This week, Seth and Jay are joined by Melissa Shanahan, the Founder and Facilitator of Velocity Work, to discuss working with a coach for your law firm. Melissa helps clients and listeners shift how they operate in order to achieve the next level for their firm and their life. From numbers and business strategy to discipline and mental health, Melissa’s approach provides sustainable success.
Hello, hello and welcome to another edition, a 2021 edition of Maximum Growth Live. I’m one of your host Jay Ruane CEO of Firm Flex social media marketing for lawyers, as well as managing partner of Ruane Attorneys, a criminal and civil rights firm in Connecticut, and with me, as always, is my friend down there in the sun in the Sunshine State still, Seth J price. Seth, how’re you doing today?
Doing well excited for 2021. And excited we-
Yeah, BluShark firing on all cylinders. You’ve got some great news to share with our audience. I just got information about an upcoming online speaking engagement, a seminar that I go to PubCon. Right, so. So for all of our listeners out there who don’t know, there are certain industry events in the digital marketing space that are the cream of the crop. PubCon is one of them. And so I get an email over the last couple of days talking about an online event that PubCon is hosting, because you can’t do anything online now. And I’m scrolling through the speakers and guess whose name I see, as a speaker there a guy who is from BluShark named Seth J. Price. Seth, you’re you’re on the big stage. I mean, this is this is Major League Baseball that you’re playing now.
No, I’m real excited. This is their local search, and their local search event. And, you know, Joy is keynoting Joy Hawkins is one of the one of the great thought leaders in the space. And, you know, for for for us, we’ve been going to PubCon for many years, as a place to sort of like, not just learn but network. It’s this sort of Vegas event that’s been going on for years and a lot of sort of backroom talks or how I built my own company and helped build Price Benowitz and BluShark. So to be speaking there is pretty cool January 20, through the 21st. And-
What’s your topic? What’s your topic going to be?
I’m going to be talking about LSAs and their effect on local search. So you know, it’s pretty cool as it is that PubCon is for everybody, not just for lawyers, obviously. And over the years. When I first started going it was just Jay and then one by one, I would see other people pop up to the point where a handful of lawyers do go out there and learn from the source, which I think is awesome. And, you know, this is really great. The founder of PubCon had seen me speak at a bunch of places and said, Hey, this is what we want for our audience. And that was just a nice surprise to kick off 2021
I mean, you know, from a fanboy perspective to have Brett know who you are, and say we want you I mean, that’s, that’s a that’s a big deal. I mean, you go to Vegas, and you walk the halls on PubCon. It’s there’s a lot of people in a lot of spaces, talking about pretty heavy, pretty heavy budgets that they’re working with. And here we are these little law firms comparatively, but you’re known now known as as a thought leader in the space and I couldn’t be happier to be by your side, just remember me when you’re when you’re, you’re flying on the private jets and, and doing all that fun stuff. And I’ll still be sitting in the audience. brown bagging my lunch basically, although I will say a lot of times I would skip out on on the lunch and take a ride over to In-N-Out. Which you can’t get here on the East Coast. But, boy, I gotta tell you-
That just came up with I think that that came up as a seven year memory the other day, we were sitting at lunchtime, we I think we had somebody go bring it back. And, you know, munching on some In-N-Out was was pretty cool. And you know, what I think I love about PubCon is it’s not just local search people. This is this particular event is focused on local search. But the idea that the guy doing it for Macy’s, and JC Penney is there and think about the issues they’re going through as far as marketing for so many different permutations in different locations and products, etc. So that when we sit when we’re sitting there and saying, Hey, how do you get both this practice group and that practice group online and not have them cannibalize each other, etc, that, you know, you have people that are playing on this huge stage figuring it out. And you see that at the end of the day, a lot of their issues are not that much dissimilar to ours. They’re just done at supersize levels.
Yeah, and you know, one of the cool things about this event and you’re probably going to lose a little bit because you don’t have that in person networking opportunity when it’s a digital event. But the cool thing about this is for all you lawyers who go to lawyers and legal seminars and for people who like go to like the Max lawyer, Max Lawcon and that type of thing. It’s a very open and friendly group of people that really just sort of nerd out on the stuff they love, and love seeing other people succeed as well. And so that’s where you one of the cool things, I mean, I found my pay per click person years ago, at a PubCon event. And it was literally she said, well, here, let’s just dive into your your account. And let’s, let’s see what we can do to fix it, you know, for 15 minutes sitting at a conference room table, I’m getting, you know, high level help that I couldn’t afford at the time. And that’s the that’s just, that’s just phenomenal. So I’m, I’m so proud to know you are in that space, and they recognize you because you certainly have the knowledge to do it, you’re very generous with your time. And and it really is, it’s a testament to everything that you’ve built over these years. But I what I want to talk about today is something that we talked about on our Tuesday show. And we’re very lucky because we’ve got a guest today who is actually in the coaching space. And Melissa Shanahan, who is the owner, operator facilitator of VelocityWorks is going to be with us. And it’s really interesting, because as we’re focusing on coaching in this first couple of weeks of 2020–2021, please, let’s not go back-let’s not go back. But I think it’s important for all of our viewers out there to sort of wrap their head around what they can do to sort of grow their firm coming out of whatever it is we are. So I mean, if you are in the PI space, you may have had a very vile voluminous business, and still gotten a couple of cases. But those cases that you’ve been working up through, now we’re going to start to settle or resolve and who knows where your trials are going to be. But you’re gonna have a dip, probably, you know, a couple couple of months from now, where all of a sudden your revenues going down. So it’s the steps you can make now. And for me, you know, someone who’s been in that big dip, I need to figure out a way to grow out. And maybe coaching is something that we can talk about to try to get us to that next level and, you know, regroup and move forward. What do you think?
Well, you know, I’m very excited, like, I’ve been playing around with the EOS. And John Fisher did a great mitzvah by bringing together attraction day for many of us. But the idea that, I think that there are so many different options with coaching, and I love the fact that we’re gonna be able to bring a bunch of people on, and almost like a buffet, and get to figure out what’s right for which people, and sort of, I think that, you know, like many things, it’s picking up where you are what’s right for you, you know, yourself, and you know, what you’re willing to do. It’s not if you if you sign up for something, and you’re not ready for it, it’s not going to do any good. But I hope that through the series of different coaches, that were able to give people an opportunity to figure out what might be right for them in their firm.
Yeah, you know, I’m gonna be straightforward with all of our viewers and tell you that, you know, I’ve built my firm, we’re well into seven figures now. And I’ve done it without coaching, because I have often said, What do I need a coach for? I’m smart enough, I can read the, you know, the books, and I can figure out what I need to do. And I’ve grown. But I will say that even before, even before COVID hit, we had sort of maxed out where we are and it’s something that I was talking to Ryan McKean about is that everything that got you to where you are is not going to necessarily get you where your next step is. And I have to make some tough decisions on do I want to continue to grow? Am I happy with where I’m at? Do I want to say, You know what I’ve, I’ve, I’ve reached my plateau, maybe I should just stop ride the coattails and I’ve put in a lot of work, maybe now it’s time to not retire, but sort of let the systems work. But then you know, me, I don’t necessarily want to, my mind’s not going to stop. So it’s, it’s one of these things, maybe I do need it, maybe I don’t know. And that’s why I liked having this segment that we’re gonna be doing over the next couple of weeks, because I want to see what it is I can get from coaching that I haven’t necessarily been sold on yet.
Great, let’s do it.
Alright, so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we’re going to have the founder and chief implementer of VelocityWorks, Melissa Shanahan with us. So why don’t you stick with us for a few moments folks, hear from our sponsors. And when we get back we’ll have the Max Growth interview of Melissa Shanahan we’ll be right back.
Hi, I’m Jay Ruane, one of the founders of Firm Flex and a practicing attorney for over 20 years. Anyone who knows me knows how my firm runs on the systems we create and it has allowed us to have flourished, even in tough times. I spent years and hundreds of 1000s of dollars until I finally figured out a way to engage my audience and drive top of mind awareness with social media. And what did I do once I figured it all out, I built a system for it. And now you can put that system to work for you. You seen we took the hard part, creating the content and finding the images and made it foolproof. Every day you will have curated social media topics to post designed to make your firm constantly remind your audience about your firm, what you do and how you can help. And the best part, you don’t even need to hire a dedicated social media person to do this for you. In fact, you don’t even need to hire anyone new. We design the system to make it easy for you to delegate to your receptionist, assistant or paralegal and have them execute solid social media for you in just five minutes a day. It’s like having a content writer, researcher and graphics designer at a fraction of the price it would cost to hire in house. Sign up today for the social super system and start building your brand where your clients already are on social media.
In this world today, if you want to grow your business, you want to grow your firm, you want to take on more cases and make a bigger impact. You have to have a digital blueprint. Statistically, throughout the time that we’ve been working with BluShark Digital, our law firm, the Atlanta divorce law group grew over 1400% they truly understand where we’re headed, and how we want to get there. I have a team in BluShark Digital that I feel like has my back.
Hello, hello, and welcome to Melissa Shanahan. Melissa is a coach, as well as the founder of VelocityWorks, which coaches and helps lawyer entrepreneurs. Melissa, welcome to Maximum Growth Live. Thanks for being with us.
Thank you for having me.
So why don’t we start with with you telling us a little bit about what you do and how you got into what it is you do. Because there’s a lot of lawyers out there. There’s a lot of frustrated lawyer entrepreneurs out there. And some people may be just learning that people like you exist. So tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Yeah, okay, great. I started my very beginning into the coaching industry was in 2007, I decided to take part in a Coach Training Certification Program. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with it. I just knew I was very interested in in that realm and in that world and went through it got certified, hung a shingle out on the internet in 2008. That was for life coaching. I didn’t even I it was it was the beginning of everyone’s journey. Isn’t pretty, right? So I have, they had a lot of people coming to me that I didn’t enjoy the kinds of things they wanted to work on. But the ones who did come to me that I loved working with were startup entrepreneurs. So I worked with startup entrepreneurs for a while, actually moved to San Francisco. And there, deviated on my journey a bit and started working for a consulting firm doing coaching for small, private practices across the United States, mostly doctors and dentists at the time. So this this was in 2014. So I dug in there learned a ton it was like fuel on the fire for me of coaching and learning and business practices and everything that goes into that and spent handful of years there and then left because a couple of things there was I could see holes in the product for these clients. I was boots on the ground with the clients doing the quarterly planning, annual planning. And, you know, you go back to headquarters, you’re like, Listen, this training needs to be different. This facilitation needs to be different. And it just takes forever in an organization to get anything done of the sizes I was at. So eventually, I was tired of full time travel. And I decided that I knew I could improve on what I had learned. And so I went out on my own and decided to focus just on attorneys and that it’s been three years actually almost to the day it was January 1 of 2018. Anyway, thank you.
I’m curious, tell us your process. So somebody comes to you says hey, I have a practice either brand new or X years in what is the sort of So how do you take somebody from hey, I’m interested? And then what does it look like to be in a coaching program?
Yeah, so I’ll give you the answer right up front, and then I’ll explain. I’ll give a little bit of a some context. Right now, if someone wants to work with me and VelocityWorks, there’s two entry points. One is a coaching program I have called Mastery group, which is very focused on the owner. And it’s a it’s a very reasonable rate to participate in this group. And it’s focused on the owner operating at the best of their ability. So how they manage their time, are they setting goals? Are they reviewing things quarterly, like core values, everything I’ve been taught to do with private clients, I wanted to bring the people who have an interest, they don’t have a big team, but they still want to do it. And the interest really more than anything, if you have anything to do with me and VelocityWorks, it means that you have an interest in self development as the owner. So that’s sort of the entry point, to the easiest entry point into VelocityWorks. And then there’s something that we host called 30 day sprints, which are focused only four owner attorneys. And you join and it’s 30 days, and every day, there’s daily accountability call you get on, what are you working towards that month? Did you do your thing or not? Yes or no, there’s a checkbox, we have a tracker. And what’s the lesson learned? What do you do, and today, every day, we get on the phone and do that. And people fly towards the results, which is fun. And it’s a lower commitment, because it’s 30 days. So those are the two ways and from there, if people if it’s a good fit, they enjoy the content, they enjoy it like it’s a good match, then they have the option for becoming a private client, which is where we do quarterly retreats for the firm, and for the owner, and do annual business planning. And every quarter we check in on track off track, and we have a full day meeting. So that’s when I first started the reason I decided to answer in this way, when I first started, I was only doing the quarterly planning retreats and the annual business planning and there was coaching and accountability in between. But I realized that some of the clients I was drawing, they didn’t care or have an interest in developing themselves. They It was like they were detached from risk. They didn’t they weren’t taking full responsibility, how they could have or should have taken full responsibility. And that makes it very difficult to work with someone on growth. So now, there’s a bit of a vetting not not just to vet, but hey, get yourself in here, get your feet wet. Let’s do this work. And if you like it, and you want to take it further, and you want to do it one on one, okay, let’s talk. So hopefully that answers that.
So really, it’s about the your clients basically aligned with your personal values for your own business. And so that’s how you’re able to sort of say, like, I value my time in my business this way, I’d like you to sort of value your time in your business the same way so we could work together towards that goal is that would that be a fair way of explaining it?
It is because even with the best of intentions, if the interest isn’t there to develop yourself as your as the owner, not just your team, not just the numbers in the dashboard, but yourself and how you’re operating, then we run into things like getting on accountability calls, and like something didn’t get done because they’re so busy. Well, at some point that doesn’t get to fly. And I and it’s very difficult to work with someone who won’t own that the reason they didn’t get it done was because they didn’t manage their time well enough or they-like it’s them. And so, you know, I never it’s never a confrontational conversation. But over the over time, I’ve realized there’s certain people that want to hire a coach or someone who facilitates these meetings, for the sake of growth, and it’s almost like they’re outsourcing responsibility. And that is the opposite of how this needs to go. So yeah, I guess it is my values. Because if my clients don’t do well, then I don’t do well, right. And I don’t have total control over them. They have control over them. And as long as they understand that and to take responsibility for it, we’re good.
So when you’re dealing with people, do you find it easier working with somebody as in their infancy of the firm where you can put the right infrastructure in place? Or is it once people have infrastructure in place, and they’re starting to have those legacy issues, and they’re starting to drown? Like, where’s the ideal entry point for somebody to a coaching program.
So, in the past, my main experience had been with people who had a team of five or more. And the biggest business that I had worked with prior start to starting my own was a 12 million annual revenue, private practice. Since then, on my own and VelocityWorks. Probably the biggest is 5 million annual revenue, which is big big and there’s a lot, it’s a very different picture and I’m sort of comfy there. I know the kinds of conversations you need to have I know, it’s it’s pretty high level thinking at that at those meetings. But over time, what I have learned is that there are a lot of principles that people who have big businesses abide by that small principles that smaller practices would be wise to adopt, but they don’t know to yet. It’s like they’ve been on a journey of chaos, trying to hustle and get their firm off the ground. And that level of chaos, that of the startup phase, I can work with someone in there, because in mastery groups like the group setting, it’s they will benefit from it. But when it comes to actually, let’s like, put our heads together, get in a room and hash some things out, they need to be at that place where they have an established business. And now they know that they’ve got to get things in order, they have to tighten things up, they need to create systems and processes, they need to now that they have a base for business, create some predictability within their business. And that’s super fun. So that’s sort of the other sweet spot. So working privately with people is they’ve either got a well established team, they’ve got a team, and now it’s just getting organized, getting the team on board, making sure culture is great. Morale is good. Numbers are being hit and focused on all of that. And then there’s this middle ground where people are there off the ground, they’ve gotten from zero to one, and now they’re trying to figure out, okay, how can I scale this thing? How can I work less? How can I those kinds of questions, and then we’re able to help them really well as to,
you know, over the last couple weeks, a bunch of us have gone through some traction training and, you know, sort of full day, you know, are there things like traction, or we had Michael Gerber on from EMyth? Are there some of these sort of well known national groups that you borrowed from to be able to create this? Because it sounds like a lot of what you’re talking about here, comes from that traction world?
Yeah, so the consulting firm that I worked at prior, we use strategic coach and EOS, both. And so naturally, just a culture around all of that. And I bring, I think, just innately I bring a lot of that. I don’t know exactly how they facilitate it. I haven’t sat through their facilitation. But I was on a leadership team at the consulting firm. And we abided by some things internally that were stemming from strategic coach in the US. And I agree with so much of it. I think it’s important, I think it’s smart. Some of the smartest content that’s out there. So I there’s a lot there that I love and appreciate, of course, Michael Gerber stuff just being the the way that he splits things up and talks about things hits home and explains things to owners that they haven’t thought about things in his way before. I think it’s a, it’s a really wise way as well. So yeah, I borrow from not borrow in terms of it’s almost like, you know, when you’re that you’re, and I do consider myself an expert, but with the caveat that I will never be done learning. But when you’re an expert in something, and you’re always learning, you’re always getting new ideas and inspiration from how someone is explaining it, or how they’re showcasing it. And it you know, I really do pull from many different sources of inspiration, EOS and Strategic Coach, for sure. I think they’re fantastic. And then also Michael Gerber, for sure, but there’s even, you know, there’s certain podcast guests that I hear on podcasts. And I’m like, Who is that? That is smart? I need to learn more about that, then I’ll take some key concepts that I’ve learned there. So I think, you know, for me to come out and pretend that Melissa Shanahan is just super wise, and you need to hire me because I know, I know the deal. I’ve been around the block, but it’s it is thanks to people who’ve gone before me, and thanks to the lessons that they teach that I’m able to curate something that based on my own experience and knowledge tends to fit attorney owners really well. So yeah, big fan of all the people you just mentioned.
I have a question for you. So it says when you started, you said you were in sort of like the medical and dental practice when you’re with your other prior agency. And that’s not the first time I’ve heard that from people in your industry that there is a lot of transfer over into the legal space after having worked with medical professionals, especially with dentists. What do you think it is about those medical professionals and business sense that led them to adopt the idea of coaching and business better business practices so much earlier than lawyers. I mean, I mean, really the the lawyer, the coaching of lawyers, and the entrepreneurial lawyer really is probably about 20 years old. I mean, there’s always outliers. But But dentists and doctors sort of approached the business differently long before lawyers ever got around to it. Why do you think there’s a bit of a difference having seen both sides of those industries?
Oh, man, I mean, here’s part of me wants to disagree with you. Because having been on the side with doctors and dentists, it’s, you know, I will lovingly say, it’s a hot mess, it’s, so maybe they’ve been exposed to it. But there’s so many dentists and doctors, that are great practitioners, they are not great business people. And it is, it’s a painful journey for someone who’s been in practice for, you know, 40 years. And now they’re, they’re trying to hire a consultant to come in to teach them how to how to revamp things and structure things for themselves, it is a painful process worth it worth every minute of it. But it’s so it’s interesting, I guess, the view I have of it is I didn’t know that I didn’t have that thought that dentistry and doctors are way ahead of lawyers. That may be true. But-
What I’ve seen-I’ve seen in my market, the opposite where the dentist or not doctors, dentists, dermatologist etc, have not been able to compete, and that private equity has come in and rolled them up. Because they just haven’t been able to scale and have, you know, I think that is bad as lawyers may be running their practice at least, or sitting at a desk where they can go from their substantive work to looking at their metrics. Whereas, you know, the dentist has to like leave their, you know, you know, the room that they’re in with patients, and they may not even have a place to do their work in the office. You know, it’s, you know, working on your business, you know, they are, if you go to the EMyth, they are, you know, still the guy flipping burgers, and that they may do a little bit of management of their staff, but there’s certainly no opportunity for E-ing.
No, and honestly, the management’s really poor, because they don’t understand how to communicate how to create the environment that’s going to help fuel their business. They, they it’s very easy. And I would imagine, so I’m in dental and Doctor Zone for a second so that we could talk about law, but it’s very easy for, for a medical or dental practitioner to think that they’re them working in a patient’s mouth, or sitting with the patient in the chair, is the thing that’s required to grow their business, that is how they look at everything. And so they if they have a place to work, they don’t spend much time there. They don’t eat lunch, they’re just cramped, it’s like, dollars for hours, you know, and so you, they’re so they’re cranking so hard, and they don’t know or understand how to stop cranking harder and grow your business. They think that’s a pipe dream. They don’t, they don’t think that’s possible. And so it really is a training of like, no, no, in order to grow, you’re going to have to step back, especially if you don’t want to die young. So let’s get going.
But don’t a lot of lawyers have that same problem? And and that’s the you know, that’s the challenge that you have to deal with. Right?
Yes, 100%. So now, if we were to switch hats, and I’m thinking about the lawyers that I’ve had the privilege of working with, it’s usually around that three to $500,000 Mark is, is somewhere in there is where they are waking up to the hard reality that they have to change things in order to, to have the firm that they had always imagined. For that to come to life, they’re going to have to make some serious changes. And that’s so difficult to transition. Yeah,
you know, I get it, because from the BluShark point of view, we have seen it, you know, I call it like almost the digital Mendoza line until you’re over 300,000, maybe 350. You don’t have the resources. For higher level SEO, you do, obviously be marketing, you want to get to that point, but you don’t, you may or may not have the money, or the resources or frankly the raw material to fully leverage the value of a coach. And that’s something that I’ve seen people struggle with, which is there are coaches out there that help you put all the structure in place, but if you don’t have the clients coming through, you can’t do much with it. Now there are people with clients, they’re not answering the phones, right and they’re not monetizing. But how do you Which comes first and again I because I asked this I struggle with it myself from the SEO point of view. How do you like determine okay, this person is ready for coaching or you know what they may be ready for coaching, but if they don’t get more revenue, my bills aren’t gonna get paid as a coach, and they’re not going to have that bandwidth to be able to stay with this long enough to get value. How do you deal with that?
Yeah, so here’s my thought process on it. If you are hurting for cash, you need to focus on getting new clients in the door period, that needs to be your focus. Because once you can relieve that pain point, you sort of frees up your brain to be able to work on the other things that are in front of you. If you have, if you’re not worried about the number of clients coming through the door, you would like it to go up. But you’re not stressed out by the fact that it isn’t higher. In my mind, it makes sense to make sure that your bucket, your firm is not leaking. Like you’re plugging all the holes, make sure your intake process is right, make sure that so that when you do spend money to get the money, the calls coming in, you’re able to handle them and convert them well. So it’s almost like I feel like it depends on where you are. And that’s just my perspective. And I’m not a marketer, just I would never pretend to be, I always encourage every client to have a marketing solution on their side. But really, it’s fundamentally, it just seems like if there’s if there’s a cash problem, there’s a cash stress, you just, you need to stop thinking about everything else, and you need to focus and do the activities that are required to bring people through your door. And if cash is not a an absolute stressor, and you do want to grow, maybe work on getting some things in place that are solid, so that when you spend your money on these marketing solutions, now, you know, your conversion is gonna go up, you’re paying attention to those numbers, all that jazz.
You know, it’s fascinating, I just, I it’s something that I struggle with, both for myself, and I see clients struggling with it in that way, not just which comes first. But you know, from Okay, from a digital point of view, whether it’s social media with Jay or SEO with us, and you’re getting the phone to ring, if you don’t have your intake down, it’s not, it’s not going to work, right. And if people let’s say you have, you know, you’re sitting there and somebody’s making, you know, 300,000, 400,000, and they don’t have an associate, and they have no plans for an associate is smart to add more marketing. And at that point, because you’re going to end up for that extra $100,000 $150,000 in revenue killing yourself. Plus, you got to pay for the marketing. So there’s this weird, this weird sort of, you know, you know, Bermuda Triangle type world where, like, what do you do with that space? And I don’t know whether it’s right. I mean, again, this is I don’t think there’s a right answer. I love the fact that most of the coaches I know, put their head down and say, Hey, I’m gonna get your systems right, that’s Jays world, right? I’m gonna get great systems, I’m gonna help you put, you know, discipline in place, what your quarterly meetings in place, get your rocks moving, whatever it is. But the question is, if you do it to me, and I think this is something Jay and I have both seen a lot of success was if you don’t have your marketing piece in place, like does any of that matter? Of course, it matters. But like you, there’s so much being left on the table. And that’s that which, you know, yes, you need to get your, you know, your life together. And if, if a coach like yourself can help somebody grow, put systems in place that, you know, are all amazing, but it can’t be without that fuel coming. Because otherwise, you’re gonna have the greatest systems in the world. But if you don’t have the stuff coming from the door, it’s not going to, you know, you need both.
Right. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think a lot of it has to happen simultaneously. I think I do think this is part of what, you know, we talked about quarterly planning quarterly planning is so freaking important. Because if you don’t take time, because in the middle of your practice, things are busy things are chaotic, in some sense, is overwhelming. If you don’t take the space every 90 days to lift your head and evaluate what is going on. Then how on earth are you going to move forward in the smartest way possible? Right. And I think I agree with you. And you said, there’s no right. And there’s no blueprint for people that doesn’t exist. And I yeah, I get passionate about that. There’s no blueprint for growth, because there’s too many different variables and too many different factors. But you can have guidance you can have whether you do or don’t have guidance every 90 days, you need to lift your head and look around, look at your numbers, figure out what is priority, and start putting some resources behind the priorities. And if you keep your head down, and you just keep trucking, and you’re let’s just say you are spending a ton of money on marketing and your system suck. Then you keep on trucking and you get a year in and what the heck have you done like there’s been you hopefully there’s some lessons you’ve learned there, right. So I think you’re right. I think some of that has to overlap, I think that you have to pay attention to where you are in your journey and make the best calls you know how to make, seek out wisdom and guidance from people around you that you think it’s smart and wise to do so from, and then make a call and go. And so I-not an easy answer, is it?
No, it’s definitely not. So I have a follow up with that. One of the things that I think is out there for a lot of people is just an overwhelming amount of information, obviously, you know, in the last decade, because of the internet, you can spend days and weeks and months going down rabbit holes of, of other entrepreneurial blogs, oh, you need to have this person to do this for you. You need to hire this person early on to get them set up. And that type of thing. Do you see situations where small solo firms, small firms fall into sort of like the ego trap of wanting to have somebody to fill this role. So I have my customer service person, I have this person, I have that person, and they and they basically are just hiring, to assuage their own ego to say, I have this team of 12 people, when they’re not necessarily having the revenue for that. But that makes them feel good that they can say, well, I have a person whose only job is to handle my calendar. You know, do you see that as a problem for entrepreneurs, because they want that, you know, that team behind them, but they may not necessarily be at that point yet to actually need them. But they can fill it with a VA somewhere for, you know, two grand a month on a credit card. And it’s not necessarily the right thing for their business, have you run into that at all.
So actually, it’s really interesting, I was trying to think of examples as you were talking, but most of the people I work with, I almost feel like it’s the opposite. They hold on to everything because they’re afraid, they don’t know this is new territory. They don’t feel like they’re making enough yet. And so it’s hard for them to let go of any cash. And so I almost come across the opposite more than than what you’re talking about. I have experienced that as well, but not nearly as much. And with attorneys, I feel like I get more of that they’re hanging on tight.
To my law partners that I’ve scaled with Dave, he’ll hold on to everything. And it’s like, I’ve just because I’m there, I can put people in place around him, but left to his own devices. He’d be sitting there practicing law by himself with an associate and a paralegal, but he would never be able to scale because nobody’s going to do it better than him. And there’s that moment where you have to be able to say, it’s gonna be less efficient for for a period, you’re gonna go down on the curve before you come back up. You know, with each new person you’re slotting in, what are the biggest mistakes you see lawyers make, from your perspective, when they come? They’re like, what are the things people should like if you could say, Hey, these are the three biggest mistakes I see lawyers make, that if you could somehow figure out how to short short circuit them and your your growth process, you’d be better off?
Yeah. The first one for sure is that they don’t take time to plan. They don’t plan well, and they just are running. And that’s that will become really painful. At some point. In, there’s a chance for all of us, no matter what stage you are in your business to take a step back, and every 90 days is a great marker to do it. So quarterly planning, and then once a year really thinking full year planning. And further, I think there’s value big time and going beyond that. But they don’t do that. And so the decisions that are made are typically not coming from the wisest place. And if they did take space, they would make different decisions if they looked at their numbers if they evaluated their team if they have one, all of it if they evaluated their time and how they’re spending their time. So I think there’s a lot of I think that the reason people don’t do that is one of two reasons. One, they don’t know that they should, which hopefully everybody listening to this, you should do it.
I know now. I think I need to do some quarterly planning because I have never done quarterly planning in 22 years. I’ve never done annual planning, no planning, I am flying by the seat of my pants.
Well, that’s Look, I’m thinking about this too, historically, we’ve been much lighter on planning than objectively we should be. And recently we’re trying to put some of those EOS systems in place. And, you know, it is, you know, but Jay, I think that in some ways, we are doing it just inside of our heads, they’re not a good thing. I’m not recommending it. I’m just saying like you actually are likely doing some of these things. They’re just not being done in the in the way that is ideal from a scalable piece because you’ve been able to do it yourself and that you know, but to a certain extent it’s limited. It’s limited to Jay if Jay gets hit by a bus there are not systems in place, you know, you may-
Oh no no, well, there’s no systems in place for what’s in my brain, but my whole operation can last for the next 20 years as it stands, they just wouldn’t be able to innovate and iterate the way I can do in my mind.
And I will say this and there, listen, there’s plenty of companies out there that have done just fine without quarterly planning, but it’s a very different feel when you have it. And, and so I definitely don’t want to to the fact that you haven’t ever done quarterly planning, I’m sure your business is doing just fine. But the cool thing about doing quarterly planning, especially if it’s facilitated is that your facilitator can draw out of your brain things that you have a hard time getting out of your head. And that is a massive difference maker, I think that’s kind of part of the beauty of having a coach is you’re, you’re it’s not just in your head, and you’re able to get out some things, someone is pulling that information out and asking you the questions and framing things in a way that you’re having to articulate something that’s been swimming around, but you’ve never articulated it, and then your team hears it. Like, it’s, it’s a very, it’s a very gelling process, and it helps create a lot of momentum. I think even the best of the best, there’s a lot of value in having facilitation. So that you are, you know, it’s almost like you feel like you’ve been emptied every quarter. That’s what I hear owners say it’s like, alright, it’s almost like pushing the reset button where they’ve, they’ve just been able to empty out, they decide what does make the list in terms of a priority, or rocks and goals and things like that. And then, and you can move forward. So I do think I do like about it. But
I basically unload on my marketing director nonstop. She is just, you slack me 49 times between two and 3am. I’m like, Yeah, I had some ideas.
I’ll look at it this way. And I think you can appreciate this, you know, both of us have done well, I think there’s a number of these things that we have not done that objectively, we probably should be doing it, doesn’t it? You know, but what I love and from the marketing point of view, every once in a while I’ll see a mistake. And like, man, we lost an opportunity here. I’m like, we’re doing so freaking well without imagine what its gonna be like, once you add that it
Exactly.
Yeah, maybe what we need to do is get me and Seth in a room and just pull all this stuff out of our brains for a while.
It’s super fun. Not only do they not know how to do it, but the other thing is, I think they don’t know how to do it. And they they’re worried they’re going to do it wrong or something and start small. You know, it doesn’t. Of course, someone who’s been doing it for a while can facilitate through something really structured. But what I just I mean, really, if you got quiet and ask yourself, what’s important, what do I need to have my eyes on? What decisions do I need to make? What lessons need to be learned here, like just just if you sat down and had a session like that with yourself something really valuable will come out of it that otherwise wouldn’t had you not given it the space. And that that can be really important as you’re growing.
I’m starting to see this because we’re going through a more formalized process. And it’s funny because the law firm has all sorts of legacy issues, approximately 40 lawyers, we build stuff up, we’ve made mistakes, we’ve run some things very successfully. And with the digital company, it was built sort of in more recent time with some lessons learned from the law firm. And whenever I see these things, many of these things are happening, whether or not it’s perfectly labeled this way, but it’s pretty clear what the quarterly goal is. And I think Jay to a certain extent, you know that to whether it was like, Hey, I gotta get the pardons and expungements practice up. That’s you know, you may not sit there and create a formal list with it. But you knew this isn’t just a crazy Jay idea. It’s like hey, my revenues dropping in one side, I got to put this here. I just love the idea of a more formal setting where somebody you know, you’re you know, somebody who and it sucks it because many things you wish you could do yourself. But the idea that it doesn’t happen unless you’re paying somebody to make that happen like the gym or you go to the gym what workout am I gonna get, I’ll get something but when I’m paying some guy to be there when we did go to the gym, who’s you know, I have to be there at this time and to get the most out of that hour. It there is a huge value add that you you may be able to do it yourself and some percentage of people can but most won’t.
And also I love the point you just made but also think about it we’re so systems and process minded that this is a process. This is a system that you abide by for your firm, right? If you have this an annual business planning meeting, and then you have quarterly leadership meetings or quarterly meetings. That’s a process that your business abides by an any process you put into place typically is going to pay off big time. It’s it’s almost like it removes you having to remember or having to think or it’s just a part of what happens for your business. Yeah,
Well, you know, me and system. So this sounds like it’s right up my alley,
Jay you get the final question.
Okay. So my final question is this, you know, we are starting a brand new year and nobody could have predicted what last year would have brought. You know, after 20 years in practice, my revenues got cut by 35% in the matter of a couple of months. But I’m still sta-, I’m still standing. What do you think? What do you wish that our viewers our listeners would take away from you today? To set their 2021 off on the right foot? What do you think is the one thing if they take nothing else out of this conversation? What do you think that they should take away from this?
I really believe that this year is a chance for each of us to get very intentional about growth, and making sure that we are growing on our terms. And as you do, I think part of being intentional is abiding by processes and systems. Because the reason we put processes and systems into place is to get a very predictable outcome on the other side of it, we should do that with that we naturally think of doing that for processes inside the business. But how I, if I can encourage people to start to open up their brains, and think in a way of processes for themselves as the owner, what processes do you need to put into place that will allow you to be very intentional about the growth of your firm. And that could like one process is, I’m going to do a quarterly retreat for myself, every freaking quarter, I’m going to put it on the calendar, I’m going to schedule it, I’m going to make a list of questions I’m going to ask myself, and that’s what we’re going to do every quarter. So maybe that’s an example. In master group, I lead people through quarterly planning, that’s part of master group. And so you can join something, there’s, there’s many coaches out there, find one that feels like a great fit. And maybe you use that process, a quarterly planning process in that way. But also, you can even think smaller, just I just want encourage people to start thinking and processes for yourself. I have owners that at the end of every month, they have like on the 25th of every month, there is a window on their calendar with five bullets that they go through in order to prep and plan very well for the next month. So that’s another example. That’s a process that they put into place. And I think so often as the owner of your firm, it’s easy to get sucked into not just lawyering. But even just kind of running, running your business. But you just you’re running without process. It’s there’s just a lot to do. You handle it, you carry it all on your shoulders, and you just keep trucking. But how can you get more intentional about the growth that you are experiencing and seeking both?
Awesome. So Melissa, before we go, I know on your website, you actually offer a free masterclass that is available. So why don’t you tell our listeners and viewers about that and how they can get in touch with you if they want to reach out and talk to you a little bit more.
And let’s make sure it’s in the link in the-
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Sure. Yeah. If you go to VelocityWorks.com There’s a button there for free masterclass. And here’s what I want to say about that. I realized that the last thing that someone that would work with me needs is it as a masterclass. But I would ask you to think about it as an investment. It’s a one hour, it’s an investment of your time in order to speed things up for yourself. That’s the kinds of things that I’m teaching in the master class. So if you’re interested in signing up for it, you can go to VelocityWorks.com. And learn more about everything we have to offer. But the free thing is there as well.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. This is this is great, because, you know, it’s opened my eyes to the value of a coach, I’ve always been one to poopoo it and say, Hey, I’m doing this, you know, multiple seven figure business, and I haven’t needed to be coached. But what you’re telling me is you need to take some time, I used to go away, once a quarter, take my wife to the spa. And I would go to the spa sit there in a chair next to the Whirlpool and I would read every business magazine I have accumulated over the last three months. And I would get ideas from that. So maybe that was my system for doing it. But it wasn’t necessarily intentional. It was just how I fit my thing. So now I think what I need to do is sort of create it and do it intentionally. And I think that’s the the big takeaway for today is it’s all about your intentions and sticking to them rather than waiting for stuff to happen. And to actually make a plan for it to happen. And that’s a great way to start the year. Seth, any final thoughts?
No, it’s great. I sort of come with a similar philosophy of Jay. And you know, we’ve been dipping our toe into EOS and figuring out what can we do to push ourselves to another level? And that, you know, you gave us a lot to think about today. I really appreciate it.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It’s so fun to talk to you guys.
All right, Melissa, Melissa Shanahan from VelocityWorks. Thank you so much for being with us today. And we’ll be right back with more Maximum Growth Live.
Well, Seth, I gotta tell you, I am very well, I wouldn’t say I’m very anti coach. But I’m warming up to the idea of possibly bringing somebody on to help us do the things that I know I’m missing. In my firm. I’m not you know, I’m not the greatest. I’m more of an idea guy. I’m not the greatest at implementation. I’m not the greatest at managing people. And maybe that’s what I need to do. What were your thoughts from that interview?
Yeah, look, I think she’s what she’s terrific. I think that one of the things that I’ve seen every time you learn a new industry, let’s say the coaching industry, there’s EOS, the Strategic Coach, you know, we’re going to talk to people about how to manage a small law firm, we have a number of people who are alumni of theirs, like Williams and others that we that we’ve had on here, Katherine, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had talked, and the idea is what’s right for you. And one thing is, each of these different coaches, I think, what I liked about her philosophy was, there are a lot of different systems out there, part of what you’re paying coach for, in my opinion, is to go out, be smart enough to have seen all of those different things, and ideally, taken the best of each of them and put them into one place a one stop shop. I think that is one of those things that anything that gets very fundamental work, this is our way, again, it works for a lot of people, it probably won’t work as well, for you and me, compared to the idea of like, what is best from each of these places? Because everything I when I think about business and life and marketing? Most The answer is it depends. You know, when we have somebody in a hot seat, there’s things that are obvious, but there’s a lot of it, well, it depends on this or depends on that same with marketing. So when you see a coach that is sort of able to bring things from all of those different disciplines. To me, that’s a that’s a strong sign that there’s something really valuable there.
Yeah, and I’ll say to the audience, you know, one of the things that we didn’t talk about is that, you know, at least once a year, you and I would get together, I’d shoot down from from New York down to your office in DC, or I’d meet you in New York City, God knows when we’re gonna be able to do that again, but and we would spend an afternoon together just saying, Hey, I have this idea, what do you think about it? So we were sort of doing some of these things casually, but with a system in place, but I think really, you know, hearing it again, it’s it really comes down to I need to develop some of these personal systems to take the best parts of my brain out of my brain, get him into operations, so my firm can flourish with them.
But those meetings were great, but the moment we had a burger, the rest of the afternoon may have taken a different turn. And so you know, and the idea being what is that discipline, I really think it’s very much like going to the gym versus having a trainer. Some people can do it. You and I are not the most disciplined
No, but I have been on my peloton every day since January, one fact every day since like December 28th. So I am crushing it. I’m gonna go 100 days in a row on my peloton, even if it’s just for five minutes, so I’m gonna do it I’ve got I’ve committed to myself, but I built a system for doing it. I do it at the same time every day. And there you go a system for success. So alright Seth, with that, I think we’re going to end the show. We had a great conversation with Melissa and I and I want to leave our people wanting more be sure to tune in on Tuesday for another edition of Maximum Growth Live and then of course next Thursday, here at live 3pm Eastern 12pm Pacific for our interview show. I am Jay Ruane Firm Flex social media marketing for lawyers. He is Seth Price, founder of Price Benowitz which is basically up and down the East Coast South Carolina DC Maryland, Virginia. I’m sure you’re going to be in Iowa and in Montana next that;s gotta be nice nice move to Montana get a big ranch. Maybe you can take over something out there. We can start doing some trainings things there. that’d be good Seth You could fly me on that private plane that you’re gonna get from the PubCon people.
I-I-down in Key West and I’m like, why don’t we have a branch down there? Like, you sit there and just, you know, do Do you know, I don’t know, you know, paddleboard law.
I love it. I love it. Okay, so folks, if you want to find us anytime online, you can do so. On our Facebook page. You can also download this show as a podcast on the Maximum Growth Live podcast available on any podcasting platform. We are also syndicated as part of the maximum lawyer media family, which includes Maximum Finance Maximum mom and of course the original Maximum Lawyer Podcast, but for now I am Jay Ruane he is Seth Price. Thank you for being with us. And we will see you next week on Maximum Growth Live
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