This week on the show we have Alexis Austin, CEO and Managing Attorney at Right Law Group, P.C., an Estate Planning Law firm based out of Colorado Springs, CO.
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about transitioning a business model, building a lifestyle firm, and how to use the success of other businesses to grow your firm.
https://www.coloradoestateplanning.net/about-us/
Hacking’s Hack:
Write down your list of excuses, and then burn that piece of paper. But before you do, on another page write the opposite of your excuses. These will be your life marching orders for 2020.
Tyson’s Tip:
Save the coupons you receive from vendors, then buy in bulk to save thousands of dollars. Bonus: Download the free Honey Chrome extension to save a ton of money: joinhoney.com/ref/pd5q2ge
As coupons come in from the vendors you use on a regular basis save them and then use them on bulk purchases to save the most money!
Alexis’s Tip:
Do what you feel is right. Don’t conform yourself to what the practice of law says that you should do.
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Transcripts: “You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Wheel” with Alexis Austin
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.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum ROI Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Unknown Speaker
And I’m Tyson nutrix. What’s up Jimmy?
Jim Hacking
Jason, how are you my friend?
Tyson Mutrux
I am good. I am good. I just bought a brand new truck. actually start a brand new truck. It’s a new truck to me. But kind of truck Do you see my truck? I did. What
Jim Hacking
are you gonna haul around in that big white truck?
Tyson Mutrux
Man? I’ve been hauling around things every day boxes, you know, you know, you know, I’m very domesticated. So you know hauling around boxes and Christmas items and furniture you know the basics you know, nothing, nothing major. So I I will take every opportunity to put something in the back that I love it. I love driving that truck. So that’s exciting about you. How are you doing?
Jim Hacking
When I was a kid my dad used to bring his truck home from work and the kid and we love to climb on it and act like we’re driving it and jump off the back of it was a lot of fun of it. Your kids love it.
Tyson Mutrux
Oh my kids absolutely love it. I remember so my my dad still has the truck. It’s a nightshade through Dodge Ram. He has given it to me. But I don’t have any room for it. So it’s at his house, but it’s a single cat right? But nowadays, like their crew cats like you like there’s plenty of room like I remember. There were let’s see. Six of us. I don’t know how it’s possible. Like we were sitting on laps in the single cab. Like nowadays, that’s just not legal, I guess probably wasn’t legal then. But people didn’t care about them. But just how just crazy things have changed. Like how many Amy and I were talking how easily like all single truck cabs like like back in the day you you occasionally saw an extended cab or a double cab and now they’re all crew cab. So it’s just kind of crazy. And it’s changed to
Jim Hacking
well, let’s quit rambling on about trucks and
Tyson Mutrux
pickup trucks on illegal podcast is great. What was
Jim Hacking
there anything during the sales process that you could pass along to our listeners that you found instructive? When it comes to closing the sale?
Tyson Mutrux
I guess the sales was very disarming. I am normally I like to put up a fight or negotiating something. And he just came in with a really low price for me. He was very mellow. He said they’ve just had just taken some personality tests, and they were tested under stressful conditions under normal conditions, and then one other thing, and he was the only one in the entire company. And they they own. I don’t like probably 20 Something dealerships. He was the only one in the entire company that had the exact same personality throughout every test, which is so he was very, very just even keeled laid back. You just kind of like, oh, you know, this is what it is, you know, there wasn’t really any major going back and forth. So maybe just stay calm and laid back. Maybe that’s a part of it. But there was a in the waiting room for the kids. Wherever you went to go take care of all the paperwork there. They had the that popsicle hotline, where you pick it up, and then someone answers and they bring up popsicles. They literally put on white gloves and bring them out on a little silver platter. It was actually quite cool. So those are some small little tidbits. Alright, well, our
Jim Hacking
guest today is Alexis Austin. She’s a criminal defense lawyer, friend of our friend Chris nicolaysen. And she’s been to max law con, I think twice both times. And she’s a great fan of the podcast. So we’re glad to have her on the show.
Alexis Austin
Morning. I’m glad to be here.
Tyson Mutrux
All right, Alexa. So tell us a little bit about your background, your story, and then how you got to where you are right now.
Alexis Austin
So I started off. I’m originally from Tennessee, I went to University of Memphis and I have a problem where I keep trying to learn. And I’m addicted to learning. So I ended up getting a dual degree in psychology and philosophy. I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with that though. It wasn’t really practical. So I flipped a coin as to whether I was going to do a PhD in psychology or law school and a friend and I had to bet. So he went into PhD, I went into law school and it just kind of stuck. I went to the University of Denver. The first year I was there, I was lucky enough to get an internship with a pretty major district attorney’s office here in Colorado. And I got hooked. I loved litigation, and I decided that being a district attorney was all I wanted in life. So as a district attorney for a number of years I purchased in a number of different counties. And then I had some personal life issues come up where the stress of the job was just not meshing well with my personal life and I decided I needed to take a step back and work on maintaining some kind of balances. You know, District Attorney hours are rigorous and you’re just under a huge amount of stress and pressure. So a local attorney in Colorado Springs actually offered me a partnership and his firm because he was retiring so I bought his partnership and started working on the firm. I actually was talking to Chris Chris nucleus and I went to school together and he introduced me to you all. And so I started digging in listening to all the podcasts I could possibly listen to, I think I got through everything in about six weeks. And during that time, I had a number of things happen. One thing was pretty tragic. My fiancee at the time, who was a district attorney actually committed suicide, I think partially due to the stress. And it just it hit me. It was one of those life changing events where you think, well, you couldn’t die really young. And what’s the point in just living a day to day life and not excelling at what you do? So I approached my partner, because we’ve been having some issues with the firm, we didn’t have the same vision for it. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man. But he’s a 63 year old Jewish guy. And here I was a 31 year old upstart. And I wanted to be very technologically advanced and make clients do a lot of the work on intakes and things and he was still using paper files. So we had a long conversation and decided that it was best that I branched out on my own. And I actually sold my partnership to another maximum lawyer. I don’t know if you all know William Beck, we call him Bill back Bill took over that partnership for me. And I launched my own practice in June 2018, I started out doing criminal defense. And I’ve been doing criminal defense for with that firm for a year and a half now. And as I was getting into really digging my heels, and I’ve been reading every single business book I can possibly get my hands on. And I’ve realized that I want to build a business, not a law firm. I think I’ve read the E Myth at least three different times and every variation there is. And I realized that the practice of criminal defense doesn’t work as well for the business model that I want. So we’re actually in the process right now of transitioning, we’ve got two different sides of our practices, that criminal defense, and we’ve got an estate planning, because what we’re trying to build at the firm, as we’re trying to build this lifestyle firm, I’m trying to build something where it caters, obviously to our clients, but it’s made for the lawyer who wants anonymity who wants autonomy, not hidden limited, we can scratch that, for the lawyer who wants autonomy, and really wants the flexibility that you should be able to have after putting in all those long years at law school. So right now we have a setup where our lawyers can work remotely, they can pick and choose their cases, they get paid based on a commission, rather than a set salary. They have the option to do salary if they want, but it seems to be the people who are more like minded want that commission base. And it’s designed so that I’m building a firm, where other lawyers can join and have that same feeling of firm ownership without having to do all the stress of marketing and billing and all the stuff that I found that I actually love. So it’s working pretty well we have right now two lawyers in the firm, myself and one other, we had a third of that she actually just left to start her own firm. And we have a contract paralegal and a contract bookkeeper, and then we use a lot of virtual health as well. So it’s going really well, we’re on our projections to meet my five year goal. And I’m really happy. So that’s it in a nutshell. Well, there’s
Jim Hacking
a lot to unpack there, Alexis, I don’t know where to start. I mean, I guess, let’s talk first about your transition from a prosecutor’s office into representing defendants and then sort of how you went from there to finding out your partner.
Alexis Austin
It was a huge shift at first, just from a philosophical standpoint, but once I realized I was still able to help people. That’s really all I love to do. What I’ve built now is helping clients and helping other lawyers. And when I realized that in the DEA world, I was helping victims of crime, helping them walk through, I was the head of the domestic violence victim unit and one of the offices that I worked in where I would meet personally with the victims and walk them through the stages. So it wasn’t that dissimilar from criminal clients where you sit down and you walk them through the process, what to expect, honestly, at the end of the day, everyone’s a person. And so learning to deal with people and making sure that you’re compassionate, it’s it all kind of evens out, I try not to take hardened criminals more than I have to just because I’m trying to help people we have our branding at our firm is we’re trying to help people get on the right path, or get back on the right path. So I try to be very selective with the clients, I work with the private clients, I do have a state contract, but with my private clients is making sure that they’re willing to put in the work and the effort to get back on track. Because you know, a lot of these cases you get a DUI, it’s just some dumb choice you made. A lot of clients that I have who have PTSD have come back from overseas, because we’re here in Colorado Springs, which is a big military town. So a lot of it really is just working with people through their issues and making sure that we’re helping them get on track. We try to act more as guides rather than fixers, if that makes sense. So it wasn’t too dissimilar. It was definitely more difficult for my friends than for me, all of my friends are still district attorneys. And so it’s often this question of how do you do that? How do you represent those people and I always just tell them, you know, there are people but for the grace of God, one of you could have had a DUI and be in the exact same place so it’s It’s actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. As soon as you realize people are just people. So
Tyson Mutrux
Alexis, I tried to do the same thing. Whenever I whenever I did criminal defense where I tried to, I wouldn’t say rehabilitate, that’s we can’t quite do that, but get them on the back on the right track. And it was a struggle sometimes can you talk about, I guess that experience doing that, and then how it’s working out for you, and maybe some some tips, you might be able to give other people that are doing the same stuff.
Alexis Austin
I think one problem that I’ve noticed with my friends who have been doing criminal defense a lot longer than I have is, there’s a certain lack of accountability with criminal clients. And that’s part of the reason that I’m trying to change my business model a little bit, I’ll never leave criminal defense entirely, I always want to do first time offenses, you know, the basic offenses, where you get DUIs, domestic violence, those types of things. But like I was saying, with those career criminals, a lot of the problems that they’re facing is they have a lack of accountability, which is especially difficult to deal with when you’re trying to run a business and trying to get paid. So a couple of the mistakes that I made early on is I was very much on the rehabilitation side, rather than the guiding side. And I would say, well, I’ll work with you, whatever you need, we’ll work it out. And it was just too emotionally exhausting and too financially exhausting for the firm. We, we started off we use practice Panther, and we would do payment plans for however long they needed. And I found that after about three months, people stop paying no matter what the number is, you could have a $10,000 case, or a $700 case after three months that maxes out their ability to keep paying. So we had to change that up. Now, we don’t offer plans any more than two or three months of payment plans. One of the best things that I started doing is I am just very straight with my clients, because number one, they appreciate that they’re not coming to a lawyer to butter them up. They’re coming because they’re in a time of distress. And a lot of people who have lived a little bit of a rougher life, don’t want things sugar coated, they want someone who’s honest with them, and I send my clients down and I say, Look, this is what we’re doing. You don’t expect to work for free, and I’m not going to work for free for you. I expect you to communicate with me, I expect you to do what you need to do. Otherwise, why should I help you. And being that blunt kind of weeds out the people who just want someone to fix everything, because I have friends that often do who have that. I don’t want to sound derogatory, but it’s that bleeding heart that that need to help people. And they they would work much better with that person. So I try to be first and foremost respectful of what my firm needs and when I employees need. And then if the client needs something other than what we can offer them, I’ll hook them up with someone who can help them. It’s more just knowing my personal boundaries, the firm boundaries, and making sure that clients understand straight away what is expected of them.
Jim Hacking
What’s just one thing that’s come through in hearing your answers to our questions is that it sounds like you are connected to a lot of lawyers and that you are very collaborative. I know Chris, and you are very collaborative. Talk to us a little bit about your mindset when it comes to dealing with other attorneys in your community.
Alexis Austin
It’s actually really funny that you say that, Jim, because I do try to be collaborative, in a very non collaborative town. I don’t know how much you want to talk to Chris about this. But Colorado Springs is a unique animal. The lawyers here and I don’t know, part of it is it’s, you know, a very, very conservative town. It’s very military based very family’s value based, which is great. And I can thrive in that. But it’s also a little bit of a disadvantage for a female business owner, the number of defense attorneys in town that are females, I think I can count on one hand and have female from owners, I think there are four in total, and Colorado Springs for criminal defense. And it’s difficult because I try to collaborate and work with everybody My policy is I’ll give you whatever you need. If you need motions, if you need advice on systems, if you need help finding different ways to do things, I’m an open book, I have been burned a number of times by it though, like I found my last employer that just left I actually hired her on the recommendation of another lawyer in town. And then she left me to join that lawyer after learning all of my systems which touched on a little bit, but my philosophy is is Life is too short to get all worked up about it and try to be stingy because ultimately you’re just hurting yourself. It’s that Buddhist philosophy. When you hold on to anger, it’s like hurting us holding on to a burning flame and expecting the other person to hurt. It’s taken a long time to come to this position because I do still get frustrated. But I feel like if you just give and give to the people that you think actually need the help and work with him eventually it’ll come back around. I am trying to work more with lawyers outside of criminal defense because I’ve seen that they’re a lot more receptive and willing to share and collaborate. The criminal defense attorneys here in town is there usually solos or one or two people in there, and they really love getting information but no one really likes sharing which is a little disheartening. I can honestly say that the maximum weight group has been my lifeline a number of months where I was just so frustrated, but I can get on there and share and it’s it’s incred because everyone there seems to have the same mindset. So yes, I do try to share I do try to work with people, but sometimes it comes back and bite. I’m gonna lie.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s so funny. I have a very similar experience. So St. Louis, very willing to share a lot, a lot of the attorneys, they’re sort of an open book, Columbia, complete opposite. I mean, getting people just to go to coffee or lunch is hard to do. It’s just the weirdest thing, just the different mindsets in. Colombia is more of a conservative town. St. Louis is more of a liberal town. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. But it’s just, it is interesting how the two dynamics are way, way different. So for my next question for you is, I’ve noticed with prosecutors, sometimes after they leave, being a prosecutor and they go into private practice, it takes a while for them to get it when it comes to they’ve got to bring in clients like it doesn’t click for a while. Do you have? Did you have that same experience? And if so, how did you get around it? And if not, why not?
Alexis Austin
Well, specifically with getting in class, do you mean actually putting in the effort or the ability to retain them,
Tyson Mutrux
all of the above all, I think all of that it takes a while for all of that to click, I think it’s just it’s just an interesting thing, because I think part of it is is that they’re so used to just practicing law, you know, they go in the office, they’ve got files, they’re working on the files every day, and they don’t have that component of it, I’ve got to bring in business. So I think all of that. So basically bringing those clients in and retaining them and all that. So I
Alexis Austin
think I had a little bit of a different approach. I know a lot of my prosecution friends that have gone defense, they get hired by another firm. So I think that leads somewhat to them not feeling that that crunch, because for a while at least the firm is providing clients and providing them with a caseload, and they’re taking over from some other lawyer. For me, for one, I was very, very blessed in that the lawyer that told me his half of the firm, it was a firm that had been established in Colorado Springs for 40 plus years. So they had a decent reputation in the community. But truthfully, the reason I left the prosecution office was not to be a defense attorney, it was to be a business owner. I jumped on it thinking okay, well, I’ve been doing all this I have the legal background, I know how criminal law works. But now I want to try something where I’m building something that is for me and to support my life, rather than jumping into a new career that I’m just gonna work at and try to succeed at if that if that makes any any sense. When I went to the firm right out of the BAS office, they had been struggling a bit trying to figure out this very question because, you know, it was it was an old school firm, where everything was done on the smile and a handshake. And everyone knew everyone and the man that I purchased the firm from. It’s just, he’s an amazing attorney, and just an amazing human. And so people would naturally just send him thing, once everyone realized he wasn’t there, they would still send clients to him. But it wasn’t that same feeling. So I had to really dig in and look at how we approach the marketing aspect. One of the differences that I had with my partner was, I didn’t want to rely on referrals I didn’t want to rely on truthful anyone else. I have a little bit of a stubborn headedness, where my feeling is, especially in today’s technology age, and the way that the millennial generation is finding everything. The the referral network doesn’t work number one for in a conservative town, a female business owner, it really doesn’t. And I’m not going golfing with people, I try not to go drinking too much with people because that can be construed negatively. And I don’t want to rely on one person to send me clients because I’ve done that. And then you get burned because they pick a new favorite or they decide that they want to keep it for themselves or whatever the reason is. So I really tried to focus on saying, Well, how can we approach a younger generation, the generation that’s asking Alexa and Google and all these places what to do instead of asking their friends, and I started digging in and looking at what our firm had been spending at that time. At the time that I came into the firm, I want to say the firm was spending about 40% of their entire revenue on marketing. And nothing was coming in. It was one of those things where they were just throwing money at the problem. They were still advertising in newspapers on TV, and none of that was working. So I was really lucky because they had four years of data that I could go through. And I was digging through seeing what had worked, what hadn’t. We tried a couple different marketing companies. And I think Bill is doing a really good job. Now I’m seeing that their numbers are coming up. But for me personally, in my firm, what I’ve started doing is it’s a little bit of trial and error. And I talked to some newer attorneys who are going out trying to open their firms, you get swept up in this marketing thing. You know, these larger companies that I won’t name come in and promise you the world and they say they’ll do everything for you. But it’s very bland content that they’re doing on your marketing. They all have the exact same idea and it just doesn’t work in a competitive market anymore. So what I’ve been doing is I’ve been really focusing on looking at other businesses, not the law and seeing what they’re doing to bring clients in and seeing what works for them. So I’ve been using jayway informz likes to use updates on our social media just to show that we’re out there. And we’re not just a boring law firm because people want content that they can share. They don’t want a lawyer until they absolutely need one, we do a couple of marketing things where we’re trying to get to know. So I’d like to primarily practice in DUI law and DUI clients, especially first timers. So I’ve been partnering up with a number of local bars here in town, we sponsor the one party bus that’s in Colorado Springs, and it’s just a blast. And we do ticket giveaways to make people aware of our firm and connect with the local business owners. And that is nice, because number one, those people are just good people to hang out with, they always are willing to share ideas, and we can share marketing ideas, and get to know them on a basic human level. And then they refer people to us. And then the other thing that we’re doing is trying to make the client experience as smooth as possible so that we get referrals from the clients, not from other lawyers. As far as getting the people to actually hire us. That’s never really been an issue for me. Because once I sat down and realized that people just want to talk about themselves, that’s all you got to do. You just sit there and listen to them talk about themselves, the less that you say in a meeting, the more they’re going to want to hire you, which is a little bit difficult for me to actually execute, because as you can tell, I talk quite a bit. But once you realize that if you just ask them questions, from a very novice perspective, they don’t need someone to talk at them and tell them the law. They know your lawyer, they know that you know what you’re talking about. They need to know that you hear them. So really, from a sales perspective, I’ve looked at other business industries. So what you were saying about the car dealership really resonates because all they’re doing is making you feel heard and wanted. And that’s all anybody wants. I mean, it’s basic human nature. So I think the biggest problem for DEA is going from a DHS office to a criminal firm is they’re used to thinking about the law and the law only, and they’re not used to seeing people. Once you can flip that perspective, and realize that you’re just dealing with people and getting people to like you which they’re not known for being trained to do. It really it becomes pretty simple.
Jim Hacking
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Jim Hacking
We’re talking today with Alexis Austin, an attorney and maximum lawyer from Colorado Springs in the Lexus. Let me applaud you for your willingness to look outside the legal community for guidance on how to run your firm and to take it to the next level. What have been some of the resources outside of the law that have pushed you into more of a business owner mindset than a law firm mindset?
Alexis Austin
Honestly, I sit down. And this is not a shameless plug for you guys. But I sat down at one point and made a list of every single tip and hack that you guys had referred. And we just started knocking them out. I’ve got I’m in my home office right now. And I’ve got just bookshelves of business books, trying to see what other people are saying is working. I connect with other service industries to try to talk with them. I’ve got a really good colleague right now who is a dentist here in town who just opened up a practice this spring and bouncing ideas off them seeing what other people are doing. Because I think one of the issues that I mean, we you all talk about this a lot in the podcast, too is law is changing and it’s ever evolving. And the problem is, is most lawyers aren’t. So by reaching out and talking to other business owners, you get different perspectives for how things are working or not working, that most lawyers aren’t doing. So I tried to go on I’m always on social media, following all of the Entrepreneur Magazine things looking at all of the small business ownership, Facebook groups that we have here in Colorado Springs looking at issues that people are saying, in my downtime. I’ve gotten a little bit dorky and I sit there and I watch the Netflix and Amazon series on you know Bill Gates and how Apple came up and just looking at all these other companies seeing there is a time and place where all of these companies especially I Apple and Amazon were very, very small ideas that just took off because of different innovative techniques that people use. And people think, well, that applies to technology, not to service industry. But I disagree, because at this point, Amazon is a service provider for goods and services, and then all of these other products. So looking at what they did, and the creative approaches they took has helped me come up with different ideas for how to market my firm. So for example, like I said, we’re transitioning from criminal defense into estate planning, the idea is to eventually be split into not two different firms. But we do have two different URLs and two different practice areas. And so for our Estate Planning, we’re doing webinars now, because for some reason, Joey fedeli, was talking about this, and actually sat down and watched his webinars, well, people like those, you see all these millennials talking about how to make all of this money on social media just by watching their webinar, and people are eating it up. So why not get into that? Why not figure out how to market the law in a way that people are actually consuming on social media and other platform. But really, it’s just keeping an open mind looking at the way that other people are doing things, and not my least favorite phrase in the world as well. That’s the way we’ve always done it. Because yeah, it worked back then. But you need to figure out what’s going to happen next year and be one step ahead of the curve. So that you’re right there when people are looking at these new locations.
Tyson Mutrux
So first, the Bill Gates, documentary on Netflix is really cool. It’s interesting as a fuse, you should watch it. The other thing is, I’m a firm believer that things like estate planning, that’s like selling a product, it’s like selling a pair of shoes, you can drive traffic with that stuff. And so you think that’s great that you’re doing that I mean, so the webinars is really, really smart. So for those of you that do things like that you can drive track, it’s not, it’s not like a car crash, I’ve gotta wait for someone to get in a wreck for you all, you can drive the traffic. So I think it’s super smart. And the more activity that you that you do, the more you hustle, the more money you’re gonna make. It’s just like, it’s kind of like a sales job, like you’re selling insurance, or you’re selling, you know, some sort of financial product. The more people you touch, the more money you’re going to make. It’s just, it’s just basic math. And so I think that that’s really, really smart. So, so good, as do my question is radically different than anything that we’re just talking about. What is one thing that you know, you should stop doing that you have not stopped doing? And why?
Alexis Austin
So my associate will tell you, this is probably the most brutally honest answer, I should stop doing the law. You know, you’re told to sit down and look at everything that you have on your to do list and see what it is. It’s always the last thing that you’re doing. I am a little hesitant to say this on a lawyer podcast. But for me, it’s the law. i They say you know that if you’re working, maybe it’s a criminal law thing. But it’s about that five to seven years where you either burnout or you get your second when I’m getting burned out on all of the contentious aspects of the law, the marketing, the service, industry side of things. That’s what really appeals to me. I love teaching new attorneys. I love working with employees, I love building things. And obviously, you have to have a law degree to own a law firm. But the laws the thing that I just It doesn’t it doesn’t enliven me as much as everything else. Good. The better narrowed down answer is right now I have a state contract where I’m dealing with state paid clients. We call it alternative defense counsel. And that I think that may be part of it, where I’m not getting to pick and choose my clients, I’m getting thrust with these clients who just will not follow through, they won’t do anything, they keep committing new crimes while I’m trying to represent them and get them out of the other one. Most of them have at least five or six different files open at one time. So in a shorter term, since I think getting rid of my state pay contracts, I can focus more on my business and more on getting the clients that our lawyers need is a much more realistic answer. But honestly, if I could, you know, I like to talk I like to go to court, I like to get that adrenaline kick every once in awhile. So I wouldn’t give it up completely. But backing off from practicing the law as much as building the business is my long term goal. And if I could get rid of that ABC contracts, then that would be my first step 10, toward getting more invested on working on the business. And there’s nothing
Jim Hacking
wrong with that. Love. For my last question, you and I are going through the same thing. We had an associate decide to leave week or two ago to go back to New England. And so I’m wondering how do you handle that transition? Do you have any tips for people who are going through a loss of an associate like that?
Alexis Austin
Yeah. On a personal level, it is tough. It is really tough not to say snarky things. Obviously, you’re gonna think it’s but it’s really tough not to say anything and to not show that you’re hurt. And maybe it’s from a personal level because we are such a small firm, that maybe it just hits me more personally than it would if it was larger. I think for me on that specific issue is that she left to do the exact same thing I’m doing using my ideas. So that was just an extra twist of the dagger. So on a personal level, I think it’s really, really important to make sure that you are being honest with yourself about what happened there and evaluating why they left, and being careful to not talk about just Mac. So what I did my initial reaction was, oh, no, how could you but then I really sat down and thought about it. And I looked, and I asked her, you know, what is it that you’re wanting to do? What is it that you want to do differently, and I tried to dig in and figure out what it was that caused her to want to leave. Because as a business owner, it’s ultimately your responsibility to keep your employees happy to make sure they feel safe and secure in their job. And to make sure that they’re getting the most out of what they’re doing with you. Her biggest complaint was money, she said she wasn’t making enough. And I could go into all kinds of reasons why I think she wasn’t. But at the end of the day, that was her concern. And so based on that feedback that I got, that’s when we started offering two different paths for attorneys to either do salary pay or commission pay, because some people don’t thrive well on commission pay. So I think really evaluating why the left is key and making sure that you also even if you’re going to take it personally don’t say anything. So please keep us in our little group. And it’s difficult, but you still are going to have to work with that person, if they’re going to be in the same field. So you want to make sure that you support them as much as you can and figure out how to use the feedback that they give you to improve yourself in your practice.
Tyson Mutrux
Hi, very good stuff. I do want to wrap things up before I do I want to remind everyone go to the Facebook group get engaged there a lot of great information being shared every single minute, kind of nuts. It was early on Jim and I were like, oh please someone post please someone post and now it’s like, every minute something’s going on. It’s kind of crazy. So it’s really cool. Also, reminder register for the conference, we have confirmed it’s Ameristar casino and hotel in St. Charles, which is basically the same distance the other way from the airport. And so make sure you register for the conference. It’s gonna be freaking awesome. If you went the last two years, this one is going to be just bananas. And so Gemini really, really excited. So I’m glad you’re excited. hopefully everyone’s excited because it’s, it’s gonna be awesome. And then also remember the ZAP Athan the fuel a fuel to learn about automation and getting in to Zapier registered for that conference. We’re going to do some basically intro videos to Zapier over the next couple of weeks, so everyone can see and get their Zapier account set up and kind of dip their toe in automation. So we’re gonna do that over the next few weeks with Kelsey Bratcher. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week.
Jim Hacking
Everyone is still calling it Zapier. He stopped himself once and then he slid right back into it at Zapier.
Tyson Mutrux
I can’t help myself. Like it’s I’m trying so hard to say Zapier and it’s so hard.
Jim Hacking
So file this one in the Stop the bullshit category. I have just finished my list of excuses. And I’ve written them all down on a piece of paper. And on Thanksgiving morning, I’m going to light that paper on fire and burn all my excuses. But before I burn the excuses, I’m going to write down on another page, the opposite of my excuses. And that’s going to that’s going to become my life marching orders. So I’m really excited about that. It’s been great to write down my excuses just to hear them out loud and to see them on paper. And so my hack of the week is go through that exercise. Then like that bad boy on fire. Let that crap go. You’ll be off to the races.
Tyson Mutrux
That is my favorite hack have ever heard from you. That is so amazing. I like that. That’s really really good. Jimbo, Jimbo, Mr. Ronnie Jimbo, instead of Jimmy, and Alexis, what is your tip or hack of the week?
Alexis Austin
I’m gonna be annoying. I’ve got a tip and a hack. The tip is do what you feel is right. Don’t conform yourself to what the practice of law says that you should do or what other people say my biggest failures in my firm has been when I took other people’s advice, even though it felt counterintuitive to what I wanted to do. And as a hack, a practical hack, because we’re building businesses and we’re trying to make sure that we’ve got everything stable. Obviously, we can’t stress systems enough. But one easy thing that I’ve seen, I know some people do a much more built out model like with triennial. But I found if you just make a simple Google website with your procedure written out, you can then embed loom videos L O M, it takes no time at all to create them. It just is very intuitive. And it’s free for a certain number of videos. So I highly recommend using loom to document in multiple different ways how you do your processes, so that the next person to come along and watch it is basically dummy proof.
Tyson Mutrux
Super cool. All right. So my tip is to save you some more money again, I like saving your money like saving myself money. And this all I started doing this since I got this tip from Seth price two years ago. And I think I may have even shared it on the podcast because it had to do with coffee, but this is just just sort of a riff on that. So Seth had found that if he were to just be If we buy all of his coffee, through Bed Bath and Beyond using that 20% coupon, then he could save tons of money. And we’ve done the same thing. So my tip is keep whoever does the purchasing in your firm, as those coupons come in from those vendors that you use on a regular basis, save those coupons. And then wherever you make that bulk purchase, use those coupons. So keep them in one place. And you can even organize them if you want to actually get a stack of them. But I guarantee if you add up the number, the amount of money that you save, by using all those, you’re gonna save 1000s of dollars a year. And so keep those in one place, don’t just throw them in the trash, because there actually is some value to those things. And because most likely those same vendors that you deal with on a regular basis, are the ones that are sending you those coupons. And then the other thing is, this is a little go a little bit further with it. You can also download that Chrome extension honey, that will also find coupons for you. So that’s another an easier way of doing it. So that is my tip of the week. Alexis, thanks so much for coming on. It’s been great, awesome learning about you, learning from you. So thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next week.
