Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Clicks aren't clients. And so if you want to be recognized as being good in marketing, then you absolutely have to be good at intake.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Hey, what's up, everyone?
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast.
Today we have a really cool guest who I've enjoyed getting to know, but also learning some stuff from, and she's got a lot of cool stuff to share with you today. So my law firm owners out there listening intake is the theme today and how important that is. I talk about it all the time as a marketer, obviously, it's super important that our clients and lawyers and law firms take that seriously and it's an ever improving thing that you need to be working on. So, Carrie, Kobe White's here and I'm excited for her to dive into intake and data. We talk in AI in regards to that as well. I want to kick off things real quick. I just mentioned my friends over at Answering Legal.
They do call and they take intake and they do our calls for Array Digital and work with a lot of our clients, but just want to mention them. Thanks for being a sponsor of the podcast. And Carrie, let's kick it over to you and tell us your story.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Thank you, Kevin. Yeah, well, I think you nailed it pretty much. If you're in marketing, you have to have a love affair with intake because as I always remind my marketing friends, clicks aren't clients. And so if you want to be recognized as being good in marketing, then you absolutely have to be good at intake. Making the phones ring just isn't enough. And in the environment that we're in, where the costs are high, the margins are tight, competition is fierce. You've got to be aggressively on top of intake if you want to be able to justify the high cost of marketing.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Spot on. I mean, yeah, I was just talking to a client yesterday that's a newer client that you're just getting into PI never were before. Some loss change, kind of cutting them off at the legs on the other legal service they provide. It's a very tough, challenging place to get into, especially in the location that they're at. And for them, just getting a lead right now is important for them.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: It's hard.
And I think, you know, when you look at the, the costs of, you know, the cost of entry, if you don't have the reputation already built up, I mean, it's steep. But if you're good at intake, you can justify those costs. If you aren't really taking care of intake, it can quickly escalate to the point where it's no longer an effective business development strategy to, to be invested in online marketing. So when people talk to me because they're excited about growing the law firm and obviously marketing is a lot sexier to talk about than intake. They're excited to get out there and you know, turn that, turn that nozzle and make the leads flow. But the reality is that if you're not ready for it, you could be spending a lot of money very quickly without the results you want. So step number one, if you're thinking about heavily investing in marketing or investing at all in marketing, you want to make sure your intake is tidy.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah, spot on. And I used example of that one firm because they missed like a lead. And for them again, getting a lead NPI where they'd never done it before is like super important.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: So it's like under a microscope versus what I see problems with firms that get a lot of activity. There's a lot more problems because they, they are getting some leads, they are converting some cases, but they're missing out on so much and there's a lot of holes in the bucket. Right. So absolutely, to me, you know, marketing can be more sexy, but I think the magic happens at the intake and that's where absolutely is.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Well, and that's where I feel like as, as a consultant, you have the most control. I can, I really can't control the quality of the leads.
The marketing team is going to have to work on that. But when somebody sits down with me and we look at their numbers and I see where I can affect change, it's going to be in the call handling tactics, it's going to be in the lead response time, it's going to be in the engage in getting more of those leads engaged. So if you're looking for where you're losing leads, really studying that process from a lead hitting your pipeline to a retained client at the end of it, you're looking for every jump off point where you can lose that client and filling the gap, putting a safety net under it, capturing those leaks in the bucket and filling it in. And if you do that then you can really, you really can justify the cost of marketing and you see how many firms it works well for. But you know, you made such a great point in looking at the differences of those large firms that are doing a lot of marketing and the phone's ringing off the hook. They have a totally different set of problems than the firm that is, you know, just trying to get that one call. You know, I talk to a lot of firms who are you know, 8 to 10 cases a month, and 8 to 10 cases a month is, Is still a good business. But I almost feel bad for those intake teams. You know, they're a little nervous every time the phone rings because they're not, they're not putting in the reps. And so, you know, I know you mentioned AI. I mean, one of the tools that we're working on is an interactive AI tool where the intake team can practice taking calls, because we want to make sure that you're not going, you know, going in blind to talking to these prospects before you really know your stuff. So we need to practice the skills like anything else, and coaching and feedback and improvement so that we know that when the real leads come in, that we're going to have the chops to close them.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: That's really cool right there. I've never even heard of that.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: It is. I know it's very exciting, but.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: No, here's your point. You know, if you're waiting on that one call and you miss it or, you know, you're not available because God forbid. Well, the smaller firms, too, they're. They're things, you know, you. Everyone's a generalist and they're, they're picking up a lot of balls. So.
And I, I think there's two. There's. There's a different sophistication of intake. So it's like, on one hand, it's like, well, we have a chat and bot and we have a phone system and we have this and we have that, and it's more the.
The tactics of how you're intercepting.
But then there's sophistication side of things, of, like, well, how are you answering the phone? Empathy, talking to the person on the other side, how's your, your team trained, your culture, how that comes through on the other side? Like, so it's, there's different levels, I feel like, of intake success. You know what I mean?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and get even. The fact that you're saying, you know, different levels, like how leads are coming to you, is even one of the big challenges that intake teams face. If someone's coming to you, stop and think for a minute about what they're calling for. And I can almost guarantee they're not calling to complete an intake. So even the language around intake has to change if you're going to be really good at it.
95% of the folks calling a law firm never have done that before. And 100% of the folks who are calling your law firm aren't having a very Good day. If they're calling you, something has gone wrong. And so if we want to be effective on the phone, we have to have a very different approach than, you know, if we're answering calls at a pizza place, we know they're calling because they're hungry and they're going to order a pizza. If we have what they're looking for, that's just not. That's not the scenario that we're in. And so we have to approach intake in a very aware state of what our clients are facing when they call, what they need, and what we have to give them before we can reliably offer them an intake. So I think we have to shift our understanding of.
And like I said, I hate the word intake. We have to shift our understanding of what we're doing when we pick up the phone if we want to be effective. You know, something else you said there, though, about the generalist and wearing lots of hats. And if you're a smaller law firm listening to this, I think one of the things that you have to do when it comes to culture is sell your team on the idea of. Of growth. I think, you know, for every firm that everyone feels so busy, we're all so busy, so busy. The idea of growth we want more and more and more often really rubs employees the wrong way. But they have to understand that, you know, the way we keep our systems up to date, the increases in rent, keeping the lights on, and being able to invest in technology that may seem nice now but becomes necessary a year from now. You know, a growing firm has the ability to invest in things that may seem unnecessary to the employee but very, very necessary to the success of the business and employing those folks long term. So if you're in a smaller firm, you have to think about how you sell growth to your team. And one of the things that you can certainly sell them on is that, you know, if we're successful at growing this practice, we don't all have to do everything. We can specialize. You know, I can't have eight employees who all do one thing and spend, you know, 40% of their day looking at each other. We have to be strategic in the use of our human capital. But that's one of the benefits of having a growing firm.
[00:09:25] Speaker C: Today's episode is brought to you by Answering Legal. Now, I just switched my company array digital over to Answering Legal, and it's made my life a whole lot easier. If I can't get to the phone, their 247 virtual receptionist take the call and take them through a full intake process so we never miss new business again.
Now, Answering Legal has been at this for more than a decade and they specialize in answering phone calls for law firms like yours.
They even have a brand new easy to use app and they integrate with all the top legal softwares and platforms.
So from our listeners today, we actually have a special deal of a 400 minute free trial offer of Answering Legal services that you can try out by going to answeringlegal.com array. You can also call 631-437-4803 and use special code Daisy. That's my last name. D A I S E Y.
So go check them out and let's get back to the show.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Like my agencies, like we, we have that mindset of growth and growing and it's built into our culture. But at first, me and my partner didn't do a good job of explaining that because it looked more of a, a monetary kind of gain, like a money grab.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: And so, you know, as you're bringing people into your law firm, anyone listening, like they should come in knowing, hey, we're growing this thing and here's where we're going and here's why.
And they want to be part of that. And if you want it, you know, I've had an intern that was here now leading teams. Right. So opportunity. I can't give you more opportunity. If we stay stagnant, you can't hire an assistant. Right. You can't get that software.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: You want stability. Yeah. I mean, all the things that will make us a stronger organization begin with growth.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Safety. Right. Insurance, healthcare, whatever it is that they.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Really, or even, you know, as, as business owners, you know, last summer I was out of, out of commission for three weeks. If you are a teeny tiny little firm where everything hinges on you, three weeks is an awful long time to be away from your business. And so as you plan for growth and selling your team on the idea of being a growing firm, there's a lot in it for them. But you do have to sell it and it does have to be part of your culture.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And then another way to do that. And they were talking, you know, but it's important I get the, the culture and how do people answer the phone and care? Like they have to be bought into your firm and where you're going and love being there. They have to have what I call is mental ownership of your company. They don't have physical ownership, but they have mental ownership where they protect it and they protect the culture and That'll come through on the phone or whatever else they're doing, but it does.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah. One of my mentors, Ken Hardison, you may know him from pma.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Ken's the man.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: He actually said, you know, keep a mirror in front of your intake team and make them smile at themselves. You know, it's. It's a lot easier talking to a person. And I tell my trainees that all the time. Oh, it's cameras on for everyone. Because I do not need to sit in a room by myself talking to myself for an hour. I need eyeballs. I need. I need smiles. So, you know, engaging the team is. Is part of that culture. Um, you know, the other thing I noticed with one of the most successful intake teams I work with, their job is split between being in the office and being out in the field, literally calling on prospects physically in person. And I think part of their success is that they're not just stuck in an. In an office all day answering calls, never seeing eyeballs. They're really in front of people, and they're seeing the relief that comes to that prospect when they're able to solve their problem and take the next step. So, you know, I think we have to, again, go back to this idea that nobody calls a law firm because they're having a good day. And if your intake team is specialized and all they're doing is intake, intake, intake, it can be rather grueling to take on other people's burdens all day, never see a smiling face, and just hear these sad stories, whether it's, you know, criminal divorce, immigration fears, personal injuries. You know, no matter what kind of law you're practicing, unless you are calling to. To learn about how to protect your lottery ticket, nobody calls a law firm because they're having a good day.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: That's so true. And, yeah, so it can't be robotic or just process. Step, step, step, step. But, you know, there's gotta be some, again, empathy there.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: And let's take that to a very tactical strategy. Like, talk to your intake team. Like, guys, before the phone rings, like, center yourself for a minute, blow some air through your lips, and get ready to be human. Because, you know, I listened to this call once. I'll never forget this.
Somebody called a law firm. The receptionist answered it. The gentleman said, my son was killed in a car accident. Which is about as tragic a line as I can imagine. You're talking about a parent of a deceased child. I don't care whether that's an adult child or a young child. If somebody's Child. And the receptionist responded with, and your name, please?
And I was so taken aback by it. Like, I literally had to pick my chin up off my desk. And I started reminding my, my trainees that if you take this conversation you're having and put it in line at the grocery store or sitting on a couch in a coffee shop and someone turns to you and says, my son was killed in a car accident, what's your next line going to be? In any other human engagement, it certainly isn't going to be end. Your name, please. No. So we have to put on our humanity. And again, when we look at all the ways AI can and should be supporting firms, having people engaged with other humans is where we're going to have to best position them.
You know, AI, AI agents, call agents, AI call answering services are a thing. You can check them out and I couldn't recommend them. I don't like it. I know there are firms that are starting to use them to book that initial appointment. But I think we always have to go back to this idea of what we do and why we do it. At the end of the day, a law firm is a service solving problems for people who have problems. And so we do have to be mindful of the fact that not only are we there to serve, this is a service industry, but we're making good money doing it. You know, for all the industries out there, I know what the margin, I certainly know that the margins have shrunk, but it's still a good living. And we have to be service first in every interaction. So have your best people. Make sure you're spending what it takes to have emotionally intelligent people on the phone who aren't going to be stuck on some script, but be very human and empathetic in their response and smart. You know, I'm always asked on panels, you know, what do I look for when I hire for intake? I look for smart people. Because people who are smart, emotionally, intellectually, strategically, often know how to finesse these conversations in a way that brings the prospect to the natural conclusion that they need to hire your law firm. And I think that those are the people that may be worth the extra, the extra cost of having them on your team and find ways to really keep those smart people engaged with you.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, to your point. So following exact script, it's, you know, being able to pivot scripts to the pivot to the situation and really understand it. And, you know, I, I couldn't imagine if I had like an AI anything trying to sign, you know, sell A law firm on why they should hire us. It would be nuts.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Like, it pisses me off, quite frankly. That is one place I don't want to see AI at work. Now that said there, you know, there's a, there's a lot you can do. You know, when I'm looking at a law firm's assessment, you know, intake optimization, you know what, like taking that initial assessment of how are they set up, you know, having a chatbot on your website. People are very used to interacting with chatbots. They're not yet used to talking to bots.
And you know, I do have use cases where we are talking about, but not for something as important as assigning a client.
Let people self serve to their heart's content. But if they reach out to you, gosh darn it, answer the phone. You know, just think about how frustrated we've all been over the years. You know, we accept that you're going to get automated messaging. You know, press one for this, press two for that. Even these talking bots that we've been used to for years on, you know, with large organizations like, you know, Verizon or Capital One, you know, we're used to that, but it doesn't mean we like it. And we certainly expect a lot more from a law firm making a third of a third.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Or, excuse me, making a third. Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: And it's so it's, it's a big decision. You're in a bad spot, maybe the worst day of your life depending on what you're, you know, calling about. So there's, and you can just, you can call the next firm if you have a bad experience, you don't feel right about it. And these folks, like you said, they, they never hired a firm probably ever.
They're basing on other experiences that they've had. So whether they have a good experience with their doctor's office and they get taken care of and they call a law firm and it's completely the opposite. In a bad situation, they'll just go to the next firm. Right.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: And they're used to service on demand. You know, we, we expect to be responded to immediately in real time. And yeah, there, there's very little loyalty unless there's someone really worth waiting for. They're moving on, they're moving on.
So making sure that you have that team set up to catch pivot move, you gotta get them going. And then, you know, your friends over, over at Answering Legal picking up, you know, where you can't, you know, that's, it's critically Important too.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I guess that's why I was kind of saying like the different levels, right? So one, someone's got to answer the heading phone.
So have something in place. And that's that your smaller firms are just too busy to answer the phone. The lawyer. The lawyers turn around, you gotta get something in place. And then you need to work on improving that and you need to work on the quality of that, what you can afford. And so it's work and you gotta build that up. But.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: And you gotta open your ears. I mean, you gotta listen to the calls to know what you need to work on. I think ignorance is bliss for a lot of attorneys. But, you know, back to Ken Hardison, he said he sat with an attorney once and he made him listen to his calls for the first time. And the gentleman actually got up and was physically ill after listening to his calls. And I have to say, I, you know, I'm in intake and I have the same reaction when I listen to my team sometimes. It's like, you know, you know how you want it to go. And then I listen to some of my folks talking to prospects for my business and I'm like, guys, come on. You know, we have to, we. And feedback is the breakfast of champions, right? If we want to improve, we need to be open to hearing constructive criticism.
So I think it's important that we get the team used to the fact that calls are recorded, we review them, we share them as a team, we critique each other, we provide feedback and we try again. Test, iterate, optimize. That's the marketing way, isn't it?
[00:21:24] Speaker B: That's it right there. You gotta constantly do that. So actually when I got. Before we started recording this episode, she was. Carrie was actually listening to intake costs.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yes. That's what I do. That's what I do for fun, Kevin. Don't you. Doesn't everybody sit around listening to intake calls?
[00:21:40] Speaker B: I love it. First thing I do when I get.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Up in the morning is, yeah, Breakfast of champions. Breakfast of champions.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: That would be my, my first advice to everyone listening. Listen to your calls. And honestly, if you're a managing partner that is in a firm that is not consumer based, even you know, you're dealing with just. You need to hear your people on the phone. You know, I tell the same way I tell my kids. They're out there wearing the family as uniform every day of their life by virtue of that last name. Everyone working in your organization is wearing your team jersey. They need to represent you. Well, listen to how Your people interact with your clients. Your. Yeah, because this doesn't end at intake. And I, when I work with firms, I tell them, like, look, we're going to, we are going to polish up intake, but you better make sure that the next stage of the engagement, when they move on to legal services, that they are every bit as responsive and empathetic and kind. Because if you have this wonderful intake experience and then they absolutely piss you off on day one of being a client, that's a bad look. I mean, we've all had that experience where we've gotten the hard sell in the, in the, you know, the used car lot and then you drive a jalopy out and the guy never wants to hear from you again. You can't have good intake followed by lousy client service. Just can't.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: 100%. I mean, that's always been, I've had that issue in the past with agencies. You know, as the owner, you, you know, meet a client, you sell them, and also then team drops the ball or something happens or projects didn't get scheduled or, you know, there's so many things that can happen. So, yeah, it, for me, this is what I say all the time. Your marketing is not like what you hire us to do. Your marketing is everything. Every person inside and out of your, of your company. So how they talk, how they represent you out in public, how they answer the phone, how they do the service, all things in your company, everything about it, that is your marketing. Like, that's the experience people have when they come out the other side.
Are they going to talk about you? Are they going to give you a review, testimonial, like, that's how you're representing yourself in the market.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: It speaks directly to brand. We're just coming off the super bowl where we're in a political environment as ever. And some footballers were asked about some political commentary and there were pundits on both sides not too happy with the milquetoast responses. And anybody who knows anything about brand knows that they're wearing the jersey. You're no longer just representing yourself. So if you're wearing my company jersey or your law firm jersey, you got to play the part. And, and if you're going to carry that out into the world, all the better. But just do it with pride.
Be proud to wear that jersey, fly the flag and sell your business out in the world. But just know that you are representing more than yourself. I mean, I literally can hear myself. This is how I talked to my students 20 years ago as a Teacher, you know, you take them on a field trip and they're all wearing the school T shirt and you're like, for the love of God, we are representing the entire school when we're out here. That's how I feel every time my kids leave the house. You are the best reflection of us as a family. So wear the jersey with pride and make us proud.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Well, I think that's why I'm a parent. Of course you can get mad and frustrated at maybe basic things or whatever, but if kids acting up, right? It's like you're not thinking, hey, my kid's just doing something. And. But it's like reflective on, on the whole family, right?
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Completely. Yeah. They're. Trust me, they're never judging the kid like this. Yeah, no, they're totally judging the parent. And so, I mean, think about that as, as a managing partner, you have this polished image, and then you, you know, your, your legal assistant is sending a grammatically incorrect email. It's cringy, you know, so we, we have to be aware that we are representatives of the organization from the second that phone call comes in to their, you know, before that, their experience on your website, their interaction with your firm online, that's, that's all painting a picture of who you are. And it's one of my favorite sayings about brand is you define your brand or it will be designed by default. So by design or by default, I'd rather own it completely. So know who you are, why you do what you do, what makes you who you are. You know, I consider that one of the four fundamentals I talk about when it comes to growing a law firm. It's very hard to stand out as, as a legal service provider, you know, it to a large extent has been commoditized. We thankfully don't differentiate very much. I'm actually pleased to see that there isn't a race to the bottom on fees, like people are generally upholding the professional fee structure. But how are you going to differentiate yourself? And I think it's going to be by the humans you employ and the relationships that they build as members of your firm. And so if that is ultimately your brand, make clear what your expectations are. From that website experience, to your call handling experience, to your onboarding experience. All of that is telling the entire world who you are and how you operate. Because no matter what, they're going to go online and tell people about it. So you better make it good.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Spot on. I love everything you just said. And I think too, you know, as a Leader of your. Of your law firm.
Are you communicating that to your. To your staff, your employees? Like, are they on the same page with all that stuff? Are you just hoping they. They want to represent you?
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Again, by design or by default. So, you know, this is no different than parenting. Again, lead by example, practice what you preach, and then make known your intentions. We can't just hope and pray these things happen. Like, we actually have to train our team. You know, I've been saying this really since the pandemic now, you know, we were talking about, oh, you know, this next generation of employees, they're. These kids, you know, they're. They're phone obsessed, they're social media obsessed. They. They're lazy, they're entitled.
And this is the generation we've inherited. Like, so for. For whatever reason, if we think humans are different than they used to be, we have a responsibility to mentor them and train them and bring them up to snuff. And, you know, as a. My kids are, you know, teetering on adulthood. And, you know, I do worry that this whole generation is a little different, and it is going to require more of us as employers to make sure that we are driving their full potential no different than we do as a parent. You know, these kids have had a lot of convenience at their fingertips. They're not as accustomed to hard work as generations passed. So we have to take that responsibility. So, like I said, it doesn't matter why. We can blame it on Covid, blame it on phones or social media, whatever it may be.
This is the generation that we're responsible for developing into professionals and leaders in our firm. So take the time to train them, invest in them, and then the simplest thing I'm going to tell you is, is to talk to them, have group lunches, start a firm book group, you know, every month. Pick a business book that is good for the culture of your firm. I have favorites I'm happy to share, but you have to talk to these people. And I think one of the saddest realities of, you know, this. This moment in time is that we actually, for all the insane communication going on online, there's less human interaction than ever. And so we have to make a point of really talking to the people who work in our organizations and helping them be compassionate, communicative, collaborative humans.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah, spot on.
One of the things I was going to say. So they're. They're not only going to be working for you and leading your company at some point, they're also your clients. Right? At some point. So look in the future.
So yeah, there's nothing. You gotta be able to work with these folks. And honestly I have a lot of young folks here and some you will. They act like Gen Xers, like so it's just.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: It's not across the board for sure. There's some amazing young folks.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: It isn't. And that's why hiring well is really important. And you know, that's a question people ask me about with intake all the time. You know, what am I looking for in hiring? One of the assessments I complete with new hires and intake is, is assessing the ego and empathy drive. It's a, you know, a training model I was exposed to many years ago that is really relevant in law firm intake. The ego is your desire to do well for yourself. That's motivation and attitude and that, that drive to achieve things. Empathy is your ability to suffer with someone else and want to bring you both through to the other side of it. And when you're hiring for intake, we need to find people who are high on both empathy and ego drives that they are these, you know, bleeding hearts who want to help someone on this very bad day that they called your law firm, but they also want to hit the numbers and they want to, you know, they want to see the conversion rate up and they want to be the one who, who, who didn't have a single loss case this, this month. So try to find those people. Um, there's an acronym I was exposed to called camps. Character, Attitude, Motivation, Personality. And last on that list is skills, because we can train for skills and you must. But all those other things are really baked into who we hire. So hire well, invest in these people, train them up and spend time with them.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Good, good advice right there. And I know for a couple things you mentioned, so one, my business partner, we have a book club every month here.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Excellent.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Everyone in the whole company can opt in or not. We have like a sheet and some people opt in for some books and some for not, but. And we have calls in the evenings once a week and cover chapters. So that's pretty cool.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: There wouldn't be any beverages on those calls, would there be?
[00:31:28] Speaker B: I mean, I wouldn't do that.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: You would never do such a thing. I can't imagine why else you would be having a meeting at night.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: General, like 6:00.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: So yeah, it might be a little happy hour.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Actually something happened there. We actually have happy hours too for, for other. For some of our teams that opt in for that too.
One thing too, I think you Know, with. With your folks, like, yeah, training them and all this stuff. But, you know, they have to be bought in. Right. So are you spending time be like, hey, what are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? Like, can our company help you achieve your personal goals? Like, what is that? Do they even have. You have goals? A lot of the young people, they're like, I don't have any goals because I don't. They don't think they even can or should.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Or they haven't just stopped to think about, like, well, do you have financial goals? How's that work here with your. Your path here.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: I know.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Do you have a goal to, like, run a marathon? How can we help you? You need more off, you know, off work. We can sponsor you, whatever. So if you take time to, like, have one on ones with your staff every month, every week, and just don't just talk about work. But they need to be like, you know, I really want to be here. And.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: You know what I mean? So.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: So I'll recommend a book for one of your book studies then. All In. Michael mcael. Michael Akowski.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Mike Michalowicz.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: What? Say it again then. Did I get it?
[00:32:47] Speaker B: It's Mike Michalowicz.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Sorry. Michaelowski was. Gosh. That was my neighbor I grew up with.
Oh, no, I don't. Bless his heart. I haven't thought of Mr. Michalowski in a long time. Yes. All In. Yeah, that's one. That's it. That's an excellent book. Yeah, that's a good bible.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: About middle of 2024. I had Mike on the show.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: And we talked about All In.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: So I'm a big fan.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: You'll have to tell me on the show a few times, I think.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: All right, so now I'm looking for one of my favorite books on team building, too. Joan Ryan, Intangibles Unlocking the Science and Soul of Chem. Of Chemistry. Like, this is great stuff. And, you know, this is why it's so important, you know, managing partners to get yourself away from some of the legal work and really be the CEO of your organization. It's so important. There's so much we can do to build great organizations that serve their communities and do the good work that we need them to do as. As people in a law firm. So great titles there.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Great books. Check those out. There's pro tips.
Yeah. Mike's written a lot of great books. Profit First. Yeah, that's another one that.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah, he's excellent.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I guess the, the moral of the story on this episode is, you know, have good team members.
Choose wisely, Take care of them, understand them. Work on your culture, your brand. Make sure that just throughout everything, you know, that you're doing not just leads from marketing, not just some simple intake steps, like it's got to be all the way through.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: And the word that's hitting me right now, Kevin, is transparency. I think we have to, you know, it's a new generation where young people are used to seeing everything. There is no behind the curtain anymore. And yet, you know, I still work with some lawyers who. I'll say something that seems pretty innocuous to me. So what's the marketing budget? What's the monthly marketing budget? It's like, ooh, only Mr. Jones of Jones and Jones knows the marketing budget. And it's like, well, wait a second, then how am I supposed to know how important is to answer that phone if I just think the phone just rings? We just, you know, we just pray and wish for phone calls and we get them, you know, so the transparency that comes with welcoming people into the, the business can be powerful and motivating folks.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah. One of my four values here is transparency. I love, you know, it's a difficult one to live up to, I think, as an employee to. Or to ask the team sometimes, like, we've had mistakes in the past where, hey, that website was down for like an hour. And then the team's like, well, the client never knew.
Like, well, we gotta tell em anyway. And they're never mad. But it's, it's hard for people to be like, but, but yeah, no, it's vulnerable.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: It's very vulnerable.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah. We're shooting ourselves in the foot.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Right. Well, and that's the thing with call screening. We've gotta get people comfortable letting, you know, letting their dirty laundry in the air. And, you know, it's the only way we can spot the stains and clean up.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And another thing to your, your. When you were just mentioning the marketing budget, when I interview a law firm, it's, you know, why are you reaching out? What do you think you need? What's the problems? But what is your revenue? And they go, ooh, now or last year or last month or anything you got.
And then what's your average case per practice area? What's your average case? You know, and sometimes they don't know across the board they'll come up with some numbers, but I'm learning if they know the numbers, how dialed in they are, how sophisticated they are, as A law firm. And if I get you a lead, like, what does that mean to you?
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: And is that based on your competitive market and your practice area and then your budget, if they have one, like, does it even work? Does it make sense?
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Are we, Are we, Are we going to be aligned in that, you know.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: We'Ve come a long way question? So I always tell, like, yeah, hey, if you want to have your admin on the call, like, I'm going to ask you some stuff that if they're not exposed to it, because they might not be.
They, you know, this is what I'm going to ask of you, so.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Right. Well, you know, we've come a long way. I've. I've been broadcasting about how important the data is since the 2020 Olympics, which actually took place in 2021. That was when I became data obsessed. And when I wrote my book, one of the chapters, the harsh realities was, you don't know your numbers. And if you're going to grow your practice, you need to know your numbers. And I have to tell you, I wrote an article just this past spring about how far everyone has come in that this was a huge three or four years of law firms really tapping into their numbers. And I'm very proud of everyone for that because we had, you know, you can't, you can't fix what you don't acknowledge. And so we had to get very realistic about, hey, you know, what is it? What does it cost? What is it, you know, what does it take from us? What do we have to do to get it? Let's. Let's get raw here.
I'm very proud to see everyone come so far.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Good job, law firms out there.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, kudos.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm surprised. And, you know, for me, at this point, I can tell, almost can tell, like when I'm talking to a lawyer and they. I spout out all these questions and I take notes, and if they're like, really snappy quick and I'm like, they have like a dashboard up or something like that.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Are you in this group or this group? Or this group? Yeah, I'm usually pretty close to the. Right. It's like mastermind groups or whatever.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah. You got your fireproof dashboard. Yeah.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Or how to manage, even how to manage for the smaller firms. Like, I know they're in some of these groups because I just. And they're usually like, yep, I'm in that group. I'm in this group. So, yeah.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: And it. And, and look at all the difference. I mean, it's just. And I, I get very excited seeing that when these folks really engage and look, you. This has been done. People have done this before. You. You don't have to figure it out all alone. Um, and that's another of my harsh realities, is you can't do this all alone. It's an awful lot to get this whole thing humming. So tap into the. To the experts you're listening to at this podcast. That's a, you know, that's, That's a step. So if you, you know, if you haven't done the mastermind yet, talk to the people who have. You know, I remind people all the time, none of this stuff is an expense. It's an investment. And sometimes it's as simple as making the investment that helps you perform. I used to say, my mom, God, what. Spending that $7 a week on Weight Watchers would motivate her like nothing else. So, you know, sometimes it's just a matter of put your. Putting your money where your mouth is really turns on a different level of enthusiasm. So investing in the mastermind, but even investing in training for your team, you're going to have higher expectations if you just put some money on the line.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: So I'm all for, yes, spending some money helps you focus on what you're supposed to be doing.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: So, yeah, definitely all the things.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: Well, Carrie, I think, you know, appreciate the conversation. Obviously, we could probably talk forever and go different tangents, but yeah, you know, just the importance of intake, but how deep it goes and so how important it is to your marketing team, how important it is to your internal staff and team and your growth, how it reflects your brand and your culture.
So it can get pretty deep and complex. I would say connect with Kerry and what's the best way for people to connect with you?
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Sure. I am. Kerri. K E R R I Kobe C O B Y White. Like the color. And if you look me up, you'll find me just about everywhere. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Carrie. You know, I'll confuse you for one more second though, then, Kevin. The business is kerryjames. Ca. But if you Google Carrie Kobe White, you'll find me.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: I appreciate that. Yeah. So obviously, if you're watching this on YouTube or LinkedIn, she's. She's probably tagged. If you need to connect with her, you'll ask me and I'll. I'll do an intro email and connect you as well. So great conversation, great book recommendations, and.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, let me throw one more out there then. By the law firm growth machine available at Kerry James. That's K E R R I J A M E S.CO available in hard copy and digital and audio.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: I completely forgot. Check out her book and be a great introduction and can learn a lot from that too. So thank you all everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, appreciate you coming here, showing up. If you have any topics you'd like to cover, or if you know a good guest or think you're a good guest, reach out. I'm on LinkedIn everywhere, of course. Leave a comment here and we'll get you on the show. So, Carrie, thank you so much and everyone, pleasure. See you soon. Cheers.
