Today, Jay and Seth sit down with Jim Hacking and Tyson Mutrux to wrap up their series on legal coaches. As the founders of Maximum Lawyer, Jim and Tyson explain the benefits of joining the Maximum Lawyer Guild and the wide-range of ideas, resources, support and guidance that it can offer its members. The two guests discuss their new creation of “Maximum Growth Minimum Time”, which has distilled down the benchmarks of law firm growth stages and helps guide members to recognize where they’re at, and how they can reach new levels. Tyson tells what he believes is the future vision of the guild, and expands upon how they hope to evolve in coming years despite the challenges that may be thrown their way.
Welcome to the podcast edition of Maximum Growth Live. The number one program for lawyers who want to grow their practices. Each week, our hosts Seth Price and Jay Ruane tackled the fundamental questions about how to grow the profit and profitability of your law firm to watch the program live. Submit your questions and hear the latest episode tune in every Thursday at 3pm. Eastern on Facebook for our live show Maximum Growth Live is a production of Maximum Lawyer Media.
Hello, hello and welcome to another edition of Maximum Growth Live. I am one of your hosts, Jay Ruane, CEO of Firm Flex, your social media marketing company for lawyers, as well as managing partner of Ruane Attorneys, your criminal offense and civil rights law firm in Connecticut. Joining me as always my friend down in the warmth down in the sun down in Del Boca Vista. That’s Mr. Seth Price over there from Price Benowitz your DC, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Timbuktu law firm, as well as the founder of BluShark Digital and speaker on all things SEO and local all over the world through the courtesy of technology. Seth Price. Seth, how’re you doing this week, my friend?
I’m doing really well. I am so excited for our guests. Yeah, like Jim and Tyson have been so seminal and sort of, you know, just sort of our career tracks. And you know, the tribe they’ve put together. It’s just remarkable from the from the Facebook, from their podcast, to the Facebook group to their conference, the first two are just remarkable, can’t wait to hear about the third. You know, and now there they have the Guild that they’ve rolled out, which is really, in my opinion, recapturing that, that excitement of those early days of Max Law when it was sort of like it to find it. And then, it took an extra set of effort to be there, that I can’t wait to hear their thoughts on where things are and where things are going.
Yeah, you know, it’s really, it’s really interesting to me, to see how far this community has grown from when I joined it, about two and a half years ago. I mean, I wasn’t even part of the Facebook group when I was approached and asked to speak on a topic on the podcast. And then I said, alright, well, and I’ll join this Facebook group. And then it was like one of these things where it was like, once you’re in, you’re all in and those first couple of weeks, you’re digesting everything. And it’s interesting, because as the group has grown, you see people coming to it now. And they’re asking some of those questions and you’re like, oh, this has been asked a million times. But for them, it’s brand new. And they and it’s it’s amazing to see those relationships form. And, you know, over the last year, while everyone’s been at home, it’s been very necessary outlet. You know, the big group, but but more specifically, the guild that you and I are both part of that they’ve started as a great, great forum for people to get together work through their problems, especially when you know, practices were suffering. A year ago, with the onset of COVID. There was a lot of sort of, we’ll get through this together, what can I do to help you? And that’s really been the hallmark, I think, of all of the different programs that are out there for lawyers. A lot of them are focused on the finances and building and growing, but not as many are focused on just the interpersonal relationships that you get in the Maximum Lawyer community, wouldn’t you say?
Absolutely. And like, you know, Jim and Tyson are both special people. And they’ve been able to sort of create this culture that is not a sales first culture, but really a safe space, I think to ask questions, experiment, throw ideas out and get feedback. So I can’t wait to hear what they have to say today.
Yeah, what I want to do is I don’t want to I’d want to spend more time with them than then spend time with you, I guess. I just say right out there. So folks, what we’re going to do right now is we’re gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, we’ll be back with Tyson Mutrux. Jim hacking the creators, the founders, the grand oohs, ahhs, of Maximum Lawyer, we’re going to talk to them about the development of the big group about the guild about what they plans they have in store for upcoming events this year. We’re really excited about this. It’s been on our calendar for a while and I got to tell you, it’s probably the one that I’ve been looking most forward to. So says why don’t we take a quick break now? We’ll hear from our sponsors. Maximum Law Guild is one of them. And when we come back, we’ll be with Tyson and Jim.
Sounds good. Sounds great.
All right. We’ll be right folks. We’ll be right back folks with more Maximum Growth Live.
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We’re thrilled to be here with Jim and Tyson founders of Max Law Con and the Max Law Guild. You know, guys, I’ve really enjoyed my experience with the Guild, the check ins, the sort of thoughtfulness that of getting things done during the week have really been very, very positive for myself, you know, Tyson talk to us what tell us about the guild and what, what, what is coming up with the guild.
So what’s interesting about the guild, I mean, what’s interesting about maximum lawyers, is it’s been building like building blocks piece by piece by piece. And, you know, first we start with the podcast, and then we add on the conference. And then we add on your Maximum media. And then we had another podcast as like we’re on right now. And then last year, whenever the pandemic was going on, we Jim and I had been before before March of last year, we had been talking a while about creating something I don’t think we’d call it the guild yet, I don’t actually remember Jim, if we did, but we wanted to create a group that had less noise in it. That was that a group of people that were more like minded, that really just had really stepped up their game. And that’s what’s really interesting about the guild, it’s a bunch of people that have, for the most part made it not and not everybody, you know, but a lot of people have really started to kill it in the legal space, and they’ve got great firms even, like, both of you are in the Guild, and there’s a lot of people that are like you in the guild that have really had a lot of success. And it’s interesting, because the it’s almost like the original Facebook group was where it was smaller yet people in it, but it’s just it’s honestly just a higher level of people that are in the group that are really committed to success and and they really get it they have that mentality that is that a month abundance mindset, they’re not afraid to share something because someone might use the idea. You know, it’s, it’s people willing to share ideas, because they know it helps us all grow together.
Now I’ve definitely Jim, I’ve definitely seen this. And the idea is what those first years and months of, of Max Law were really special, you felt like you had this community, you’re in it together. And the Guild seems to have recaptured that spirit, where you were a victim of your own success. There are four or five, four or 5000 lawyers in the in the Facebook group. But that can become overwhelming a lot of sort of outside noise and the idea that you can work with a bunch of people to work on your business taking, in some ways, the best elements of a mastermind, while using the technology that we have during COVID. Whoever is embracing zoom, talk to me sort of that like, you know, at least at least from my perspective, you have recaptured this, this, this moment in time where people were sort of rowing the same direction together.
I remember when we first started with the big group, that Tyson I had conversations about whether or not we should be marketing or talking to people who already get it, or that we should be trying to convince people that don’t get it. And to me, the people in the Guild are the ones that get it and the people that were in the group at the beginning understood, and I think now we’re just seeing that sort of on on hyperdrive. We’re seeing people who are really doing some things We’re seeing things, it’s become its own little laboratory where somebody said, I tried this. And I tried that. And I think that that’s one piece of it. The other piece, I think, is that we’ve always been a very supportive group. Like, if there’s any kind of dissension or people talk and mean, we just kick them right out, like, we don’t waste a moment, even thinking about that. And that that has resulted in a really healthy group. But even with 5000, people, it becomes unmanageable. So to be able to have those intimate conversations, I think people like being able to be in a closed environment where they know that things aren’t being shared outside the group. But you know, the footprints for success are the same for everybody. It’s just a matter of where you are and where you want to go.
Jim, if you could get sort of into the granular, because a lot of people listening know about the guild. Many don’t, know what exactly goes into it. Why would somebody want to join?
Well, so we’ve been working on a product, our first product, and it’s called maximum or minimum talk. And we are actually recording those modules as we speak, we’re releasing them slowly to the guild, but that is going to be our baseline for people that’s sort of a tool that allows people to figure out in six different categories of firm management, where they are in which stage they’re at. And, and so there’s right, we believe there’s five stages altogether, we’re just focusing on the first three stages. And we’re, we’re all about trying to help people get from stage one to stage two, or stage two to stage three. And the interesting thing that surprised me, while we’ve been working on this is that you might be in stage one and say, marketing and stage three, when it comes to practice management or to automation. And or vice versa, you might have people that are really, really good at marketing, and people that are need help on building out their system. So it’s not it’s not a one person is better than the other or one stage is better than the other. It’s really just about assessing where people are at, and then really drilling down to try to find out where do they really want to go. A lot of people say they want to go to a different stage. But there’s a big difference between wanting to go to another stage and actually doing the right thing. So what we’ve done is, we’ve tried to distill down into maximum law minimum time, what we think each stage is, what are the benchmarks for each stage? What are the mistakes at each stage, how do you know how to get to the next stage, and then what the guild becomes then, is our laboratory where we take these principles, and put them into the real world and work with people either on a hotseat or with our weekly accountability calls, to really sort of help them get to where they want to go.
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve liked is, it’s simple, it is a very safe space, it’s not very expensive, you’ve priced it, you know, I think, for the market very, very reasonably, as you speak, when you look at other options you have in for that Tyson, when you when you sort of are designing this, you know, what are the things that you think that like, you know, if you could have the ideal that the ideal candidate for a person comes through? Is the idea that somebody is with this for a cycle? Or is this sort of a group that will stay together longer term? What’s your vision for it?
No, this is definitely a more of a longer term group, this isn’t something where, like, with other programs, you go through it, you complete it, because I mean, that’s just not how the world works. Like your firm doesn’t work in a cycle, you know, your, your, your firm is always evolving. And the reality is the principles that we that we distilled down today are not going to work in 10 years, right, they’re gonna be, they’re gonna evolve a little bit like for like, for example, no one predicted a damn pandemic a year ago. So things have changed quite a bit in the last year. And then the legal arena is going to change in the next 10 years. And so that group, what’s what’s great about the group is they’re on top of things. There’s people like Jay, Bruce Wayne, and Seth price in this group that are constantly evolving, right? They’re constantly changing their firm. And that’s the same thing with Maximum Law with minimum and minimum time. The basic bit, I think the bedrock principles will be there. But the way to get to some of these things will change. And all of that is really workshopped inside of the guild, which is what’s awesome about it.
Jim, one of the things, one of the things that has surprised me is I’ve always known about myself that sometimes I might reach a certain stage and then I regress a little bit, I go back to doing too many lawyer tasks, right, go back to doing too many things that I don’t need to be doing. And one of the great things about seeing the paths in the stages is that it lets you see where you are right now. Because you do sort of go up and down and you do that it is sometimes two steps forward or two steps forward, one step back, those kinds of things. I mean, for me, what I really like about what we’ve come up with is, I remember very distinctly going to a John Fisher mastermind experience in Washington DC, and I happen to sit next to my friend Seth J Price and you The next day we went over to his office. And, and I learned about Seth that he had built this firm without practicing a lot of law. And I was like, “Man, that’s what I want to do.” And then I tell the story all the time, then we went down to the basement. And that’s where I figured out where he had this whole call center. And, I realized how far away my firm was from there. So what we’ve done is, through these years of meeting with people, and having these podcast guests, and seeing all the things that are possible, all the things are possible, and sort of getting rid of the stuff that’s worthless, and focusing on the things that are important. That to me, is really what the Guild and the new product is all about.
Okay, yeah, you know, one of the things that’s really interesting to me about both the big group and the guild, is that while I don’t have a problem, jumping in, in the big group, and offering some advice and that type of thing, and I’ll post and answer questions, and I’ll probably blow people up, and that type of thing. I’m a lot more vested in the success of the people in the guild that I can respond to. And I have found through various vision exercises that, you know, we’ve heard from a lot of people in this thing is, you know, you really have to sort of define your vision. That’s where my question is going. Next, guys, but what I want to say is, is that I have found for me, in the guild, I love working with those solos in The Guild, and giving them some advice and taking their calls, when there is a money constraint. You know, I don’t like working with people who have a budget to say, Okay, I’m gonna go out and do this. And I’ll just write a check those people who are like, I have $500, this month, how can I maximize that I love getting into the weeds on how we can do things so cheaply, and Seth will yell at me. And it’ll be like, Oh, just spend the money and be done with it. But I think it just comes from, you know, launching with nothing, make and making nothing my first couple of years, and I love working with people who have no money, but have drive and have time, and brains. And that’s what I’m able to do in the guild, because, you know, you really do have a wide variety of people at all different points in their careers. And so you can really sort of latch on to them and sort of ride the wave with them, which is really a lot of fun. But my question then, based on that is, what is the vision for the guild and for the maximum lawyer stuff in the future, because you guys obviously brought something out that you tapped into an audience that was out there looking for, you know, the looking for a Sherpa looking for a shepherd and you have this audience of people that are even now I mean, steamrolling in the big group. I mean, I saw today, there was a welcome. And there was, you know, 40 or 50 new people just today joining the big group, you know, what’s your vision for? How is this thing going to play out long term? Because I think, you know, the, the conferences and all that stuff play into that, but I’d like to hear from you guys. Where do you see Max Law in, in, in 2031?
So Jim, I’ll start with this one. And then I’ll let you kind of go from there, right? Because we’ve had a lot of discussions about this. And this is, we have a lot of ideas, but ultimately, and this is this is gonna sound. So it’s almost gonna sound like a cop out. But it’s not. It’s 100% true and 100% accurate. And because we don’t we don’t treat the guild or the big group like customers, we don’t treat those people like customers. But the reality is, is they kind of are in a way, right? And they’ll tell us what’s next. Right? The the guild members will tell us what’s next, the big group will tell us what’s next. So that I’ll start with that. Because how all of this has happened is is that it’s it’s really been crowdsource right. It’s the group has told us what is going to be next and what’s needed. And when COVID happened last year, it accelerated what we were going to do with the Guild and when we are going to launch it. So it told us what we are going to do and when we’re going to do it. Now, I do think that there’s probably going to be some higher levels of The Guild going forward, we’ve we’ve thrown out a lot of ideas when it comes to you know, are there Do we have sort of tiers? Are there levels? Are there different silos, and all of that will come and in the group will tell us if that’s accurate, and if that’s what we should be doing? And right now, that’s sort of what people in the Guild are telling us. They want maybe different styles, silos, you know, different levels of The Guild, and that may happen. And so but it’s going to happen based on what our members want. Not not because it’s something Jim and I want to do it because what the members want, and then we’ll add on and build from there, Jim.
Watch this. Tyson, how much money have you taken out of maximum lawyer since we started it? $0. Can you answer out loud for audio? Yes. And how much money have I taken out of it?
$0.
That’s right. And when was the last time you looked at the bank statement for maximum lawyer?
About a month ago.
That’s a lot more recently than I have, I can’t remember the last time. So if this is this really isn’t about money. And I bring that up, Jay, because I thought that you might actually ask us this question that this question might come up sometime today. And I haven’t really talked to Tyson about this. But for me, what I really enjoy more than anything else are the hotseat calls, and the time that we spend with people when they’re stuck. And I, we’ve had a couple people in the guild, Mark Lopez, Dashner. Bush, that, during that call, you can actually see something online, you can actually physically see it on their face, you can see the aha moment. And so what I’d like to do me personally, inside the Guild, and inside maximum more in the future, is I’d like to do more of that just one on one coaching, I was thinking about that more like, I might want to get certified as a coach, but I really liked the idea of, you know, finding people where they’re at, and helping them get where they are. And I think the other thing is for Tyson and I, you know, we bring different skill sets to the conversation. You know, I mean, for me, I like to spend a lot of my time thinking about marketing, Tyson spends a lot more time about operations. And I think that and then I think yesterday, we were talking to somebody in the Guild, and I think that that person really needs a counterpart. So just just being able to see that trends. I was gonna say Transfiguration, I guess that’d be sacrilegious. But that that information that people go through, to me is really where I, where I get the fun out of maximum lawyer.
That’s awesome, Seth.
You know, one of the things that, you know, I think you sort of alluded to, and I’m curious to see, because it’s something that I’ve seen both within the John Fisher group and others, that the idea of, you know, the value as things grow, of getting down to the point where there can be verticals, whether based on just starting out, because the issues you have in that first year are very different than the issues beyond sort of a ramp up phase. And then contingency versus fee for service, major issues that are different there. And one of the things that I’m personally excited about as as, as you’re able to do that, right now is a catch all, I find it valuable, whose look, I look at Jim, as one of those grounding figures in the law. He’s not he didn’t sit there and say, Hey, I got a valuable group. And now I’m gonna get every single dollar out of every member I can. He’s somebody I look to that sort of, like, on a on a business level, you know, brings me to a happy to a happy place. And I think that’s one of the biggest success pieces to the guild is like the fact that you guys have this report, just your Saturday morning call when I listened to it. It’s just there’s a rhythm to it. That helps me from a business point of view, put things in perspective, you know, do you foresee because you can’t be all things to all people that as this grows, having to put some more demarcations and strategy behind it?
Yeah, I think that’s a great question seven. Actually, that’s a discussion that we’ve seen going on in the guild this week. Is that people, one person raise the issue? Well, is it better for me to speak to people at my same level? Or is it better to have like, three, break it up so that there’s people at different levels, and I generally come down on the, you know, everybody can learn from everybody that there might be something really cool that somebody right out of law school or right opening their firm is doing or vice versa, there might be somebody who’s been around for a long time who has things to teach. So I like that cross pollination. And I hope that that continues. But I do think that there would be value eventually, in as as the guild grows, which it’s going to grow of sort of segmenting by choice people, giving people the options of, you know, what do they want to focus on? Who do they want to talk to those kinds of things.
Now, it’s something I missed that as its evolved, you were having to be inclusive with West Coast. The idea that there’s a morning concept to me was a very special one was as close as I get to doing yoga in the morning was listening to the calls. And I found that that was something that just and again, it’s evolved because you were, as you want to be more inclusive, certain things, that the feeling in the middle of the day when you sit down and talk is very different than if you’re able to sort of map things out Tyson, how have you dealt with sort of called Growing Pains, like in a good way, like these are like, if you weren’t then there, there’d be something wrong, but as you’ve seen the guild evolve, what are some of the challenges we’ve seen and we’re How do you think you guys are going to tackle them?
Yeah, timezones is a tough one. Because we do have people across the country actually we have people across the world at this point, and it’s we had one member that was and he was on the other side of the frickin world you know, like so you do have to take that in consideration. And so we did at the adjust the time and honestly, I, I didn’t want to personally have to change the time but we also were missing out on half workgroup that weren’t able to attend these meetings unless they joined at 6am. So we had, we had to listen to the group and we adjust it. And that was the really honestly, timezones was probably one of the biggest, biggest things that was sort of a growing pain. The other one is, is that we also were very conscious of the eye, the fact that the group is growing, and there, there might be a cap to it, you know, or we may have to break it into smaller groups. So you don’t lose that field. Because what we don’t want to happen is it become a 5000 member group where no one knows each other, right? That’s not what we want. That’s not the point of the guild. And so we’re conscious of that. That’s, that’s one of the things that we’re constantly monitoring and trying to figure out, how can we best serve our guild members, but so size is one of it. And then timezones is another one that they’re honestly easy fixes, we can deal with it without a problem, but it’s just something we have to keep an eye on.
So let me let you talk about people getting to know each other. And that’s been a challenge this last year. But can we talk a little briefly, you’ve recently set the dates for Max law con, after a couple of the other things? Can you tell us a little bit about that? And what you guys have in store, because I know there’s some guild events at the beginning of it, and then there’s the main event. So why don’t you fill us in on that? So our audience can know what’s coming down the line?
Yeah, I’ll let Tyson say the dates here when I’m done, because I’m pretty sure when they are, but I want to make sure
We’ll drop it in the comments. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So it’s going to be on a Tuesday, Wednesday in October. And it’s going to be sort of similar to prior conferences, it’s going to be at the Ameristar. Casino, those we have more space, it’s a really, really nice space. We’re actually going to have breakout rooms this time. So we’re going to have plenary sessions and breakout sessions and the sessions are all going to be covering the six topics, or the six spheres of running a law firm, that it’ll sort of track the maximum law minimum time. And so we’re excited about it. It’s going to
Is that the Monday guild day, or is that going to be the Tuesday Wednesday format?
That’s the conference itself, the guild day is going to be for I think, 30 members, it’s just going to be a smaller mastermind on that day before on that Monday before.
Awesome, awesome.
Now it just seems you got it again, you put something special together, you know, from the very first event and and headed to the Cardinals game and being in a party suite. Like there’s been a spree decor that has pulled people together in a way that that it just really special in the fact that you’ve kept it going. As is awesome. If you reflect back, did you ever think that when you started your podcast that you’d have 5000 Roaring fans and a sub sub paid group within it?
Oh, no, I didn’t. And you know, it’s funny stuff. You know, I remember when the first conference was over. And not everything went well. You know, we had technical problems. We started late, you know, it was, there were about 80 of us at St. Louis University Law School. It was it was a lot of fun. Not one complaint, not one complaint about anything. We had our second conference again, we had about 180 people. No one complaint. It’s a totally growth mindset group. We’re really lucky that way. And not everything went well, for that one. I’m sure. You know, poor Mitch Jackson. Every time we put him on stage, something bad happens. But the other thing is with the guild, with a guild, we’ve been going strong for a year now we’ve only had I think three people leave the guild. So I think that we have captured something I think we’ve gotten extremely lucky. But we’ve really found people who have that growth mindset. And I think that’s what you’re not you’re not unifies the four of us and unifies everybody in the big group and in McGill.
Tyson, when I reflect back on that conference, and I remember each of those different clusters that happened. To me, I saw that almost as a teachable moment because we each had our law firms have those things happen. And so to watch a organization growing, it felt like it was in parallel track that if it was perfectly produced, there would be a price point that would change the whole dynamic of it. And that that was part of the magic that you guys captured.
Yeah, so here’s what’s interesting. So we had a meeting yesterday. And one of the things that we were talking about is we’re planning for the conference and retirements speakers and everything else. And one of the key parts about the podcast and the in the conference and everything else is that we put regular people, right, we take regular people that are really successful at one specific thing, and then we put them on the stage and we have them talk about it. And I think really, people appreciate that. Right. Whenever we had the first conference, it’s like we had a bunch of big names. We had the second conference, we didn’t have a bunch of big names. We had a couple of big names that are known as Santa Claus. Yeah, we did have Santa Claus May or May May, maybe the most famous people we had. But otherwise it was it was not a group of people that we had, you know, we’re not paying a bunch of money to bring in some big name, right? Like, we’re not, we’re just not doing that, because that’s not the point of it. And so when we did have that the conference, the first one, when it was sort of, I wouldn’t call it a cluster, it wasn’t a cluster, but it was, it was not quite what we had envisioned. But you know, what the members didn’t care, like the people that came didn’t care. They’re like, Hey, I’m learning. I’m getting a great a bunch of great information. We’re learning this together. It’s great. And so when we’re talking yesterday, I just sort of, you know, want to remind everyone like, hey, remember what the, the original thought was? When it comes to the conference? You know, this isn’t about big names. This is about, you know, people learning from each other. And that’s, that’s, that doesn’t matter if that’s the podcast, or if that’s the guild or the conference. That’s what it’s about. It’s just learning. We’re all in this together and learning from each other.
I think that I think that you’re you’ve tapped into something there Tyson is it we’ve, we’ve really made heroes out of a lot of the members in the group. You know, I mean, that, that putting people on stage and seeing how involved people get in the Facebook group, and now in the guild, that people’s personalities come through, and I I, my wife and I bought a peloton, it’s coming in two weeks, and we’ve been waiting since January for it. But if you think about peloton, you know, we feel like we know these people that are leading these classes, we’ve never met them. We we but they feel like they’re our friends, because we spend time with them every day. And that’s what I always thought about the podcast is that you know, you you’re inside people’s heads through your their ears, and they your true nature comes through. And I think that’s really what all of it is the conference, the Guild and the big group and the podcast is that we’re just we’re helping people connect. And now with connection being so hard, it’s just almost on steroids.
Absolutely. Jay, if I find out the final questions,
So okay, so we know where Jim’s passions lie with the potential to get into the hot seat stuff, and really help people, you know, get over those hurdles and really make what they want. And sometimes that’s just pulling it out of them. Jim, I think that’s one of the talents that you have is, is getting people to voice What’s deep inside, because when you get it out there when you committed to paper, that’s when you can actually take actions towards that. Tyson, what’s yours? Right? I mean, you know, we see what Jim really finds passion in what what are you finding passion in in the max law community?
Well, I think Jim’s sort of mentioned it, too, is like I think it’s awesome. Watching this trajectory of some of these members, like are really early members I and I, we had in the first in the beta group of The Guild, it was we had a confidentiality agreement. So you can’t mention the people’s names or anything. But I do remember he was the very first person to be in the hot seat, right? And he was, he broke down and was crying because he was talking about how he, he’s not sure he can be able to pay his bills next month. Right. And he sort of went all in and, and now he’s killing it. I’m talking just crushing it. And it’s cool. I I can’t tell you how many stories that Jim and I have seen just like that, right? And I’m not and by the way, I’m not taking any credit for that. I’m just, it’s a lot of the credit goes to the group as a whole, right, the entire group that helped get people through these really tough moments. And we’ve had a lot of tough conversations with people and some people that maybe they shouldn’t be running a firm, right? That’s just sometimes that’s the reality, maybe you should maybe you started your firm because you had to and maybe you should be getting a job now. Like, there’s conversations we’ve had like that. And then there’s other people that they should be running in a firm, they just need a little bit of guidance. And just watching them go from that really just bedrock point to being where they are now is freaking awesome. I mean, I’ll just throw out like a name like this person. I can mention polio combined is that guy, it is amazing watching him start his firm A couple years ago, and now he’s starting a new firm. I mean, it’s it’s crazy. Just watching the trajectory of these people. It’s insane.
I watched his video this morning in the gilt. And I was like, I was like, Wow, I’m gonna follow along and watch this whole thing is he’s he’s growing intentionally in public, for the people to take in and sort of, you know, it allows me to sort of think of, if I want to grow new vertical, I should be thinking about some of these considerations. And that’s one of the wonderful things about having a community is that you can get on the phone with one of these people and say, hey, I want to know more about this that you’re doing and how I can make it work for me and everyone seems to, you know, really be really be interested in having everybody succeed, which you don’t get in a lot of other programs and a lot of other communities. You get a lot of I’m holding everything in that type of thing, whereas here everyone seems to be a giver. And I think it’s based on the model that, you know, Tyson, you and Jim have put together I mean, Jim, truly, you know, a man for others as we have from our Jesuit background, it’s important to be able to, to give, rather than take, because when you give you get such so much more in return, Seth.
And yeah, one of the things that I would say that sort of like, But wait, there’s more, because not only is it a great experience, but something we haven’t even talked about, I don’t want to belittle that I want to make it seem like a negative, but like, the cost compared to the rest of the coaching market is so ridiculously low, it’s less than cable bill, with taxes, and the idea that you are that, that you have all of this community, but that you still have the resources to build and grow there, it’s hire a person or invest in marketing, that you that they’re, that, again, the bank account would be a lot larger if it was a different business model, but the fact that it is so ridiculously reasonable, and that by taking advantage of this crowd sourced, you know, training that people can then go back and not be okay, well, I now know what to do. But I don’t have the resources I spent it on on training, that it really allows people to go back and then put those things in place, like Paul and others.
I think you’re right, Seth. And I think that’s a great point, I’m glad that people find the value in it, you know, I want to change gears just a little bit. And just mention one thing that has occurred to me after these four years of working on this thing, and that is, you know, you guys all have clients. And you can see how different clients approach the same problem so differently. Like, I think part of our job as lawyers, that’s the part of what makes our job as lawyers interesting, is seeing how different people react and how human beings are, and how they can be. And the one thing that I’ve noticed these last four years is that people really put caps on themselves, that people really artificially limit what they think they’re capable of doing. And when you see people break through those caps, and I really do think I think that There literally is no limitation, except the limits we put on ourselves of what you want to do. I honestly believe that. And we’ve seen it time and time again. So one of the other benefits for me is just seeing how far people can go.
No, and that the fact that you’re seeing that drives you to do more, you know, you say Hey, I saw your call center that inspired me, I went back and said, Hey, I have an immigration shop, and it’s not firing, you know, it was an easy phone call to say, hey, what do you think about this, this and this and sort of it is it is a ying yang, and that if you you know, continue to to push and pull, you know, our next set of programs on max growth live is going to be about outsourcing and want to be able to sort of like part of that has been see what Tyson has been doing, which has been really creative and forward thinking about how has he been able to not leverage domestic labor in certain things that don’t need to what what has worked, what has not worked? You know, those are the things that just just energize me and seeing, you know, seeing people’s successes. And as you’re mentioning, you actually get to hear about either failures or wrong turns, I think you’ll learn a lot from that as well. Alright, so I got
Really quick. Yeah. You said, I think what you just said is so profound, the very last thing, because what’s really interesting, even with the big group, the big maximum lawyer group, and the small one, I think around the rest of the legal space, people are always putting up these walls, right and making them it seemed like everything’s perfect, right? But whenever you sort of break down those walls, you realize it’s not perfect, like no firm is perfect. No firm is killing like you’d like you think. And what’s great about what’s special about maximum wear in general is that, really, they’re willing to be vulnerable, right? They’re really willing to step back and be vulnerable and be honest about their situation. So I think that that’s what’s really magical about the big group, the podcast, with maximum, maximum group live guild, all that it’s just people are willing to pull back the curtain a little bit and be vulnerable, which I think is pretty special.
I have a question. I think, you know, maybe our listeners and our viewers can get something from watching the explosive growth of the of the big group. And now really the growth of the guild, there have got to be some parallels that you have gleaned from the growth of the this organic Facebook group that followed the podcast and then that you can translate into your own law firms. Is there anything from the growth, not necessarily of like what you’ve learned, somebody shared in the form, but the actual growth of the entity of maximum lawyer that you can say translated it to help you grow your own business? Because, obviously, at Max Growth Live, we’re always thinking, growth and growing our firms and grow or think so. What takeaways do you have from the growth of the Maximum Lawyer community that our viewers can understand and put into place for their own firm?
Hell, yes. So, before I opened my firm, I happened to read two books. One was crushing it by Gary Vaynerchuk. And the other was tribes by Seth Godin. And Gary always talked about leading with value, giving content away educating people giving something of value before you ask for anything in return. And, and to do it consistently. And constantly. Seth Godin talks about building a community of people who have, you know, similar ideas, similar goals. And so, right alongside the Maximum Lawyer, big Facebook group, I started an immigration group called immigrant home. And those two groups are always trying to pass each other in numbers of members. And I started right around the same time, right? So I have this Facebook group now, with like, 4500 people in it. When I when I get a bad Google review, I just hop over there and say, Hey, everybody, somebody left me a bad Google review, can you help me out and they bury it in like eight hours. And, and I follow Gary V’s advice. By creating video content almost every day, you know, I’m up to 700 videos. So all the same messages that we use for the group, I’ve translated into our firm. Now the interesting thing to me, Jay, is that now Tyson and I are in a spot on the business side of things where we’re saying to ourselves, what lessons have we learned from running a law firm? And the lessons that we give to our law firm members? Should we be applying to maximum lawyer? And that’s why I think maximum lawyers sort of growing up so we’re seeing it sort of, in a symbiotic way worked both ways.
No, it’s funny, you say that, because I have, obviously have two different entities. And in some respects, you know, having started blue shark after price benefits, there are many advantages once you’ve seen the mistakes you’ve made. And you say, hey, where do I, you know, how can I avoid this type of issue as I build something new? That, to me has been, has been huge, and things that we sit in law firms are more complicated, there’s more issues, you know, dealing with the production of work, and many of the employees you’re going to have, but that the idea that, you know, I basically, by using in the marketing sense, but primarily a millennial group, which was much good, not easy to deal with, but much more, you know, together. In one sense, many of the things that you talked about with Gary Vee or Seth Godin, or any of these great scaling up Vern Harnish, many of the things, these best practices that are so hard to apply in a firm, I am curious to see and I think you will find as the maximum lawyer media and as Max Maxwell expands that some of those things are almost easier outside of the confines of practicing law, and you’re it sort of felt almost unshackled to do that there Tyson.
Yeah. So I think I can distill down everything that Jim just said, and what you just said to end to end there. The first two things I thought of before Jim said a word, community, right. So having the raving fans, it comes down to community, and leading with value, you have those two things, and you’re crushed, no matter what you have, whether it’s max law, whenever it’s Ruane law, whether it’s, you know, Price Benowitz, whether it’s Meatrix, firm, interlayers, doesn’t matter what it is, if you lead with value, and you have a community, everything else will fall into place. So then that’s really what we’ve done. We didn’t we didn’t make maximum law about us, right. And what’s interesting, if you go on the Facebook group, people say, your what podcast, whose gym whose taste, and they don’t really know who we are sometimes some of the people that are the group, which is really interesting to us, right? Because there’s so much value out of the group, they’re not there for us, they’re there for the value. So I do find that interesting. And, and Jim, the examples that Jim gave, were worked out talking about community, and it’s about leading with value. He provided a community for his immigrant home people, and he was providing value and everything else fell into place. And so it really just comes down to those two things. Awesome.
That’s awesome. Awesome. Jim, Jim, you get the last word. Jay, really?
Well, it’s J or Jim.
I didn’t see you go on. So it takes off. So it’s all you it’s all your gym?
Yeah, so I don’t know. Just to recap, I mean, I think all of us are working progress. Everybody somewhere in those stages, whether it’s it’s a podcast and a community, whether it’s a law firm, I think we all have things to learn from each other. I think that the biggest threats to us are complacency, and sitting on our laurels. And I think you always have to be moving forward. And so I’m lucky in that I always have a cert search. I’m searching for more information and more knowledge. My wife says I have 800 books that are all exactly the same, but to me, they’re all a little bit different. And they all have a little bit of a different slant on things. So You never know how something’s going to hit you. You never know you could listen to something that you recorded three years ago or that someone else gave you to listen to. It hits you differently where you’re at. And so I think that that mindset of always keeping moving forward is the way to do it. Absolutely.
I love that Tyson. And Jim, thank you so much, not just for being on here. But for your friendship. We are We are honored and proud to be part of maximum lawyer media and cannot wait for Max law con. In the fall. This is going to be a great year, and I can’t wait to see what you guys do with the guild.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I’m going to come out to St. Louis, like a week early just to get out of my house. You know, we’re having my bed, six feet from where I do all my work. I’m over it, man. I need to do some traveling and St. Louis. Sounds good to me.
Yes. Thank you so much, guys.
Thank you so much. Thanks, folks. We’ll be right back with more Maximum Growth Live.
Hey, it’s Becca here. I’m sure you’ve heard Jim and Tyson mentioned the gills on the podcast. And in the Facebook group. The Guild is this perfect mix of a community group coaching and a mastermind. Guild members get so many benefits, including weekly live events and discounts to all maximum lawyer events. Head over to maximum lawyer.com forward slash the guild to check out all the benefits and watch a few testimonials from current members. So head to maximum lawyer.com and click on the guild page to join us. Now let’s get back to the episode.
Well, Seth, I gotta say, anytime I get to spend time with Jim hacking and Tyson Meatrix is good time, even though it’s not in person, just getting to spend some time with them about 40. So something minutes has been great. What were your takes away from the takeaways from the conversation they’re
Like, to me it was just that energy bump. You know, it reminded me of of sort of where we came together and sort of was this sort of a sentimental journey for myself thinking back to the journey we’ve been on together for everybody listening to this most people listening or, you know, at some point or another have used the larger group on Facebook that Max law has, where people can get resources, ask questions that that’s really been developed. And I really, you know, I’m a big believer in what they’re doing with the guild, I joke that like, I was disappointed when they moved the morning call. But that was my morning, a moment of Zen, you’d sit there you think about what you needed to do next. And the idea that they have put together a group, which, frankly, again, at a very cost effective rate, to allow you a moment to think reflect and then bring these training pieces together. You know, I think it’s really valuable. We’ve seen some junior attorneys really skyrocket out of it. And definitely Speaking for myself, as somebody who has an established firm, I’m definitely using the, the the platform as a way to help fine tune what we have.
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting to me, because, you know, one of the cool things about the guild is that you are getting people at various points along the spectrum. But what I have found is that, as they are giving advice, and as they are sort of crowdsourcing advice to people at different points along the journey, you can glean one or two good things from that, that you’re saying, Man, you know, I used to do that 10 years ago, and I got away from it. And I don’t know why I did. But I really gotta get back to the core fundamentals in certain areas. And of course, there’s the question of technology that people are using, that’s often in the big group, it’s definitely talked about in The Guild, because it’s just you can find solutions that are out there, and make your life easier. And you’re not doing it alone, you know, you’ve got sort of, you know, 100 150 other people in the same boat, as you that can say, watch out for those rocks, hey, it’s gonna get easier here. Don’t worry about this, but definitely worry about that. And it just sort of takes some of that pressure off of being being alone and being the owner of a firm.
You know, I think that’s it, you know, you know, the, your family doesn’t really get what’s going on around you. You may or may not have a partner who gets it. And that very often, it is very lonely. And the idea that you do have a place to, you know, as a test kitchen as a sounding board as a venting, whatever those things are, that you may need. I just, it’s been a valuable experience with great love. Just great to spend time with them. You know, it’s it brings a smile on my face. It’s, we’re all so busy and just just getting a time on the books for the four of us to spend 45 minutes shows you just how crazy our world is right now in a good way, but thankful we had the time to spend with them.
Absolutely. You know, it’s interesting, Seth. We’ve known each other now for probably 15 years. And I’ve been part of the max law community now for about three and a half. And I can remember talking to you You know, 1210, nine years ago, at conferences, usually internet marketing conferences, not necessarily, you know, law related conferences, and saying, We can’t be the only two. There’s gotta be other people like us.
Exactly. And this was found that people that were as crazy geeked out, however, whatever you want to call it, about passionate about what they’re doing with their, with their business, that it just, you’re right, we sat there say, Where’s everybody else? And it took it took him and Tyson to help us find them.
Yeah, and you know, the really cool thing about it is that, in this community of people, there are so many people with certain passions, like for you, it’s digital. First, it’s SEO, it’s doing SEO the right way with me. I’m a Systems guy, I love building systems, I think, you know, I like to think through the logic steps of all the different permutations, so that we can have a system that encompasses everything, and that’s really become my thing. And I think combined, there’s people that fit everything, you know, there are people who are big into, you know, document generation, and, and automating everything with document generation, so that they can have people buy in from them online. And there are people who are all about vision. And there’s really about everything, and inspired me even to create a Facebook group, all about Systemising your law firm, and that’s starting to grow as people start to join it and, and we can talk just about the thing that I find passionate in, which is, is creating systems, I have opportunities to bid on a state contract here in Connecticut. And and the thing that excites me most about it is it’s a whole new way I can build systems.
Any any excuse you you’re like, Yeah, I may not make money, but I get to build more systems. Thank you.
Well, that’s that’s basically what I said. I said, you know, the state contract, you know, it’s, I’m not gonna say it’s not real money. But you know, you have to spend it on lawyers and staff. And
My guess is, the state contract is tighter margins, the only way you can make money is if you really systematize it,
Right, and I’m sitting around thinking, I’m salivating. Well, I could do this. And we could have these people do this. And I could do that. I’m just I’m getting excited over the systems more than about the actual income or anything. That’s just me.
I love I love today, it just reminded me how excited I am for Max law con three. So let’s, you know, have an awesome week. And the one thing that I’m excited about going forward as you’re talking about systems, is I want to I want to sort of dive deep over these next few weeks into the outsourcing and figuring out how we can bring value to all of our listeners present company included, but how do we how do we best? How do we find best practices? What and see if we can get people to share with us? what’s worked, what hasn’t worked to cut down the learning curve for people?
Yeah, it’s been a learning curve for me because as you know, I’m in the process of doing it we’ve gotten, we actually have two very solid one is a rockstar, two very solid VA is now working for us that we got, but we’ve bombed through eight others, you know, it’s
Right. And we’re at the very beginning, we have to we look, the marketing team has an entire operation overseas, and I have a personal VA in the Philippines doing little tasks. That’s not what I’m talking about. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if you if you’re a systems guy like Jay, you’ll find the things to plug in. But I am now thinking about how are you able to what tasks don’t need to be done by somebody sitting here as we say with COVID You don’t have to be next door we have a woman who is US college educated living in Latin America, like your now the geographic boundaries are breaking down and we’re able to get the best talent wherever it may be on the on the planet. So really excited sort of dive deep into that over the coming weeks.
I’m loving it. Okay, folks, so that’s gonna do it for this week’s edition of maximum growth life. I am Jay Ruane SEO firm flex he is Seth price of blue shark digital. always here to answer your questions. If you have anything that we can help you with, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Also be sure to join my Facebook group Systemising your law firm for growth. Because we want to encourage people to develop and implement systems that can really make you sort of succeed and take a lot of the pressures off your plate. Of course down below you can leave us any messages that you want. And be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Thursday for our live shows here on Facebook. As well as that you can always catch the podcast edition of this syndicated through the maximum lawyer podcast or our standalone maximum growth live podcast available wherever podcasts are sold. Are they even sold anymore? Or they’re paid podcasts? There’s got to be a paid podcast right? I don’t know of any but I mean, there’s at
Artie Lange had one for a while but I don’t think it lasted.
I’m just curious. It’s something I’m gonna I’m gonna investigate that folks and find out are there. podcasts out there? So there you go. So, anything else you got to add?
Yeah, that’s it. Have a great week.
Have a great week, folks. We’ll see you next week on another edition of Maximum Growth Live. Bye for now!
Thank you for listening to maximum growth live. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast for the latest episodes and tune in live on Facebook every Thursday for our live show. For more information, visit Maximum Growth Live on Facebook or MaximumLawyer.com, and be sure to share us with your friends!
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