This week we’re sharing a Virtual Town Hall we hosted Live on Facebook in the Maximum Lawyer group and on the Maximum Lawyer Conference page. Seth Price, Jay Ruane, Lee Rosen and Joey Vitale join Jim and Tyson on a panel as they discuss running your business during these challenging times.
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Transcript: “Virtual Town Hall” with Seth Price, Jay Ruane, Lee Rosen and Joey Vitale
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. Welcome to the show.
Unknown Speaker
In today’s episode, we’re sharing a virtual town hall meeting featuring Seth price J. Ruane Lee Rosen and Joe Vitale, with Jim and Tyson, this group has an in depth conversation into how to manage your firm during these difficult times. Let’s get to it.
Tyson Mutrux
I want to do brief introductions, y’all can do more in depth introductions, if you want of yourself, Oh, what’s that you
Seth Price
were not shared yet? Person. We’ve
Tyson Mutrux
got joy, vitality. He’s an awesome online guru. We got Lee Rosen, who probably doesn’t need an introduction. He’s in Tokyo right now. We got Seth price with blue shark and Jay Rue Wayne, with firm flex, Jim hacking. Y’all know him and then myself, Tyson music. So the first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to go around, I’m going to go in order sweet. We’re in the group. Now. I’m gonna go around, we’re going to talk about mindset for setting because there’s a lot going on in the world. And so let’s just talk about mindset for a second kind of where you are, what your perception is. So Joey wants you to go out and go first.
Joey Vitale
I was talking with one of my business coaches earlier today about how a lot of people right now are reacting to stories that they’re telling themselves about what’s happening instead of what’s actually happening. And I think it’s it’s really hard right now to figure out kind of how you should be responding like Tyson I remember you saying earlier today, am I being too positive? And I don’t know what the right answer is. But I’m excited to be here, Tyson told me that if I needed I could just being associated his firm. So I’m excited to just have that as a plan B if necessary.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, Lee, what do you got for us? You know,
Lee Rosen
I’m old. I’m 58 years old. This is my fourth recession. As a business owner. It is always a shock. It is it never seems like we expect it even though you know, it’s a sick a cycle that repeats over and over again. But each time it has happened, it surprises me. You get through it, you come out the other end of it. It it just is the nature of being in business, it comes and goes. This is another one. We’re so early in it, that it it feels very disturbing and upsetting. But the key here is you have a vision for your business. You’ve had it, it’s what you’ve been doing all along, you stick to it, you don’t panic, you look at this as an opportunity to make a little bit of an adjustment. If I have a second I’ll tell you a quick story. I was in a Hilton all inclusive resort last week in Mexico. And I watched as the guests left because you can imagine this hitting the travel business hard. They quickly cut the staff hours though the weight people in the restaurants disappeared the bartenders disappeared, the Bellman disappeared and instantly maintenance and and renovation people appeared they went right to work repairing the hotel, they look at it as we’ve got payroll, we’re gonna spend, we’ve got reserves, this is just part of the business, we know we’re gonna be in business a year from now we might as well clean up, get things painted, get things back up to tip top condition. And they’re just rolling along. And the great thing about having a law firm is your staff and your team and your maintenance people are all the same, you can use the staff to do both, we don’t need to lay off one group to bring in another group, we can put everybody to work on these things. And so you just stick to your vision, you don’t panic, and you figure out what you do during this period. And you know, the next period is common, and it will and literally four times I’ve been through this, it’s a dip and then you go back up and life gets back to normal in one form or another. And if you weren’t expecting it, you just weren’t paying attention. And I’m always surprised but this is the nature of the game and it’ll come again, if you’re young and early. This one will get over with and then there’ll be the next one. It’s common.
Tyson Mutrux
I love to prospectively we’re going to come back to some of what you said and a little bit here especially with vision I think that a lot of that’s really important. Yeah, what what do you got for us how you feeling?
Seth Price
You know, I’m still in the weeds between price battle it’s where I have 40 lawyers in the staff and blue shark part of it is you know why would love to have the I’m going to make lemonade out of lemons. Right now I feel like I need to make sure to take an analogy that there’s enough gas in the truck when we get to the point that we’re out of this first blend because I see this as a to be a two part problem one the economy stop and which is not something we’ve seen out of the last four go arounds at least referred to and then secondly, once this is over preparing for that recession. So right now I’m very conscious of keeping cashflow low Keeping as many employees as possible employed, would love the idea of maintenance and doing those things and putting those things in place. But the number one priority is to make sure we have an ongoing entity, when the first phase of this is over so that we can take advantage of the opportunities that will be there
Tyson Mutrux
in perspective. And just so when everyone knows we are monitoring the comments, if you have any questions along the way, well, I’ll pass them along. So be go ahead and post any comments that you might have. And we’ll try to get to Jay right away, Scott worth.
Unknown Speaker
So So it’s interesting, because you know, as a criminal defense lawyer, I want him talking to a lot of clients, about their interactions with police officers when those lights go on behind them. And that’s usually a time when the body goes into flight or fight mode. And what we see is that when in a stressful situation, the body shuts down certain things, you know, your hands and your feet, they tend to get cold because the blood is rushing to your thorax, and it’s making sure that your heart is pumping, your legs are taking in oxygen, your brain is hypersensitive, right. So if a person is getting pulled over for your DUI in my world, they’ll say, you know, my, I couldn’t walk on that straight line. Because you know, I felt uncoordinated as a result of the fact that I was so nervous, not necessarily because I was so intoxicated. And so what I have to explain to them when we meet is that, you know, your body has this natural defense mechanism where it sends to focus on the things we need to stay alive being taken care of. Right. And so that’s what you need to do in this situation, you need to focus on the things that are going to keep you alive as a firm, and not panic, because the panic is what’s really going to hurt your business long term. You know, we’ve built practices there that can withstand a storm of some sort. But if you just go around running like crazy saying the sky is coming down, you’re not going to be able to focus on what you need to get done. So it’s funny, I had a conversation a little earlier, with Marco brown out in Utah. And I said, you know, it’s interesting, Marco, I feel like for the last 10 days, I’ve been running 100 miles an hour. And I actually have more time than that right now. I should actually be slowing down and making more tactical move. But everything that I do, I feel like there’s a sense of urgency with it. You know, when I decided 12 days ago, hey, we’re leaving the offices to go and remote. It was guys, we’re closing in five, prepare to work from home for the next 12 days, or for next month, or six weeks. And it was literally it was seamless. My office, we have a system for doing it. Everyone just said, Okay, we’ll see you tomorrow morning. And they all signed on the next day. And we were able to go so you know you’ve built the systems in your practice. Don’t panic. You know, I think about that, that scene from Apocalypse Now, as the bombs are ringing down, and Robert DeVos just walking across the sand as the bombs are coming down, he just he’s calling out orders to his troops. That’s what you need to be in this situation, not panic. Apply your systems. And when
Tyson Mutrux
good advice. Good advice. All right, Jimmy, what you got for us.
Jim Hacking
So for me, this is a time for clarity. We are the leaders, we are the captains of our ships, that not only do we need to be focused on the right things, but we need to be very deliberate. And we need to spend a lot more time thinking we have more of an opportunity to sit still. And to think like Jay said, and we have to do that we can’t just be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I’ve I’ve actually seen actual immigration lawyers that i No one, let me know that they’re going to be laying off a bunch of people. They already know that today. And I have another immigration lawyer who is literally saying goodbye to people on Twitter. These are people who run firms. And I think that that’s a real disservice to their firms and to their messaging into their future. I think that we have spent so much time and energy for these last three years with such great lawyers, in our group that we are well positioned for this as much as we can be. Nobody saw this coming like Lee said, but we have to be deliberate in what we’re thinking we have to be realistic about where we are at the moment. And we have to keep an eye on the future. When we have to stay balanced and focus and we have to get enough sleep. We have to take care of ourselves. We have to be leaders, we have to help our team feel confident and we have to be realistic with them. We have to be transparent. If calls start going down and income starts going down then you’re gonna have to have a different conversation. But I think in talking to your team, it’s important to talk about what your intention is, where do you see things headed? What do you think’s going to happen, and to do it in an even mannered kind of a way? I also think that too many people are watching too much of the news. I turned off the news A week ago, and I can’t tell you I’ve slept better. I’ve thought more clearly. I’ve been more positive I’m going all in on kindness and deliberateness and gentleness and leading meditate The more, I’m exercising more, I’m doing more of the things that I should be doing all the time. But I’m doing that to combat the missiles flying by on either side, right. And so I encourage everyone to stick to their routine, make sure they get enough sleep. And I’ll end with an interview I saw today from a guy named Todd Herman. He’s the one that had that article where he entered, he’s been interviewing now up to 72 business owners, and he coded the language and he and he put people into sort of three groups, the groups that were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, ones who were in total denial and ones who were planning and he could just tell by the language and the words that they were using, what how they were going to be successful. And the quote that he ended the show with, that I heard today was, you cannot solve a problem that you are not willing to have or accept. So there’s a whole lot of acceptance here. There’s a whole lot that’s out of our control. There’s a whole lot of this that we wish didn’t happen. But we actually, as hard as it is, I just got word that my one of my favorite uncle’s in Chicago is on a respirator and he’s actually having to share it with another person one goes on for two hours, then he goes on for two hours. So it’s It’s patently absurd. But we have these minds, and we have to use our minds to stay focus, and to be present and to do the best job that we can.
Tyson Mutrux
Good advice. And I agree with everyone, I guess the kind of the way I look at it, it’s pretty much the same way I look at everything. And Joey heard me say this earlier, I sort of feel like, I don’t know, I feel like everyone’s sort of freaking out. I’m just really, really calm about it. And maybe I’m just too positive about it. But I guess the way I look at it is I can look at it like this, like I can look at like the guy that just missed a fly ball. And always think about is missing the fly ball and cost his team a run. And then he gets up to bat and he strikes out of the in the next setting, I can be that guy or I can be the one where I said, Okay, you know, knees bent, head up, glove ready, ready for the next ball to come to me. And then whenever I’m up to bat next, I can hit it and I can be ready for for the for that ball I can play for me to hit it, you know. So I can take one of two approaches. I’m taking the latter approach. I’m taking the approach where I’m ready. I’m moving on to the next thing. I’m doing the next thing that I can control to make sure that we’re ready for this. And the way that we put it with the firm is we’re going on offense when it comes to litigation stuff we’re going on offense when it comes to marketing, we’re going on offense, because I think and I would love to hear Lee’s perspective on this because the if you look at the firm’s in the past recessions, the ones that went under are the ones that that put their heads in the sand and they sort of they sort of recoiled and they said, Okay, I can’t handle this. And they are the one where they missed the flyball, and they struck out the next at bat. Instead, if you if you go on offense, I think you’ll be ready even stronger whenever you get through this. And that’s the perspective we’re taking. But, Jimmy, you had a really good question for Lee about working remotely and how the firm was setups. You want to ask that question?
Jim Hacking
Tyson I just had been glassed on the show the other day, and one of my favorite interviews that I’ve ever heard Ben do was with Lee. And so my my question for Lee is Lee, you know, how would you be responding differently right now, if you hadn’t done everything that you’ve done to make your office? You know, the way that it is where you’re able to work remotely and your team who works remotely? What if you were, if you were one of the majority of lawyers who still had a full time office, and hadn’t had the foresight that you had before to build what you have? What would be going through your mind right now? Well,
Lee Rosen
you know, I’ve been doing this for 12 years working remotely. And it’s not rocket science, as everyone has quickly figured out, I think, if you have a laptop, and a phone and a set of earbuds, you’re good to go. And you can make money anywhere you want to sit in any coffee shop, or spare room or I’m sitting on the bed, you know, in a hotel in Tokyo, there’s just not that much to this. And so what I really sense from the the folks that I’m talking to is not that they’re really encountering any resistance to doing this, it’s pretty simple stuff. They just, they’re just have, they’re just realizing that this is easy and doable. The people who I think are really struggling, and the thing that I’m worried about with some of our institute members, is people who are not paperless. People who still have servers or old fashioned phone systems. And they’re kind of in a difficult spot, you know, because they they can’t easily transfer that technology. And so I think that would have to be my focus right now. I’d invest in those processes, and do what I can when I can to get them in place. Because this is this is this is all old technology at this point. You know, I have people talking about soft phones and all that like it’s a brand new idea. And of course, this stuff is now mature. They’ve been around forever. So I think the real struggle would be if you haven’t made any steps, you got to go ahead and do it. Because if it’s not this problem, it’s going to be the next problem.
Tyson Mutrux
There’s a really big firm and I’m actually well I’m not going to mention the town, they’re scrambling right now I’ve heard that they’re really, really screwed. ambling because they’re just they weren’t ready for it. It’s just kind of crazy to me that they’re using technology from 10 years ago, and they just weren’t ready for any of this. It’s kind of kind of nuts to me. But I want to get a little more serious right now, though, Jay and Seth, you’ve had to make some pretty tough decisions lately. And you’re not the only one. I’m sure there are other people who’ve had to make some tough decisions. So do you want to talk about that? I mean, I think it’d be, I think it’d be a relief to hear other people talk about especially people that are in your seats that are that are that are very successful attorneys. And I think it’s important to hear from you all, so we talked about them. But
Seth Price
Jay, Jay, and I have been talking back and forth over the last few days. I think for all the listeners, let me take a step back for a second. Having multiple practice areas, five, six practice areas within a firm over a few different states and watching blue shark that has clients from all over the country with all different practice areas where the practice area you’re in is going to change dramatically what stage you’re at. So at one end of the spectrum, trust and estates has been booming, we’ve had some of our busiest weeks, the last couple of weeks, where people are dealing with mortality issues, etc. Just on the planning side, on, you know, on the immigration side, similar, people are still coming in, they’re insisting to come in, even though the city is on lockdown, middle category, the playtest practice, Tyson where you’re sitting right now, keep the insurance companies are still settling cases, checks are coming in the mail. If you have a practice with enough inventory, it’s really we have not made a single layoff in that area. That area is running really nicely. The biggest challenges, as Leah was talking about before is just making sure that we are quickly doing in a matter of hours what Lee has done over 12 years, which is being fully remote, the issue comes down to some of the practice areas like criminal that Jay and I have spent a lot of time building a practice in that area in particular has been the hardest hit almost second to a restaurant in that arrest of stops, you don’t have court. And Payment plans are quickly going to become a problem as people don’t have jobs. And that trifecta, we’re dealing with their means that how we deal with that practice and having to make strategic cuts there. If we didn’t, we would not have a firm, you know, in a number of weeks or months. And what’s frustrating while watching the news about the bailouts, I’d love to hear James thoughts on this is that there gonna be a short term band aid, but that if the economy the velocity economy has to come that your particular area is not going to move, I think second tip will be other fee for service areas. At some point, depending how maniacal the insurance companies are, if they cut off funds for settlements, you’re going to be using up your reserves. And the question is how much reserves do you have?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can address that too. From a criminal defense perspective, our revenue in the last, say seven days versus the seven days before that is down 90%. You know, but it’s interesting, you know, we’re still we’re still getting calls, we’re getting calls for some of our secondary practice areas pardons and expungements, you know, is a high six figure, practice group. For us, that’s still working, that’s still generating business, because most of the guys who are looking for those clients are blue collar workers who are still out there working, getting paychecks speeding tickets is dipping, but not as much as I thought it would be, or police officers are pulling over people DUI is gone. I mean, it’s just dropped like a bucket because people aren’t going out. The restaurants are closed, the bars are closed. We are like in a criminal practice, we are like restaurants and that we have high turnover and short windows, but you need to understand that and be prepared for it. And we did have to make some cuts, like I cut my part timers that work nights and weekends, because the phones weren’t ringing and there, they were great inner intake people. But if the phones don’t ring, they’re not doing anything. So you know, we move over to a system where we outsource that work to a company that does just that, and can man our phones, so we could still be up. But we aren’t necessarily paying for people butts in our seats. And because we have the technology we can do that. I do agree with Seth, you know that that depending how long this goes. It’s going to be interesting. And the courts in Connecticut are starting to move things till June. Now it’s March 25. And we’re getting told cases will be continued till June. That’s going to significantly impact profitability on criminal defense practitioners. You know, nationwide.
Jim Hacking
Joey, I want to kick one over to you. I was really glad when Tyson said that you could appear on the show tonight. And one of the main reasons was your perspective on things is usually positive and sort of realistic. At the same time. I was just wondering, how is your practice sort of being affected by this and where do you think Things are headed for lawyers who are making that transition into more of a remote practice.
Joey Vitale
Yeah, well, first of all, thanks. Thanks, you guys for having me. It’s like an honor to be in this group of people. I think so highly of all of you guys. So it’s interesting, because the week before, this became kind of what it was, I was gone for a week at a conference. And about a year ago, I took a week long break, and the goal was for the company to survive. And, uh, two weeks ago, when I took the break, I realized that I had kind of passed that milestone of being away from the firm, and it’s still surviving. But I wasn’t there to do any lead gen that whole week. And so right now, I’m still trying to figure out what loss of sales are coming from a larger pandemic versus me just being, you know, not having those sales rains for a week. But, you know, I was thinking a lot about what Tyson was saying, in terms of, you know, the sports metaphor. And he also was talking about the importance of vision, and ice. And I’d love for you to talk more about that, if I could just pass the mic over to you. Because I think that it, one of the most harmful things we can do right now is get super in our heads and think about, you know, a play that we messed up on. And I think the way to stay in the zone right now is to have a vision that is keeping you focused. And I think a lot of people their head is how do I survive this versus how do I not only get through this, but stay aligned with where my vision is? So how are you using this time to make sure that you’re still aligned with your long term vision?
Tyson Mutrux
Good question. It’s funny, I think. I think vision is simple to some people. I think it’s complicated. Other people, I think some people think, oh, my gosh, I’ve got to know this vision. And it’s so hard to figure out to me, it’s really simple. I know exactly where I want to be in 30 years. So I then have built, you know, guideposts along the way. I know where I’m headed. And so no matter what, no matter what I do, I know where I’m headed when it comes to affirm when it comes to my family. And so to me, it’s easy. I mean, that’s just the way I look at it. So that’s part of this, too, is like whenever this all came about, I wasn’t that worried, because I still know where I’m headed. Long term. I mean, there are some short term decisions that we may have to make at some point. We’re not there yet. But because we’re still on track for a vision. And so everything that I do, every single day, is directed towards that vision, everything we do, every quarter is directed towards that vision. And I’ve had I’ve heard people say, Well, you know, I don’t know what my vision is, I don’t know what where I want to be in five or 10 years. That’s okay. I get it. That’s, that’s fine. I’m just telling you, if you do know it, it’s way way easier. It’s way easier. Once you know where you’re headed. For example, like Jim will tell you like Jim was one of my professors in law school, I knew what I wanted to do when it comes to a firm really early. And so I was probably one of his better students, because I knew what I wanted to do. So what the sooner you know, where you want to go with things, whatever it is in life, the easier is because you’ll never go off track. You just don’t you just won’t because you know where you’re headed. And I want to pass it to Leon, because we’re on visioning. I’m glad you you toss it to me, Joe, because I wanted to ask Lee about Vision Next to because I want to get his perspective, too. So Lee, if you’ll talk about vision as well, I appreciate it.
Lee Rosen
Well, I think you you nail it. I mean, it isn’t rocket science, it’s seeing where you want to go. And and the more you you have that 30 year perspective, you realize that this six month glitch were in the middle of now. And I think we can start seeing the end of this. Now, if you look around the world at what’s happening, we see the experience of a country coming out the other side of it in China, their economy is is turned back on by May, it’ll be turned way back on. And you see what’s happening in Hong Kong and in Singapore. So we know this ends. And so you start to have some context of this is your 30 year vision or your 10 year or whatever you’re able to see in your mind. And we’re in this little glitch, this little dip and the reality is, and I don’t mean to minimize this. I mean, I agree with with the comments of everybody, this is a tough period. But it’s so valuable to step out and look at it from a high level and realize that for a solo practitioner, this is really devastating and difficult. But so is like getting married or having a baby. I mean, those things impact your business and they slow your path toward creating your vision for your business in significant ways, you know, just not sleeping for a year of the I mean, Jay’s got like, I don’t know, 12 107 children or something in his house. You know, it’s like these are these are big, impactful events. And recessions like this are big, impactful events. But if you know where you’re going, you just keep going there. So you do have to decide I couldn’t agree more with what you’re saying Tyson you pick it you head toward it and you just roll on and you know you’re going to hit some obstacles and this is just another Big one you’re gonna hit.
Unknown Speaker
I love what Lea just said, because I’ve been planning for five years for the, what if I get hit by a bus and live scenario in my firm. So you know, I have a list of these are the passwords you need to know, this is, these are all the things, this is why we can go remotely. So all of those things and, and it’s great, because if you’re living this right now, for the very first time, and you’re five or 10 years into your practice, recognize like Lee said, this is going to happen again. So as you’re working home, start writing out the things that you’ve needed to do, so that you can build that system base for the future. I mean, this is this is an incredible opportunity that we all have to be living through a very unique scenario that hopefully doesn’t repeat, obviously the same way. But we will all have situations like this that impact our practices, now’s the time to get ahead of it, don’t put your head in the sand actually use this as a mechanism to really build your firm to succeed through anything.
Seth Price
And sort of feel like a multiple personality person. Like there are three different things going on one of those, you’re going to know me on this call and beyond. Like I’ve spent every waking moment building these these businesses and wanting to help people and employ people and build something sustainable. So that one is okay, we’re still moving forward. The second is, how do we make sure there’s something there. And it’s a combination of strategic very tough decisions that have to be made in real time to not react through fear, but react strategically to make sure that you’re taking care of as many people as you can. But I have to say on a personal level, it takes a toll because you’ve worked so hard for so long. And in such a small period of time. This is a gradual recession, you’ve had to undo many things you’ve spent years putting in place. So there’s sort of this psychological portion in the middle, that’s really tough. And the third, what I’m trying to do is spend whatever time I can because there is additional time as a few of you guys are referred to that. What can you do to help in the community, whether it’s helping out on a, you know, helping to support a food drive that one neighbor started to help the doctors and nurses and staff at a hospital, or somebody I launched tonight where, you know, hey, we have a footprint over the three state area, let’s create an email and get anybody who is older or having no physical ailments that shouldn’t be outside right now getting them supplies if they don’t have somebody to get them medicine, food or what have you. So I feel like I’m trying to do three things at once. And that can be a very stressful piece, but at the same time, each one incredibly necessary and none of them really you don’t you want to drop, good stuff,
Jim Hacking
good stuff. So we’re going to get to the questions in the Facebook group here in a minute. But before we do, I just want to get everyone’s thoughts and maybe I’ll start with Jay. And that’s the question of marketing. Obviously, marketing is really important for all law firms. And I’m always loath to throttle down the marketing. But I’m wondering what have been your thoughts as far as sensitivities around marketing while people are getting sick and dying?
Unknown Speaker
So I don’t think now’s the time that you want to be saying, Hey, are you stuck at home with Coronavirus? You know, you can hire us. But this is a great opportunity for building a brand and a brand name in your local community that talks about how you are concerned about the members of your community. So like Joey, who does trademark stuff for, you know, small shops, you know, this is a great opportunity for him to speak to those people. Jim, you can speak to the immigrant community. I mean, I’m not talking necessarily about like literally the people in your neighborhood. But if you’re like me or Tyson, who have a regional practice, that is your neighborhood, so you want to do the hometown stuff. You know me, I love social, I think social is the best opportunity right now. For you to be in front of people. People are spending extra hours a day on social, this is an opportunity for who you are as a person to stand out among the crowd. You know, we’ve got firm flex, we’re gonna push something out tomorrow to reclaim the feed, right? We want to reclaim the feed and get it away from all Coronavirus love, and talk about the good things in your community. And so there’s great things that you can do. And I put out yesterday, you know, for our firm, we put out a driving tour, a historical driving tour of Connecticut with 12 different locations so people can get out of the house and still stay in their car. And that would allow them to get out of the house, see something, get a little fresh air but not necessarily interact with other people. This is your opportunity to establish who your brand is, while all eyes are on their phone. And if you don’t take this opportunity, you’re really going to regret it. I don’t think it’s time to be aggressively selling. I think it’s about showing who you are showing how you care for your community, care for your people, and try to bring some levity and all those things to show that you’re a well rounded business and that’s going to be your great opportunity to read Get ahead on this. I think you should be posting on social as much as possible and not being a fear monger. But trying to build things up.
Tyson Mutrux
Anybody else have anything on that? I think that’s great.
Lee Rosen
Anything else on on marketing?
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, on Yeah. On Jim’s question about you know how to treat marketing right now.
Lee Rosen
Well, I agree completely with Jay, you don’t want to be the you know, the douchebag pushing the higher mean, while the current you know, you want to you don’t want to be subtle about it. I don’t know about you guys. But man, people are coming out of the woodwork calling me. I haven’t talked to this many people, old friends from I mean, literally, I’m messaging with a guy from high school, my wife got a message from someone she went to high school with, this is the most fantastic time to build your network. I’m looking at Seth Price who I had to block him because he calls me so much just to chat, you know, it’s like, some people. Oh, dude, I can send you the instructions. Yeah, he’s blocked out. Yeah, he moves to different platforms. So you got to do a lot of blocking. But Seth is the most amazing networker on the planet. And most of us, you know, we we aren’t I mean, most of us are not, it’s a tough thing to, to connect with old folks that we haven’t talked to in a while or to even connect with new people you’ve never met before. But this is people welcome this right now. It’s like an open door to people’s homes, they want to say like come on in and let’s you know, be S for a while people are happy to have human connection. And so those relationships, you may not see the payoff today. But it says whole business is built on this, you know, on this stalking people until they’ll talk to him, you know, and he’s got 40 lawyer. So clearly, clearly it works. And, and this is the time to do it. Because people are not too busy to chat with you. And they want to talk to you instead of they can look at their wife and their their spouse, I say wife, you know, we got five guys on the call. But they want to talk to you instead of whoever it is, they’re stuck in the house with you know, this is a break from yelling at the kids. So I agree with Jay about social and there are lots of other ways you can build your business. But man we are. This is this is nirvana for building your network. Yeah,
Seth Price
sir, you know, take my calls. I have learned a lot from Lee over the years, he’s an incredible, incredible person with a lot of forethought that that much of which I wish I had bottled up. But I would say the thing that we have is time, and that the ability to make sure that we leverage that time wisely. You know, I love the digital space. And you know, people there’s nothing better and Joe is great at this is getting original content that you wouldn’t normally have the time to do. And if you can somehow use some percentage of this newfound time to do that. At the other end of this, you’re going to be pretty happy. You know, it’s like planting, planting a tree. When was the best time yesterday? Well, we have we have that time right now. And you know, as long as mentioned, it’s going to it’s going to come back around positively at some point. And that if we’ve paid our dues and planted those seeds that we’re going to have something at the other end. So that’s really what I’m focused on. It’s not easy, because they’re all these other activities, at least in the first week or two. But making sure that we as soon as those basics are taking care of that we immediately turn that excess time, whether it’s yourself or staff into somebody who can build those assets that are available for you in the coming weeks and months.
Joey Vitale
And anybody who might be worried that now’s not the time, to be a little goofy and silly, on social needs to check out what Bernard is doing on tick tock with his dog. It is so good. And it’s what people want right now. He’s doing such a good job. My biggest priority right now is making sure that my referral partners are taken care of. And so I’m reminding myself that the question that I need to be asking isn’t, what can I do to help right now? But what are the problems that people need solved? And if I have certain connections and people who are offering something that really shouldn’t be taking higher priority right now, what can I do to make sure that I can be a voice to that I have a public speaking coach, who is helping a lot of people right now, who had planned on doing a lot of conferences, learn how to book virtual summits. And a lot of people are interested in that right now. And figuring out that the people in your communities who you know, let’s be real might be of more value to people right now, seeing what you can do to really love especially if their referral partners doing what you can do to to take the mic that you have and use it to promote somebody else right now.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, so I’m gonna get to the one of the four Questions. It’s Nick brockmeyer. And this is I think this is a really good question because he talks about how we’re we’re always talking about niching down and make sure you you niche down and that the riches in the niches which that I definitely believe in that but is now a time for us to maybe venture into other niches to help supplement income. So whoever wants to take that what what are your thoughts?
Jim Hacking
I’ll go, I think now’s the time to niche down the same as you have before, I think now’s not the time to water down your message. Now’s not the time where people are going to smell desperation, because you know, me as the immigration lawyer, but hey, I’ll do Your will. I mean, that’s the worst thing you want to do. Because as Lee so eloquently started the show with, you know, this is going to come back around, we’re going to be back. I mean, the economy was humming as I don’t think it’s like 2008, where it was based on faulty economics, I think the economy was really humming. And I think that we will recover from this faster, I hope. So. I was talking to a buddy of mine who, who helps run 120 Lawyer law firm today, and he’s like, we’re gonna have two years of the Great, it’s gonna be worse than the Great Depression. I don’t think that’s accurate. But I think that we just really need to keep our minds straight. So I don’t think you should, I don’t think you should start becoming a generalist. Now, I think now’s the worst time, because it’s just going to dilute your message and the time when, when clarity, like I said, at the beginning is necessary.
Unknown Speaker
I agree with Jim. But yeah,
Unknown Speaker
I agree with Jim, I wouldn’t surprise me if that 120 Lawyer firm does have two years of that stuff going on. Because there are a legacy firm that hasn’t really adapted to the new economy, necessarily, I think now for people like us. And let me let me put this situation by you say, you know, I have a criminal defense firm. And I said, you know, what, I’ve got a high performing bankruptcy and a high performing divorce law website that we’ve kept up and running and, and just parse out the leads to other people. But now I’m going to keep that stuff in house, and no passion for that work. And so what will happen is, I’ll take in those cases, they’ll sit there, none of my people will want to do them, will wind up on the end of a bar complaint, we won’t do quality work, it’ll hurt our brand overall. And so I don’t think it’s necessarily the right time to add more practice areas, just to get your cash flow. I think you could wind up having the cure be worse than the illness in that situation. That’s a parent’s on that somebody else had said, but, you know, if you take on cases you don’t want to do, you’re not going to and you don’t necessarily know how to do them efficiently. You’re not going to be in the best position, and it’s going to hurt you long term. That’s my opinion.
Joey Vitale
Yeah, I agree. I think that other people in this chat can can say, with a lot more expertise than I can that when you win your niche down, then your messaging makes it seem even more like you’re talking to that one person specifically. And so you’ll get higher conversion rates on all of those messaging layers than if you try and reach a broad audience. That stuff.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, so I can’t find the questions of a paraphrase the question, there’s a lot of comments in here. So how do you how’s everybody dealing with the I guess inconsistent work or inconsistent, new signups when it comes to handling workflows and everything? Because there’s going to be especially I know, Jay, and Sid, you both kind of mentioned it. You’ve had a drop in in new signups. But I think this might go up and down at times. It just depends on what governors do what what mayors do what? So how’s everybody dealing with those? How’s everyone managing the differences in workflows? And, Jay, I guess, Jay, and Seth, you all, you all are dealing with this now. So why don’t you all start it off?
Unknown Speaker
Alright, well, I can go first. One of the wonderful things I was able to do something that I’ve wanted to do for years, actually, since since I was part of Lee’s Rosen Institute, and I talked to them about this probably four and a half years ago, was I was finally able to have conversations with my attorneys. And I took them to a sort of a pay for what you do model rather than a straight salary. So I had that conversation with them about 10 days ago, they all said, Hey, we’re happy to do that, if it means we get to keep our position. So I’m actually my business is getting better already. Because of it. When it comes to cash flow. You know, I have one sales lawyer who’s been who’s my partner who’s been with me, you know, we’re going through our old leads on some of our ancillary products like the pardons and expungement. And she’s, you know, getting creative with payment plans, and she’s generating money and are where we are today on Wednesday. And this week, we have enough revenue to double our worst week ever, which was February, a week in February of 2015. That was our worst week. We keep it as our worst week. We know what it was. We’ve already doubled that this week. So as I said to Theresa, I said, Hey, we’re doing okay, that was our worst week and look at all the great weeks that came behind it. So you know, yeah, it’s not fun. I’m not saying that This is fun, it’s challenging, but we are going to get through this, I’m going to be practicing law in a couple of months, and everything will have changed again. And
Seth Price
while we want to keep our core team there, one of the benefits, I would argue is that, you know, like, if you listen to John Morgan, Jack Welch, she just pass, you know, any of these guys, we should be calling the bottom 10% of our team. I don’t know, Lee, how you do that, if you just, you know, exfoliate a lot. But, you know, for the rest of us, you know, we have, you know, we end up with staff that, in a perfect world, we would be upgrading. So, I’m trying to make some lemonade out of this, you know, a short term, we are sort of tightening things we are going through and creating cost savings that normally things have been pretty good for a long time, and we canceled every credit card. And every single charge has to be reapproved with the new cards when they arrive, ACH is returned off, turned back on one by one is every expense. And I’ll be doing it now. Because I want to make sure that we have gas in the engine, yes. But should I have been doing this? Yeah, I should be doing this. And, you know, you find you find all these random subscriptions that you started, that you may or may not be using properly or enough, especially at our scale. And so going back and using this as reflective time, to sort of what is the main team that you need going forward? Sadly, in the criminal space, I feel like we’ve probably had to go beyond that. And that I can’t wait till we can turn that back on. But with everything else, you know, as we mentioned, the trust of the states and immigration is humming. You know, we’ve kept our entire pie team together. But knowing that every single expense being looked at, and even within Pei, I’m looking at this not with a 3060 day window, but with a 120 day plus window, like what not worst case scenario to act in fear, but being responsible, what if this goes on longer than we’re sort of thinking short term? And if that’s the case, what cases for example, are two years out facing in your world? Are there cases, you know, are two years out? And can you hold back on paying, you know, getting experts doing depositions on those cases, and making sure that the cases that are near term that will be closing this year that you could get to settlement this year or or you can’t get a trial right now, but making sure that you’re doing everything possible, and bifurcating what needs to happen now versus down the
Tyson Mutrux
road. But I think that’s a really, really good point. Because like especially the in the PR world, the cash flow has been consistent hasn’t changed at all. Actually, our new client signups hasn’t really taken that much of a dip. But one thing that we’re keeping an eye on is our is our outgoing expenses. And we’re we’re sort of pulling back a little bit just in just in case, just to be careful once we get through this. And once we see more light at the end of the tunnel. So we are backing backing off some of our expenses, even though we are going on offense, like I said, there are some certain things where we can hold off on spending some money here and there, where maybe we don’t pay the money for that expert yet. Maybe we picked that expert, maybe we don’t give him that check quite yet, because we don’t need to yet. So there are some certain things where you can hold off on those on those big expenditures.
Seth Price
And I have been amazed at how often by making an ask, we’ve had no problem getting things done. Just saying, Hey, we had this budgeted for for for April, can we push this till June? Again, being smart about it, I’ve, you know, we still need to fill the beast with marketing, and we want that there. But if you’re doing pay per click for DUIs right now, and there are no DUIs, while you may get clicks, and you may even get calls, there’s nobody getting arrested. So you know, you want to don’t check common sense at the door, and make sure that what you’re spending money on is monetizable today, or is something that you know, is part of your long term program that you want, you know, when this is I’m done.
Lee Rosen
I just wanted to say one thing, and I don’t know how much Jay and I think Jay and Seth are both, you know, living this in terms of letting go of people, when we talk about cutting expenses. The reality in a law firm is that that’s your expense, you know, that’s the bulk of where your money goes is these people. And, and I want to just say this, having been through this now over the years, you have a choice. You can either let go of people proactively, if you see that you don’t have the work for them to do or you can dip into your reserves dip into your line of credit, and keep paying them if you keep paying them and I say this from having been down this path and made this mistake. You cripple yourself in terms of hiring people back and hiring other people in the future. You you make yourself less likely to be an employer down the road. The compassionate thing to do for your people in your community is to take action If you don’t have a use for those people right now, and it doesn’t feel that way, we’re used to letting people go, we, you know, we have these hushed discussions in the back room trying to decide what to do. This is not a situation where people don’t expect it, they don’t see it, everybody’s aware of what’s going on. There’s no surprises here. This is, this is all anybody is talking about. So if you if you need to cut expenses, and you have people that are not able to contribute right now, because you just don’t have the work, you’re not going to be shocking them. And and here’s the crazy thing. I’ve now watched a number of people do this, both in the hotel and restaurant type industries. And now increasingly in law firms, the people not only are not surprised, they are to some extent relieved to just know where they stand. And, and then I’m watching people say things like, hey, let’s share the little bit that’s left, let’s keep such and such employed by all reducing our income by 25%. And we’ll, we’ll keep you know, this person working and they’re working together on it, we’re all on the same team in this, it’s not you against them, it’s us all against this bigger problem. So I want you know, I know they everybody feels bad when they have to do this. But this is different. This is not like it is in a normal situation.
Seth Price
Thank you for those words, like
Jim Hacking
I was talking about, I talked to a vendor today. And I told him that I wanted to cut my service. And they said they’d give me 90 days three on the software. So that was interesting. But I digress from what you just said, which I think is a really important point. I think we got to get close to wrapping up here pretty soon. And I just want to go around, I think one more time tassin. And ask everybody sort of what what’s your best piece of advice that we haven’t already talked about? What’s the what what are you thinking about next? What’s the next doll that you’re looking to fall?
Seth Price
I’m going to answer the opposite question, since we’ve talked about some negatives, which is I’m sort of giddy about how we’re going to how quickly we can get things back. Once this is over. That’s sort of the I talked about three things I was focused on. I again, what I would i The Joy is brought to me as figuring out how quickly I can undo the things that we talking about here to be back in business at Full Tilt. The moment that we feel that, again, this first part of the crisis is over, I have no doubt that Lee is correct. And we’re going to see a you know, an issue afterwards. But most downturn I can deal with, it’s the at least on the fee for service criminal side, when the velocity starts again, and just giddy about the idea of getting back in the game.
Lee Rosen
So I’ll jump in use this time now, to think about the bigger picture, you’re learning a lot about your need for real estate, whether you need as much real estate as you’ve had, some people are loving the working from home piece of this, the rest of the world has been doing more and more of this. Think about the theory of the firm. If you go look at Wikipedia, on theory of the firm, you’re gonna see why law firms are law firms, it’s all about a lack of transparency of information, the labor markets, this is creating a lot of transparency, a lot of people are looking at the idea of a firm. And seeing that it may be it doesn’t make the same level of sense that it used to we need a shock to our system as lawyers to make change. And this is a shock to the system. And people are you know, they say real estate leases are the glue that holds law firms together, suddenly, we need a lot less real estate. And the importance of all those rituals is people are seeing behind the curtain. So start thinking about where this goes long term, I think we really are seeing behind the curtain in a lot of ways. And things may we may see a shift of direction of how the profession works. And we may start looking a lot like other businesses. And a lot less like law firms have looked when we come out of this,
Joey Vitale
Joey I see your I see the gears turning in your in your there’s a lot of directions I can go in. But this is a pretty high caliber group. And so I’m trying to come up with the best thing that I have to say, I think that I’m realizing that it’s never been more important for me to be honoring my word, especially with my team, which means both keeping my promises to the extent that I can, but also letting them know as quickly as I can when I’m not going to be able to. Because I think in the long term. In the long run, if I can’t be seen as somebody that my team can trust right now, then I’m not going to be able to get that back to Jay or Seth,
Tyson Mutrux
you’re gonna go,
Unknown Speaker
I can just talk a little bit about, you know, positivity, really seeing that the culture that we had among the team members in our office, really, really sort of helped me recognize how good I had had it, and how good I have it and how good I will have it. You know, I had to you know, I had to cut a weekend intake person who fully knew it was coming and actually reached out to me and said, I have a feeling you’re not going to need me next weekend. Can I confirm that? I said, Well, you know, I think that’s going to be the case. And he said Great Can I volunteer next weekend to just work for free? I said, Well, no, legally, you can’t do that. It’s like, well, I’ll I want, I want to come back to this firm when you guys will have me. Everybody wants me back. Everybody does want, you know, these few people that and so they’re willing to figure out a way it’s going so far as to Can I just have an unpaid internship now, and I don’t do that for a number of legal reasons. But, you know, I have a culture where that my people who are still here are still connected, and still talking to the people who are part timers, only even sit in the office with them. But they’re chatting, just checking in on making sure everybody’s okay, we have a really good cohesive team. And sort of as the figurehead, you know, that you have a good team, but you think you don’t necessarily know what is what I mean. And now seeing how everyone’s rallying around each other, and rallying around to keep the firm operational. And it’s a wonderful thing to see. So it’s good to have that sort of positivity, when you look back on everything that you’ve built.
Tyson Mutrux
So I understand that some of our presenters may need to go, Jim, do I don’t if you want to answer your own question, but if not, I was going to ask a couple more questions from the group. If I can get a couple of rules download the log. But Jim, do you want to answer your own question?
Jim Hacking
Or just do some rapid fire? I’m good. I said enough. Okay.
Tyson Mutrux
So one of the questions was, and I’ll go rapid fire as quickly as possible. One of them was about what are some tips on getting people to sign the contract over the phone? Sign the contract over the phone? Correct. So like, since we we can’t meet with clients, right now, what are some tips on getting them to sign while they’re while they’re on the phone?
Seth Price
It’s funny, I mean, we’ve been this is not something new to us, with a number of different practice areas, many of them have already experienced that the criminal department with the exception of major cases, very large percentage already signing over the phone pie, very, very high. I think the interesting dynamic has been trusted estates, which I brought up is doing well now. But so the people that are the busiest are also the ones having to adapt to a new culture or protocol. And seeing people leveraging zoom, and other technologies, you know, I feel that it is just like Lee was sort of referring to people are now realizing it isn’t that difficult to work remotely, I feel like we’re seeing the same thing on signing, which is, if that’s your only way of doing it, you know, like he says, Just do it and it happens that it’s not it’s a mental block generally, I find for older school lawyers more than anything else that the that if you have something that somebody needs, and you’re providing it at a price or the quality that they want that basically it’s no different than in person and that you can you should and will realize wow, I could have been doing this all along, which would go to leave you know, concept of a changing paradigm that when we come out of this, there may be a lot more you know, tell teleconference and a lot less in person. sighs
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah. And I’m gonna go through these as quickly as possible. Just want to add a couple things. There’s plenty of tools out there, it’s probably easier now than it has ever been to get people to sign the contract electronically. Way easier, because there’s a good reason for it. Right. So it’s, it’s an easy sell. I don’t think it’s a hard sell right now. We’ve been doing it for I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years. It’s I mean, I in the last six months, I’ve probably met with three people in person, get them to sign that contract. Most people don’t have a problem with it. Because of this thing right here. I think was shelf folk. Bush has a really, really good question. And I’m anybody can answer this. But it’s what are we realistically supposed to do if 50% of our income disappears because people aren’t hiring. I’ve never had business debt, other than cutting costs. Should we get lines of credit during times like this?
Lee Rosen
I’ll take this one. First of all, do not freak out. We are not yet to reality. We’re in the shock wave of this. It’s still very, very early things will change. You can’t judge this scenario entirely. At this moment. It’ll look different in two weeks. Think of it as a you’re on a tropical vacation, make a pina colada come back in two weeks and see where you stand. Because it’s going to look different as we enter a bit of a new normal. But in terms of lines of credit and borrowing money, I can’t say strongly enough, be very careful about borrowing money primarily to give it to other people. That’s where that money is going is to your staff. You know, you’re either going to feel like an asshole now or you’re going to feel like an asshole later. We are headed into a recession. You might as well feel like an asshole now and not have the debt that because you will then survive to play again in the future. I just don’t want you to borrow money. I watched my brother with tears streaming down his face nine months after the.com crash when he finally laid his people off. And he owed a million dollars because he had paid those people for months while they couldn’t get close deals. You know, and that what that did was crippled him going forward. So that’s the big lesson that I’ve learned from being through this, just don’t do that to yourself.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s great advice. I’m gonna jump into the next question, what are What’s everyone’s thoughts on giving clients an extra 30 to 60 days to pay if they if they become an employee,
Unknown Speaker
I’d have no problem with that if there I mean, right as it is, right now, you know, if someone would call me up and say, you know, I’m on a payment plan, I need to add an extra month to it, I’m happy to do that. So I definitely do it under these circumstances. I mean, you want to if you’re in a position where you can do that, and I’d rather have, you know, $250, in three weeks than have no dollars, evermore, I mean, so you got to look at it, I think, I’m not saying extend credit of $50,000 to somebody with an indefinite date on it. But, you know, if you can restructure it, if they, if they’ve worked with integrity with you before, you know, you should take it on a case by case basis.
Seth Price
And I bet you in silver, of course, you have, you know, you can’t get blood from a stone, the spoon, you know, you figure out what it takes to maximize that money. It’s frustrating, because it may get worse before it gets better. But you know, we’re particularly, you know, we, you know, they’re coming to us for help, we don’t want to, if they’re not working beside a payment agreement, assuming the job was there.
Lee Rosen
And I’ll just be the, the, you know, the difficult, unpleasant person, because these guys are so nice. I have never extended credit, not since I’ve learned my lesson the hard way, I would not extend credit, they’re not going to pay you in 30 days, don’t take action, believing that if there’s no money, there’s no money, except reality, and move on to what can make you better
Seth Price
spoken as a true family law lawyer. And I write the advice in different areas and ancestry with Lee and family law you have because that’s in any times, you’re not getting the money back. So we are dealing with different pieces for here. You know, on the criminal side, for example, the courts aren’t open. So having a payment plan doesn’t really hurt us right now, because we’re not in court. Versus if you know, the family, love your burning hours, you’re never going to see the money. And I get
Lee Rosen
that. You know, just on that note, just to comment about the courts, I am more optimistic than the court seemed to be about them getting back to work using the technology, I think they’re giving us a lot of courts, I’m seeing 90 days, I really do believe that they are going to get it faster than we think that we will see more things trickling in, not across the board. But I don’t believe that they’re going to be away from us as long as they think they are. They just haven’t accepted what’s happening fully. And I’m optimistic that some of them at least in some jurisdictions will employ more technology and put a lot of people back to work from home or whatever it is, rather than this blackout that we’re getting in a lot of places.
Unknown Speaker
I think it leaves right. I think that Seth and I are going to have problems in the criminal context. Because bringing inmates into a courthouse and then getting them back for their appearances is troubling. And they don’t want to expose one inmate that can go back and expose 1000 others to another inmate who may have come from a place that has it. That’s where we’re starting. I’m on a task force here in Connecticut trying to address that issue. And that’s where we’re really having the problems because the courthouses can connect via video to clients, but the lawyers can’t. They’re trying to figure out a way to make that happen. But these are all problems that can be solved by technology if people want them to be and I think now like you said, Lee, we’re at a sea change where people want to get the changes rather’s before, they weren’t happy to just let existing practices go on and on. So fingers crossed, we’re gonna start seeing some changes across the board. For
Seth Price
Lee that’d be the naysayer here. But in DC, they have video conferencing, for lawyers to meet to speak to their clients from jail. Currently, the only way to do that is to go to a facility to watch your closet. I mean, that’s you can’t make this stuff up. So I believe that this go around will change all of that. But they are not ready for primetime now.
Joey Vitale
Right? Can I just say that there are obviously very smart people in this room. And I know that the entire group is filled with smart people. There are no right answers here. And I think that we as lawyers tend to fall into this, you know, what is a way to solve this problem. But right now more than ever is the time to innovate. And at the end of the day, we’re all entrepreneurs and business owners. And this is, in a lot of ways, a way for us to show up in a place of curiosity and innovation and saying, there is no blueprint for this. How can we make a plan and run with it? Great.
Tyson Mutrux
All right, I’m gonna ask one last question. I’m gonna initially answer it and just see what your thoughts are on it. Because the question is about what what do you do with clients that aren’t very technological? And here’s my response to that. Don’t force it right. So We have got a client just because you want to do video doesn’t mean you have to do video, right? We had a client last year or last week, we wanted to be with her via video, I sent her all the details she couldn’t figure it out. So we just switch to a phone call. Now we do like just switch to a phone call that don’t force the technology down your clients throats. Use it whenever it’s effective. Don’t force it. Are there any other thoughts on that?
Lee Rosen
No, you’re you’re 100%. Right. I never talked to anybody on video. In my real life. It’s only for coronaviruses. You know, it’s like I make phone calls and go for walks with my earbuds and talk to people’s Yeah, this this is unnecessary the phone, and a laptop and some earbuds and you’re good to go with this. Don’t get bogged down in it. And don’t worry about that they don’t need video, they’re happy to talk to you on the phone.
Seth Price
I was chair were you working on it was at Hayden was working on something to one way video back in the day. I want to Yeah, I want to. We can advertise video conferencing for our clients from they want the phone that said, when you can get it. And now you’re getting people who are tech savvy who are at home, you’re trying to trust and estates where they’re used to come into the office, I find that if you can get the video piece, you’re so much closer to an in person meeting that I acknowledged that a phone intake has a lower percentage close rate than somebody in the office, it’s a lot easier to make it happen. The transaction costs are less you the velocity, there are a bunch of good things about it. But if we were honest with ourselves, the actual closed rate compared to somebody sitting there, I would argue when you can get the video component, you are one step you’re probably that intermediate step between close rate of phone versus in person.
Tyson Mutrux
But it’s alright, let’s wrap it up. Thanks out for all of you for coming on. Really appreciate Lee, you’re in Tokyo or I think that’s where you’re in Tokyo. You’re in Japan. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate everybody being on here. Like Jay said, Right? Or Joey really, really do appreciate it. Jimmy, I don’t know where you went. I know you’re on your somewhere. But thanks, everybody.
