Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: A great one that I did that's been super popular is I bought an ice cream truck and I wrapped it in my law firm. And because I'm involved in the philanthropic community, we've got a website for the ice cream truck, and any charity can register for the charity event and have my ice cream truck go and give away free ice cream during the event.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners Podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin Daisy. Let's jump in. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners Podcast. I'm Kevin Daisy and I'm your host. And I have a familiar face has been on the podcast, I believe, at least once, maybe twice. We've been trying to get together and to record some more, but Craig Golden Farb's on the show with Gold Law, and he is.
I call him a madman.
Craig has got some awesome habits and things that he does and how he runs his business is unique. And you can learn a ton from Craig if you haven't seen him anywhere else, if you. If you get the chance to. To see him speak, you know, listen to him.
And so today we're going to go over a couple different things and just have some fun and, and chop it up and, and Craig can share so much. So we're just going to get a little piece of.
Of what he can share today, and I'm excited to have him back on the show. So, Craig, thanks for joining me again.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: You're welcome. Pleasure to be on again. Kevin, Love, love being on it.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So Craig just got back from a family trip with his wife to Japan. We were just chatting about that. So.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So even that might tie into our
[00:01:50] Speaker B: conversation a little bit, too.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: It might. I. I promised my wife five years ago, minimum of eight vacations a year. And we have stuck to that because we have a life coach that we work with. One of the crazy things I do is have a life coach and executive coach. And as I realized that the busier I got, the more danger I was having at home. So we committed to eight vacations a year several years ago. And it wasn't just a matter of whether you have the money. It's whether you can actually set up a company where you can leave eight times and the company doesn't fall apart. So that's a story in and of itself, as I just said, is can you create a space for your family outside of your business? And that was an intentional move I had to make in order to Preserve my sanity.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: And you know, I'm sure a lot of people just heard that and go, eight, eight vacations.
Yeah. So that's where we want to get right folks. The law firm shouldn't run you.
And yeah, it can cause a lot of issues.
Entrepreneurship is difficult. It can lead to, you know, bad things and at home, so something we gotta monitor and keep control of. But if you build a business properly and by design.
Right. Then we can still take advantage of those things and create the time that we need.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Being an entrepreneur is all encompassing and it becomes addictive and it certainly did for me.
And then it has its cost at home. And so many lawyers are addicted to this. Or divorced five times or the kids hate them or it just, it takes its toll and you can easily let the law firm swallow you up. And that was happening to me many years ago and I didn't really want that to be my future.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Well, good on you for recognizing that and doing something about it. I've been a business owner since I was 23, so my kids were born while I was a business owner. And over almost 25 years now that um, I've been self employed and, and so yeah, it's, it's your whole life, everything. Right. There's no, well, I'm this during the day and then I shut it up. You know, when you're in a business, it's 247 at least up here. It can be destructive.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: The challenge of being present at home is a whole topic of speech in and of itself. And my wife is a public speaker on work life balance to lawyers. So it's good, it's a good accountability for me when she speaks at a seminar right after I do and tells me how, how I'm failing and throws me under the bus, which is awesome. So it's kind of a nice one two punch. When I speak, I often say, I'm only going to speak at your seminar if you let my wife speak right after me. And they say, what are you talking about? And it's, it's, It's a nice 1:2 combo once you hear it.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: That's awesome. I love that. I was actually, this is Max Law brought their conference back last year and I'm excited I'll be speaking at, at the conference this year. But they had a spouse like, you know, with company owners like, you know, husband and wife session, which was kind of cool.
Yeah, so they had, yeah, they had different law firms and other companies that, you know, are owned by a husband and wife and they work together and just kind of got out there and, and, and told the different, you know, stories and, and challenges and things that they do. So I thought that was really cool to see about whether or not your wife is in your business, your husband's in your business, they're part of it one way or another because it is your whole life, it's your world, it's, you know, you bring it home, you know, so, so that's very interesting to. So Craig, I wanted to jump in a little bit, you know, things that you're doing right now in your business. And again, Craig is always innovated. He, he runs his business like the book Traction. I'm pointing that behind me here.
Yeah, I'm sure he knows that inside now, but he has KPIs, he has dashboards, he has numbers to his fingertips, like so. Yeah, again, when I say, you know, Craig's up to stuff, you know, you know, listen to this episode and, and, and take what you can. So.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Well, I'm big into numbers and KPIs, but I also, I, I fashion myself as a creative person so I spend a good third of my week with marketing and business development because I like doing that and a lot of lawyers don't. So the first piece of advice I usually give is if you don't like doing that, it's a necessary part of your company. So hire someone who does. So whether it's a fractional CMO or a full time chief marketing officer, you need sales and you need marketing in your company. And in my Firm I have 11 people in marketing and me. So I am somewhat creative. So we have a total of 12 people in marketing in my law firm. That creates quite a bit of content and quite a bit of things. So even if you have.
I was just got back from lunch with a CEO of a charity and I advised him his first marketing hire should be an intern at a college who's getting a marketing degree. And that was, my first hire was a $15 marketing intern. And if you don't do this stuff yourself, you need someone to do it. You don't need a cfo and that's cheap. So yeah, if anybody has no marketer and they've got six employees and they're like, I don't have time for marketing. Well, you do have marketing, you're just not doing any of it. So why don't you just get, go to the local college and get some student who'll do it either for free or for 15, 20 bucks an hour.
You know, I'm lucky Enough to have an entire marketing department. But for anybody who's thinking, who doesn't, 15 bucks an hour is all it takes to start a marketing department.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: And a lot of cases, these colleges, and we've used plenty of interns ourselves, even as a marketing agency as they want to get started or we wanted some extra help or just to help out the colleges and the students, but they actually put out work product. But in a lot of cases they need credits, they need to do externships or internships, you know, so these, these folks are looking not just for that, the experience, but they're also looking for a position, hopefully once they graduate.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Great option.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: So I, you know, I personally, I, I do, I do all the regular forms of marketing for my pretty large law firm. I do tv, radio, buses, billboards, bus benches, bus shelters, digital everything that some of the fairly large firms do. But, but I differentiate myself really in a couple of ways that other law firms don't do.
And a lot of them are just very creative. I'm very involved in the philanthropic community and charities. And most law firms either don't have the time to do that or the interest or the desire, but that's an untapped market of influencers. And by influencers, I don't mean social media people. I mean charities come into contact with hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of people.
And I, I run two of my businesses are that I run two charities. So I'm in the. There's a nonprofit chamber of commerce in Palm Beach County, Florida. So it's not the chamber of commerce, it's the nonprofit chamber of commerce. And you have to be a charity to be a member. So I live in Palm Beach County, Florida. I qualify because I own two charities. So I'm the only lawyer in this organization. And how often do we as lawyers go to a marketing event or participate in a marketing thing where we're the only lawyer in the room? Those are the rooms I want to be in. Because when I'm in the room at an MRI center open house and there's 60 other lawyers in the room, that's got no marketing value to me. But when I'm in the room of 300 charity CEOs and I sponsored the event, think of the marketing ROI on being a member of that organization. So I really try to use the term thinking outside the box, you know, old and used term. But I really try to be creative and do things that other lawyers don't do. So, you know, being involved in the philanthropic community is one of the many Things I do that's different and I spend a lot of my time thinking of what's different. And you know, a great one I did that's been super popular is I bought an ice cream truck and I wrapped it in my law firm. And because I'm involved in a philanthropic community, we've got a website for the ice cream truck and any charity can register for the charity event to have my ice cream truck go and give away free ice cream during the event. And it's free. So what charity is going to say no? So now my ice cream truck is booked out for the next six months. It's wrapped Gold Law, you know, my law firm, and it sits there and there's a line, a 20 minute line to stare at my truck and get a free popsicle, basically.
So, you know, that's something that I stole from a bank in Texas. I saw a bank in Texas do that. I'm like, why can't I use that for my law firm? So be careful, you know, and the ROI on that is ridiculous. People call and say, I was at a charity event, I saw your truck. So you know, who, what other law firm has an ice cream truck? You know, so I don't know any.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: I know a lot of law firms, so I don't know one that has an ice cream truck.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: So I do have 11 people in marketing who helped me come up with creative stuff. I also come up with some creative stuff. But, you know, thinking differently than other lawyers is something that lawyers don't think they have the time to do. I'm like, if you don't have the time to do it, to think, then you don't have the time to grow.
And I grow by doing things that other lawyers don't do.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: No, I, I love that. And it's, it's so easy just to fall into, you know, the normal channels, you know, and check the boxes and say, okay, we have to do this, we have to do that.
And you know, we talk to our clients all the time, like brainstorming on things, other things they can do like that we don't do. We don't get paid to do stuff that we, we can't help you do that. The law firms need to be engaged with. They have to be engaged in the community. They have to get outside the box. And different communities have different opportunities. And when I started, I used to build websites, Craig, back in the day, just for local businesses before I had a law firm marketing agency. And my, my best way in and meeting people was being on boards and charities and serving and just meeting people.
And that opened up all the doors for me back in the day, you know, 15, 20 years ago.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: It's got to be something you're passionate about. I mean, I happen to be passionate about charities, but I. When I train my lawyers on how to market, and I do that with my attorneys, I don't talk to them about cases because I'm not interested in any law like that. I don't talk about law ever in my firm. But I do marketing training for my attorneys. And I say, tell me your. Even if they have kids, because kids are your hobby when you have kids. But I say, before you had kids or what you want to do, what's your favorite thing to do? And it's usually fishing or golf or karate or soccer or whatever. For me, it's soccer. So I say, just take two of those things. All my lawyers have a favorite thing they do. It might be fishing, it might be mountain biking, it might be whatever. And I say, do you like that? And they're like, yeah. And I say, well, let's. Let's focus your marketing. I'll give you 2,000 bucks this year, my money. And we're going to spend 2,000 bucks on developing you in the mountain bike community, because you're a mountain biker, and we're going to dominate mountain bikers in Palm beach county, and we're going to sponsor every mountain bike race. And your name. And my name's gonna be on the back of the shirts. And anything involving mountain biking, you're gonna go to, and I'm gonna pay for it.
So whether you're an associate or a founder of a law firm, pick two things that you love and market the hell out of those for me at soccer. Cause that's my passion. I sponsor so many damn soccer teams, soccer events, soccer watch parties. I'm doing a full World cup package on television. I'm on cable TV for all the soccer games internationally. Soccer is my thing, and I own the soccer community. And there are not a lot of lawyers in my area that are passionate about soccer. So whatever your thing is, if you like it, you'll do it. If you hate going to happy hour, don't go to happy hours. You're gonna hate it. But if you like something, do it. I love charities and I love soccer, so those are two of my major things.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: I think that's a great piece of advice, you know, having those things that you like, because, you know, for you, you're excited to see yourself go to events to see, watch the soccer games. You're, you're part of that community. You're not forcing it. You're, you're authentic. I mean, I see a lot of law firms trying to do stuff that's just not authentic. Like, we love to ride Harley's too. And you're looking at the lawyer like there's no way they, they like to ride Harleys. They're trying to go after the, the motorcycle community. But that's just not a true, you know, passion of theirs.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: You can tell it's not authentic. And you got to be authentic. I can be authentic about charitable involvement and about soccer. Those are two things that are easy for me. So I'll do them because I like them.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: And, and you know, you just, you mentioned like mountain bikes. I'm thinking about my neighborhoods and community around here. There's like the road bikers. I mean, there's shops and bike shops and stores and events and like there's, you know, you can niche down what. But whatever you like. To your point, you know me, I love surfing. I've been surfing my whole life.
You know, if whatever you're into, I think you can, you can find a way to lean into that and again, doing something you enjoy, which is going to help you personally get more joy out of, of what you're doing.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: So, and I hope at this stage in your career, if you're listening, that you didn't give up everything you enjoyed when you became a business owner. I found when I was in my 20s and 30s, that I started to give up some things. And then I went to a seminar in Orlando and the speaker called those the Eustas. I used to play tennis, I used to golf, I used to read. And he said, and I was 32 years old. And that hits hard because he said, hey, you hardworking entrepreneurs, you don't do what you used to do, but it caused you joy. You're giving up joy. So let's, let's identify those uses and figure out a way to work them back in your life. Even if you're married and even if you have a one year old and a three year old, it makes you whole and complete as a human. You've got to get those yas back in your life. And I thought that was so powerful. I was 32 years old and I was working like 80 hours a week and I had stopped playing soccer and I'd stopped working out. And I love both things. And I, I was looked at myself and I was like, I'm not, I'm not, I Don't feel complete. I don't feel whole. So I reinstated and reinstated those things back in my life, and they've never left. I don't have any use to.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: I love it, man. That's. I've done stuff hitting hard for some folks. That definitely was my situation as well, you know, and so I've definitely changed that, I think. I've been snowboarding, I don't know, eight times this year. So the, the season's over pretty much for me, but.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: But, you know, I used to go once a year or not at all surfing too. Right. So, yeah, you can't let those things slip and just make excuses and say, well, this is my life now. I gotta run. This, this now firm that runs me.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: I can't do anything opposite. I think if you, if you feed that love, feed that joy, you become more productive because you feel better about yourself, whatever it is, because you're still feeding your passion, whatever it was. And everybody's got a happy place, whether it's. Whether it's. Mountain biking or surfing or snowboarding or whatever it is, fishing, that's where you feel at home, and that's your zone. And if you rob yourself of that just to take an extra deposition or work an extra two hours, your business is going to fail, I'll tell you that. Because you're not going to be happy. And then it's going to take its toll on your mental health and your physical.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Then every day is, I have to show up and do this. I have to be here. I have to. I can't do those other things versus you get to go do those things at your leisure, plan it out, and you come back ready to work. And, and because it. That work is enjoyable again and it's allowing you to do those things that you love to do.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Whether it's the time, money, whatever. Um, so now it becomes like, oh, I. I get to work, I get to do this. Like, and then I can go do the things I want to do and I can help others get to do things they want to do. My employees, my team.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, I spent a long time. Fifteen years ago, I'm transitioning from lawyer to CEO, and I haven't touched a case in 15 years. And I'm not saying that's right. It was right for me because I didn't miss it, and I didn't need client interaction. I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew that I wanted to be a CEO, and I knew I was like a decent lawyer. But I wasn't happy.
And so I really had to go inwards and figure out what makes me happy. And it was all business. It was all business development, marketing, all the things that I wasn't doing. And that's all I do now all day is administrative, organizational leadership, business development, marketing. That's all I do. I don't. I have 1500 cases and I know about three of them. Three. And they're all worth eight figures each of those three. So that's the only reason I know about them, as I should probably know. So when someone says, how's my case going? I laugh because I don't know. I have no idea. And nobody. They hire my law firm. They don't hire me.
They're hiring my law firm. Because we have a structure in our law firm that gets results.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Exactly. It's, it's, you know, what they're, they're hiring is the process, the efficiency, you know, the, the results that are predictable. Right. Because you put a process in place and you, you fine tune the machine. That's what people should be looking for.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Versus why I rebranded Florida. I had to go to the Florida bar and get approved for a trade name, but I took my name out of the law firm about eight years ago. I used to be law offices of Craig Golden Farb. I realized that fit in with my business model because people would want Craig Golden Farb. So we changed to Gold Law and rebranded everything, got it approved by the bar and I've been Gold Law ever since. And that took a mental shift and an ego hit because now it's not law office as Craig Golden Far by my famous identity now it's that I'm the CEO of Gold Law, which is a different entity and it's a process. So you're not hiring Craig, you're not expecting to talk to Craig?
Because I don't talk. I don't have any clients. So, you know, even, even that was an intentional decision that when I became a CEO, I knew I wasn't going to be a lawyer.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, you know, that's what makes, you know, you different. And those folks listening. Yeah. You, you started as a lawyer, the technician. Right.
Where most companies start. I'm good at plumbing, so I'm going to start a plumbing company.
But you can make the decision, you know, do you want to be a lawyer? Is that what you're best at, is what you're passionate about? Or you, like, love the law, the business of it, and you decide to, to become a business owner, a CEO, and Some to do, some do both.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: You can do both. You can do both. It's just a cost benefit analysis to how much law you do. And a lot of people, I've heard this sentence like a hundred times. I want to Cherry Pick the 5 or best 10 best cases in my office and just work on those.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: I've heard that a lot.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: That seems to be like, on everybody's business card.
That's. That's every lawyer's dream, except mine is like, I want to cherry pick the fiber, Ted Fast. And then when I hear that and I coach, I coach a lot of PI law firms, I say, well, what are you doing to go towards that? And their answer is nothing. So if they're not doing anything to get towards that, then if you're not doing anything to get towards that goal, then you can just say that the rest of your life is, I want to cherry pick five or 10 cases. But you actually got to work to get to that point.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a good point. I, I hear that a lot from folks that's. That say, yeah, I just work on some cases that I. That I want.
Or that's the goal, if you will. But you know, what's really the.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Like, how do you get there? Unless you're coached or unless you. You have a plan, you can't get there because you don't have the infrastructure in place to stop you from handling a hundred cases. So you got to create that infrastructure to either get to zero, like I did, or because I'm wanting to, or to get to 5 to 10, which you can do if you want to be in the courtroom. If you love being a lawyer and you love clients, then keep your cases, some of them. But it will. The cost of that is it slows down your growth, and that's okay, because it's your happy place. My happy place was not the courtroom. It just wasn't. But a lot of lawyers it is, and that's fine. I'm an extreme example.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, if people want
[00:21:37] Speaker A: to handle some cases, and that's fine.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah. If you want to be the lawyer, the best lawyer, and continue to educate and become a better lawyer, then you. You're going to have to fill in the gaps. You have to hire a C suite and. Or a CEO or someone to take over those responsibilities. If that's not what you're going to do. I've seen some firms, you know, some firms have a partner or two or three, and they'll kind of slice up those responsibilities. Someone's Ever Marketing, sales, someone's over, you know, operations.
So I've seen that. But you know, neither of them really were probably experience in those areas. It's just kind of what they, they divvied up in areas that they thought they'd be best.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a flawed model in that it's like having three administrative partners who weren't, who weren't trained in those departments. So I'm a big traction fan. For those of you who haven't read it, you know, it's a book by Gino Wickman. And one of the theories of eos, which is the system entrepreneurial operating system in traction is basically, if you're going to run a good business, hire non lawyers to run your departments and hire executives with executive skills. I mean, none of the people who run in my departments are lawyers except my chief legal officer. I have five other executives and none of them came from law.
None of them came from law. They had the business skills and then they came from other industries. And business skills are transferable. So my head of IT never was in a law firm. My head of sales intake never was in a law firm. They ran a sales floor. My.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: That's similar to my model with. They weren't marketing people. Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: You know, my head of marketing came from another industry.
None of them, none of my C suite executives came from law. And I think that as scary as that is, it works. And the best story is my chief operating officer was in the financial world and worked for, I think in Merrill lynch or something like that. And she was from California and she moved to Florida all the way for the job. And I interviewed her and she has an MBA and you know, degrees out the wazoo. And I said to her, you've been a COO for 20 years, why go for law? And she said, I don't care what industry I'm in. My skill set, I was transferable. And I said, it's going to take you two to two and a half years to learn my service as a legal, you know, legal service. And she said, it'll take me three months. And I said, you're interviewing with me and I just told you take two and a half years and you're arguing with me. And she said, aramie, it took her two and a half months to learn my product. Two and a half months, 10 weeks. And then she knew everything she needed to know. And she still runs my company today. And I was blown away that I was thinking, oh, I need a lawyer with an MBA to Run to be my CEO of a multi, multimillion dollar corporation. Two and a half months it took her to learn legal. And I'm like, I went to law school and I was a lawyer for 15 years. It'll take you two and a half years and a half months it took her. So, you know, if that's not a tale of how executive skills are transferable, I don't know what is.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a, you know, hire great people, let a players and let them do their job, get out of their way. Right. We just brought on a director of finance to kind of just under a CFO level, if you will, from a private equity company that purchases for years has been purchasing agencies just like mine.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Right.
Great hire person.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Great. You know, she wasn't working at an agency. She bought agencies and looked at their books and understood what makes them effective. That's a perfect.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: You know, it's, I couldn't have found a better person. But we had a very similar situation.
Hey, you've never done this here. Why would you want to come here?
[00:25:16] Speaker A: And I think lawyers don't think, don't think. They really are arrogant in thinking that people who they hire have to know law. And in your legal departments. Yeah, of course. In your non legal departments, absolutely not. Because, you know, I'm a graphic designer, a videographer, social media expert. None of these people had any knowledge of law. And these are all people in marketing, they're marketers.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of like when I, before I got into marketing, I worked at an engineering firm in civil engineering and that was the path I was going and I was a creative guy like you. I wanted to, you know, come up with things and create things. And in civil engineering there's not much creativity going on. But that was, you know, I watched if you weren't an engineer, you just weren't part of the group of engineers. Right. If and they, they want to know what school you went to. And I remember like, hey, we're interviewing this guy, he went to, you know, Florida or he went to, you know, Clemson. And they would just be excited because of what school they went to, knowing nothing about what their real skills and passion were.
So it was just, you know, I think lawyers maybe could be like that too. Like out lawyer, non lawyer and can't get past that. Like there's talent out there and people that can bring skills to your firm that have never been inside a law firm before.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: So that's what's up in your mind for executive hires I use headhunters that are outside of the legal industry because there's plenty of COO finders, CFO finders, CEO finders who are looking outside of legal. And you don't necessarily want someone who has legal experience.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: You. They can bring a fresh perspective and lens to a legal business that, you know, if they'd just been in law firms their whole career.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
The first thing my COO asked the day she started was, let me look at your P and L. And I hadn't looked at my profit and loss in like three months. She's like, you haven't looked at your profit loss in three months? She said, I'm going to be looking your profit loss every day.
I said, wow, that's great.
That's a really good thing to hear.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope you all listening.
Or at least monthly. So, I mean, we just, we do a financial meeting every. The first week of every month, and we have people that, that look at it all day. But me, my partner, we get.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Go through the line by line.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I have a P. L update once a month from my COO, but she's in that. She's in QuickBooks all day. I mean, that's her job. It's to be looking at financial statements. And she's. She's got an mba. That's what she was trained in. That's why she didn't have to learn law. She just had to take her skill set she already had and apply it to law.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great, great advice for. For folks listening out there. So.
So, yeah, complete transition. But you said 15 years ago to CEO and kind of coming to that conclusion, I think, you know, for folks listening out there, you know, making that decision again, you can do both. And a lot of law firms, a lot of law firm owners I know do do both.
And I think, you know, for your standpoint, Craig, like, say I have a firm right now, I'm the only attorney. I got a few staff, I'm growing.
I still love the law, but obviously it requires me to be present to run the business.
You know, what's kind of a good path or next decision to make if you're in that position?
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Me, it starts with one of the first things I learned in, you know, one of the coaching courses I was in, in Atticus, it's called, it's in Orlando. And one of their first concepts when I was 27 years old when I started was time blocking. Of course, you know, time blocking during the week. So what I did is I Was, you know, I was learning to be a traveler. I knew nothing about business and I had a big caseload and I was busy and I worked in Miami for a big firm and I went to my boss and he was a businessman. Good, good one. And, and I said, what's your advice? So that I could market myself a little bit and learn how to market. And he said, what are all your friends doing Friday afternoon? And I said, they're going to happy hour. And he said, well, you're not much of a drinker, so you're not going to happy hour. What, what do you do on Friday afternoon? And I said, I prepare for my Next depot on Monday. And he said, you're not allowed to do that anymore between 3 o' clock and 5 o' clock on Friday because you're not going to happy hour. You have to do only stuff that is related to you growing your influence in this community and to be able to bring business into our law firm. And I said, well, what is that? You know, what do I do? So he trained me on, you know, what to do, set up lunches, you know, send out letters, whatever, marketing stuff to grow my business. So when I was an associate at age 27 for two or three years, Friday afternoon working on files was off limits. So if you have one employee or no employees, or you're an associate, make Friday afternoon or whatever two hour block you want a week. And if you're a biller, it even makes sense if you're an hourly biller. Because if you bill as an associate or whatever, let's say you bill $500 an hour, really high. I mean, that's a good billing rate, right? For hourly builders. The ROI on the two hours that you'll spend setting up lunches or setting up connections or referral sources, I guarantee you is better than the $500 an hour times two hours, which is $1,000 that you will bill. And you earn x percent from your boss. So your ROI on the two hours of business generation is way better. No matter what type of law you're in, whether you're in PI or hourly or billing or state planning, the ROI on those two hours a week is way better in developing you as a business person. So, so the advice I give to any lawyer of any age is if you're not, if, if you want to work on cases 98% of your time, go for it, but reserve two hours a week. If you can't do two, do one, do something. It's like go to the gym once a Month. So it's better than not going at all, right? Start somewhere. And then what happened to me is those two hours grew into five hours. Those five hours grew into 10 hours. Now, I was bringing in a ton of business in Miami. I was making more and more money.
And I told him, I'm only working, you know, 30 hours a week on cases, but I'm bringing you in a ton of work. And he said, keep it up, keep it up, man. You're bringing in business. I don't care that you're only working 30 hours a week on cases. You're bringing in way more money because you're getting a high percentage on the cases you're bringing in. So if you've got one employee, no employees, you're an associate time block some amount of time every week and stay disciplined. I don't care if you're responding to a motion for summary judgment, don't do it during those two hours. I don't care if you got a trial, don't do it during those two hours. I certainly made occasional exceptions for trials, but in general, there were no exceptions unless it was like my kid's birthday party or baseball game.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's really good advice because it gets pushed to the side if you don't, you know, well, if I didn't have time this week, I'll have to do that later.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: And you won't do it later.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: And it takes time. This is not an overnight thing. If you want to be known in your community, you know, responsible and respected and reliable, it takes time, you know, so you got to get started right away. You can't just jump ahead or skip the line. You know, people need to know that, you know, you've been around and you're consistent.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: It's the key, is the consistency. I mean, still today I, I get four marketing lunches a week.
I am booked through August right now because I lunch is one of the main ways I do one on one marketing. And my fifth lunch a week is with an employee because I have so many employees. So I want to make sure I know my employees. So it takes about a year and a half to get through all my employees because it's one a week. But they know I care about them because I take them to a one on one lunch and really connect with them and reduces my turnover tremendously. I have very little turnover because whether it's a receptionist, a legal assistant, or a marketer, I'm having lunch with them and I want to get to know them because I didn't interview them. I don't know anything about them. I didn't meet them. So if I didn't meet them and they work for me, I want to meet them. So yeah, so that's awesome. Five lunches a week. I market and I create connections to lunches. That's one of my main pieces of advice for everybody I coach.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so simple. And, and you can do it. And I was, I spoke to a group of about 30 attorneys. I had the marketer from a firm of a general practice said, hey, can you come talk to my, my attorneys? Because we have a marketing budget for each attorney and that's how the firm does it. And they're just, they're not, no one's doing anything except one guy. And, and that one guy has a, his own website, Google business profile, his own reviews, does SEO, blogs, writes, social media. And I went and spoke to this group and I had all this like advanced stuff lined up. They weren't going to anything. I was just like, okay, let's just scrap everything. I was going to talk about who here takes people out to lunch, goes to networking events, sits on a board, nothing.
But you guys, you don't have a plan like to spend some money once a week or to go meet with folks just so I just to help them put together like a plan just once a week, go meet somebody, go to a networking event. It was pretty drab. It was pretty, pretty terrible. And so I ended the talk by saying, who brings in the most money out of this whole offer?
You know, 40 plus attorneys. The guy that wasn't there, that has his own website, SEO, blogs, social media, and wasn't at this event because he didn't have to be there to learn anything. So.
And it was, it was quite interesting,
[00:34:40] Speaker A: but it's a disconnect because I mean, lawyers usually come to you around bonus time, raise time, and ask for a raise. Now I pay my lawyers 27% of the fee if they brought in the case. 27%, that's a lot.
Some firms are higher, some are lower, but I only pay them between 7 and 10% of the fee if I gave them the case. So if they come to annual review time and they're like, I want a huge raise in salary and I want you to, you know, I'm underpaid. I say, do you know how to get paid like three times as much? It's that you take advantage of the 27% because you referred in one case last year and you got a big check and you were Happy. But what if you referred in 10 cases last year? You wouldn't be here asking me for more money. You'd be getting 10 checks. So go away.
Your raises. The typical raise I give to all attorneys. Stop complaining, I say, I say it very nicely, but I've given you a golden key and you are not using it. The golden key is that if you market yourself and you bring in cases, you get 27% of the fee. If you choose not to use that key, then I'm not going to accept any arguments from you that you're not earning enough.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: The opportunities there in front of them, they have everything they need. It's funny, we have something very similar here. We, of course, we're not bringing in cases, but we do have referral programs. If they know a lawyer, family, as a lawyer, a firm that might, you know, might sign up, they get straight up, you know, bonus for any referral that turns into a client. But then we laid out like 12 other ways you can make more money here.
12 ways, you know, it could be super, you know, supervising people, leadership roles gained, you know, Experience and Education, 401k. They could take advantage of it or not.
You know, so we, we have all of these. I think it's 12.
Can't even sign them all off at the moment. But. And we've put those out to the whole team, said, hey, if you want to make more money here, there's a lot of ways to do it and we want you to take advantage. Or you can be a B or C player, but when it comes time for raise time, it's A pretty clear, it's really clear to both sides.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah, you just say, here's your money menu. Check off the ones you've actually ordered off the money menu. And you, you have ordered none of them. So you get nothing.
So you got a menu. You can order whatever you want. And you've offered a menu of 12 items. And if they choose to order nothing, then they can't complain. They're hungry.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it makes it really clear and easy for annual review time and what you've done.
I love that, you know, it's. The opportunity is there and they, they won't stick around and they're not bringing in cases. So.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: And, and if they don't. And like, I have 12 lawyers and I'd say four or five of them do not bring in any cases. But what's interesting is they now know not to complain at raise time because they already know what I'm going to say. Now they get a Raise every year, very small, you know, cost of living, tech raise.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: But they know that they have a golden key that they're not using. And if they choose not to use it, then you're still employed. I don't, I don't need their cases. Right. I like them to bring in cases, but my marketing is so vast that I don't need their cases, so I'm not dependent on them. But again, I've got four lawyers who don't take advantage of it. And I keep them employed because they're good lawyers and they get good results.
So I'm in a luxurious position that I don't need them to. I certainly want them to, but that's up to them.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. But it's a good place to be that it's, it's not black, it's not gray, it's black and white. It's very clear. They know, you know, it makes things just a lot easier to manage. So there's no question in it. It's, it's pretty clear to both sides. And that's a great way to, to run your business, in my opinion.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: So it's worked for me. I'll take it. That's what you are.
It's worked out pretty well.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, I, you know, I respect you and everything you had to share is always, always intriguing and interesting and a lesson for me, a lot that I can take away from this. And that's why I love to have you on the show and get on your schedule when I can. So. So yeah. Craig, anything else you want to share before we wrap up?
[00:38:45] Speaker A: It's kind of like if you really want to go full. Craig, as my wife says it, the, the other end of the rainbow, if you were to go full CEO, allows you some freedom and opportunities that most lawyers only dream of. That, that I'm lucky enough to have. So I have nine businesses, one of them is my law firm. So know, how am I able to, you know, people like, do you sleep? And the answer is yeah.
The reason I'm able to do that is because I create the same structure in each of my businesses and I make myself the visionary or the director or the CEO of each company and it allows me to do a lot of my passions in other areas. And people are like, well, what, what do you own? Well, I own an MRI center which is legal in, in most states as long as you disclose it to your clients and you can even self refer because you're not a doctor. So I, so an MRI center is a conjunctive to personal injury. I own a commercial real estate investment company that I do. And again, I'm out in the public so much that I meet people because I have time. I meet so many people in the community because I do so much in the community that I meet people in these businesses who provide opportunities. So the freedom of time provides opportunities among so many different organizations. I'll meet an investor. I'll meet someone in a cool industry that might be looking for investment. And now that I've got so many companies, I can look at companies because I'm an entrepreneur. And actually I've developed a skill set of being able to analyze companies. So an MRI center.
I run two charities. I have the real estate investment. I. My lifelong dream because I'm a soccer player has been to own a professional soccer team. Guess what? Palm Beach County, Florida is getting a professional soccer team. And I'm a part owner.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: That's all bucket list one.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: So that would have never happened if I was a trial lawyer full time because I would have never had the opportunity to meet the people that found out that an expansion franchise was coming to Palm beach county and to let me know because they found out. And the first person I'm calling is Craig, because everybody knows that that's my life dream. So I'm getting to complete a bucket list item because I am 100% CEO and because I gave up law. Now, that doesn't mean you have to give up law. It just means that the more time you have to expand your world beyond our little law worlds, which are very, very myopic and small, it really may not serve what you might love. And I have a lot of passive income from all these companies that take very little time. But how did I get involved in such varied things? It's because I've created a life where I can meet people in these other industries. And I have five more businesses I didn't even talk about, which are all super fun.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: That has to be another. Another episode.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just great. So, you know, as I said, if you go full Craig, you know, the opportunities to some cool stuff. And to me, I'm 56 years old almost and you know, not that old, but I'm not that young. Is like, well, what is, what do I want the rest of my life to look like? And the answer is I want to do a lot of cool, man. And if you, if you, if you just trudge away at continuing to do what you're doing 100 law, unless that is your, your, your dream life, then you don't get to do cool.
And you know, if that could be the theme of this, I get to do cool. Shit. There you go.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. Let's do cool. It's. I love it. And you know, I'm, I again, I'm following Craig's path. I have a real estate company and real estate properties with my wife.
I own two agencies and so I'm going down that path and I just, I'm excited about business just like Craig and, and learning about everyone's business and meeting new people and, and kind of going where, where it, where it takes you. And then him being able to be a part owner in something that, you know, was a bucket list item for him, which most people wouldn't even dream to achieve is proof right there. So congrats on that.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Well, thanks. It's been a fun ride. And you know, part of it is also I really like giving back. I like teaching, I like coaching, I like consulting.
You're in a consulting business. It's very rewarding for me personally. That might not be rewarding for other people, but, you know, the more I give, the more I get. And I don't do that intentionally. I give to give. But I do find that the world is a mirror. And I've learned that in reading Buddhism and mindfulness. The world is a mirror. Whatever you give out, you'll get back. And it's really true. So the more I teach and consult and help others, the more opportunity to just present themselves. And again, I don't do that intentionally. I give without any expectation of return.
And boy, the return, the ROI on giving is sick. It's just sick. It's crazy.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: That's awesome, man. I love it. I love it. It's so true. Well, Craig, I, I appreciate you sharing today with us. We covered a lot of cool things and yeah, let's go do a lot of cool people.
You know, don't let the law firm run your life again. If you're just starting out, it's just, it can get out of hand real quick and, and go off the rails. And so next thing you know, you wake up, it's five years later and you go, oh, I don't want to be in this position. We don't want to get you there. We want to be in a place that you, and you enjoy it and you can take the time off, you
[00:44:03] Speaker A: can put up guardrails even in your twenties and your thirties. Even when you have a one year old and a three year old, you could put up some guardrails to just make sure you stay connected to your Eustace and don't give them up. Even if it's an hour a week. Take that time, Go do that workout, go play golf, whatever you want to do. Stay connected to it. Because if you, if you let it go for 10 or 15 years, it's hard to get back whatever it was. It's hard to get back because you have not continued it. You need to stay connected to your passions. And I learned that the hard way because I became disconnected for a few years. But they're all back.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Well, Craig, thanks so much for sharing. As always, appreciate you coming on the show. And so, Craig, you stay on with me. Everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in, listening to me. And Craig, connect with him, reach out, follow what he's doing, because there's a lot more you can learn from this gentleman right here. So, Craig, thank you, Kevin. See you soon.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: You, too. Thank you, sir.
