EP058: Maximizing PROFITability: Secrets to Managing Your Law Firm with Profit Sherpa John McCarthy

Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now, here's the founder and CEO of 10. Golden Rules, Jay Berkowitz.

Well, good morning, good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever time you're listening to this podcast, thank you for being here. I've got a great guest today. And I'm gonna hit it hard right out of the gate. Before I do that, I want to just ask you to give us a five star review, if you liked the content if you're in iTunes, or Spotify. And thank you so much for being here. And today. I've got John McCarthy and I've absolutely loved John's content. He's been on our webinar, we've done some presenting together. And he specializes in helping law firms do phenomenally well. And I like I said, I want it to come right out of the gate. By the way, this is Jay Berkowitz, 10 golden rules. We do internet marketing for law firms. And we'll learn more about John in a minute. But I love a case study that he talks about where law firm was struggling to make payroll. And with John's guidance, they turned everything around, made $2 million profit. The owner of the firm were, you know, didn't work for three months and was on holiday in New Zealand for three months. And it's just a great case study. So I want John to tell us right out of the gate, you know, what are three or four things that changed the trajectory and really makes a difference in managing your law firm.

That's great. Thank you for that yet. Yeah, it's an amazing story, that plant and a good friend of mine now. And as you said, when I met them, the business owner was working 8090 hours a week, the business was actually growing at about 10% a year. But the costs were growing in line with the revenue. So he wasn't actually getting any further forward. And he was completely on this treadmill and couldn't get off on a first started work with him. And it had a huge impact on his business and his life as well. The key thing he took away was I've got to focus on profit, not revenue. And that just start there literally just start doing that. And I think law firms can be so focused on on revenue and billable hours and all that kind of thing. But I see it so many times. Many lawyers or even DOL departments are actually losing money because they're doing all these billable hours, but the cost to deliver them for whatever reason. It's actually cost more than revenue they're bringing in. And that's one thing is beware of profit margins. And I don't just mean reducing the costs. Let's get to some lawyers only to get rid of reduced costs by getting rid of lawyers, they can't do the work. That's not what I mean is that your your costs you need the lawyers and your fee and as to one is looking at the other areas, where's the inefficiencies? Where was the holdups with all the rework? There's so many inefficiencies in there, which you can make a massive impact for. And it's about gaining or obtaining the right kind of work, if you've got a fear and are worth, let's say, $500 and hours, why is he doing $150? An hour work? Is just thinking about things like that? Are they billing for all the hours that they're doing? Are they collecting the cash for the house? Are they doing are they discounting, even just start looking at simple stuff, there's got to make an impact, as to for and the second thing to really think about is cash. You know, there's a lot of people get confused between didn't swing, profit, and cash and revenue. And the three different things, you know, you could do lots of work, let's say, personal injury or litigation, you don't get paid for three years. Well, that's kind of okay for your business model. But be mindful of the work that you're bringing in. Otherwise, you're having to borrow money to fill the cash gap, which of course, is gonna cost you money and interest. So the first things first is take a step back, really start looking at the profit. And what can you do to increase efficiencies? Are you getting profitable work in? Or is it low value working? I think the thing with my client there that he focused on, was marketing, spending a lot of money on marketing, I had no idea how to work out, is it working or not? Then we will get sucked into spending money, all these marketers that are out there and never stopped to think right? How many leads is actually generally. And he literally from saying the first time we may went back to the office to catch up with the 200 emails he had and the hours are together. And it was right out of our marketing. How much of it can we test to see what's working and his team said None, right? Stop it. Just stop marketing until we know how to test it. And then once the words are how to test and it was online marketing to use Google ads, it is Facebook ads and SEO and that kind of things you specialize in. Once they put in steps to start to measure it. Then they can refine it and refined it and refined it and the cost per lead came down and the value per client came down and the profit margins just absolutely went through the roof. So yeah, two things. Focus on profit and focus On on cashflow, but also look at, look at your marketing, get people who are good at marketing, not just creating noise in the marketplace, especially if you can measure that.

You said profit the types of work that were coming in and marketing that works. So how did you actually, you know, drill down now, what did you do? Did you create p&l? And did you go through stuff with them weekly, monthly? How did you get the focus on profit to work?

Yeah, it's actually amazingly simple. I'm the client there, he, we've become great friends really good friends. I mean, the guy's worth that huge amount of money now and spends most of his life on holiday. It's the very first thing, it's not actually as difficult as people think. He had built a very good business, I'll call it a good business, because it was kind of growing and fairly big. But I wouldn't call it a good business because he's working crazy hours, and not able to take the money they wanted. But he hadn't built like a business, if that makes sense. He hadn't really looked in efficiencies. And he just went around the team, just finding out what wasn't working. He'd literally, it was so simple. He just walked all the way around and see what's going wrong. What's taking you too long, what was the inefficiencies? And he said, John, I really don't like you anymore. He had this huge box of list of things that weren't working, but he wasn't aware of. And he said, he's a complete, almost overwhelmed. What on earth do I do with this slot? And it was it was simple little things. It was I mean, some of the some of the things are so simple. You know, he was paying a couple $100 a month to rent plants. Well, the Whitman the team and said, Look, I'm paying hundreds of pounds under dollars a month for these plants. Does anyone mind if we don't have them? He said, No, we'll bring in our own plants. That's it a couple $100 dollars gone. And this is most people are probably doing this now to five or six years ago, just talking to the team, what's what's slowing you down, I'm constantly flicking between screens. But we've only got your spreadsheets and software and things. I've only got one screen, if we had two screens to play on, it'd be quicker. That's fairly standard now, but it wasn't five, six years ago. That's it, the phone gets two screens. And it was it sounds silly based off of the tiny little things like that, which is costing time. The big one, which is in the opposite end of the extreme, was their onboarding system was very complex for their new clients. And it was about 42 mouse clicks to onboard a client between different spreadsheets and software's and CRMs and various things. And they just said he didn't know this, because he's quite far removed. They said, Look, we want with all doing about 10 of these days, but 20 of us doing 10 a day, it's taken us a huge amount of time. So in this instance, he actually invested in software, and he did invest about 100,000 pounds. But that 100,000 pounds invested once that's set aside for five years ago, it saved him 40 hours a week, it literally saved him a whole employee salary, because he didn't get rid of the employee. He just took on more work. So honestly, there are efficiencies everywhere is the stuff we're spending money on like the plants, it could be software, it could be licenses, it could be, I don't know, marketing events, or conferences or stuff that is that isn't bringing money in. And a lot of it your team will know because this thing's annoying them every single day. We just don't think to ask doesn't need to be complicated.

That's great. And you know, the folks who listen to this podcast, we talk a lot about marketing that works. But what are some of the benchmarks you looked at? Or what are some of the functional things that you've found, and worked with him on to improve his marketing and find marketing that worked? Well, in

terms of the marketing, this is where I kind of do I step back a bit? I'm not a specialist like ujs? I don't get stuck into the specifics like you do. But they were doing a lot of online and a lot of Google and SEO essentially, a lot of what they did in one aspect of their business was Google Marketing. And again, they weren't measuring it. So he'd started to build a dashboard of right, how much are we spending? How many leads are we getting in? What's the conversion rate? What's the average value, the simple stuff, you're smiling because you do this all the time with your clients, but it wasn't being measured. And they work. They worked with a company not me a company just like yourself, and they refined it and refined it and refined it and he would send me a text of hey, it's notes like spend $1 get $3 back and then he got it from spend $1 and getting $10 back marketing is free when you really get to that level. But that's kind of one thing. And the other thing isn't Charlie recently working with him. I literally found a way even last year to double his business within the next 12 to 18 months. This Bellamy's business has grown from what it's 10x really, we've gone from about 200 to 300,000 to what about 3 million profit now? So like ridiculous growth in profit, but there's a massive gap. Where are they haven't even looked looking at who's the grade eight clients? What business services are they providing to them? And what else could they provide to them? There's lots of additional sales, you're like, he works with that their law firm locks, works with other big law firms. So they might work with the family department but not work with with property or not work with commercial, and they've never really sat down and did an analysis of you know, all the companies and all the departments per company. They are providing services. And also they're not providing service is just basic account management, we get really sucked into this must do more marketing, more marketing, more marketing, new customers, new customers. And often, there's so much day in our business already, that profit margins, the great eight lines that you want. And then just working really well with your existing clients, there's so much money left on the table. And I think when you work more closely with your clients, it becomes stickier. Because you come you kind of become the guy to go to or the company to go to. Now if I was to get you to do a little bit of marketing, for me, it's great. If you started doing four out of five strategies for me, all of a sudden, I'm not going to want Jay to go to Jay Z did an awesome job,

when I was smiling a minute ago is because my my friend, my coach, my mentor, Josh Nelson, and he says what gets attention? What gets measured gets attention and improve. Yeah, what gets measured? And you you said it exactly, because I was gonna say the same thing. How much are you spending? How many leads are you getting? How many are converting to clients? And if you need to, what are those clients worth? Now? What's the average cost per case? What's the average cost per client? The math is pretty simple. And then you just have to look at it on a regular basis. So at a minimum, you need that monthly scorecard meeting, maybe twice a month, maybe weekly. When you're starting out. Yeah, you hit all the high points. So now let's go back to the beginning. I love John's title. He's called the profit coach. And his company is summit business. And I'll let him tell us a little bit more. Oh, and then the other incredible thing I love his sort of military discipline comes from 30 years in the in the British Army. So tell us a little bit about your story and your company.

Yeah, sure. I mean, I'll I'll clarify the military better on the mislead there. So I'm 50 She's midfacial, nearly mid 50s banner scary now. But since a teenager, I wanted to be in the military. And I'm super competitive. And for me over here, that there's just too too unique regiments which are just below Special Forces as the parachute regiment in the Royal Marines. I liked Green Beret, rather than a purple beret. On the Euro marine Commandos, I've passed the assessment, I think at 18 for a commission. So as you pass all the physical, and then went on to pass the assessments for for to be an officer with the Royal Marines. And that was my dream, you know, I kind of wanted to go home and it was my life just opened up. Unfortunately, before I even got to the front gates, I had a really nasty back injury, which meant I didn't then go down. So I didn't get to get my commando beret or badge or anything else. But it was already in the reserve forces, another physical training instructor with them. So I was 15 years with them. And I think it was really interesting on the necessities now and on, you're far too old to can do that crazy stuff. We talk about our identity and his interest. I live now literally about a kilometer across the fields from 40 Commando, which is the unit that I wanted to go, I came there for a few weeks, training them with them. And so I wanted to join. And it's been I came back and move back down here as part of the world. And when in the 30s. Because a lot of people that I met in the gym and go training. They're all guys because I'm gonna say mindsets. A lot of my mates here now are the commandos who joined at about the same time, and we just get on really well. It's funny, you know, my life took a change through an accident, and I've had a great life. But I look back when that that I don't want to be a could have should have would have I don't want to regret anything. But that would have been a very different life to me to go off into the Burien everything else so unfortunately, I didn't get cut off. So I haven't got a tattoo. That's the one tattoo and I would have had haven't actually got one there wasn't going to be any Olympics. I haven't done an Ironman yet. But all together, Commander daggone. But yeah, in the military as physical training instructor, and I went into the fitness industry rather than the military as a civilian. So I was working in the fitness industry, physical training instructor with the army. As a reservist, I think I brought up on a farm as well you know, and I think growing up on the farms work to get done you get done that simple, there's no excuses there's either gets done or doesn't get done is your job you do it I was brought up quite a quite an old fashioned way. This job to get done, you get it done. If it's broken, you fix it. If you don't like it, it doesn't matter. Being from find your background, when you're out and you can't just call a specialist to come in and fix things or phone HR. You just get stuff done. And I think that translated well into my military mindset. When I was 30 I went into into the corporate world in business development, so a big change for me but I actually really liked it like developing business and that's what I was doing big pharmaceutical companies. But it's just a mindset right? What are we gonna do? Who do I help? How do I do it wasn't like, I don't care what the training said I don't care what they say no, I'm here. I'm here to fix it and find a way and I think that's my personality shaped through my parents through the farm to get stuff done. The military is just paying to deal with it. Being quite innovative

in the military, right? Yeah,

it's just get stuff done. Just make our I think that all that has shaped me as a person I want to work on the clients now. Yes, they is funny because I'm not hardcore, you know, I'm not some Navy SEAL. I'm not shouting at people when I work with them is all even my PTI days. It's all about fun. But we're here to do a job you really get things done. And if there's a problem, great, but how do you fix it? This is I think that's where you think about the Commandos, Navy SEALs, the great guys, it's a problem, fix it, that there's this that fix it mindset. And I think that's how we come across clients and I have got real problems, you know, people with a team, or with cash flow or something that's very easy to feel like there's no way out. And I think yeah, my mindset is pretty much well, now we can't see a way out. Yeah, we just kind of fix it.

mindset. And then the training and the fitness training mindset to business. And I love your title, profit coach or profit growth specialist is I guess the Yeah, for sure. Tell us a little bit about summit business and what y'all do for law firms.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been doing this for almost 10 years now. And what I've been doing on my own business, helping businesses, I helped grow multimillion man businesses or 1000s on their business development side. I think for me, it can run in a nice full circle was when I was in the sports industry. I was working in the local community, I was helping people get fit. That's why I went to schools and sports clubs, individuals that don't want to do the corporate world and poor shirt and tie. I want to came back to do this. It was kind of nice, because I'm back in the community. Again, I'm dealing with small businesses, or you know, a couple of million turnover and normal people. And it but I've come back to help people I'll say my community, albeit or online now. But I've come back with with the I guess it's the mindset from the military, the physical side, that physical training, but I've come back with commercial acumen with it. So it's kind of a nice, nice blend. I work with the business coaching Academy, which is run by two amazing world class entrepreneurs and business coaches, Pam Featherstone and Xander Woodford Smith. And what I really liked about them as I decided I worked with other organization previously, which I I grew really. And I think the key thing is whenever you try it, as you know that you're marketing, you have a model, you find a model that works. So you replicate the model or use it as a template. Also look into it, do I develop my own template or go and invent my own one? When I finally did that, where's the criteria to say it's got to be so good. And I genuinely looked all over the world looking at lots of different business growth models to find one that worked, and then came all the way back to the UK is Pam Featherstone. I've known for years actually very, very, very successful entrepreneur and coach, and they've put together the Profit System. And I've shared it online many times now. It's the simplest, structured, systemized process that gets you focusing on the right things. And like I said, you know, where do you start, profit, and profit is an acronym P is profit and cash start there. If you haven't got cash, you can't pay your bills, you haven't got profit, you've got a business. So we start there first, before we do marketing and our is for revenue marketing. Because if you're not careful, you could be bringing in more clients, which are actually losing your money, or don't provide you with the cash flow, we get the profit levels and the cash flow fixed first, then we start looking at the P at the arm, which is revenue marketing. And then the O is stands for operations and systems. And this is about understanding, you know, as your business starts to grow is going to get busier. So we need to get some systems and structures in place. Otherwise, the business owners are just going to get busier and get swamped. So when you start getting that that systemization I had spoke about, you know, getting two TVs, a PC monitors or, or getting systems that work. So we start to get things working better and smoother to take all the headaches away on the business owner and then it starts to grow. And then the FY and T is SS financials and KPIs. So that's that's not knowing the numbers. It's Steve and it was understanding is cost per lead and his acquisition cost and his client value. It's how many hours for example, they spending, billing, what's the average value, average value for for billing, get a measure on that. So you're taking real data, not just sort of non non non data arised feedback. And then as your F and the eyes innovation leadership and you start to really start to get big, this is where the business owner can step back and have a three month holiday that is out of the world. Because you've got a team that's starting to step up and innovate. They're finding the problems and fixing it. They're not relying at all on you that self leadership starts to kick in. And then right at the end the tea or the end of the profit, this team and engagement and team and culture and this is where at this point you should you want to you could get a really highly engaged team, maybe bringing a general manager or managing director where they are you've now put a leader into your business so that allows the product or business owner to step back. I use this I'm a massive fan of this system. It works I've had to kind of retrain myself focus on the important things, I think for my clients rather than let me get distracted by running off and doing things that may be nice to do and unimportant to do.

I love that. And, you know, we actually touched earlier on the profit and revenue and marketing, because that was a couple of key levers for the case study, who made $2 million profit, you got a couple other recent case studies who made a million dollars profit. What are some of the things in the Oh, and operation systems that someone could look at? Today? Like if they're profitable, and they feel like their marketing is honed in if they hired 10? Golden Rules, we track all their numbers? Precisely? What are some of the tips on operation systems?

Yeah, I think it's like anything, you know, on the other side of the world, you guys and not even the building, I can't see it. And quite often, the business owner might even say it's actually just keep it really simple. Ask the team what's where are the bottlenecks? Why do people keep coming knocking on your office door? What are the emails that you keep getting? What are the questions that you keep getting? When you take a moment to step back? It actually really isn't that difficult. Just see where the problems are? Because there's no one thing and it could be anything, you know, it could be it could be client on board. I've here's a good one. Here is a great one. Right? What is your system that you've got for? For invoicing and chasing payment? Let's just start there. Right back to profit and cash, you know, lawyers might be great and doing a fantastic job, but they never get around to invoicing or they do it doesn't get collected. There's just

obviously get paid if you get the invoice. Yeah.

I worked with a client. We're great friends really good friends now probably working there for like six years. And yeah, he's incredibly intelligent guy, you know, he's six foot four former professional, international athlete. He's like a machine. But he was just so busy, busy, busy. He actually hadn't got around to it. He said, I'm out of cash, my cash don't understand. I don't understand. But all his work he hadn't, he's forgotten to invoice for six months.

Oh, my God,

get go an invoice. And also the other. And this is actually this such a really important one. Actually, there are two sides to his business. And he's so busy, busy, busy, busy. He hadn't stopped to realize that on one of his sides of the business, and 80% of his work, he was losing money. They hadn't just stopped and sat down and looked at the real cost, not just the time. But what is getting paid. I mean that at the end, we literally text his business and three or four years on counting wise, cleaning up the mix on service. Yeah, I see this a lot in in law firms. This is one of the simplest things to do. Many don't have the numbers, they're just first place. I start with a law firm. Look at your individual departments. First, you've got a department head. Now they're probably just busy doing all their fee earning. Let's get someone to start and measure some numbers. What What can you measure? What's simple, you know, how many hours? What are your What are your pain your lawyers? How many hours you've done? And what are we invoiced? And it's not about pulling people in and beating them up and then invoicing more than you because it's gonna be different bits of work. But it might you might find that this is a great story, I just tried to Fiona, she became a department head. And in something like 10 years, she'd never met target. She was really hard working really, really good. But she just kept taking on all the wealth that came at her. I hadn't filtered out all the low paying stuff. So just busy doing the low pain stuff, never did the high pain stuff. And no one had stopped. Okay, we know you're working 80 hours a week. Where's the money, and no one has stopped to think. And honestly, it's simple things like that will make a massive impact in the profit and cash in your business. Just do simple. Thanks.

Yeah, one of the lessons I learned early in my career, but which I learned to read, they should teach it in high school, is there's a big difference between working hard and doing the most important stuff. You know, I know that's a basic thing to say. But so many employees, you know, like either they're hard working and the, like you said they take on everyone else's problems. What do you think is the easiest way to become a person who delivers results instead of just effort?

Oh, that's a tough one. Because I definitely fall in that category. And that you raise a really interesting point because we're all products of our, our childhood not growing up and everything else. And I often think about this because I was brought up on a farm in a very rural working class community and I'm still I giggle about it now. My mom would say, Oh, David there, it will do really well. He's a hard worker. He's a hard worker and ladders and as a young young boy growing up you see these big boys I 12 1314 They were getting jobs on farms because they were hard workers. So it was always subliminal even subliminal is obvious like workout workout. Because then you go to the army do it again run faster lift more weight work hard worker, so has massively handicapped. Everyone telling me to work really hard? And I was good at it. I was actually I was really good at working really hard. And I've had even in the corporate world I did very well. was good at what I did. For us work really, really long hours as well. And it was quite a switch. And other thing is that you know, 3040 years of programming in thinking that you just work harder together. And I think this is a really good point, because I've definitely been guilty of this myself. And I had to even two, three years ago since working with pandas, my coach now is just stop. Let's stop being busy stop trying to do so much. Let's focus on a few things and get them working right, exactly like, you know, a lawyer who's working on work. And I work like this just stop for a moment. Right? Which of the cases that bring in the best cases? What are you really good at? Who do you really like working with who brings in the best revenue? Like, let's look at those right now. How do we get good marketing? To attract those clients? You know, this stuff? Jay? You know, it's who's the avatar? Where are they? How do you find them? How do you bring them in how to keep them in there? It really is as simple as that. It's hard. Because many of us, I think lawyers are kind of quite guilty of this. They built up to build more hours biller hours work hard work hard to succeed. And even mentally and emotionally, it's hard to stop that. Because it's ingrained in us, isn't it?

As the business owner, right? No, no, no, no, absolutely. You know, once you, once you stop billing hours, in running a law firm, you have a different set of objectives that you need to set for yourself and manage your own your own mindset. So, you know, we covered PPro, you've touched a little bit on the finance, I'd love to hear about some innovation, that is important for law firms and businesses in general.

That's an interesting one. Yeah. So it will also mean chat and GTP. And AI, we know the world is going to change and be taken over by machines. And I think that that is coming. And I'm not an expert on that stuff. And I'm going to make a statement on it. But when we talk about innovation in business, we're actually not talking about the big picture stuff, the big game changes, or we're looking at is the small stuff. If I had two screens on my PC, I'd be quicker, you know, and it certainly sounds crazy. But it's often the little things like that, that make the difference is the I don't know you walk into the foyer in the office and got to walk around a plant pot, extra 10 meters, because you put a rugby plant in, get the damn thing out of the way and save everyone 10 steps four times a day is a crazy example. But we really are looking for the small things. And you know, it, I can't give examples now. But there's so many little things.

And it's not just the screen, it's it's a keyboard and a mouse and elevate at eye height. And having two screens, or maybe even three screens, you know, I actually resisted going to three screens for the longest time. And a lot of my geeks, like a lot of the computer guys always had three screens. And it's just two small monitors that are you know, 100 and 100 bucks, now you can get a, you know, a crystal clear monitor, that's 2427 inches. And so now I have my, my laptop, monitor one monitor two. And you know, it's just as simple as like, I've got slack on one monitor. And then I've got a document, I'm working on one monitor, and maybe, you know, a website on the other monitor, and I'm going back and forth between the document the website, and your efficiency with a keyboard on your desk, a good mouse, you know, so I play the good guy. And the first thing I do with new employees is, you know, can I get your second monitor? Can I get your third monitor? Can I get your keyboard in the most? And they think oh, wow, what a nice guy, you know, obviously, but it's, you know, I'm helping them be better. I'm helping my my own company efficiency. And then the other thing I'm standing up, I got a stand up desk. Now for that to my employees to guess what, you know, it's 225 bucks on Amazon, that you can really make a difference for an employee and as an employer, you get the win. And the energy I get from standing. Yeah, is fantastic. And the limit on back pain. Go.

Yeah, I've got this really dumb it down a little bit here. Because we're always like, try and do more, try and do more. And sometimes actually, you just got to stop stuff. We did the art of I'll be careful how I say this is a good book. And I've forgotten the author, the art of not giving a duck. It wasn't Doug that he said, but it's just stop doing stuff stop going into these Facebook groups. stop responding that damn WhatsApp message. A lot of it you know, if we just turn off your notifications on your phone, turn off your whatsapp, turn off your Facebook, don't dive respond to every single email message. Just start to get some structure into your day because we as human beings that we can't multitask. We think we do the account we have to stop doing one thing and process another like a computers do. We think of you as a fat they don't multitask. They just switch from one very, very quick. We don't switch very quickly. So if I was to have this conversation view and like all emails come in, I've read that and I go right where were we what what what rewind and it would take me that many seconds to get back into the flow that we're talking about. And it's just Then once I'm doing a bit of client work, not that I'm a lawyer, but if you're a lawyer doing some client work, and then someone phones you or knocks on your door is that WhatsApp message, it takes you a long time to get back into that flow to get back to the quality work that you need to be doing. Honestly, just get some simple things like don't bloody. And so WhatsApp messages, don't answer slack, have your audio on my emails from say 10 to 1030, to 230 40 to five, that's it. And that's the buildings on fire. Don't disturb me. This simple. It doesn't need to be complicated. There's a good book by that book.

I'm showing John, we just did a book club with our staff with our team. And every week we read a chapter of a book by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time, it was my fourth or fifth read. But it's like, you know, one of the things I took from it is, you know, Eat That Frog, the basic principle is that you pick the three most important things that you have to do that day, and you get them done first thing in the morning. Yeah, and if you don't eat a frog, when it's a little teeny tadpole, it grows into a big hairy Toad with like, hairs coming out of warts and stuff like that, and you definitely don't want to eat it, once it starts looking nasty on your desk. And the one thing I took from that was, you know, the super focus time, like you said, you know, so if you find that powerful time in the morning, for me, it's like, you know, between 830, and nine, or between eight and nine, get to the gym, and then my mind's like, super clear. And then if you can, like, crush out those important tasks, first thing in the morning, when you're like, your brains at optimal levels, your Facebook's off your WhatsApps off. And so it was the super focus, but highly recommend that book, you know, the last thing, and then we'll get into just a couple personal things about you. Is team Prof. It. Yeah, it's right in there. How do you get the team to self leadership and high engagement?

Yeah, okay. There's, there's a big question. Like, I'll only do that a few minutes. It's it can be done. I think there's a few things actually. Or I tend just trying to a friend of mine who's he was a partner at a big law firm over here, just trying to today. I think, you know, the whole the whole model of being attorneys and lawyers. You go to college you learn to be a lawyer, you bill hours you get into Jr. Wrong, you bill hours and the whole ecosystem, if you like of progressing through your career, is being a lawyer, being a lawyer, being a lawyer, no one really stops and says, Okay, now money to manage people, we need to listen and lead and communicate. And I'm not saying it's always bad. But there's often a bit of a gap in in leadership and engagement, because everyone's just busy locked in their cells doing their hours. So there's no one thing fits all, as, as so many good information out there you can share. But I think the key thing that I felt were building some of my clients is you can write account was where's the business going? What are we trying to achieve? Otherwise, people just get locked in, do their hours go home, the end of the year, how big they've they've ticked enough boxes. But human beings were tribal at the end of the day, and we liked to be engaged with to be working with, for the business owners Sunday, let's step back and think okay, what do you want to achieve with the business? Is it is it to grow, to sell? Is it to grow to acquire? Is it to be the best local firm properly? And I think get above the numbers, not just about turnout and plant profit, what are you trying to achieve there as a business owner, it could be, we want to be the best family law provider in our state, or we want to be the go to people for fathers are trying to get access to their children, what whatever reason, whatever, whatever the thing is, and I appreciate they're gonna have different departments, but get really clear what they're what they're trying to achieve. And that takes a bit of time to think about. And when you start to do that, and you put words around it and get real meaning to it, not just the vision statement that sits in the drawer now and remember, but make it a real kind of living thing. And I think from that it's all about having the real quality of vision caught on what you will, yeah, how are we going to get there. And we talk about value statements, which no one remembers Anyway, well even knows what they mean. The next step, I would always say like I so I'm going to make up some values. Now. I'll do respect, and we'll do integrity and customer service and blah, blah, blah, and all, but I'll smile and ignore them. The next step no one ever does is Okay, so we've got these values. What are the behaviors attached to these values? So if I'm talking about integrity, my behaviors would be I don't tell a client, I'm going into a meeting, if I'm not going into a meeting, I don't tell them a half. I haven't done by tomorrow morning. If it won't be done by tomorrow morning. I go on forever that that lawyers, if that's integrity, that's integrity. Don't tell your colleagues or your clients, you've done work if you have done it, if you've made a mistake, if you're running late, be open, because these are the behaviors that people can actually measure and be held accountable to. And that is when you start and you've got to generate a culture or an environment where people are comfortable in failing They're comfortable to be a little bit vulnerable. It's really hard, really, really hard to do. From friends I've worked with in the military and certainly read our Special Forces, this robot egos and was almost worse than most. When you listen to some interviews with some of that Navy Seals and special forces, guys, you know, when they go come up off an aberration, okay, what went wrong? What did we do well enough, and every single one of them has to be open to I misfired on that I missed the point, I didn't get the communication, right. The because if you don't acknowledge your mistakes, you can't learn. And it takes a big man or big woman or a big person to do that. And it's quite a special individual. I think it's hard, really hard to go on that journey really hard to go on the journey for people to feel vulnerable. Patrick Lencioni is, I think he calls it 555 levels of dysfunctional team, I call it the five levels of high performing team, the very first level is trust, you've got to be able to trust the team. And then going above that goes into feeling able to feel for vulnerable. It's a hell of a journey to go on. It's tough, because many people, especially lawyers, as well, and then we're going to sit there and got a guy messed up on his case and the eye light and I'm fine yesterday. But it is it's once you start to get that and I do it with my clients, and I'm working with the partners and the head of department. Once you can get them openly admitting they are not good at managing a team or they're not good at managing time. Once they admit that we we will help. It's a journey to get there. Don't get me wrong. It's not a quick fix. When you start to get that Mike and you can get some amazing team. And you start to get that engagement throughout the fact that that's what creates a great firm is two people in there.

So I'd like to wrap up with just a couple personal questions. You can just give us quick answers on this one. Who's your football team?

I can't I don't support any sport at all. After all my sports and all my life. I've never I've never support anything. I'm just gonna say England, they always lose the boatyard. Probably I think, I don't even know the US but over the United Kingdom, there's Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. And the other three, they always support whoever's whoever's playing against England. That's kind of the roll over it. You got to England that all support

if you need an American football team, I'll offer you hop on the bandwagon with the Miami Dolphins society living in South Florida. And I've been suffering for the past 20 years. But it looks like we finally got a breakthrough. What do you do for fun?

Fun, Orange. You know what? I love that word because I think life should be fun. Yeah, well, I haven't really been killed a few times. It's stupid things I'm getting up to. And I work everyday. It's a gift that I think we should all be able to have fun every day. Regardless of situation. I've got two amazing boys. They're annoying as hell most of the time, love and love them to bits. They really are. Especially standard school holidays, or it gets in the way. And I've been getting out. But I kind of count my blessings every morning. I'm not religious, but I count my blessings that we're all healthy. Even despite my croaky voice to lovely boys, they're fun, I go, I play with them. There's an eight, I'm getting them into surfing. I love sport. So what I'm not trained the last couple of months, I try and train four or five times a week, and I love training in the morning, if somebody will let me now. But when it's a run, even a 10 minute hits, I got pull up bars as I'm out in the rain on the gravel treat myself like is hell week with a condo or something, just actually that that 10 minute hit session, pull ups, whatever it might be press ups, cold shower, you're on. And I think if I if I can get my day structured around, doing some exercise, being healthy, see my boys, making sure my wife is healthy. And then it's kind of been a good day.

It's already a winner a couple more. Are there one or two software's you like or things you enjoy technologies that you'd share with folks?

Not really no, I'm not a tech at all. I think I use LinkedIn a lot. That's what I'm all about. So really expanding, I know is very good as far as automating a lot of things on LinkedIn.

But I'm not expanding, you said.

Yeah, it's an automation tool for finding and messaging and connecting. On LinkedIn. It's on our LinkedIn don't like it using external softwares things. At the I don't really we use a CRM system. I don't even know who's made it is thunders put things together. For us, but I don't really use Zoom. I use Zoom a lot. I'm pretty good to zoom now.

That's because you're like a requirement for business. Yeah, absolutely. One Are there any podcasts or webinars you'd like?

podcasts or webinars? Socionics homotopy. I love Alex's stuff. But I want to be like Alex Olmos. I want to get like a 50 inch chest, a gringo mustache. And I have a very beautiful wife and just go lift weights all day but I think Alex Honnold did some amazing stuff and I love what he does with what I do. So he's a good point, actually. The Profit System Follow, we just pulled together all some of the best knowledge out there into our system. So it's not our ideas. It's Alex hormones. It's Donald Miller is Mike MacOSX. So we're bringing this all kept up to date to bring in the best stuff. I love Alex. I love the way he delivers it. I love the way it's nice and simple. He cuts through nonsense. I think Alex does not listen to a lot of his stuff. He does some really good stuff. But what he does the question, What do I love to do? I think my soul food is surfing. That's kind of my big. That's my big love in my life. Not like I wish to do much now with my boys. But then when I'm when I'm surfing, I'm on my element there. I just do love getting on the waves have not served America yet. So that's got to be on my on my tick list over there.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time and all of your insights. By the way, if you'd like John, I'm sure he did. He did a webinar. So you can find all of our webinars on our YouTube channel 10 Golden Rules YouTube channel. There's actually if you can't find it, there's a link on our website to YouTube. And John did this with slides. And it was much more or less conversational, much more structured. So if you want to get a little bit deeper in his stuff, and tell us where we can find you.

Yeah, the best thing is my one website, the website, summit businesses.com. But we just create this load of stuff up there a lot of videos. But in on LinkedIn, I started doing a LinkedIn newsletter, I am sharing all the whole system that knowledge has been going out. I think six weeks now got 1000 subscribers on already. So I'm literally sharing all my knowledge on LinkedIn newsletter. And I'm putting together a bunch of videos as well. But it's also going to go on the websites. The website is good. LinkedIn is good connect on there. It's always good to connect to friends. And now they can have all the free information they like on my newsletter. My LinkedIn posts

are some in the links in the show notes down below. John, thank you so much. I feel a little better. You notice a little scratchy voice he's but he got it through it. Of course God managed

it. Yeah. Thank you, Jay. Lovely to speak to as always, thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you for listening to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. Please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 Golden rules.com That is podcast at t e n Golden rules.com