Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign, 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, everyone?
Welcome to another show, another episode of the Managing Partners podcast.
As always, I thank you for tuning in. Listening. Hope you learn from our guest and find great value in the content.
And we'll continue to bring on the greatest guests we can find. Excited today to have someone that was referred to me by another awesome guest, Cassie Lewis. And we have Nick Mendez on the show. He's based out of North Carolina, not too far from me. And we got some cool stuff we're going to talk about today. So we're talking about culture, employees, and Nick has a pretty cool way about that that he's going to share today. So, Nick, welcome to the show.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate you having me. It's great. Looking forward to it. Yes.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
And I was a recording. It's the day before Halloween.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: I know this will come out a little bit later, but Nick was just saying, you know, they have like a Halloween thing in their office with. With their employees and bringing their kids in and doing like a trick or treat kind of to each office, which I thought was pretty cool.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, it'd be. We just had a. My wife and I just had a baby three months ago, too, so it'll be little baby Ford's first Halloween in the office. So I'm excited.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: We've been doing this for a couple years now, so it'll be fun having my own little bumblebee flying around.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Congratulations. Actually, today is my daughter's birthday.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Okay. Fun. Oh, that's a nice time of birthday for a little kid right before Halloween.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: She's 12.
Yeah.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: What do you mean?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: So get candy. Let's go. Actually, this is on my left on my desk right here. That's a bag. Yeah, that's right.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Candy.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: So, well, let's jump into it, Nick, you know, tell the folks listening, you know, more about you. I know you're part of pilma, your firm's based in North Carolina, but tell us a little bit more about yourself, kind of your. Your background and a little bit more about your firm. And then we're going to get into some culture.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that sounds great. So, yeah, we're here in Wilmington, North Carolina, on the coast. We have offices throughout North Carolina and Charlotte and Raleigh. In Jacksonville, North Carolina. It's about 45 minutes north of us here in Wilmington. My partner and I, Devlin Horton, we were insurance defense attorneys. He, he was doing it for about six years. I did it for about, about two and a half, three years. And we became good friends at the defense firm and we decided, you know, about a year into working with each other, like, hey, let's, let's figure something out on our own, whether, you know, we go do defense work or we go start a plaintiff's practice. And I had a case that I handled with a partner, and it was a big wrongful death case, and I was helping the partner with it, and we were in the mediation and the case got resolved. And after that mediation, I, I'm not doing defensive work. I don't want to be on this side of the coin. This, you know, poor lady lost her, her son and I want to be the guy that's helping the lady with her tragedy. Right. So very clear at that point what we wanted to do. And we went ahead and. Right, right when Covid started actually, is when we really started to like plot the firm and plan everything out. It was a nice time to do it because we're all at home and wasn't really a whole lot else to do. But we went ahead and started out. We started in a little office chair with a criminal defense attorney who let us rent two dingy offices for 200 bucks and our laptops. And we just took people out to lunch and did the grind for a year and made like $15,000.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Big year.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: But we're taking everything, we're doing criminal court, court appointed work to get started. And in our first segue, real big, you know, we had a good case that we settled and we just poured all that money back into the business and we started working on trying to build up our SEO and we found a partner for that who we're still with, and we got into the, you know, map pack and we really leaned into local SEO. And then right when the LSAs came out, really started becoming popular, we got on those. And that was really kind of the beginning of our, you know, case generation. And, and from there, you know, we've just continued to reinvest in the business and on all fronts, you know, marketing and people, infrastructure and growth and everything. So it's been a great, great ride. We've had some really great clients and had a 38 million dollar jury verdict last year, which really put us on the map in our state.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yeah, so my partner, he had that verdict. He's, he's the, he's the trial lawyer. I'm the, the business guy. That's how we run the. Run the firm. So that's been a great comp. You know, we complement each other very well. So that's kind of in a nutshell.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: No, I love that. A couple things that, that you said there. One Covid, you know, you use that as a good time to plan.
And I've. I know a lot of business owners and lawyers that use that same time to do that. So, yeah, good opportunity, obviously changed kind of the landscape with being able to be virtual and remote and things like that too.
And then the other thing was, you know, kind of having that partner that, where you had that. That the clear roles. Right. I think that's important. I have a partner and we have totally different roles. And so it's nice to be able to, you know, hey, this is what I'm good at. This is what you're good at. Especially when in partnership like that, or you have to hire, you know, find someone to do that work for you. But I think that's a great, great way to have partnerships to where, hey, I'm going to be the business guy, you're going to be the lawyer, and, and you can move a lot faster like that too.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't imagine any other way. I mean, we're in some, some groups, some trade groups and you know, obviously have a lot of friends that are attorneys and listening to them talk about some of the partnerships and how they're set up where they're all kind of squabbling over the money and oh, well, I brought in the big fee on that case and that's just not a good way, I think, run any kind of organization. You know, we, we have it set up just like you said. I get to focus on the business and the growth. He gets to focus on working the cases and training the attorneys and creating that culture that we have among the lawyers and how we handle, handle our clients cases. And that's what he loves. Like, that's his sweet spot. And then my sweet spot's the business.
And it wasn't that way from the start. Like I was handling cases when we started out because you just kind of have to. But we've made that transition and we've communicated really clearly about, you know, what it is that we want out of this. Like, it's what. Where's our sweet spot? Where do we operate best? What. What energizes us? Where do we feel inspired and then just to continue to like, kind of delegate and elevate up to that has been our model and kind of the vision for us is I just want to be at one point able to help, really spearhead key initiatives and growth and expansion in new markets, hiring, you know, top talent people in big, big roles, those types of big, big picture things. And then he wants to just have a docket of 10 to 15 multi seven figure files that he's working on.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: And go try cases.
That's kind of like where we want to be. So, like, that's another thing too. Anyone that's listening has a partner. Like, you got to make sure you're, you're super aligned with your visions, the vision that you want for the organization and the vision that you want as a partner in this organization, make sure that those are aligned and that they support each other. Because it's like a marriage. You're going to change, you know, we're all going to change as we evolve. Right. And if you're not communicating with your partner and you're not let telling them what you want out of this and what they want out of it and how those two things support each other, it can go south, I think, quickly. Yeah. And we have a super strong partnership.
It's just like we couldn't imagine not doing it without each other. You know, on top of that, we're best, best friends, so that helps. We got lucky. We just got lucky. I mean, I could have gotten a job somewhere else and I never would have met Devlin and you know, who knows what I'd be? I'd probably be some angry defense lawyer or something.
I'm just kidding.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: I wouldn't have done that.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: But. But yeah, a lot of it's luck. I mean, I think we're, we, we win the lottery just to be born in the United States.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Amen to that.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: All those things are so important, I think. You know, I see we do marketing for lots of firms. I see firm partnerships go south or partners come and go, firms having to rebrand. And of course, we usually have to help them with that kind of somehow. So it's, it's pretty frequent. And then I had someone on the podcast the other day that was just talking just about from their perspective, how common that is, you know, to have partnerships end in a bad way. And, and it usually comes down to this person got this big case and this person's not, you know, are they pulling their weight? They're just, you know, maybe they're just doing the marketing and how do they, you know, so sounds like you have a lot, a lot of good alignment there, which is helpful.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, they align. I mean it's just like in the both sides, you need to be able to appreciate the contribution that the other partner brings to the table. You know, it's like we got this big case we're working on. We wouldn't have gotten it if we didn't expand into this market that we re entered last year. You know, so it's like he appreciates that. I appreciate that I've got a great partner who can work that file and maximize the value of it, take care of the client, you know, so it's like, and it's not all about like who does the more work, who does, you know, some. Someone might be impactful in ways that, that doesn't necessarily quantify down to hours worked.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, that's not hard to quantify. But yeah, to your point, I mean like, like for my partnership, my partner does all the admin and books and numbers and goals and he's more of the business side. I'm, I'm all marketing. Brand. Yeah, brand, you know, brand ambassador, business development, relationships, referral partners.
That's what I do. And so yeah, I bring in the business. He keeps the business operating at a efficient level. So yeah, you have to have both.
Thank you for tuning in to the show today. I have taken things to the next level and I've started the managing partners Mastermind. We're a peer group of owners looking for connection, clarity and growth strategies. So if you're looking to grow your law firm and not do it alone, please consider joining the group. Spots are limited, so I ask for anyone to reach out to me directly through LinkedIn and we can set up a one on one call to make sure it's fit.
Now back to the show.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: It's great when it works.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: So I want to get more into, you know, culture and employees and I think you had mentioned me like seven critical things employees need. I love that. I'm intrigued by that.
And for a young firm and you guys are not an old firm to kind of already be there and talking about those things. A lot of firms start and they just run and they're like just breaking stuff, trying to make money, trying to. And then they end up, you know, going the wrong direction for too long and then they start to bring in experts to help them.
Kind of been on a good point.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: To tell them what their values are.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: So tell me more about this, you know, seven critical things and, and yeah, so I'm here to listen, to learn like everyone else.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So the seven critical needs of Employees.
I'll start out with the, with the values, the core values. And we talked about partner, you know, the partnership. And we started those core values like when we had two employees. We've got, we've got five core values in the firm. The first is to be chick fil A. So we want to be the chick fil a law firms. So great service, second mile service, a smile through the phone. My pleasure. Consistency. We're going to get you through the drive through efficiently as possible. The second is to be a bright spot in a dark time.
Anyone that works with any of our firms is going through some kind of dark time on a spectrum.
So we want to be like the bright spot that comes out of it. Right. Most people can relate to that.
Something bad happened to you, but there's like a little gem you pulled out of it. That's what we want Horton Amendez to be for the clients.
The third one, be humble, hungry and smart. I stole that from a book, the Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. Everyone listening should read that book. But, but hum, be humble, hungry and smart. You're gonna be a great team player. So you're humble, you can take feedback. You listen. You're not a know it all. You put the team first. You're hungry, you get after it, you put in extra work, take ownership. And then smart is just like socially smart. Read the room. Self awareness, you know, adjust how you act in different. With different coworkers, with different clients situations.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Some emotional intelligence in there.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's social intelligence. So humble, ugly, smart. The fourth one is be a farmer.
So that is a old fashioned work ethic rooted in patience, consistency and care. You're a farmer out in your field taking care of your crops and nourishing them. And you go to bed and you go get a good night's sleep and you wake up the next day and you do the same thing. Showing off, you know. And then the last one is we grow together, which is just pushing your comfort zone and growing as a person within the firm. So those values really started with Devlin and I. You know, Devlin is a farmer. He, he's a super hard worker. He's old fashioned work ethic. And then I'm very much the chick fil a. And then we had other employees that we looked at who did really well here, who we've modeled. And they were the bright spot of dark time. Very empathetic, you know, paralegals and case managers with the clients holding their hands through this, you know, tough time and getting this wonderful Google Reviews about how helpful so and so was on their case.
And then just the growth, like watching the people in the firm grow. Here was where we got that we grow together value. And then I'm walking smart. I did steal from a book, but I saw it in our people. So my point is, is the culture. I'm sorry, the values, they come organically in your organizations from the people. Like, you don't just, like, throw integrity up on the wall or honesty up on the wall and say, those are your values. You gotta look at the owners, for one, and then the core people in your organization who make it great. What are their values? Like, what makes them great? And those are your values as an organization.
And it starts at the top, right? It starts with the owners, the leader, the leaders of the firm, and it permeates down. And that's the first. The first part of it all was setting those. And we started working on those, you know, a year into the business. The first one was a Chick Fil A. I've got a Chick Fil A wrapper on my bookshelf over there with. Scribbled the name of our. A client that called while I was in the drive through. And it was like our first big case. And I just happened to be there. I scribbled his name on a Chick Fil A sandwich wrapper and we drove to his house, like, that day.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: That's awesome, man.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: That's. The. That one kind of came out.
Yeah, those. Those. Those values need to be organic. I think that's really important in the culture. And then, you know, going into the seven critical needs of employees, these are. I didn't come up with these.
A guy named Walt Brown did. And he's a EOS implementer. And he's been with EOS since, like, very early days with. With Gino Wickman. He's in Raleigh here in North Carolina, and he's been a coach, mentor, implementer for us on eos.
But he created this. Yeah, there you go. You got traction. Yeah. But he's created this Bite 7 survey, and it evaluates the seven critical needs of employees in an organization. So the seven critical needs, one they have to believe, and the vision, the. Where are we going? What is this organization trying to achieve? What's the mission? They need to belong. So they need to belong in the organization. They need to share the values with the organization, the core values.
They need to be. They need accountability.
So what does it mean to win here? Like, what do I. What do I need to do to succeed? They need to be Measured.
So they need to be tracked, like, how do I win? Like, what's.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah. How do they know they're winning? Right.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: How do I know I'm winning? They need to be heard. So how do I communicate with the organization?
And how does the organization communicate with me? And then they need to be developed.
So how am I going to grow here? How am I going to learn new skills so that I can be better at my job and I can move on to different roles with more responsibilities? And then lastly, they need to be balanced. And it's not an order of significance. It's in order of. I've listed them in order for a reason, but it's not insignificant. It's who is responsible for what so to believe is on me as the leader of the firm. I need to communicate with the team what it is, where we're going, what is the vision so that they can believe. So it's. It's 80% on me to do that. And then the employee needs to meet me 20% away there.
So they need to, they need to buy what I'm selling. Right. But I need to sell it to the organization so that they know where. Where are we going? It's my responsibility. And then to belong is the organization's responsibility. We need to communicate with the employees, with the team members, what are our values? And we need to hire people that share our values, and we need to fire people that don't. So it's 80% our responsibility to make sure that the values are communicated and that they're protected by hiring the right people who share them and having systems to do that and removing the people that don't, because those people are going to harm the, the, the organization. Now we get into accountability that is less on us. It's about 60% on us to tell them what they're accountable for. And then they need to meet us 40% of the way there.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: And the same goes with being measured.
We need to tell them how you're going to be measured, but they also need to meet us there. And they have some say in what are you measuring about me? You know, that they need to be. Have some influence over what it is that we're measuring. We can't just like, tell them this is the measurement and you need to. This is going to guide everything you do. They need to have some kind of say in it.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Here's what we think. And collaboratively say, well, what if we check this instead? Yep.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
And then when you get to herd and, and developed some it's more 50, 50 between the two. Right. Like okay, you want to be developed. Well, what is it you want to be developed in?
We're going to communicate with you. You're going to communicate with us. Right. It's a little more of a two way street. And then when it comes down to being balanced, it's like 80% on the employee, 20% on us. Here's what we pay, here's what our PTO is, here are our policies.
You know, if that works for you, great. If it doesn't that then this is not a good place for you. Um, so we, we, we give you the 20. We, we have 20% responsibility there. The rest is on you to figure out how you're going to be balanced. Right.
So that's like kind of the continuum of it and that's pretty cool. I love that. So it's great. Yeah.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: You know, first off, just commend you, commend you guys on like doing the core values early on.
You know, we didn't do that as early as a company and kind of thought it was, you know, some woo woo stuff. A little bit. It's. And we, you know, my partner's been an EO for a decade or more.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Okay, cool.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: So very familiar with entrepreneurs, organization, EOs and traction and all that stuff. So. But we were forced to go through like a workshop to do our core values and we already had some set and we're like, oh, we already have ours and, and we got tore a new one because yeah, they were like you said, they were just like kind of random basic things that everyone should, should live up to. And so it took us a while to kind of like tweak over like a year or two after kind of like going through different, different versions of it to get it right. But everything should stem from that, right? Hiring, firing.
And one of the things that you said too is bringing the right people in that, that fit the values non negotiable. Right. A hundred percent have to do that.
And once you get there where your culture's good, which it sounds like yours is, is in a great place. What I, I say this all the time.
They protect your culture from others getting in that don't fit.
So even if you were like Nick, even if you were like in a desperation need of a person for skill, right. We need another attorney, we need an associate, whatever. Sometimes it's easy to be like, forget those values and say, hey guys, we need to hire this person.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a trap.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: And then. But your people will Say, no, this person doesn't seem right. There's something about them that's off whatever, you know, and they'll weed them out for you. And that's.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yes, that's so true.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: That's the best place to get is where your team comes to you and says, hey.
And not just one person, but multiple maybe. And says, hey, we got a problem where this person is doing things that is against kind of our, our values here.
And that's a moment where they look to you to say, what are you gonna do?
[00:21:12] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. I've learned that it's. It's really tough at first.
It's a little, it was a learning curve for us because you have like the one, some book I read is called them the Terrorist. So it's like very high skill person. That's not a cultural fit with the, with the organization.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: What book was that? I. I remember that in the eo, meaning. Yeah, Terrorists being specific.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it's on like one of those square charts, you know, it's like the puppy and the terrace and the superstar and the rat and the rats. Like low value, low skill. The puppies. High cultural, but low skill and superstars both, obviously. Yeah. Those terrorists can be really harmful. We have, we've had, you know, deal with that a few times and we've gotten pretty good now over time, kind of just doing what needs to be done. Because that's just it. It is what it is with someone like that. They're gonna, they're going to harm the organization in the long run.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: We've had some terrorists in the past.
Yeah. And for anyone listening, you know, and I'll take those ones that are good cultural fits, but the skill's not there all day long.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah. They can be taught. Yeah.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: But the terrorists, this could be someone. If you're listening, it's someone like we had a guy that we hired, he's actually out of North Carolina, was like supposed to be this SEO expert.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Saw us and kind of was cocky and came on board because we were looking for someone that, that had some skill that we just didn't have at the time. And I remember the first thing was we were trying to write new processes. Like we document process here. Okay. New guy, like as you're, you know, doing these new things that we need to implement here, we need you to document it so that we can have it for the next person as you start to manage people, blah, blah. And he was like, oh, I'm not sharing, you know what I do, because that's like, why I'm important. And it's like immediately like, okay, this guy's gotta, gotta exit right away.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. What are you talking about?
Yeah, yeah.
When we hire for, like, for skill and experience, it, it's usually come back to bite us in the butt. You know, you just gotta hire people that are good. Culture fits at the end of the day.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: But I've also, you know, we fired people and the whole team claps after the dust settles.
And that's a clear sign that you had a bad apple, a terrorist, someone that no one was speaking up about, was causing lots of problems, but you just didn't see it.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely, yeah. It's just the, the values and everything just they attract and they repel people and they purge people, you know, attract and repel at the hiring stage and then purge when they've been there for a while. And that, that's a great thing, you know, about the, about having the cult, the strong cultures and the values is those people expose themselves like pretty quickly. Whereas I think an organization that doesn't have values in clear direction, they can really linger and cause a lot of damage.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: 100%. Yeah. They can hide very easily.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: There's already confusion and no one knows what's going on, so.
And you can run a company with confusion and no direction for a while. Right.
Turnover, constant problems. You can still run a company that way. And I've seen people do it for many, many years. But no, thanks, I don't want to be part of that. So.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: No, I mean, I think there's like the health of the organization and then so an organization's healthy and then it's smart. So it's smart. Like your financials and your reporting and all the numbers and the things that I feel like most business owners are very comfortable in. Like, it's very clean and sanitized in black and white.
The health is like, messy and it's intangible. It's hard to measure and you can't really, you know, put it up on a dashboard. But it, if your organization's healthy, it's going to get smarter because the people are going to stay longer and they're going to be more engaged and they're going to, they're going to raise their.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Hand and say, hey, we should improve this. We should add this. I mean, having good cultures for me is the number one secret to business because everything else falls in place, you know.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Especially in like the PI space. The personal injury lawyer.
Law firms aren't really like the greatest Places to work. I don't think generally from what I understand especially, you know, come coming from staff that we've hired from other firms. And you know, the, the stories I hear, you know, it's, it's pretty unbelievable. And so I really view it as a competitive advantage. I mean, we're going to become a talent magnet for the best people come work here and I'm going to take them from my competitors and I'm going to, you know, dominate the market.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If anyone listening has, if you have a hiring problem or can't find attorneys, you know, if you have an amazing culture, like we don't, you know, this. The truth is where we're at now versus years ago. Like, we don't have to pay for ads or like indeed. Or none of that crap. Like if we're looking for someone, we have someone or candidates and days just lined up. So.
And same with you guys, I'm sure, like think about all the firms, PI firms in North Carolina. Right. Like, and how many have a great culture versus how many are just kind of old school?
A lot of the problems that you might, might hear about.
Yeah, yeah. Everything is fixed with a good culture.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Everything. Absolutely.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: You're marketing. Your people are your marketing. They call and talk to one of your people, they're happy and they're, they're there to help.
You can train some of that, but I mean you can't fake it all. So you have to have. So there's good people.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: I love calling that firm. They're so helpful. Everyone there is great five star review referrals. It just snowballs. Right? So I think like, I like how you said too. It's hard to measure and put it on a dashboard.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's intangible. You know, it's just. And that a lot of lawyers, you know, were like analysis paralysis or what's, what's the ROI on that? It's like it's not really how this works, buddy. You know, like you need to invest in your people, you need to care about them, you need to develop them.
You know, it's not. Your paralegal isn't just like replaceable, you know, but a lot of attorneys just don't think that way, which is a shame. But you know what, I'm actually fine with it because I'll just continue to take all their business. So.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love it. Yeah, well, you know, it's.
I always say like, I'm kind of jaded because, you know, with this show and with all my guests I have, you know, typically don't have the problems that you're talking about.
They are working on their business. They are part of Pillma and eight Figure firm or these other fireproof other groups out there.
So they get it and they're working on it. So whether or not they're perfect or have it all figured out yet, that's one thing. But that's what this show's all about is problems, you know, fixes, you know, challenges, successes. And we're all trying to figure it out. So.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's a constant. I mean it's, you know, we're not perfect. No, no, no. Organization is. It's just we've gotten to the point now where in order to make those improvements, you need to be very intentional about your systems to, to facilitate those seven critical needs that I spoke about earlier and to protect your culture.
You know, one thing we're doing right now, we're looking for a director of people and culture is going to a human resources person, a business partner we're going to bring in to help protect that. Because you know, there's this new gen, there's this new like layer of, of people we've hired who I don't have the same interaction with that I do with this. You know, the people who helped us start the business. So those folks need to be watered and developed and career path and all those things. So we're going to bring somebody in to help get ahead of that before that becomes an issue. So it's not just about like, you know, nice to everyone and having the, the nice values and all that. You got to have these systems and professionals that you bring in to help build it out. Yeah.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Because all those people need attention. They need to be checked in with one on ones. They need to have the career path. They need to be making sure that, you know, they're on track to where they want to go and their goals, whether it's personal, professional or financial.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: And so yeah, if you can't do all that yourself, then you got to bring in people to do it. So. And they'll appreciate that. You know.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Versus going, oh yeah, Nick's not giving me an attention because he's too busy.
Right.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: It's. And then we need, you know, we're going to set up, we do surveys. You know, that's a way you can objectively measure your culture. The BY seven survey that I talked about earlier is a great way to do it for anyone listening. But there's a lot of other surveys as well. Can Administer your. On your own.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: You know, we do NPS score.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, NPS scores.
You know, so these are all things that firms need to be doing.
And then, you know, at the end of the day, though, I think it really comes down to the, to the, to the leader being able to accept, you know, where they're coming up short and, and not just like kind of write it off, you know, and you gotta be like, kind of vulnerable with your people as well, which I think can be tough, especially for, for, for some lawyers.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the, one of our core values here is actually transparency, so. And we lean into it more. The more we lean into it, the easier it becomes.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: But yeah, we do like, surveys. Like, my business partner, he'll do a survey after our all hands meeting. So. So again, 50 plus people all on a call for like half a day. Well, it was a full day once a quarter.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: And we had different speakers come in and we do trainings and we do all this stuff and do a survey. And everybody's like, you know, too long, not enough breaks, you know, some of the content wasn't good, blah, blah, blah. Just, you know, a lot of unanimous feedback.
And then we, you know, so we changed to a half a day. And then there was lots of other feedback too, but we do that with, with that. But also NPS scores with our, our team every month and our clients as well.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: And we look at those numbers and say, all right, are we going the right direction? How are things and what do we get out of that to where we can make changes? And then publicly in our channels for the team is like, hey, looks like we sucked ass at the company meeting this, this time around. We got your feedback. We heard you. We're making an adjustment.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's like the. Them being heard. Yeah, it's super. That's awesome. Oh, I think you do it monthly. That's great.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So sometimes we change stuff. I think we did quarterly and then we're trying monthly, so. Yeah, but the thing is you gotta try different things, right?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Constantly work on it.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: No, absolutely. Yeah. And just, you know, showing. Showing folks that you care and that you, you want their feedback is. That means a lot.
You know, it's like you might not be able to pay people the most, but if you do these other things, it's maybe even more valuable, you know, to them.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Well, if you have the right person that's. That cares and has those same values, they will take that position over little bit more money for sure. Yeah. They don't want they don't want unknowns and, and surprises. They want a place to be, to be heard of it, to exist and have a path to whatever goals they want to meet. Right. So no one wants a job just to get a paycheck. Maybe in the beginning, but that shouldn't be people that make it into your firm.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: No. Yeah, it's a. We want something. I say, I pulled this from, I think, book about Amazon. Jeff Bezos would always say he wants missionaries, not mercenaries.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: You know, like, yeah, I like that.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: I was. We have a fractional HR person and she was reaching out to this. We're looking for an attorney to join our team. And she was sending out some messages to the. To some candidates on LinkedIn. And this one guy responded, like, the first thing he. He like laid out his entire comp plan is existing for.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: It's like that's the first thing you say back. I was like, go ahead and tell her. Tell them that we pay way more and then don't respond. But I mean, that just shows you like, you know, the kind of people that are out. Like, we don't want those people in our organization.
I want missionaries, not mercenaries.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love that. Well, before we wrap up here, if you could just cite the seven things quickly for everyone listening.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: And then we'll find out how to connect with you so people can, can do that and we'll wrap it up.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. The seven critical needs that your people need to believe in the mission, in the vision where you're going. They need to belong. So they need to share the values and feel like they belong in the organization. They need to be held accountable. So how are they, you know, winning? What is it that they need to do? They need to be measured so that they can see their progress.
They need to be. They need to be developed, they need to be heard, and then they need to be balanced. Those seven critical needs for employees and then you need to have systems around those to help facilitate those needs. And you need to have some kind of way to report on it with surveys.
That's been foundational for us and I think it's scalable. Can really help us continue to keep that culture intact.
Just need to at some point, I think, have someone to really administer it all.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: It's funny because we're in that same position.
We had this amazing young lady that we hired when she was like 20.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: She.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: We're like, oh, we see an admin part time. Immediately took her to full time and she's about to become the HR role.
We're trying not to call it that. We've come up with some kind of people role.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Yeah, People and culture. So we're calling it Director of People and Culture.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we're still. We haven't made the decision, but that's coming up soon. So, yeah, we're kind of in the same place. But kudos, you know, on caring about the core values, putting those in place early, these other systems. This is the only way, if anyone's listening, you want to grow something long term that's scalable and that's bigger than yourself, this is the way to do it. So.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it just makes it all, like, so much more enriching, you know, and just more pleasant.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And I can see where it sounds like a lot of things that you have to do if you're a business owner. If you're a business owner. Just trying to, like, keep it together and. And, you know, it's like, how do I do all these things and focus on all this stuff? It's. It's not gonna be the glue man.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: And this kind of stuff's the glue.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: So it'll make all of it easier.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: People overlook anything. It's like soft and fluffy, but it's not. It's a real thing.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Well, take it from Nick. Everyone so appreciate you sharing. I love it. Everything you guys are doing, it's the right way to go. And anyone else that's listening, trust me, that's the way to do it. Nick, what's the best way for all the attorneys listening out there to find you, connect and hopefully follow you and see more? Some of this.
I don't know how much posting you do, but I'm sure people like to follow you and connect.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. Nick Mendez.
Anyone wants to reach out to me, just shoot me an email. Just nickorton mendez.com. we're down here in North Carolina. Anybody that's got any cases, we'd love to help you with them in the state, anywhere in North Carolina or all over the state. So love talking about this kind of stuff. Anybody just reach out to me an email. We can set up a call.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Man, I love you. Yeah, please reach out and they connect with him. If you want me to make a intro by email or something like that, I'm happy to do that too. If you can't. Yeah, you're driving. Maybe you're driving and you didn't get to write this down. Just reach out to me. Happy to help.
Yeah. Nick, it's been an honor to have you on the show and we're in alignment with pretty much everything, so I'm excited about that.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, it's been great. Look forward to meeting you down in Miami in a couple months.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Definitely be at Miami ntl. I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing you there. And everyone else, thanks so much for tuning in as always.
I appreciate you. Nick, stay on with me. We'll chat for a second. And everyone else, have an awesome day. We'll see you soon.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Sounds good. See everybody.
