In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Chelsey Lambert, the owner of Lex Tech Review, a platform where she writes articles and product reviews on all of the different technology and services you can use to run a law firm, books webinars and more! They will go over all kind of software reviews and tips to run your business and law firm the right way.
Her mission: To support legal professionals as they wade through the changing tide of legal technology.
Her site: https://www.lextechreview.com/
Business: CRM and CMS
“A law firm is a business that so happens to sell legal services. Leads, sales, margins, profits. Those are the realities of whether or not your business is going to survive. You have to know those numbers.“
2 Groups
Lawyers going solo for the first time, don’t get tech-tool technology happy. Don’t spend your first months trying to make everything run perfect. When you start a business, you have revenue or you have nothing. You can have all the technology in the world, but if you don’t start building your name, a network and a source of income in business, you are not going to have any money to pay for it.
Established law firms already have technology that they’ve been using or a series of processes and they are hesitant to move away from what the are used to. Change is hard, but delaying the move to adapt a new system is going to hurt you, because clients expectations are always changing.
Delegation and Virtual Assistants
“By you doing that kind of work that could be delegated, you are not only able to operate at a profit margin that could be lucrative to you, bit you are robbing your law firm of that profit and of the time that you could be spending doing adisional business development opportunities.“
1. Know your numbers and how long things take.
2. Being able to leverage that time to increase the firm’s revenue.
3. What disservice are you doing to your clients if you are totally worn out.
Hacking’s Hack:
Optimize your Youtube videos with TubeBuddy.
https://www.tubebuddy.com/
It allows you to do a lot of great things!
Chelsey’s Tip:
Outlook for iOS. There is an option where you can send your calendar availability!
Tyson’s Tip:
An app and a site. https://www.lynda.com/. Test it out and let us know what you think!
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Transcripts: Run Your Law Firm The Right Way ft. Chelsey Lambert
Chelsey Lambert
When you’re starting a business, you have revenue or you have nothing. And you can have all the technology in the world. And you can complicate those decisions or drag it out or want to have the perfect website. But if you don’t start building your name and building a network and building a source of income and business, you’re not going to have any money to pay for 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 metrics. What’s up, Jimmy?
Jim Hacking
Oh, Tyson, it’s good to talk to you seems like it’s been a while since we last spoke. I’m excited about our guest today. He was introduced to me by our mutual friend Seth price. Her name is Chelsea Lambert. And she and Seth just had a great webinar about three or four weeks ago that I thought was really terrific. She’s going to be speaking at our conference in May. And I want to go ahead and introduce her. So Chelsea’s mission is to support legal professionals as they wade through the changing tide of legal technology, or website is Lex tech review, Lex meaning law for those of you who aren’t aware, even I know that haha. And Chelsea Does presentations all over the country, for bar associations and other groups. And we’re really lucky to have her coming to the event in May. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. But for now, Chelsea, welcome to the show.
Chelsey Lambert
Thank you so much for having me, guys. I’m excited
Tyson Mutrux
to be here. Alright, so Chelsea, talk a little bit about what you do and why you do it. Yeah.
Chelsey Lambert
So you know, I kind of am in this really fortunate place in my life where when people ask you, if you could do one thing for free, what would it be? And someone asked me that a couple years ago, and I said, you know, if I could do one thing, it would just be teach and write about legal technology, education, and help small firms find some products that make their life better. And so I’ve been really grateful to be in this spot that I’m in now, in that Lex tech review is a platform where I write articles and product reviews on all of the different technology or services that you can use to run a law firm, published books like the legal technology Buyer’s Guide, we just came out with the eDiscovery Buyer’s Guide, we’re going to have more of those coming out throughout the year, and then teach webinars or do CLE is all over the country promoting the use of technology or virtual assistants or you know, just different ways of thinking about how you can run your business. And my personal passion is for the solo to midsize firm, which is about 30 employees. One of the reasons that I have invested myself so heavily in that group is because I feel like when things are not working at the office, they’re not working at home. So I grew up in a family of small businesses. So if something wasn’t right, you know, going on during the day, mom and dad are not going to be in a good mood when they come home. And so I really feel like I’m able to make a massive impact or see it you know, firsthand when things do go writer, you find technology that makes your life better.
Jim Hacking
Kelsey, tell us a little bit about how you broke into the field, how you got started and where you began.
Chelsey Lambert
Yeah, interesting. I always say I kind of fell backwards into the space. I grew up running my parents companies and had one of my own and quite honestly, I just got really burned out and I wanted to try something different. answered a Craigslist ad for a company in Chicago called Total attorneys that did pay per lead marketing for law firms. They were actually the first company to ever vet and deliver ethically pay per lead marketing services in the area of consumer law. And so I answered this Craigslist ad it was a you know, be a salesperson for you know, selling technology, selling marketing services, and I got the job. And within a few months really fell in love with working with small firms. There are two founders and Scanlon and Kevin Shern, Kevin really took me under his wing as a mentor. And I spent the next seven years working for that company doing a development team and building a case management system. With 11 people working on my team that was so cool to negotiating relationships with Bar Association’s doing conferences, selling and marketing products to lawyers. So I spent seven years there. And honestly, I wouldn’t be in the position that I’m in if it weren’t for that, you know, leap of faith and answering a Craigslist ad of all things.
Tyson Mutrux
It sounds like you’ve you with your background. You’ve talked to a ton of attorneys in your past. So what are some of the I guess your biggest advice you give to new attorneys is things that you’ve learned, the other attorneys are doing and things you’ve learned along the way. So what are some suggestions you’d have for new attorneys that are going out on the road?
Chelsey Lambert
Okay, so two different groups there. And it’s interesting because I get very much like those two sets comments coming through my website to different groups. So for the lawyers who are starting out going solo for the first time, don’t get I call it like tech tool happy or technology happy, where it’s like, Oh, I’m gonna use this, I’m gonna set this up, I’m gonna have leads, like five different things, it’s gonna be awesome. And they subscribe to like all these services, and they spend about their first six months, really trying to get like the technology perfect. And the technology, right? When you’re starting a business, you have revenue, or you have nothing. And you can have all the technology in the world. And you can complicate those decisions or drag it out or want to have the perfect website. But if you don’t start building your name, and building a network and building a source of income and business, you’re not going to have any money to pay for it. So I think with solos, what I see a lot of time is like software paralyzation, where they need to have the perfect website, you need to have the perfect logo logos don’t sell legal services you do, right. So it’s the combination of like that business coaching and acknowledging that marketing and sales is very much a part of what you need to do to build an income stream. And then you can have by all the technology in the world and spend time fussing with it because you have money to pay yourself. So that’s the one thing I see with this solo is it’s pretty common. On the other side, like establish it firms that have maybe technology that they’ve been using or have a series of processes, they’re hesitant to move away from what they’ve been used to like, change is hard, it sucks, I can’t say anything or give you any guidance on how to make it easier. But delaying the move to adopt a new system or delaying the move. Because you’ve invested like you’re hung up on the 10 or the 20 Grand that you spent on Amicus or abacus or needles or whatever it was from a while ago, that’s actually going to hurt you. Because clients expectations especially if your area in the area of consumer law, they’re changing. They want text message appointment reminders, they want you to be answering the phone on at night, and on the weekend, they want you know, there’s just a different level of like, they’re not gonna wait for a lawyer to call them. I’ll give you a perfect example. I needed a real estate attorney. And over the weekend, I called four different firms. And guess who got the business, the one that actually called and booked me in for an appointment on Monday. Right, and that was looking on a Saturday night. So
Jim Hacking
I really appreciate the point you make about the more established firms being unwilling to move away from things and sort of sunk costs. Seth Godin wrote a great little three paragraph blog about this on Saturday. And he ends by saying sunk costs are all around us commitments and engagements and assets that were hard to get, but are now totaled their gifts from the EU of yesterday. And it’s okay to refuse them. And I think about that sometimes myself. And specifically, I’m wondering about CRM and and this goes both to the newer attorneys and to the more established attorneys. You know, one of the things that we’re preaching here often is that you’ve got to be capturing the contact information of anybody that raises their hand and reaches out to you. A lot of people sort of have business cards and one stack a notebook with phone numbers and another, something saved to their phone. As you talk to newer attorneys or more established attorneys who don’t really have a CRM, what what is your mindset and sort of how do you walk attorneys through that, Chelsea?
Chelsey Lambert
Yeah, so first of all, I mean, just coming from the very like real perspective of having a former VP of marketing or CMO background. To put it in perspective for everyone, the value of an email address is about $75. Okay, so every time you don’t record it, every time you don’t track it, just imagine lighting $75 on fire. To me, that’s like more expensive than owning a boat. Still in the that I have also done which I don’t recommend either. That is the value of an email address. Because if you think about the time your hourly rate associated with physically going out and getting it, the advertising dollars that you might have spent, you know what, whatever it is that it took to acquire that contact information and the ability for you maybe to be able to refer it out to someone else and get a referral fee, or track it in your own system, put them in a newsletter, they forward your email to somebody who might need your services that should go through your mind when you’re not in putting it in a place. Now CRM is an interesting term, because it’s technically CRM, I wrote an article about it called mistaken identity car with the difference between a CRM and a case management system. If you look at the functionality of a CRM, it is meant to handle what I like to call front of the house or front office features. And when you have a drop down menu of what a contact could be called, it’s going to be called things like lead, prospect opportunity. When you look at a case management software that’s that’s focused on the delivery of the legal services. It’s going to be client party witness opposing counsel, right so they functionally do two different things to me investing in a CRM, which there’s only a couple specific to the legal industry. There’s law ruler, there’s Lexa cotta, and there’s a new one coming out at ABA Tech Show, which I don’t have approval to share with you at this time, but you can keep an eye out, I’m sure they’re going to be doing ton of press. So then there’ll be three official CRMs for legal in this space. The investment really falls that when you’re getting more than 30 leads a month, and you want something that’s going to automate communication, that’s something that’s going to manage what’s called your funnel. Where are these people? Are they light amount of interest? Or are they ready to retain, that is specifically designed to manage and execute brilliantly the lead to client portion of the of the cycle, if you are just looking at something that’s going to manage your contacts, tracking leads, in your case management software is fine, just do it somewhere, do it. If you have nothing else, and you have no budget for software, do it in an Excel sheet, right? Like whatever you got to do. But think about in the back of your mind, every time you don’t ask for an email address over the phone, or you don’t log that business card. You basically just lit $75 on fire.
Tyson Mutrux
I love your explanation of CRM versus CMS. Personally, it aggravates me that there’s not one system that incorporates everything, it drives me freaking crazy, because it would be so valuable. It just drives me freaking crazy.
Chelsey Lambert
There are a couple we can talk about that. Yeah, we’ll
Tyson Mutrux
have to because I think most of them are garbage. But I would love to hear if you have a good solution. I’d love to hear him. But here’s my question for you. So because you’re in a unique perspective, where you’ve spoken to a lot of attorneys, I’ve heard the Seth Godin is the opinion that law firms are more headed to the more personalization of things where as almost seems like smaller firms, that kind of thing. But I’ve also heard opinions that law firms are going to these big law firms are going to vacuum up all the small ones, we’re gonna go to the base of this Walmart type of law firms. From your perspective, what’s your opinion on that?
Chelsey Lambert
Great question, the median income and I was really blessed to work for a company called how to manage a small law firm where we did business coaching, really like hardcore program, look it up. If you’re if you want to learn about it, it’s not for everybody. But I learned a lot while I worked there, the median income of a solo attorney in America is $49,100 right like that is actually a really staggering number. That being said, there has to be some type of evolution of how they are either running their practice to keep up with the consumer demand. And if you look at like the access to justice gap, you still have what some might call 80% of the Consumer Legal need is unmet. So the demand is there, but you still have to have licensed attorneys providing it so there is a move already you see it with things like avo you see it with all those you know limited legal options or their flat fee legal options, then you see it with the new law firms like atrium or axiom you know, coming out and offering these these different models or prepaid legal services like our org or Texas legal plans, where they’re leveraging the power of a massive base of solo attorneys to deliver the services to tackle this unmet Consumer Legal need. So my perspective either small firms become very efficient and are able to take on cases at you know, sometimes the same price point in certain practice areas and might be lower price point like uncontested divorce or DIY legal if you look at unbundled attorney who sells DIY legal leads to solo and small firms, that can be an incredible source to build your practice off of and generate revenue when you don’t do a ton of marketing, like you buy the leads, but you’re delivering them at a lower price or a flat rate. And in order to do that, you need to be using document assembly or automation to keep your margins high, we’re still making money off of those little lower dollar amount clients. So I do think that we will see a rise in this power plant model, operate law in Chicago bankruptcy firm, they are going to be the nation’s largest bankruptcy firm in a very short period of time if they aren’t already. And they are using local representation as their partners, but they run all operations out of an office that’s, you know, a couple 100 people in Chicago, right? So they’re doing the marketing, they’re bringing the clients and they’re using the soaps as their partners who operate their own practices to deliver and go to the in person meetings. So I think we’re gonna see these hybrids, you know, atrium, upright law, all those legal services, make a dent in the market. And then solos are either and small firms are either going to run efficiently and build processes and use technology and build those systems to compete on their own independently and grow their business. And then unfortunately, I do think that we’re gonna see people that just can’t make it happen at that $49,100 I mean, depression rates and anxiety that seem within the community speak to that metric alone.
Jim Hacking
Chelsea, those are pretty sobering numbers and eye opening stats. I think that one of the reasons Tyson I started this podcast in the first place was because we had friends who were facing that depression who were facing those low salaries. And we wanted to do what we can to help our listeners boost themselves up and grow. You use the word in your last answer that I really like to think about when it comes to running a law firm. And I don’t think a lot of lawyers, think about it. If you watch the Prophet, it’s something that Marcus Lemonis talks about every week. And that word is margins. So talk to me a little bit about how you would recommend lawyers think about margins. I know a lot of lawyers, not necessarily our listeners. But a lot of people don’t even like to think about margins, like I’m just a lawyer, and I don’t have to think about running the business side of things so much talk to me, and Tyson a little bit about that, if you could.
Chelsey Lambert
Yeah, so it that is a hard conversation, because I talked to you, like you mentioned hundreds of lawyers 1000s of lawyers all over the country. And everybody says when when I bring up this, like, you got to break out of being a solo, even if it’s using a virtual assistant, I have a problem with delegation, I have a problem with control. Most entrepreneurs do because it’s and it’s also your name on the door. So there’s like a consequence that happens if something goes wrong, you have to understand the amount of time that you were spending on a case and a majority of the people who approach this conversation say, Well, every single case is different, or you can’t necessarily put a number on it. And for any business owner, you have to know your numbers. And whether you want to consider yourself a CEO of your law firm or not, you are and those are the types of things that you have to think about. Law Firm is a business that just so happens to sell legal services. Lots of words in this conversation that a lot of lawyers don’t like to hear. They don’t like to hear leads, they don’t like to hear sales, they don’t like to hear margins, they don’t like to hear profit. Those are the realities of whether or not your business is going to survive. And so you have to know those numbers. And what is really like the aha moment that happens in the conversations, if they allow it to go that way, is oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that I am spending four hours on document prep. Okay, well, is it possible that a paralegal could do that? Is it possible that a website like book dash, it’s book it legal, it’s book dash, it legal, actually leverages three L law students who are trying to get jobs with law firms to do things that have very low flat rates, like the Upwork, or the TaskRabbit of legal services, it’s awesome quality control the whole bit. And so when you start really outlining how many hours it takes you to do a divorce, a child custody case, a DUI, then all of a sudden the light goes on, and they see not only where their time is going, but they see an opportunity to delegate. And then the way that we I have seen people be able to get motivated to actually increase their margin is, what if you could hire a paralegal or a intern or a clerk to do that work, and you’re still reviewing it, but you’re hiring them at $20 An hour or $30 an hour, or whatever that might be? When you do that work yourself, you’re actually robbing your law firm of the margin that exists in that space. Right. So if you’re billing 150, or $250 an hour, and you’re not having a 20 or $30 an hour, $40 an hour person, maybe it’s even like a lawyer who just doesn’t want to have a practice anymore, and they want to do contract work and you’re paying them 50 or $75 an hour, that’s where your margin lives, right. So by you, doing that type of work yourself that could be delegated. You’re not only able to operate at a at a profit margin that that could be lucrative to you, but you’re robbing your law firm of that profit and of the of the time that you could be spending doing additional business development opportunities, or working on business development opportunities. So it’s one knowing your numbers and how long things take because how do you know if you’re making money if you don’t, and then to being able to leverage that time to increase the firm’s revenue? And then three, you know, what disservice are you doing to your clients if you’re totally worn out? And so exhausted and so overworked? Like, where’s that quote, there’s actually like a quality, that degradation that happens by you overworking yourself all the time to make more money.
Tyson Mutrux
I love the the description of how you should use vas. I think it’s fantastic. We use quite a bit in our office and I know Jimmy uses some as well. I think attorneys have said they tend to focus on the expense side of it, which is minimal, very minimal compared to if you had someone in your actual office when you’re talking about real estate that you need. that kind of stuff. But what are some creative ways that you’ve seen attorneys using vas? Yeah, so
Chelsey Lambert
there’s a few different Salut like now it has totally changed. Like I used to do that presentation on virtual assistants years ago. And it was like, you know, just find somebody to help you like find an intern or find a clerk like now you’ve got contract attorneys that are actually fairly easy to find. They don’t as long as they’re licensed in your state, they don’t even have to physically live there. People that are retired or that you know, just don’t want to practice full time anymore. stay at home moms. There’s a couple solutions that are legal specific. So belay B E lay offers legal specific executive and virtual assistants. They have an entire division of their company that’s just focused on legal. There’s also Bukit legal, which I love. That’s basically now become the up work of legal projects, research, writing, paralegal level support. There’s virtual Paralegal Associations, the National Association, Allah, the National Association of Legal Assistants. So what I like to use as kind of a like an exercise to figure out where it’s best to start using Bas, I look at the to do list. So every day you come in, like most people are task based or list based, and or you put things on your calendar, and you see what you’ve been procrastinating on, you see something that you’ve said, I’m gonna get this done this week, I’m gonna get this done this week. And that’s the low hanging fruit that you can really gain a level of comfort a comfortability, because it’s come, it’s overcoming that, like, I can’t give this to somebody else, because they’re gonna mess it up. From my perspective, if they can get it 70 to 80% of the way there, you’re never gonna get somebody that does it. 100, but you’re not going to be able to clone yourself. And if you do, please tell me because I need like five of me. So I will buy that from you, if I gotta borrow money to do it, the, you’re gonna get it like 70 to 80% of the way there. And if you can get somebody to get that work product to that level, then you can take it through the rest of that 20 to 30%. So look at things on your calendar, or look at things on your task list, that you continue to procrastinate on, or push down the road and give that to a VA first. And that will usually be like that wow moment of like, ah, that never would have got done. Also keep in mind that something that might take you two hours doesn’t really take you two hours, it really takes you a month because finding a block of two hours of consistent time where you’re not distracted where the phone doesn’t ring where you don’t have to like go and do something. That’s the hard part for me. Yes, I can do everything that I have to my VA or my you know, I have I have the title in my businesses administrative coordinator manages my calendar, she makes sure that all the billing gets done, she interfaces with clients, and she saves me at a minimum 15 to 20 hours a week of things that I just would never get done. Invoicing wouldn’t be going out on time, things wouldn’t be getting paid. And just that also I take into account in like cashflow, she keeps the cash flow in my business consistent. And for that I don’t care what I need to pay her. You know, she’s probably listening right now it’s gonna ask for a race. But that’s the, you know that that is the trade off. It’s not you’ve made a great point about being expense focused. And it’s also making the transition from entrepreneurs look at worth, they don’t end value, they don’t look at price. And because you’re buying time, I’m buying time in my business that I can go use to make money.
Jim Hacking
Usually when we record these podcasts, I spend part of the time listening to see what’s going to be the catchphrase at the beginning of the episode. But every time you’ve answered a question today, you’ve given me something that I’d want to cut out and put at the front of the episode Tyson I think we’re really going to have to rethink what Chelsea’s speaking about at the event because I think just talking about VAs is not going to be enough. I mean, I think you’re dealing out pure gold here we’re 20 minutes into the interview and everything you’ve said, is really good. It’s it’s things that Tyson and I talk about, but you’re so deep into the the technology and the the insights from going to all those bar meetings and meeting with so many lawyers, that you’re saying things that I have known to be true, but you’re saying them in a language in a way that I haven’t been able to. So I really appreciate that. And I think having you at the event is going to be tremendous. I know you just got back from the Grant Cardone event, right. All right. So there are certain people on the interwebs that I really liked, like Gary Vaynerchuk that some people think are annoying. I’ve always found Grant Cardone to be a little bit over the top for me. And I know Russell Brunson was there to Brunson and I’ve always found him to be a little bit intense. But it looks like you’ve become tech certified and I want to hear sort of what you’ve learned, and how you’re going to take what you’re doing to the next level after it’s done. I think a week down there with them.
Chelsey Lambert
Oh my goodness, yeah. Okay. So to your point, you know, like everybody has their flavor. And it’s I grew up listening to Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins. And that was my parents flavor, right. So I have a ton of of respect for the personal growth and development community because it impacted my life at a young age. For me, I read the 10x rule the week or listen to it on audio, the week that I started my business, and I am a 10x. Ambassador. Now I went through the mentor program, I graduated at the conference that I just got back from yesterday. The reason why I did it is because and the reason that I identified with Grant’s message, which again, it’s all about finding your flavor, I encourage everybody who’s listening to this, to find their flavor and for it might you know, it’s hacking law, right for a lot of people like you are there ray of sunshine, you are the light that says, We you need to do this. And that’s amazing. And I’m so like, blessed. And thank you guys for putting this on. Because we need more of that we need more of these sources of information so that people can find their flavor they can find who they identify with most. For me, it was Grant Cardone, not just because of grant because of also his relationship with his wife, Elena, which to me, you know, like, I’m not married, I don’t have kids. But when I do, I’m working towards that step in my life. Like I want to have a relationships that’s very, like, symbiotic and working towards the same goals as you know your partner and supporting them in that. So that’s what I’m looking for. And one of the reasons that I follow him being indoctrinated into the community came from me reading the 10x rule. And the premise of it is, it’s going to take 10 times the amount of effort that you expect to achieve something in life than what you anticipated. And it’s going to take 10 times your original goal to motivate you to push through that amount of work. So to put that in perspective, Are you motivated to get out of the out of bed for $10,000? You will maybe a lot of people No. Are you motivated to get out of bed for $100,000? Which is 10x? Of 10? Yeah, $100,000? Sounds pretty good. Are you motivated to get out of bed and work until you practically pass out for a million dollars? Yes, no problem. I’m up, I’m up at 4am I’m up doing whatever I need to do, right? So it’s like you need to multiply your goals, too to a level that motivates you to push through that threshold of where you stop, like in personal growth, they call it like, where do you stop? Where is it like, you get to a certain amount of revenue per month, and then you coast or you get a couple clients and then you coast, you need to have a goal, whether it’s and at some times, it’s not about money, you might be starting a foundation, it might be donating to your church, it might be you know, whatever that is, it’s you need to push yourself, your goals up to a level where they motivate you. Now on the other side is the effort. People give up when they hit that resistance and life is resistance. Like he’s, you know, one of his things is like gravity is resistance gravity is rejection. And we fight that every single day. So where is it that you’re hitting resistance, that you need to remind yourself of your goals to push through, because everything’s gonna take 10 times, like, look at like, anytime you’re, you know, technology and setting up a podcast when you did your first podcast, how many things went wrong, right? It’s like, oh, now I need this kind of microphone. Oh, now I gotta get this software. Oh, no, I gotta do this. It’s like, a lot of people would have just said like, Oh, it’s too hard. I’m just not going to do it, you know, and they give up when you go into it, knowing the first I mean, my marketing agency, I’ve moved software packages, five times, in the first three months, I was just like, oh, like, went through that whole headache of setting that up. That’s not working. Now I gotta go to this over here. And we’re gonna do it again until we get it right. And so finding just entering a problem or entering a goal that you have for yourself, and your practice, like this is actually really common in software migration. You look at the attrition rates of solos, specifically using any case management software, and they are through the roof, right? Like, I don’t care what provider you talk to, I know all of them on a first name basis, you ask any single one, and they’re going to tell you their highest attrition rates come from this, because they get in it. And they find that, Oh, I gotta enter stuff every single day. Oh, I need to like actually do my bills on time. You know, like, forget it, I’m out. I’m out or they just stopped using it. And then they can’t justify that monthly payment. Right. So if the 10x rule for me has during the mentor program, I grew my business by over 40% in 60 days, like that. Those are some serious numbers. And we were already doing fairly well. A couple of other things that happened. I hired my administrative coordinator and I hired a salesperson. Two things that I never would have done unless I was in enrolled in a program and it’s whether it’s making the commitment, or is your business a hobby? Or is it giving you a job that’s going to replace the six figure salary that I used to have for are you going to 10x that and you’re gonna provide opportunities to my employees like I see what that money does to my employees if I were still a solo, like, oh, great, I’m gonna go out for a nice dinner or maybe buy a handbag. What is that doing for anybody? That’s like a selfish right so for me, committing to 10x in my business to provide opportunities and income for for the people on my team and to grow. And and like I’m launching a women and legal podcast where it’ll help people in the industry find female speakers through listening to their episodes like that, to me, that’s my give back. That’s my TEDx. That’s what’s gonna motivate me to get out of bed. So find your flavor.
Tyson Mutrux
I love this. This is great. This is this really gets him gets me motivated. And it actually it reminds me of a conversation. I heard Jim Dyson having James Dyson, who is the founder of the Dyson vacuum, and he invented the vacuum. And he’s on a podcast recently, he was talking about how you find success. Whenever you’re tired, and you keep pushing. It’s kind of like running when you’re when you’re running because he was a long distance runner. And when you find the success, it’s because everyone’s quits. You know, you when you’re tired, you push harder, you keep working harder, everyone else will quit and you’ll keep going. So it’s really interesting that you’re talking about the knacks that it really does ring true, like question I have for you, though. You’re in a unique perspective, we’re yet to see a lot of new technologies and things like that. What should we be ready for? Like what’s coming around the corner that we need to get prepared for?
Chelsey Lambert
Oh, wow. Okay, so I’ve got to ABA tech show. If anybody’s going to tech show, you’re welcome to come to ABA tech show dinners. The first one is text messaging is the new email. And the second is the changing form of client communication, changing forms of client communication. I chose those two topics specifically because the expectations of how consumers interact with any services business has dramatically changed. Like there is no denying that my dentist, my hairdresser, my doctor’s office, like I expect, like if you’re not texting me or sending me a calendar appointment, and people just by nature, don’t plan more than three days in advance in their life. Like it’s just very hard for people you put something on calendar two weeks from now look at the difference in your no show rates compared to the next 72 hours. Don’t acknowledging that text messaging secure text messaging between law firms and clients, you’re seeing it more in case management software practice Panther has it leap out of New York and New Jersey has it smart Advocate has a case peer has it. So you’re seeing that fold into the case management spectrum because it’s important that you’re using a tool that does it ethically, that does it in a secure environment. You can’t have like your paralegal texting them on her personal device. And then all of a sudden, like she no shows for work for three days. So text messaging is a new email, expect that to move in that direction. Also, the use of chat bots on websites like two technologies like lodge roid. And then case one or case dot one have already implemented this technology lodger it is now integrated with I believe Lexa kata, which is the CRM, again, going back to that CRM conversation. So two things, the Chatbot is great, especially for people who might not want to go down the Virtual Receptionist road or don’t want to invest in live chat, because it’s expensive. This is kind of like an in between, right and then getting used to sales. Really, you got to get used to sales. I mean, if it’s not something that you’re comfortable doing, hire somebody who is because the competition in the legal space is not going to go away. And the just communication and the expectation of consumers who are shopping for services is our attention span is eight minutes, it used to be 11. It’s going to continue to drop their soft educating with video, they’re coming to your website, you know, because they have a problem. And either you’re going to capture them at that time. And you’re going to talk to them via chat through a bot that doesn’t have to be a real person because they’re always answering the same questions. Or you’re going to have a text message vehicle there. I have a really good friend who owns HCT at a Dallas hero conversion technologies. And all she does is a specialty call center for law firms that all they do is book appointments and do confirmations and document collection using text messaging and email and phone and their appointment. You know, conversion rates will have in some cases are up by 50% for the law firm. So the numbers are there. The founder of smart advocate said it best he’s like, you know if your clients not going to answer the phone for their mom, and they’re gonna text their mom or like, you know, my grandma texts me. What do you makes you think that they’re gonna answer the phone for a law firm? It’s also like your people are afraid of law firm like one add to that and a why this is so important. I’m going to end up getting my JD at some point just for the referral fees, because I am like the legal hotline for my friends like I probably pass out About two to five referrals a month in all practice areas because people are so afraid that when they call lawyer, they’re gonna get billed $650 an hour. The what text messaging also does is it brings that barrier to entry down. Now I don’t have to have a physical conversation, I don’t have to worry about getting sold to over the phone, I can, I can get some information and I can book an appointment, your text, which is such like a lower, it’s a much more comfortable space.
Jim Hacking
It’s such an exciting time to be a lawyer, I think and to be running a law firm. And I think that when Tyson and I first started, we weren’t sure whether we were going to pitch our message to the attorneys who already get that or if we were going to have to try to convert people. And it became pretty clear pretty quickly that with the power of the internet that we could connect with lawyers who thought like us and think like you. And that’s made it pretty exciting. For my last question, where do you see things headed? What should lawyers be thinking about? Besides the technology? Where do you think things are headed? And then how? What does it look like to work with Lex tech review to work with Chelsea Lambert, what does that look like?
Chelsey Lambert
So where do I think that things are heading? You know, I worked for total attorneys that was acquired by Internet brands, who just acquired auto for an undisclosed, probably ridiculously large amount of money and they all deserve it. Right. So you are seeing internet brands consolidate these consumer lead gen sites, they have Martindale. They have no low they have total attorneys. Now they have mobile. So what I anticipate and what we see and my focus is is mostly consumer law, expect the primetime television commercials expect the Superbowl ads, expect that to start to fold into our daily life, driving the consumers to these online platforms as a way to connect with lawyers educating them that they have a problem educating them about their rights, because that’s what I don’t think that you know, the access to justice gap 80% of you know, we’re using that number 80% of consumers have an unmet legal need or their that’s the percentage that are unserved. So they are going to look to take their marketing dollars and to take the leverage that they have from a financial standpoint, and convert that percentage of the population. So it’s a matter of, you know, recognizing that that is that is what we’re going to see, at least from my perspective, that’s what I anticipate to start to infiltrate like daily life is seeing it on TV, seeing them draw consumers in and convert them into leads for the services that they might not have known. Yes, I have rights, oh, I can fight my landlord on that issue. And now, how do we work with those organizations to be the ones that are servicing those clients or be the ones advocating and delivering that message ourselves, like I’ve seen some attorneys who are trying to get ahead of that curve, use YouTube and video as a vehicle, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet attorneys that are now using online courses on estate planning, or business law or divorce, to actually get their clients to pay them to become a lead. And then they upsell them into full service representation. So looking for ways to be an educator to use video, or looking at what would buying leads from one of these providers look like because they will start to dominate the space from a marketing perspective. They just they have the money to do it. And now they have all the properties that they need. And then the next is how you work with Lex tech review. So I work with vendors on advising them on how to build their products or how to bring their products to market. So luckily, I don’t have to charge the attorneys. I invite everybody who is listening to schedule a free consultation with me, though, you know, like I said in the beginning, if I could do one thing, if I could just work for free, and I wouldn’t have to worry about money, I would do nothing but educate and travel and teach and write on this topic. So schedule a free consult with me, we’ll spend about 15 minutes doing a needs assessment. And it could be Hey, I don’t know what kind of case management to choose, or I’m really looking at hiring a virtual assistant, but I don’t know where to start, I have a delegation problem because what that does for me is that gives me more fuel and an understanding of what I need to be writing about. So people who book a consultation or email me through my website, you can just go to contact there’s a link to my calendar right there at Lex tech review.com. That keeps me in range in your world. And I need that to be able to continue to provide education and also help tell these software providers or service providers what they need to be doing because these are this is what I’m seeing in the law firms on a daily basis.
Tyson Mutrux
Chelsea, this is awesome. My head sort of spinning because you’ve given us so much information. So I’m gonna need a just to take a break after this because it’s fantastic. And at some point, I want to actually dig into those numbers with you because those are incredible numbers. As the data because I’m sure there’s a lot of opportunities in those numbers that we could sort of take advantage of not taking in a bad way, but in a good way. So to serve the 80%, absolutely. So, but we do need to wrap things up, I want to be respectful of your time. Before I do want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook page, join there, subscribe there, get involved in the conversation. And wherever you get your, your podcast, iTunes or wherever, make sure you subscribe there, and then give us a five star review. Jimmy, what’s your hack of the
Jim Hacking
week. So I have had the YouTube channel for a long time, but I’ve not been doing the best job of optimizing our YouTube videos and can’t my intern and I came across browser add on called to Buddy, you know about to buddy texts, and it’s great, it allows you to go back sort of retroactively, and clean up all of the metadata and even the formatting of your YouTube video. So we’ve been able to, on a bulk scale, add a bunch of tiles and headlines. And so now my videos sort of have those sort of big white words that explain what the video is about. It allows you to tag it properly, and sort of get all the things squared away. It’s it’s only like 10 or $30 a month, and you can just sign up for a couple months, fix all your videos and then unsubscribe. It’s not like a monthly thing. So we’ve been real happy with it. And so it’s called to buddy. And like I said, it’s around 10 to $30 a month. You know,
Tyson Mutrux
I think on this podcast on this episode, we’ve had more tips and products and everything else that have been mentioned. It’s kind of crazy. So but Chelsea, we always ask that our guests give a tip of the week, do you have a tip for us?
Chelsey Lambert
I do. And I’m wondering if I can demo it live on the screen if you can’t, and the resolution if you can’t see it. Okay, so I have an iPhone, I’ve had an iPhone for forever, but I hate the mail client. And so the best tip that I could give, it’s like my, my life hack of the year is outlook for iOS. And the reason is you can pull any mail service in there, you can pull Yahoo, you can pull anything in the mail client itself is great. But this is my hack. So I don’t know if everybody can see. But you basically pull up a brand new email. And then there’s an option in here to say send availability, and you just hit Send availability. And what it does is it opens your calendar. And you can literally go through day by day. and just tap. And I don’t know if people can see this. But what it’s doing is it’s grabbing all these times, and I hit check at the top. And now what it’s done is it has pulled this like beautiful, these are all the times that work for me, right in there, I don’t even schedule from my computer anymore, because it lines it up in such a beautiful table. And it’s it avoids this like cross reference back and forth. I just go through like boom, boom, boom, these are my open times. And it sends it right in an email, I probably got like three more tips if you want them. But that’s been a lifesaver for me saves me hours every single week.
Tyson Mutrux
And it’ll keep bringing you on the podcast for more I’m fine with that. slides over. So my tip of the week is actually for the people that listen to podcasts. I’m big on training, making sure everyone in the firm is trained. But you do sort of come up you forget, be able to come up with ideas. Like it’s kind of hard to come up with ideas each week for training everything. So there is an app and a website. It’s it’s lynda.com LYND a.com. It’s actually by LinkedIn, you can get a free trial. There’s it’s not free, but there is a free trial. So I’ll be completely honest with you. I downloaded it because I I’m out of ideas. So I haven’t started using it yet. But some other people Jim Hart, I think has been using it. He’s He’s Facebook group, he’s a listener, he recommends it. So check that out. I’m gonna actually do the free trial this week and see how it goes. But it seems pretty awesome to this point. So thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Fantastic. This is really good. Lots of great information. So thanks for coming on.
Chelsey Lambert
Thank you guys so much for having me and for being a light in our community for everybody who is looking for better ways to do things.
Jim Hacking
Chelsea, we look forward to seeing you may 17, and 18th in St. Louis. It’s great that you’re going to be there. We’re excited about presenting. And I think Tyson and I are going to have to confer with you again about how to maximize Haha, no pun intended maximize how we I think I think you’d be a great lead off speaker talking about the stats and things you know sort of laying the groundwork for everything that comes after I think that would moving you up in the lineup I think would be helpful to sort of set the stage just because you have all that raw knowledge from all the things you go to don’t think Tyson. Absolutely.
Chelsey Lambert
Thank you guys so much. Great. Thanks so much everybody soon. Talk to you soon.
