketing and that’s a big focus of discussion with people in the Facebook group and things but I’m a big offline marketing person. I do a lot of my my networking things offline. I get a lot of business from referrals and So I was having drinks with another attorney last night. And we were talking about there was another conference that he went to where he had been invited to go. I don’t know how much it costs him. I know it was probably around $1,000. And he went there. And he said, it was like, it was like the dog and pony show that he wasn’t sure what he was getting into. And they initially they showed him this, these different services. And it’s basically a big sales presentation for this, this group that I’m not going to name, and the pricing was, was ridiculous. And he went up, you went to the back of the room, he’s like, I want my money back. I’m out of here. And they initially were a little reluctant, but they ultimately did give him his money back. And he said, he spent a couple of days because he had some friends where the conference was, and you just hung out with them and didn’t go, but that that not next long. But you are the antithesis of that. And you’ve just done such a good job creating value and creating a community. I think that’s probably the most important thing is everyone that we all know each other from the Facebook group. So you walk to people in the happy hour, and you’re like, Oh, hi, it’s like your old friends. It’s like you’ve met all the time. It’s just you’re taking those online relationships offline. And it’s just such a wonderful experience. Because of that.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s all it’s all the members where it is, Jim. It’s not really me, Jim, it was start off me and Jim, but it’s really, I mean, that’s what makes great. I mean, I see you, Jim is a very successful lawyer. Because I mean, you and I have had a lot of talk that talks like group. But I want to know what you struggle with the most with a thank you, you seem pretty content being a solo? I think so I can’t imagine hiring and firing. Like, what is it that you really struggle with? I,
Jim Hart
I’ll be honest, I don’t want to be a solo I want to grow. But I struggle with that. I struggle with that all the time. And it, but I’m probably a bit of a perfectionist as well. And it’s hard for me to delegate, I know, that’s probably true of a lot of people that are in the group. And a lot of the people that, you know, I’ve let go, you know, they say the work product that they give out is is not up to the quality they want. Now, maybe that’s maybe this is my issue. Maybe these people were perfect people. And I let them go for the wrong reasons. But honestly, I don’t think that was the case. And so I would say what I struggle with is, is the process that we’re all going through and trying to build and grow our firms. And the way I’ve mapped it out for myself and would like to move forward is you know, I need to, it’s important to get this, I call it a keystone hire. Because if you get this one Keystone hire somebody who can come in. And ideally, like run your law firm, except for practicing law, that’s going to free up your time to do more marketing and do the offline marketing that I think is so important. And the more offline marketing I can do, the more cases I can bring in and I can hire more people, and then we can start to grow into something that truly is a you know, a firm that can provide some value to not only the community to more people in the community, but also to the employees that work here. And that’s, that’s the ultimate goal. But I struggle with that, it’s really hard, I’ve got the system, I’ve got all that stuff in place. I just have to scale it. And so scaling is something I really have a hard time with.
Jim Hacking
Jim, you’ve mentioned offline marketing a couple of times, I’d love it if you could sort of walk through the listeners some of the things you have success with and why you think it’s as important or more important than the online stuff.
Jim Hart
There’s something called the 30 day rule. And the 30 day rule basically says that whatever marketing you’re doing right now, in this current 30 day cycle, is going to bear fruit within the next three to four months. So if you look at what you’re doing right now, and you’re not doing any marketing activities, right now, you’re just practicing lawyers working on the cases, that you’ve gotten the door right now, in three or four months, your well is going to be dry, your pipeline is going to be drying your business is going to start to do what what we call an Atticus as porpoising. And that’s a dolphin goes up and down. Right? So they call that purpose. What I am doing in my marketing right now on a day to day basis is trying to never stop marketing trying to have three to five marketing contacts per week with people that are positioned to refer me business. So those might be therapist those might be other lawyers like I had drinks with last night. They might be friends from my kids school that that, you know, potentially no other people in the school that that might be going through a divorce or separation. And it doesn’t matter who it is. But if you’re having those three to five contacts per week, ideally five if you want to grow I think you need to have at least five if you want to stay where you’re at right now. Three, if you want to just, you know fizzle out and die then nothing. But that’s what I do is I’m trying to have those three to five contacts per week and those context might be in the form of coffees lunches, you know, after dinner, drinks, whatever. But three to five per week is, is really important. Sometimes you don’t have time to do all that. And you just get on the phone with somebody for a half hour and you chat with them. And they just keeps the top of mind awareness going. But that’s what I’m working on right now. That’s, that’s what I’ve always done that’s been consistent with my practice since day one. When I have low periods, I can go back to that 30 day rule and say, What did I do in that 30 Day block? I wasn’t marketing. And that’s why things are slow right now. So
Tyson Mutrux
I’m gonna talk a little bit more about those, those one to one thing handles are those for those who actually counted, you mentioned that you can, you know, fall sales, you can call them that, I mean, to actually count those on, as a as a meet up with them. Does it have to be in person? I don’t think so. I think
Jim Hart
I think if you have a good call with somebody in the last 20 or 30 minutes, you know, you just call somebody up they haven’t seen in six months. And just to chat for a little bit. I think that counts. I try and do on, at least for the initial meetings of people that I that I’ve never met with before. I tried to, you know, take them to coffee, coffee is my favorite because I can get it done early in the morning and then go about my day. But I think it’s just if it’s a quality touch, you know, anything longer than 20 or 30 minutes, around 2030 minutes minimum
Tyson Mutrux
that I think counts the touch. Email doesn’t count. I’ll put it that way. Okay, I’ll follow the follow up to that. How are you keeping yourself accountable on that? I have a,
Jim Hart
I have a spreadsheet that I print off each week. And I, I, I just use tick marks how many people that I meet with this week. And I try and track it. I’m not always great. Like when I’m when I have a legal assistant in place, and I have more time, I do a better job of tracking it right now. It’s while I’m waiting to find somebody, what’s the what’s the phrase hire slow fire fast. So it’s taken me some time to find somebody. But typically when I do have somebody in place, and it’s not just me, I’m much more. I basically just track it with tip sheets.
Tyson Mutrux
Very cool. Jim, when
Jim Hacking
it comes to that hurdle of scaling, if you had to sit for a second instinct, what’s the biggest impediment? In your in your mind? Not not not not the procedural thing or the or the hurdle, but rather the psychological block that’s keeping you from scaling? What would you say the
Tyson Mutrux
I think it’s fear. I think it’s fear of
Jim Hart
fear of being successful fear of not being successful.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s the it’s just really that, that,
Jim Hart
you know, you think about it, you think, Gosh, I’m going to pay this person 50 or $60,000 a year, that’s, that’s, you know, money that could be going in my pocket, but you can’t look at it that way. You have to look at it in terms of, if this person works out, and this is the person that’s going to come in really helped me elevate my practice, you know, that 50 or 60? You know, another attorney, I’m friends with I was in Atticus, I was talking to him about he had recently hired a paralegal that he’s paying her I want to say 60 or $70,000 a year. And at first, I was thinking, well, that’s sticker shock. Wow, that’s, that’s a lot of money. And, and he said, Well, yeah, but in the first quarter of this year, she built out $80,000 and collected $80,000. So that’s, you have to look at that, that money you’re spending as really more of an investment and not a sunk cost. And if you can get the right person in that role, who is productive, and and who can who can produce revenue for you, then it’s really more of a that is an investment that’s going to return many multiples over over the years.
Jim Hacking
One thing when it comes to hiring people that I think a lot of people get hung up on is they think about that annual salary. And that’s important. I’m not, I’m not disagreeing with that. But at the same time, you don’t have to have all that money wants to pay someone if you just have to pay him twice a month, you know, 1/24 of that amount. So I think that a lot of people view that as a stumbling block. But if you instead view it as someone that’s going to help you make more than that over the next two weeks, then it’s a good way
Tyson Mutrux
to think about it.
Jim Hart
I think that’s right. I think I think you’re absolutely right. And if you look at it in terms of the bigger annual salary than it is a huge number, but if you look at it in terms, I think that’s a great way
Tyson Mutrux
to look at it. Hey, Jim, so will you commit to hiring a new person in the next 120 days?
Jim Hart
Oh, absolutely. I’ve already like I said, I already hired a search firm and I’ve also gotten the ad running on Indeed, looking for people and so I’m I’d absolutely I’d like to have somebody in place by the end of I’d say July.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay, and do you have all the systems and procedures in place? Whenever they start there? They’re ready to go and get trained up?
Jim Hart
I absolutely do you know, we I don’t remember who I think it all started with Ryan McKean with Petro. Right? And, and I know a bunch of people have jumped on that Tetra bandwagon. And I’ve probably got 200 pages on Tetra now on how to do different things. And so yeah, yeah, we’re I mean, I’m, and that’s something else I will tell you that we work about that we work on Atticus. So adequate, not to, you know, test out their, their their product, but there’s four things we’re working on with them. It’s the time management, marketing, staffing and cash flow. But what we were working on this quarter that’s really important, is score sheets. And there’s a book by Charles Coonrod, I think, I think it’s called scorekeeping for success maybe. And I can send you a link to the book, if you want to put in the show notes. But basically, the idea is you create a scorecard for things that you want your people to do. So whenever you have them do a new task for you, then you give them the score sheet. And so when they turn in the task, they turn in the score sheet with it. And you can go through the score sheet and just check and say, okay, to do this, right, do
Jim Hacking
they do this? Right, do they do this? Right.
Jim Hart
And that’s something we’re working on right now, with Atticus, and that I’m working on, but But yes, so to answer your question, I do have the systems in place, and we’re ready to roll. They’re
Tyson Mutrux
super cool. Jim. I think that
Jim Hacking
you are a very deep thinker, and of your success here. And I just want to say that I think that you can do anything. I mean, you you impress me so much that most lawyers don’t take the time to come to conferences to join things like Atticus to, you know, think, think through what they’re doing, I just want to say that I think you can do whatever you want, get as big as you want, and that you’re going to do nothing
Tyson Mutrux
but succeed.
Jim Hart
Well, that’s, uh, that’s very kind of you, Jim. And I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Tyson Mutrux
All right, gents. Well, I’m gonna hate to wrap things up today. Actually, I’m really, really enjoying this call. But we need to wrap things up. Before I do. I want to remind everyone go to the Facebook group. Get involved there. There’s so much activity going on on daily basis. So much people sharing the great tips and tricks and all that is replaced. Also, if you don’t mind taking a couple seconds, going to iTunes, wherever you get your podcast gets a five star review. It really does help spread the love. Jimmy, what’s your hacking leak? All right. So I talked before on the
Jim Hacking
Facebook group about things that I’m haunted by you know, I’ve been haunted by the comment of Ali Bilson of
Tyson Mutrux
when he said that most of us are.
Jim Hacking
We don’t have the capacity to match our opportunities. I was haunted by Sandy van. And what she said at the conference when she said nothing but a player’s no B players, no C players. But the thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is I’m reading a book called Scaling up, we’ve talked about it on the show before Vern Harnish and the gazelles group. And
Tyson Mutrux
in talking about growth.
Jim Hacking
He said that as you grow, and you get to about five or six employees that you have to start delegating things that you’re not good at. But then when you get up to like 10, or 12, or 15, then you have to start delegating things that you are good at. And then eventually, oftentimes, what happens in growing companies is that the thing that the entrepreneur is best at becomes the weakness because he or she never lets it go. And that retards growth that holds holds the company back. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about. It’s a great book. It’s one of those books, sort of like the E Myth, for Profit First, where you’re reading and you’re like, I could read this book every six months and take away new things each
Tyson Mutrux
time. It really is a good book. So that the hack is I guess, once you get to that level, you you start to delegate those things that you only you can do that without the hackers or the book, the hack.
Jim Hacking
I started a list. It’s called that I don’t work here anymore. And it lists all the things that I can do that I’m getting rid of over the next six months.
Tyson Mutrux
I love it. Love it. All right, Jim, what is your tip or hack of the week?
Jim Hart
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this. And we’ve already referenced some things like Atticus and not stop marketing and things like that, but I would say kind of in line with that and a tool that I use, that really helps me to stay focused and to manage my referrals. So we all have these CRMs that we use, right so some people use my case. Some people use Clio something We’ll use file, bind and use all these different CRMs. Something that I’ve done is, in my practice, I’ve actually got a separate CRM for my referral relationship. And I use a program called, it’s called less annoying CRM. And it’s, I think that’s the website less annoying CRM is dirt cheap, like 10 bucks a month. And it does exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is it syncs with your Google Calendar, you can tag people as different things. It’s you can add, when you come back from a meeting with somebody, you can add notes really quickly, you can include tasks in there, and it’ll tell you how long it’s been since you followup with people. And that’s something I always use so I put all my potential referral source sources into that list. Once I’ve made a coffee with somebody, they go in there, I come back from Max lock on and I talk to people, they go into that, that that database, and if you use MailChimp, it syncs with MailChimp so you can put people on you can tag them and then it goes to a list in MailChimp. It’s just a wonderful program. It’s the price is right for a solo attorney who’s just starting out and I highly recommend it and there’s no there’s virtually no learning curve because it’s just so easy to use. enticements.
Jim Hacking
We’ve had a first year on the show, a tap at hacker Tip of the Week has been recommended. It’s actual client of mine, I, we did the h1 B’s for less annoying CRM last year. And they’re they’re great people to work with. So I actually haven’t spent much time looking at the software. But if Jim Hart says it’s good, I
Tyson Mutrux
believe it. Yeah, that’s kind of gently well mannered Jim, Jim, recommend this, I’m gonna go and look at coming, I’m going to check it out. Just take a look at it. So especially because with what juveniles and other other stuff that we’ve got, if I could jump off with a few 100 bucks on things and spending money on them, that’d be great. And save me some money. All right, so my tip of the week actually comes from Chris nicolaysen, which it comes from Clockwork by Mike McCauley with motorbike micro happier, whatever you want to call him. And I know this is tough whenever I first read this, this actually comes from this blog group that Jim and I earn. And it’s, it’s to take a four week vacation, and it also disconnect from the business and be present in the vacation. Now, I I know whenever I first went, there’s like no freakin way. Like that’s, that’s ridiculous. No, no, don’t do that. The reason is, is that it’s forces you to get your systems in place prior to radiation, I am going to take this challenge on cattle and I’m gonna do it, I might hit this forever. When I’m doing those, I think it’s really going to take you think you get your systems in place, it’s going to test those systems. And if you don’t have your systems in place, it’s going to force it to whatever I think that being an offer for freaking week terrifies me. But I would love to deal with my family. So I’m going to do it. That’s my tip. Thanks, Chris, for sharing that with us.
Jim Hart
I don’t know if you saw the the conversation between Chris and I about that. And do you know the difference? And you may have seen it, but do you know the difference between a four week vacation and two weeks vacation?
Tyson Mutrux
So I’m looking at I’m looking at the threat now. But
Jim Hacking
so, so the answer
Jim Hart
is the stack of paperwork on your desk when you get back? Because if and that’s exactly what you said. So if you take a two week vacation, you’re gonna have a huge stack of stuff to do when you get back. If you take three or four weeks vacation, there’s not going to be a stack. And the reason for that is because most things can wait two weeks. But a lot of things cannot wait three or four weeks, they need to be done. And so someone in your office is going to say we need to get this done before they come back. And so that’s where their systems are so important. But yeah, that’s that’s a great idea. Great, great goal.
Tyson Mutrux
I love it. I love it. That’s it. That’s great insight too. I’m glad you added that little bit. But Jim to see this is why it was great having you on. You appreciate it waited way too long to Hadron. Thank you much.
Jim Hart
Oh, you’re so welcome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
