In this episode, Jim & Tyson interview Todd Smith, an appellate lawyer from Austin, Texas who runs his own law firm; Smith Nobles Appeals and is the president-elect of the Austin Bar Association. Listen as they go over Todd’s business and discuss about his mindset running his firm and helping lawyers with appeals, marketing strategies and systems, paying special attention to the importance of building personal relationships and networking.
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Topics:
- Todd’s Journey to managing partner of a small law firm
- Judicial clerkship with the Texas Supreme Court > Interest in Civil Appellate work
- Big Law
- Wanted to be a Texas Lawyer
- Went Solo and hanged his own shingle
- Formed a Law Corporation and took in Partners
- Lawyers can’t handle their own appeals?
- Mindset
- Persuade a trial lawyer to hire an appeal lawyer
“Look, you are really good in what you do, you are a successful trial lawyer, you get good results for your clients, and if you don’t get a good result you are smart enough to handle an appeal. But what you really ought to be able to do is focus on what you do best, and this is what we do… (...) We want to help you strategize... ”
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- Marketing towards Attorneys or Clients
- Best work comes from referrals
- Lead magnets
- Re-design of website
- 2019’s first quarter goals
- Intake process
- Calls > System > Information > Engagement
- Building Systems
- Forethought and planning
- Technician or entrepreneur
- Executing
- Time management
- Michael Hyatt fan
- Problem: execution of the plan
- Logistics: Having an office in Austin and an office in Houston
- Advice bringing your spouse into your firm
- Set up boundaries
- Don’t let the office stuff spill into every aspect of your personal life
- Marketing towards Attorneys or Clients
- Networking
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- Social media relationships
- What really made a difference for Todd was real facetime and establishing personal relationships
Register for the MaxLawCon19!
Thanks so much for listening to the show! If you want to know more about this and keep on maximizing your firm, please join our Facebook Group or like us on Facebook and comment!
You can also go to MaximumLawyer.com or, if you’d prefer, email us at: [email protected]
Jim’s hack: James Clear, sends out an email at the end of every year with a link to all of the book summaries that he’s read that year. Interesting, useful and shareable content.
Todd’s tip: A time management app based on the Pomodoro technique. Focus Keeper.
Tyson’s tip: A technology test website for when you are hiring employees. Employ Test.
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The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up, and maximize your firm.
In this pop-up episode, Tyson interviews Diana Stepleton, VP Partner Engagement at Ruby Receptionists. Good news! Ruby Receptionists is launching a new product specifically designed for solo lawyers, and Diana will tell us everything about it.
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“That caller is so much more likely to become a client when a nice friendly person answers the phone.”
The Solo Product
Designed trully for a solo, it provides a phone number and it provides Ruby’s app; with 30 minutes of receptionist time. If most of the time you are available and you are taking your own calls, but sometimes you are in court or busy and you don’t want to miss that potential new client call, and you wanna make sure that someone live, friendly and helpful captures that, this product is for you.
The Website:
The plans:
Maximum Lawyer listeners receive $75 off the first full month! Simply mention promo code
MAXLAW.
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Thanks so much for listening to the show! If you want to know more about this and keep on maximizing your firm, please join our Facebook Group or like us on Facebook and comment!
You can also go to MaximumLawyer.com or, if you’d prefer, email us at: [email protected]
Do you want to get on the show? Shoot us an email or message us!
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up, and maximize your firm.
Are you taking your solo lawyer practice seriously?
The 5 signs that you are not taking your solo lawyer thing seriously
1. You answer your own phone.
- It telegraphs to potential clients that you’re really not that busy.
- It telegraphs that you don’t have enough business going on to be able to support someone answering your phone.
- It demonstrates you are sort of desperate for the call.
- It keeps you from doing good work. It distracts you.
- It is a lack of time management.
- Clients are expecting a receptionist. It’s more professional.
2. You have a non professional email account.
- You need to look professional. Be professional.
3. You meet with potential clients at Starbucks or Panera.
- It telegraphs you are small potatoes, and that you don’t make enough money to spend money on an office, or you don’t care enough.
- You need an office. Because of what it represents, because of the privacy.
4. You lower your fee when pressured by a potential client.
- Set a fee which is fair to you and fair to your client.
- You don’t wanna be dealing with client who are looking for the lowest cost denominator.
- It telegraphs to clients that we as lawyers will fold to others when dealing with another attorney or the government.
- It sets the tone for the relationship. Clients could end up bossing you around.
- People are smart, they are gonna try to get the best deal possible.
5. You offer many practice areas in your website.
- This telegraphs that you will do anything.
- It shows you don’t have the systems nor the expertise built out to handle a particular matter.
- How can you target with so many practice areas!?
Hacking’s Hack: Don’t work at home, work in the office. Stop looking at your phone, emails, to-dos, etc once you get out of the office. This will give you time to be with yourself and your family. Read books. Spend quality time with your kids.
Tyson’s Tip: The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies. By Chet Holmes. Portfolio; Reprint edition (May 27, 2008). The best book on how to run your business.
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up, and maximize your firm.
As your firm gets larger...
In this episode Tyson and Jim discuss about the perks of managing a growing firm.
As you hire more people, there are more people that are dependant of you. Sometimes this consumes your time and your energy. Don't become a bottleneck in your firm.
Keep track of what it is that needs to get done. Make a list and then figure out who's the best to do it. This will give you more space and time to you to make the things YOU need to do.
KPI: Key Performance Indicators: Things that you can identify, you can look at, that give an idea of what the direction of your firm is. For example: new clients, new leads. If you have your KPI’s in place you can correctly determine whether to hire or not a new employee or which decisions should be made. Put plans in place and follow through.
Hiring employees is difficult and expensive. Not financially but everything else> the time assisting, developing and growing them.
Sometimes, hiring a non experienced employee is better. They don’t have preconceived notions coming to the office and you can train them the way you need.
Hacking’s Hack:
Zig Ziglar’s podcast. https://www.ziglar.com/
Automobile University. You can learn and listen in your car as you commute or travel.
Get the most out of everything. Maximize.
Tyson’s Tip:
The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea (Bob Burg, John David Mann, Penguin UK, 25 feb. 2010).
You give more to referral partners, to your clients, you give and you receive. A simple book, it breaks things down for you with 5 principles.
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up and maximize your firm!
What would be the one thing you'd like to tell yourself if you could go back in time and give yourself a piece of advice?
In this episode Tyson and Jim discuss about things they both wished they had known when they started their firm.
Branding: changing the name of your firm. KNOW your demographics, it will help you choose an adequate name. Putting your name on the firm's name is not always a good idea; don´t make everything about you, try to use the service you provide instead.
Make sure you make up a system to take track of everyone who contacts your law firm. Build a database. Get your clients information, it will be of value. Use call scripts.
Segmentation: make sure you choose and work with the right clients.
Hackings Hack: Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You (John Warrillow, Penguin, 2013)
Great book for lawyers to read and to think about as they start building their practice.
Tysons Tip: UpWork.
You can hire all kinds of assistants. It saves you a lot of money and it gets things done. Your firm running 24hrs.
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up, and maximize your firm!
In this episode Tyson and Jim discuss about how to work ON your law firm instead of IN your law firm. Building systems is fundamental.
Building systems and building for the future is gonna make a better lawyer. You´re gonna be more efficient, you´re gonna provide better service to your clients, you´re gonna get a better result. Use your present time to make your future better.
Choose wisely your experts and consultants. Keep it simple. And don´t rely that much on other people, at the end of the day, you´re the one using the system.
Tyson´s Tip: Communication with your team, it´s important. Slack. www.slack.com
You can share everything and keep your communication in ONE place. It´s free.
Hacking´s Hack: The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber.
How to think about your business. Entrepreneur + Manager + Tactician. Learn how to balance your focus.
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up and maximize your firm!
In this episode Tyson and Jim introduce themselves and tell us how they began their law journey.
Hacking´s Hack: Go on and listen to Dean Jackson and Joe Polish talk about marketing in their podcast - http://ilovemarketing.com/
Go back and start from the beginning, there are lots of great podcasts about marketing!
Before unit, during unit, and after unit: you come upon them at different stages of your project. Learn how to manage them.
Tyson´s Tip: Basic, but elemental: The Top Five.
Every day you should write 5 things to be done. The same with your week. At the end of the day and the week they must be done. Small tasks are just fine, but write them done and get them done, this will keep you moving forward. Green pen for the completed tasks, and red for the non completed. You will hate to take out that red pen!
The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. Partner up and maximize your firm!
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