BluShark Digital 0:00
Welcome to the Conference Connection. Your go-to place to get the scoop on what conferences are coming up that you need to know about. Here are your hosts, Paul Faust, President of Ring Boost and Seth Price, Founder of BluShark Digital and managing partner of Price Benowitz.
Paul Faust 0:17
How are you guys doing? Paul Faust, here with ring boost and sphere consulting, along with my co-host, as always, Seth Price from BluShark and Price Benowitz. We’re here with another episode of the Conference Connection with a special guest. Seth, would you like to introduce our guest to this episode?
Seth Price 0:32
I would like to very much. This is Manny, co-founder of Hona. Hona does many things for lawyers, such as communicating between clients and lawyers, getting lawyers clients online, as well as jumping into the AI world of voice answering. Welcome Manny!
Manny 0:51
Thank you. Happy to be here. No better hosts than the two people I see at every single conference. So glad to be here.
Paul Faust 0:58
So we came up with the name Hona, Are you doing your own conference? Why don’t you tell our listeners, our viewers, about it? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Where are you doing it? All the ins and outs, so everybody knows what’s going on.
Manny 1:10
Yeah, so we go to a lot of conferences every year. My company went to like 60 last year. And there are some that are, like, technology-focused, but none that are like the specific topic of disrupting and so that has a lot of things that could be technology. It could be like financial practices, hiring practices, or just doing things in a different way. So that’s kind of how we came up with it. So we’re excited May 5 through 7th in Salt Lake City.
Paul Faust 1:39
May 5th through 7th. So who should be going to this conference? You know, Seth and I go to a lot of conferences because we jug a lot of hats. And some of these conferences, like you go to a TLU or Lanier, it’s the trial lawyer. Others, it’s the COO. Sometimes it’s the firm owner, sometimes it’s staff, it’s paralegals, it’s intake specials. Who should absolutely be at this one, and we’ll get value out of the conference.
Manny 2:02
Yeah, so firm owners are the big thing, and then also operations personnel. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t suggest, I mean, we welcome everybody. You’re going to learn, you’re going to have a good time. But, like, not really for staff members, we’re not learning too much about, you know, the day-to-day role for staff members, or like associates and partners, like, we want you there, but like firm owners and operations personnel is who we’re targeting.
Seth Price 2:26
Well, I’m particularly excited about that, because to me, as a law firm owner, one of the things that I have struggled with is, that you go to conferences and you come back with all these ideas. The firm, you know, you get back to the place, and first, they’re annoyed because you’re dumping all this stuff on it’s like, gotta do this, got to do this. But more importantly, if you stay using EOS nomenclature, if you’re in that visionary seat, you probably aren’t going to be the one making these things happen. So it’s great to get the idea, but if the person who’s going to actually have to make this happen is there and buys in, I find it that much more likely to get these different disruptive activities implemented into your law firm.
Manny 3:04
Love that,
Paul Faust 3:05
Absolutely. For the people listening, who should they expect to see at this conference? Is it Hona, just speaking from the stage? Are you guys talking? Who do you have lined up? Is there anyone that you’re excited about, anything different that people haven’t seen?
Manny 3:20
Yeah, so I’m glad you asked that this is not an honor. A honer? A Hona User Conference. Honer is what we call our employees, like a homer. So, it’s not a Hona user conference. It’s meant for the whole industry, really targeting personal injury firms and some flat fee practices as well. But we have a really cool speaker lineup. So we’ve got Mike Morris, Rob Levine, Jen Gore, Tyson Muterix, Ryan McKean, like really big names, people that have grown firms from small to really big practices. And I think there was a second part of that question, but we have really cool people speaking about it. What were you asking as well, Paul?
Paul Faust 4:02
Who else? You know, are there other speakers coming? Are there vendors speaking? Are there other disruptors that we talk about?
Manny 4:09
Yes. So, we’ve got some of our investors coming which is a really cool prospect to see them speak on stage because they’re going to talk about trends that are happening in the industry and where VC dollars are going into technology to start changing the space. So that’s going to be really cool. We’ve got, like, Nalini from BluShark Digital talking about, the latest trends and marketing practices. And then we’ve got a bunch of technology and automation, like business leaders in the legal tech space. So it’s gonna, like, a wide variety of people that are doing disruptive practices in legal, tech, and legal in general.
Seth Price 4:45
Paul, I’ve spent some time with both VCs and private equity guys. It is, you know, eye-opening and jolting. Because as lawyers were there, yeah, yeah. We got our case management. We market the phone that comes in. We got to answer better yada, whereas these guys are so vicious. Focused on KPIs, earnings, etc, it is a bit eye-opening in the fact that when they look at an operation, they just see it with a different lens. For us, it’s like, oh, it’s a law firm. To them, it’s a widget. And they’re like, hey how can we flip the burgers, get them on a bun and serve them in a cost-effective way at scale better than others? That’s the part that I’m hoping to see with some of your guys.
Manny 5:28
Yeah, it’s cool there. Our VC, one of our venture funds that invested in Hona, told us that the legal market/the legal technology market is growing twice as fast as other service-related businesses with technology. So in the next 10 years, it’s growing way faster than anything else.
Paul Faust 5:46
Is there an opportunity at this conference? Are there exhibitors? Will there be other people there, like vendors, exhibitors, law firms, partners? Is this not the way this is working? And if so, do you need some more? Is there a spot, and who should they reach out to? If they say, “wow, this is something we want to be in front of this audience as well.”
Manny 6:04
You know, we’ve booked up exhibitors pretty quickly, so there are no more open spots. And shout out to our sponsors. We have awesome sponsors and exhibitors. The conference is also booking very, very fast. So we’ve got Lexamica, Lawyer.com I think BluShark. You guys are there. Finipay. A lot of cool sponsors, but next year, we’d love to have anyone to be involved.
Paul Faust 6:27
Alright? So guys, you know, this might be, if you’re an industry partner or vendor, you might want to reach out and see if there are opportunities to maybe attend, or, if not, find out what’s going on. So next year, now, there, you know, typically go to these conferences, lot of great ones out there. It’s sitting in rooms all day. It’s learning. Is there anything secret or not secret, anything kind of, any kind of cool entertainment or something fun? You know, some of these have cocktail hours, Bourbon tastings. Who knows? Do you have some things planned that you want people to know about or not people to know about?
Manny 6:56
Yeah, two things. We got a great Cinco de Mayo party starting on May 5. We’re gonna have a blast at that taco bar, Sombreros. We’re gonna be partying. It’s gonna be a great time. And then the other thing, I think, is, if you come a little bit early, we’re doing a hike up in Salt Lake City. It’s like 1.2 miles, but you get to see the entire Salt Lake Valley. So we’re super excited about that, too. And then one thing I like about this conference is it’s not too big. It’s, you know, we’re capping it at 120 people, and so it’s everyone on one stage. Everyone’s going to be focused. You’re going to get really cool speakers. And, like, the lineup is incredible. So those are some of the fun things that we’re doing.
Paul Faust 7:37
How does one register? And is there anything you could offer the people who do watch this and the conversation and support us? And as I always say, please tell your law firm friends, tell law firm owners, tell other vendors about this. This is a resource for you. Is there something, how they register if there are spots left, and is there a special they can use for the Conference Connection?
Manny 7:56
Yeah, there is a special we did just for you guys. It’s lawyer50, and that gets you 50% off a ticket to the show. You can find it. If you just look up hona.com it’s like the first thing on our website. So that’s the easiest way to get there. hona.com We’d love to have everyone there. It’s going to be a party. It’s going to be great.
Paul Faust 8:17
Awesome. Thanks. Sounds good? Seth, you want to take us out?
Seth Price 8:20
Yeah, no, that’s usually your job, but I’ll try to do my best. So Paul Faust on Cinco de Mayo in Utah. I didn’t have my bingo card this year, but yet, here we are. Can’t wait.
Paul Faust 8:33
Thank you, man.
Manny 8:35
Thanks, guys,
Seth Price 8:35
Bye. Bye.
Paul Faust 8:36
Thanks guys. I look forward to it. We’ll see you guys on the road. Everyone else, please, like, follow, share the page. Tell your friends about it. I want it to be a resource for everybody.
BluShark Digital 8:45
Thank you for tuning in to the Conference Connection. Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already, and we will see you for our next episode.
