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, think bigger.
I'm Kevin. Daisy.
Let's jump in. What's up, my friends? Thank you for tuning into the show. I got my friend Jordan here. He's been on the show before. This guy is all over the place, does some really cool stuff. Always has an awesome shirt on, always laid back. Just love his whole. His whole mood and everything. So, Jordan, welcome to the show. Excited to. To chat today.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Excited to be back, man. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yes, sir. And I know that while we're recording this, before this might come out or after, we'll be at Max Law Con in Nashville. Jordan's going. I'm going. Should be a great time. So if this comes out before then, hope to see you guys there. If it comes out after, I want.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: To hear my wife's smack talk. What it's like working with me. You got to go. We're on a. We're on a panel together about it, so it's going to be super exciting.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: I'm definitely not missing that one. So I'm sure she's got some good things to say.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's just if was not for my wife, I would be bankrupt, like, 17 times over. But if it was not for me, my wife would be super boring. And so, like, it's a really good balance. It's just her stories are, like, her perspective of my ideas is hysterical because in retrospect, they're terrible. But in the moment, I'm like, kevin, I could execute. I could buy an elephant for our firm and generate business with it. You know, like, I could go nuts. And she keeps me grounded.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: That's good to have that. My wife's very similar. I would say I'm more aggressive, more wanting to do crazy stuff or invest in things or do whatever.
She's more like, well, let's look at the math, the numbers, and, like, oh, come on. So it's good we have that. We're lucky. Jordan, quick introduction for folks that might not know you. Tell us a little bit about your. Your. Your background and your story. It's a really cool one. Dive into some other fun stuff.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: So I'll. I'll keep going on with my wife. My wife and I met in court on opposite sides. I was a prosecutor, she was a public defender, and I'd love to say we hit it off immediately, but she refused to date me for, like, a year and a half, although we got married pretty quickly after that. And then Ended up opening up our own firm together, which the first year of that and the first year of our son's life were by far the two worst years of marriage. You know, figuring out how roles change and whatnot from there. But after a lot of pitfalls, it culminated in us being able to drive cross country for about 13 months during COVID While the firm had record profits. We were a PI firm. So we figured, hey, if no one's driving for Covid, like, we can do all this stuff virtual. Might as well get going. That led to me having a marketing company for lawyers for a while and then ultimately getting bought out there so I could focus on coaching to help more lawyers create their version of my journey from being overwhelmed and aggravated to happy. And sometimes that means wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sometimes that means finding the job you actually want to do. But ultimately, the happier you are, the longer you stay in the game.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah, love it, man. It's an awesome story. And love what you represent with your brand, you know, and everything like that you're doing is awesome. And you have a new book which you are currently working on as we're recording. He was working on this book before we got on the show. He's jumping right back into it after we get off the show. So excited to see that come out. And again, it could be out here soon. So, yeah, share more about that when people can look for it.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Sure, man. So I released Love youe Law Firm on April Fool's Day of last year, and I hated the book the entire time. It was a terrible process. I am not a fan of writing a book that way, but thankfully from that I learned a much better way to do it. And so, like, I'm genuinely loving the second edition. I toyed with calling it, like, love your law firm more or love your law firm harder or something along those lines. But I think we're just going to go with Love youe Law Firm, second edition. It's got. It's almost an entirely new book, but this time I'm enjoying the process and so I think that will be reflected in the storytelling.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I would assume that if you're loving the process, you're loving the that then that'll be reflected in the copy and the content in the book. So. Excellent, man. Well, excited to see that and help, you know, let people know about it if it can help them help their firms, help them live a better life, help them manage their firm better.
That's what we're all about on the show here. So excited to. To share. Share that with you, so. Or for you, I guess. Well, one of the topics we talked about, which I thought was intriguing too, obviously it's the, the world I live in is marketing leads, helping firms get in front of their potential customers so they can help them with their needs.
And the topic was Leads to Lifestyle. And I was like, I really like that title. So, yeah, I just want to kind of dive into and kick it off, man. Like, what do you got to share today that can help our law firm owners?
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Let's start with this. No one actually teaches you how to run a business. They certainly not in law school. Maybe if you go to business school. I don't know. I didn't. I was a history major. That didn't help law school, did not help from the, the business side of stuff. But the one thing I had going for me was I moved up to Orlando to go to the University of Central Florida for law school undergrad, stayed here for law school at Barry, was a prosecutor here, opened up my practice here. So I'd been in the area for a long period of time. And I was like, hey, I'm going to go talk to the fraternities and sororities. I'm going to tell them, you know, how not to get arrested, give them some good advice. We get these awesome sunglasses with our branding on it and it's got the, the beer can opener, although every time you use it, they break off. So it's more for show. And it worked out really well, you know, like, I wish I could tell you I was smart enough to have thought through it more than just being like, hey, you know, I know fraternities and sororities, like, let's try it. Had I have known what I was doing and thought through, like, who did I want to work with? And I enjoyed working with first time offenders on low level offenses where their parents paid money. I would have done that for everything. You know, it's only like three years later when I was like, man, the only marketing that worked for me was referrals and speaking to the fraternities. And so like, I really want to help more people think through the end goal of marketing to then work backwards to get there in a way that you actually enjoy the journey.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Love that. Yeah. Who do you want to work with? Who do you want to help? You know, what's your niche? What's your focus? I think that's massively important to know that not just what's going to be the trick that works, but like, who are you generally want to work with? And what kind of work do you want to do that, you know, brings you happiness and that you enjoy? You know, I think a lot of firms are like, well, let's what can bring dollars in today? And like, that's their focus. Yeah, it might not be the clients they want to work with or the thing that they're the best at or that they enjoy.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: And even if you're focused on, even from the money standpoint, too many people get focused on raw dollars, not on the most profitable cases. You know, it's interesting to me, like you talk to a lot of immigration attorneys and they will charge buku bucks for asylum cases because there's so much work and it's an emergency and all that, but then come to find out they're spending 100 hours on that. Whereas a case where, you know, it's a marriage or a work visa or something like that, they might charge, you know, 25% of the rate, but it might only take them 10 hours. And so that's almost two and a half times as profitable. So, like, even if you're like, hey, big dollar, big value cases, you actually really need to be thinking about what's truly profitable for your firm.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. I was talking to, I talked to a lot of immigration attorneys, but I mean, I was surprised to learn, you know, immigration was like 5,6000 is kind of like average. I was like, oh, that's actually pretty darn good. And I've heard some that are higher than that, but it's.
And then they go, well. But some can be worth a lot more. But yeah, well, what's involved, you know, and how many, how many people are you putting into that? How much time and hours? I. There's a personal injury firm that is a client of ours now. When I met with them previously, they were doing Legion non branded lead gen. So they're just buying leads. Basically. Their brand's not represented, so they're not really. It's not building any kind of brand awareness for them. And they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And after meeting with the cfo, he was digging into it, and their lead, their average case value was way down. They had to hire way more intake people to handle the volume, like seven people. And they were break even on that, that whole thing. So they're spending like a hundred grand a month on the leads if break even. Although their revenue looked, you know, like it's the same case values were down and required more people intake, and the quality was just out there. But it was hard to uncover it and they kind of brought me in to go and try to figure out what's the problem. And they had stopped all brand, all SEO and they were going Legion all in. And they lost a lot of positioning in their brand messaging. They stopped traditional marketing in their market and it was like, now you're reliant on this Legion drug. Right. So just a terrible situation that was hard to see at a scale like that.
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 a fit. Now back to the show.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: I can tell you, I mean, for my story. So my son was born March 2, 2018. And so I cut our entire marketing budget that year. I was like, look, I'll at least spend more time with my kids, but I my kid, but I can't do 80 hours a week to make no money. So we cut like $135,000 a year marketing. My firm made $5,000 less for the next year. Not that the marketing was that bad, but that we're able to, you know, like naturally grow by doing a better job and get and generate more stuff from there. And then like that allowed me to basically like reboot the entire concept of the firm because I finally had some space to do it instead of just being overworked, underpaid, facing every credit card bill, you know, praying that it would get paid. Yeah.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: I mean, just to uncover something like that to where, you know, those dollars in your case or in the case of a client I have now weren't really doing anything to be effective. And so either the wrong marketing, wrong message, whatever, but just keeping your eye on this kind of stuff and like saying, hey, is this bringing in the client that we want and is, is it growing that or is it going in a different direction? Why am I working on these cases that I shouldn't be working on? I think just being involved and having that, a pulse on that and keeping an eye on this thing, it's just like intake. I had a guest on here a little while back. They didn't change their marketing at all. Same advertising, same marketing, same everything focused on intake and grew by X. Just closing more of the leads they were already getting.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: You know, it's always, it's amazing to me, everybody thinks they have a marketing problem, but then if you dive in, you realize sometimes it's the intake problem, sometimes it's, you know, just not knowing what type of cases it's, you know, so that's why, like, more attorneys need to be intentional. You know, what is the end goal? What does this look like 20 years down the road? And then let's work backwards, because then you start thinking through these things in a much different perspective and ultimately help yourself stay in the game longer. I mean, I don't know if you're like me in my first seven years as an attorney. I know more people that either unfortunately died by suicide, heart attack, stroke, or just abandoned their practice than who retired. And it's because it's a grind, you know, and people grind themselves in a dust. You know, if you're looking for, I've got 20 years left, how do I stay in the game? You know, I've got 30, 40, whatever the number is. You know, you start really thinking through this. And so I think more people can do it backwards. And then you market to the right kind of people, the right kind of cases, and you absolutely enjoy your firm.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that idea of looking, looking ahead and working backwards. I think, you know, a lot of us, you know, you come out as, you're the technician, right? You're, you're the lawyer. You like to be a lawyer. Now you run a law firm. Now you kind of run a business, but you're not really. So you, you have to kind of start running a business. And so it's, you know, you're just kind of like stuck in it, right? And then you're just stuck in the day to day planning ahead. Sounds like, oh, I ain't got time for that, you know, so it's just easy to get stuck. And, and now you here you are going, holy shit. Five years went by. This is not where I want to be. Right. So yeah. Do you, and you want, do you want to be Morgan and Morgan or you want to not be like, do you want to just. I want to have a comfortable lifestyle and I'm cool with that. Like, what is it? Is it in between? Is it. I want the whole state of Florida, Is it, You know, I want one office and I want to take off, you know, six months of the year. What is it? Lay it out so well.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: So that's why, like, from that standpoint, I think you start with what is the job you actually want, like, create your job. The ideal, you know, what does that job do in the ideal week, the ideal month, something along those lines. And then you can build in the support around that position. Ultimately though, I think, like, if you really want to be a lawyer with a full caseload, I think you have to go work for somebody else. But if you're, you know, but if you want the situation where I want to be able to drop my kids off at school and pick them up and I've got these hours, then. Right. You backfill. You know, I've got 30 hours a week to work. Every case takes me, you know, 10 hours. So how can I afford to take three cases a week or how can I find help to, you know, cut those numbers down? Like, you just, you really have to start with your, like you are the puzzle piece. Make your puzzle piece first and then figure out the rest of the puzzle instead of this weird like, well, that one person at law school who bullied me would really change their tune if they knew I had a 60 person law firm or whatever motivates people into hating their firm one day.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah, success is the best revenge, right? No, I love that whole concept there. And you know, creating you are. Yeah. Core values that should be yours. You should set this. Know your vision, everything. If you're gonna hire one person or a thousand people, like, that's something you need to set in place. And I love the idea of like your perfect position. And that might not happen now, it might be in the future, but to actually say this is in 10 years, I would love to. This is my job. Maybe it's the janitor at the firm. That sounds kind of nice actually, versus what I have to do every day. So I love that. Is there tips kind of systems, you know, I know you do a lot with your consulting, but what would you recommend a loyal firm that's. Or a lawyer that's listening, Especially the ones that are starting up. Talk to tons of listening to the show that are just getting started and they're kind of in that moment where they have a chance to do it right.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: You know, solve your actual biggest problem first.
So create like, create the vision. But as soon as you have that vision of what you're aiming for, solve your first real biggest problem. It amazes me how many people are like, hey, this is everything going on in my firm. I have no cases, I have none of this. I have no systems. Let me start writing my own blog posts and putting them up on a website. Right. Like that's not your biggest current problem. You know, your biggest current problem is whatever that system that you don't have that's taking the most amount of time is your biggest issue. If you need more cases, reach out to Kevin, reach out to a marketing company, Let them do it versus you building it from scratch. Because you can be working on systems, you know, or reach out to a coach to help you with the systems and you go get lunch with people, like really focus on your actual biggest problem. Because you need the time to solve anything else to make any sort of change in life. So once you have that vision, you have to get there. And that's going to take time and effort.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's easy to get. Well, it's just easy to get caught up. And this is me too, on something that's in front of you. And it's probably not the most important thing. Something that's also you prefer to do or like to do, but that's not the most important thing. That's really challenging. Right. I. I'd rather go do this thing over here. Cause that's what I like to do. Might know the last thing that I should be doing. And so for a new firm or new lawyer, you're going to meet yours. All these things. You know the book Traction? Right. You can go to this book and, and go, I gotta do all these things. It's overwhelming and like, well, what should I do first? So I think taking time to sit back and plan, talk to people like Jordan, you're like, what? I don't know what to do first. You know what I mean? Like, people are so helpful out there. There's so many people that will help you. Other lawyers, Jordan, myself, and go, where are you? What's going on? And maybe you're just blind to what the biggest problem is. I don't know. But it's easy to get caught doing things that aren't going to move the needle and you're just stuck in the same place next year.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Well, and give yourself some grace, you know, like, I, I love Traction. It is. I've read it multiple times. It's phenomenal. But Traction is designed for like 2 million plus revenue companies. So if you're sitting here, if the first book you ever read when you open your firm was Traction, you're sitting. You can't do those things. You don't. Your leadership team is your brain, your right hand, your left hand and your feet. You know, like, that's what's leading everything. You know, you don't have the opportunity to do these things. And so you have to figure out that natural progression, you know, that might be to doing traction a hundred percent fine. But again, like, what's the step you can take now? What's the thing you can control? What's the biggest issue? What's going to give you back the most time? Meet yourself where you currently are as you work towards where you want to bathe.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. Um, I think a lot of things out there, a lot of the conferences, a lot of the advice, it's really centered around firms that are doing a few million. They have a few attorneys, they have staff, they have an office and systems and things like that. So it's, it's more about how do we get better and how do we get to the next step. But if you're new, you're just getting started. Like, those are things that, you know, you don't need to be concerned with at the moment. So. Yeah, good point. I like that.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Hey, I've lived in it and now I've. Now I coach other people on their version of it. So it's. We all have the same problems, and that's a beautiful thing. That is not a complaint. The fact that all of us struggle with the same things is great because it's that much easier to find good help or see people's answers or have a mentor or a coach or something along those lines. We are not sitting in a laboratory figuring out the next medical, you know, drug future, whatever. We are arguing cases that already happened and applying them to a current situation. We are running a law firm almost the same way that they've been run for hundreds of years, for better and worse. Like, there are people out there that can help but make sure they are slightly further ahead than you. Like, if you can sit down with John Morgan tomorrow and you're a hundred thousand dollars firm, the advice is going to be tough to take or that it's people that know how to break it down for you. So. So, you know, you will pull great things from everybody, but it's that next step for you. It's not 37 steps later. You need to worry about this thing.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's so much. The answers are all out there and the people that have the answers are all out there. And most people are willing to give them to you. I think it's just me. To your point, some people might come in hot with way more than you can manage and process, and they mean well, probably. It's just, you know, they're just like when someone's. When you have kids, right? All your friends that have had kids are like, jordan, you gotta do this. Make sure you do this. I got this book, and I like to say that everyone ignores all of it because they're just like, whatever, I gotta figure it out myself. And then when you have kids and you have friends that are just getting ready to have a kid, you do the same shit to them. Like, hold on, I know what you need to do. And you need to do this and buy this, and diapers are expensive. And, you know, we just, we. We just tend to do that. But it's from a good place. It's just, you know, they got to figure it out themselves a little bit, right?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: And you have to give yourself the time to do that. So, like, you know, we talked about Max Law. You talked about conferences. You should be going to conferences.
But. No, not but. And. And you should be blocking off your calendar for several days after the conference to actually go through all your notes, go through the handouts, figure out what you can implement in the next, you know, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and then do it. You know, I see so many people that run the conference circuit because they don't keep themselves. They don't allow themselves enough time to execute on the stuff that they've learned. You know, for the longest time, it was impossible to find information for humans. Like, we grew up with a lack of information.
We now have an overwhelming amount of information. I can go to ChatGPT and get all of recorded human history repeated to me in a cool conversational format. That's not our problem. The problem is doing it, or the problem is screening out what not to do and doing the things that you should be doing.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: 100%. Yeah, definitely go to conferences, but don't go there just to hang out. And like, that's why you're there. Like, you have to come back and implement. And if it's one freaking thing, you could have 20 pages of notes, find the one thing, and go, I'm gonna do that thing. Because a lot of it might be beyond kind of like traction. Like, it might be just you're not even ready for it in depth. You might come to that note back those notes two years from now. And now you're ready for that thing. You know what I mean? And it was taught you two years prior. It's still relevant, but it's just, you're not ready for certain things at certain times, and they don't even make sense to you until you get to that place and you're like, oh, shit, that one thing. Now I can do that. Because I have, you know, I've grown to a point where that makes sense. So if you just do the. Do one implementation from something from each of these conferences will be huge.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I always, I love the. It's like the.
It's not a meme. It's the image online and it's got like the perfect ladder and it's only got two rungs on it. It's got the okay ladder and it's got a thousand rungs on it and that person's gone. You know, you're just like, you build on top of all these things. It is that, like, that's why we talk about loving the journey. So how do you love the journey? By understanding what goal you are working towards and trying to have as much fun getting there as possible. You know, the people that have no long term vision don't know what decision is right and what decision is wrong. And therefore, that's where burnout comes from. You know, if you can be grinding away on a tough project, knowing what the outcome is going to do for you and find joy in it. Like my family, we love escape rooms. I like somebody locking me in a room with difficult puzzles to get out. I find to be incredibly fun. If I was banging my head against the wall. Yeah, right. But if you're banging your head against the wall not knowing what to do, that's aggravating. Right? Everybody likes a good problem. It's finding that right amount of complication that is a worthwhile solve instead of either way too hard or way too easy.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I've heard that, you know, from. I forgot who I heard this from, but it was like the secret of happiness is, is accomplishment of completing something. And it could be something stupid. Like, I just put a lamp together over here. Me and my new sales guy, we put a lamp together stupid out in the front, you know, but it's like, you know, you like to complete things, challenges, things that you feel like, hey, I did that and now I'm moving on. If you're just blindly working, there's plenty of work to do. But a lot of time can go by and you're like, what am I doing? Right? There's no real vision, there's no goal, there's no rhyme or reason other than the fact that I have to do this because now I own a law firm. And that has to happen versus you controlling what the outcome's going to be, planning for that, building a Vision and say, I get to run a law firm. I get to employ these people. I get to do whatever I wish to do because I planned it this way.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: And the beauty is, as a business owner, you can also make money off of almost anything. So, like, maybe not the lamp example, but, like, you want to play more golf. Great. Find referral sources and go play golf. I'm sure that the lamp will make a great story on Facebook. Right? Like, there's the.
This is a $5,000 lamp because it took me five hours to put it together.
Something like that. You know, whatever I learned, I learned that I can do, or you got it from Ikea. And I learned we can create things without any words. We can just use pictures. Now my law firm has redone our entire intake system with just images and graphics or something. I don't know. There's. There's stories we can pull from everything. But I'm always amazed by how many business owners I talk to who are like, oh, man, you know, I want to try more new restaurants. I want to go play more golf. I want to do more fun things. Great. Go do them with referral partners. Go do them with clients. Go do them with vendors. Go do, like, do these things. It amazes me how much money you can make by living a better life when you do it with people that can help you in some manner. You know, they might be mentors, they might be referral sources, they might be experts.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Absolutely, man. Yeah. I mean, for me, business is everything. People like, oh, hey, Kevin, you give it out your business email or your business. Like, everything for me is just tied together. It's all business. I love. I love business. I love what we. What we do, and I love what I do. So 100%, like, if you talk to, like, a tax strategist, all. That's all. You can write all that stuff off, too, like, save money on taxes. Hey, travel.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Here we go.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: I know some attorneys that travel in for a conference, Then they stay three or four days after the conference, have their wife or husband, and they make a trip out of it. You can write the whole thing off because a certain amount of time was recorded as a conference or whatever. So it's all kinds of creative things you can do to travel with your spouse to also get work done and feel like you accomplished something. And you can also include them in that too. But think outside the box. There's. There's so much you can do. And I love all my partners, referral partners, lawyers, non clients, clients, just as friends. So it's to me, it's, you know, it's. Going to a conference is not. That's not work. That's for sure.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Well, but, like, this is what keeps you in the game. You know, as humans, we are social creatures. So if you are hanging out with people at conferences, if you're going to these fun things, it's great. And for, you know, for your spouse, imagine the difference between the spouse who is supportive of you doing these things and the one who isn't, because you're making time for them as at the right amount. You know, like, if you are working a hundred percent of the time, I can't imagine your spouse is okay with that. But if they're coming with you to the conferences and you're taking those couple extra days and they're seeing the benefit of these things, then it's that much easier to have a great home relationship and that much more supportive of a partner as you put in a late night the week, a couple weeks before trial. And, you know, those kind of things that come up, like, enjoy the time as much as you can, because there will be terrible times. No matter what you do, your goal is to have as few terrible times as possible with as much time in between them and not have them linger for as long as possible. That's success as a business owner. It's not everything being perfect, because that will never happen, my friends. That never happen.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I think involving your spouse or whatever and just not just. And this. My. My wife actually wasn't very involved in my business for. For quite a while now. I bring her into conversations, so I'll talk about everything. We also have kind of our own business that we do for. With real estate. And that's so much better than, like, this separation of, like, I was at work. No, I'm not at work. Like, like, no. It's just this all needs to be kind of integrated. It's a lot better that way for me. And especially when she's like, hey, what if we did this? Or, you know, what if we bought this here, we could write this off. And I'm like, she's coming up with some ideas. So that's way more fun to me than like, this. You don't know anything about my company or my work. You know what I mean?
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Well, and then if you compartmentalize your life like that, then you're like, well, what? Who am I right now? Right? Like, am I. Am I business Jordan? Am I friend Jordan? Am I. If you are just you the entire way through you don't have to put on airs. You know, to be fair, I don't wear a Hawaiian shirt 100 of the time. But, you know, that's my big sacrifice, I guess. You know, this, this.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: I gotta.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: This is my uniform. But I'm.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, Salty crew.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: There we go. But like, if you ran into me in a different shirt, I'm still laid back. I'm still nice. I'm still funny. I'm still cracking jokes. Like, I'm still me. It's just, you know, I'm in. I'm not in my uniform.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: No, no, you're just. You're yourself. You don't, you know, I mean, I, My, that's. That's a weird topic there. Like, I really wear a polo. This is like a, you know, salty crew, like, kind of surf shirt.
If I don't have to wear a suit and tie and all that, I'm. I'm never going to do it.
If I go to conferences, I might take a dress shirt. You'll probably see me in a T shirt with like a blazer on top it. I don't think any of that matters and I don't care too much. I'd rather wear a hat. My hair is thin. Hate just putting stuff in my hair. So you might see me with a hat on at a conference, but I just kind of do my thing. I try not to. To care too much, but I'm also aware of my surroundings and saying, okay, well, if it's a nice event, I'm going to dress up. But if I had my choice, I would not be dressed up. I'd be just casual as I can possibly be. So. And I'm.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: But take that a step further because if you are dressed up the way you want, you are showing up to the event with a smile on your face, in a better mood, you're more patient. You know, like, it just. There's a comedian that has a skit about wearing a tie is like being choked by a young child. And if you have a backpack on, it's like they've jumped on you. And like, why do we want to do that all day? I don't know. You know, so if you're dreading how you dress, if you're dreading who's at an event, if you're, you know, like, I've done some terrible networking, dreaded going to the event. So I wasn't as open to the conversation. I wasn't as in it. I was, you know, checking the watch to see where we could go, as opposed to, you know, if you stack the deck in your favor, you become more memorable. You become the kind of person people want to hang out with. You build better relationships. You, you take more from it. You actually do the follow up that you told people you would do. Like, all of this seems so woo woo, like just have fun. But it's backed by the actions that you will naturally take when you are enjoying what you're doing to make sure it's right and effective.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: That's a good point. Yeah. Trying to be someone you're not if, yeah. If you're in a networking event for your business. Law firm. Right. Law firm lawyers should be a networking with other attorneys, with local business owners, whatever. If you're not enjoying it and you're just dreading being there, you know, I don't know how you're going to be effective at having a conversation with anybody, you know, so.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: But if your, if your mentor told you that's how they grew their firm and you hate networking, don't grow your firm the same way. It's just simple. There should be, there should be a part of you that everything feels right as you are doing it. I understand, like we want to get a little bit out of our comfort zone and I'm fine with that. I'm not saying everything needs to be easy, but when you find more things that you enjoy, you will spend the extra time to learn the tactics. You will show up in a better mood, you know, you will come back, you will stay in touch with people. It's so much easier when you have some sense of joy and enjoyment out of what you are doing to grow, how you are running your firm, what the marketing looks like, all those things come back to keeping you going forward towards that long term vision 100%.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Like for me, like if I, if you were like Kevin, you have to cold call, you know, 20 or 100 law firms every day. That works. So you have to do it. Probably not going to do it, but if I had to, it would be not successful because I don't want to do it. I don't want to bug them. They don't want to hear from me. It's not working, not going to do it. So. And that's one of those things where some things you just, you know damn well you're just, you're not going to do it. It's not going to make sense even if you're told to do it.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: But I think other things can be a little, you know, harder.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: The crazy part is there are people out There that love doing the things you hate. So you hire them like it's that simple. You know, I, I do not have patience on the phone. I, I just, I'm sorry, it, this phone call should have been an email. It could have happened in two seconds instead of a 30 minute phone call. So I can hire people who love sitting on the phone and chatting with people to be my intake specialist, to be our receptionist, to go through all those things like you can tap into other people's superpowers. You know, I think as business owners we should be doubling down on our strengths. And then you just hire to cover your weaknesses with somebody else's strength. And that's how the company becomes great. That's how the company has no weaknesses. It's not each individual person, it's the collective. It's the right people in the right seats. To use our rejection analogy again.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Yep. Right people on the bus in the right seats. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, as like a extrovert, entrepreneur, visionary, kind of. That's me. It always feels kind of weird when, you know, when I have an employee that's like, they do really great work and I'm like, you need to go lead a team and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, no, I can't do that. I'm like, you're missing the opportunity. And they're like, I just want to fricking turn the wrench. I, I want to do this thing. And I always was like, what?
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Why?
[00:31:30] Speaker A: What? Why? Like they're not like me, they're not wired like me. And you need those people. You need those people.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: And then. You ever read Quiet by Susan Gain?
[00:31:38] Speaker A: I have not. No.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: So I am like you. I am, I am so extroverted. So the book is about the benefit of introverts. And so there's this study they did for teams and so the best teams are either a team of extroverts run by an introvert or a team of introverts run by an extrovert. And then she goes through like how the differences are played and what you have to do and because that's how you get a difference of perspective. You know, I, it cracks me up. Like we did the disc assessment at my firm one time and everybody was just off the charts super high. I, we all want to, you know, be influential and go out and chit chat with people. And I was like, oh, so nobody wants to stay and do the work. So we went to hire, we tried to find more people who are SES to Support us. And then we could go nuts and sat with everybody knowing that, you know, the home base was going to grind through all the work, dot all the I's, cross all the T's, and you just, you build an organization, you know, it becomes. It's a company is its own thing, but like turn it into a thing that has a bunch of different success opportunities, a bunch of different superpowers, but, you know, cover for each other's weaknesses, let everybody focus on their strengths.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And that was, you know, doing that exercise allowed you to do things with intention. Like, oh, well, we just hired a bunch of people that we liked and they're all fun and now no one's doing the work, you know, so it's, it's going okay, well, now we need to think about this and be more intentional at what kind of folks we're bringing on. It's a great, great example right there. Yeah, I love it. Love all of it. That. What was the book again that you recommended?
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Quiet, Quiet by Susan Cain.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: All right, everybody write that down. I don't never read that book. So it's going on my list for sure.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Well, it's, it's interesting because obviously, like, I think most people that write books are extroverts or at least they're ghost written for extroverts. You know, you get the high level CEO that did cross country tours and we're speaking and stuff. Like, I think that person's an extrovert. So it's nice to hear the benefit of introverts and the, and you know, why we need them on the team and how we make sure they are comfortable. Like, you know, your situation of trying to turn them into a boss may not be the right thing, but knowing that they are there becomes a huge. And knowing how to get, you know, a little bit of that insight out of them makes the company more stronger as a whole. The difference of opinion, the different perspectives end up leading to success.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, they get this. They make your crazy ideas into reality too. Right. Or they tell you that's crazy, we're not going to do that.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's super. I mean, you look at every, you know, Walt Disney had his brother Roy and Steve Jobs had Wozniak. And I mean, you can go down the list of Bill Gates had Steve Ballmer, like all these people had that really good grinder getting things done behind them. It's super important. And, and it's not that that person acted that way, it's that person generally loved that stuff. While the you know, crazy visionary like you and I just went off into space with our vision. We had that, you know, backing. So we're not looking for people to change who they are. We're looking to find the people that we need. You know, remember where that puzzle piece, we're creating a whole picture. Find the other pieces that fit in correctly to build you the image that you want.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And they're in the right people. They want to do the work. They want to follow you. They want to be part of it. They have mental ownership in your business. Right. And then they'll do whatever it takes. So. I love it, man. It's awesome. Jordan. What I see you got a new book coming out. We're going to be on the lookout for that. What is the name of the new book? Did you settle on the title for it?
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Just love your law firm. Second edition, you know, we didn't. We didn't go with anything too crazy.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Love your law firm. So his book's already. He has a book already out there. Love your law firm. But this is the second edition coming. He was telling me how much more he loved the process to write this book. It sounds like there's a lot of differences. It's a brand new book, so urge you to check that out and we'll obviously see it at Max Law. And what's the best way for folks to reach out and connect with you?
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Sorry. If you want the full Jordan experience, Facebook.
It is a nice mix of, like, really helpful tidbits and the hilarious stuff that my child says that drives me nuts all rolled in together to be, you know, the life that is me. There are, I believe, two Jordan Ostrovs in the world. The other one's a great salesperson out of Boston. And then there's the bearded Hawaiian shirt wearing one. So I will. I will stand out.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah. You're in Orlando, Florida, right?
[00:35:41] Speaker B: I'm actually in San Antonio now, but yeah, I was in Orlando for a long time.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Oh, I thought you were still in Orlando. So now you're in Texas. Okay. So I was gonna say we're the array digital Christmas party is gonna be hosted in Orlando and we have, I think, like 70 people coming.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Wow, that's awesome.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, we. We haven't done that in a couple years, so Covid kind of threw that one. And we've grown so much that that's way more people than I have ever expected that travel and fly in somewhere. So that'll be interesting.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Congrats. What venue?
[00:36:15] Speaker A: I'm not on that team. So I don't know.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Okay, Even better. See? Spoken like a great CEO. You know, I remember people asking me, like, for the wifi password, and I was like, I have no idea. You know, where's the 70 person Christmas party? I don't know. But I, I, I trust the team to get it done, you know, like, that's how you have success as a company. You can't.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: I'm just gonna show up the airport and get on the plane, you know, There we go.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: You know, it's in Orlando, so you can confirm you're on the right plane. Everything else is gravy from there.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't know you had moved down to San Antonio, so that's awesome. I need to get down there and see some folks, so hopefully there's a conference or I'll put it on my list to just come down and see at some point.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: There we go. Let me know, man. I'll show you around.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Awesome, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. Listening. Jordan's amazing again. We've been connected while now if you're looking for help with your firm, not sure what to do, where to go, and you want to build a firm that you want to actually be part of running, then he's a great person to connect with. So I urge you to do that. And we'll see you on the next episode. Jordan, good to see you, brother. See you soon.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. See you in Nashville.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: See you in Nashville. See y'. All.
Sam.
