Join Seth and Jay as they welcome special Guest Fireproof Co-Author John Nachazel and watch Jay Geek out over systems!
Hello, hello and welcome to another edition of the Law Firm Blueprint. I’m one of your hosts Jay Ruane, CEO of FirmFlex and managing partner over at Ruane Attorneys in Connecticut and over here, my man down in wherever he is- he travels so much, I never know where- Oh, you’re in DC. And I well, you know, that’s why we got these cool backdrops because you could be anywhere. Hey, it’s my man Seth Price. Seth, of course, the Grand Poobah of all things, digital marketing for lawyers, with BluShark, digital as well as managing partner of Price Benowtz DC, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. So Seth, as always, as we go on this week, wait.
It’s going great. And I cannot wait to hear from John, our guest today is one of my favorites. It’s gonna be great. Right? I just got to know him a couple in the last couple of years when he came out with Fireproof working with Mike Morris for decades. He’s now our EOS coach, to this guy, just you know, special special guy who has been able to dig deep into, you know, the operations of a plaintiff’s firm in particular, but I think lessons to be learned by all of us.
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I, you know, I’m looking at my list of all the questions that I have prepared to ask him, I don’t think I’m gonna get to 10%. I have a feeling that he’s the kind of guy that we can have on the show, you know, every other week for the next year and still barely scratched the surface. And so having read fireproof, having read other things that he’s put out there, anticipating being able to interact with him is going to be great. On a happy we’ve got some new hires joining our firm, I think things are starting to look up for us on that swing. I know we talked about it on some prior shows. So why don’t we do this? Why don’t we? Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we take a quick break. We’re going to hear something from the crisp people write about their upcoming conference. And when we come back, we’re going to have John here from fireproof, and everybody wins here at the law firm. Brooklyn. Sounds good. Sounds great. Awesome. We’ll be right folks. Well, I’m rushing because I’m loving. I can’t wait to get John up on the screen. We’ll be right back, folks. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with you here on the Law Firm Blueprint.
Welcome, everyone. We are so excited Jay and I to have with us, John accesible, the great, great, great firm administrator that are the driving force behind fireproof and Michael arts law firm. Welcome.
It is great to be here. Great to be back with you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Well, the reason I wanted you here is we rebrand his law firm, law firm blueprint and Jay is known as Mr. systems. And I wanted you guys to be able to come together and geek out we’re going to talk about fireproof, and its involvement in the National Trial Lawyers, business of law seminar in Arizona a little bit. But we don’t want to get some time with you here. We have a lot of audience made up of small and mid sized law firms. And not all of us have the DNA of systems first, a lot of us serve, I had the entrepreneurial bug. So I was like, hey, try this, it works, we’ll do more. And that, you know, for a lot of people listening, the thought of putting systems in place is scary, because there’s so many things that need to be systematized. What I’d love you guys to start with is discussing, where do you get the most bang for the buck? Where’s the low hanging fruit that you might want to go to first? Because you think about everything at once. It’s overwhelming for where do you see as you’ve now coached dozens of law firms, the greatest impact the quickest.
So I’ll jump in and go first. I think that the scariest and most logical place to start for putting in a system is intake. I think that for every law firm, it’s natural that that’s what the owners, the visionary founders, that’s what they care about. It’s exciting to get involved in the marketing, very many of them are drawn to that. And it’s appalling when you start doing the math of when there is leakage in your intake, the amount of dollars that that is costing your law firm. It’s It’s so scary and overwhelming, that that if I could only pick one to start with. That’s the one I’d pick first.
One I can trust you in a second. But why do you think that is in the sense that it is so important? And you’re right, it’s not the shiny, it’s fundamental. It’s people over and over again. But what why didn’t lawyers just have again, it’s that I’ve been guilty of it over the years and good and bad and good. Why is it that lawyers don’t naturally go there?
I think it’s just the muscles that have been built. Lawyers are very creative problem solvers. And that’s great. And, but it’s easier. Maybe it’s more have trouble too. If you want to get more signups I know what to do, I’ll spend more on my digital marketing, I’ll spend more on my TV advertising, I’ll do whatever I can to generate more marketing leads into the system, when in fact, what you could do for far less dollars, is to simply sign up a greater percentage of those calls or those contacts that are coming into your firm, that if you had a tight tight intake machine, you could save 10s of 1000s of dollars in marketing and still yield the same result. So it’s just but if that’s not a muscle that you’ve developed over the years, is, while I’m excited about process, let’s get a really robust, rigorous process installed. That’s not words that lawyers make. And that just doesn’t come naturally to them, even if it is the best way to spend their dollars.
Well, you know, if I can jump in here, you know, one of the things that I think happens a lot on the intake side, and why I think it’s, it’s so important is that, you know, when people launch a practice, they’re happy to get one new client a week. And then all of a sudden, they’re getting three calls or 10 calls. And, and as it starts to grow, you start to think of two things, right, you start to think of number one, well, if they want me, they know how to find me, and I’m not going to do any follow ups. And it’s amazing how many people are in, in my mastermind group, who have just made the subtle tweak of actually following up sending out retainer agreements. I mean, we’re on a criminal side, in my group. And there there are guys that are doing zero follow ups firms that are doing zero follow ups at all, and just even having somebody follow up. But what they’re doing is they’re actually trusting some of their highest level stuff to their lowest paid employees. And some of these people have incredible turnover in their reception and intake gather detailed gathering departments. And I think they they avoid the systems because they like, Well, why should I teach somebody my systems if they’re going to be gone in six months? And but that, my opinion is that’s precisely why you need the system is because then you could plug and play. And then as you add people, you’re ready to go, what are your thoughts about, you know, investing in your intake people, as you build the systems.
So I think if they understand the why, why you’re doing things, it goes a long way towards them, accepting the process. And I haven’t met somebody yet that has shown up and says, I’d like to do a really bad job today, I’d like to not make a difference. So I think if you explain to people, here’s what we need you to do, here’s why it’s so important and how you’re having an impact. They’ll understand why this, this task that you’re asking to be completed, why it should be done, and they will adopt it much with much greater success. So I think that’s, that’s part of it. And I think that, you know, there’s two different things. One is if you’re having turnover every six months, what’s going on, there’s there’s some other cultural problem that has nothing to do with your process. And yes, it’s great to have process in order to be served as the basis for a great training program. And having a process is great, so that you can know what metrics to put in place to ensure that you can audit things to ensure that everything is in fact being implemented the way you want. But it’s a little bit scary to hear that there’s chronic turnover. I’m not saying it’s always going to be perfect. And we’ve had plenty of turnover in our intake team. But Tony’s been with us as our intake lawyer for 12 years. Lloyd Laura is an intake attorney. She’s been with us for eight or nine years. We have others with similar long, 10 years. So I think too often intake is a it’s a burnout job. It’s, it’s here’s how I enter the firm. And as soon as I’m good, I will be promoted out of intake. And that is nails on a chalkboard, to me, the most important thing that happens at your law firm. Amongst the most important I’ll just I’ll back off so they don’t get anybody. That’s some lawyers out there yet. Amongst the most important things is your intake. Why on earth would anybody ever be promoted out of the most important area? It is a reward. It is a huge group of competence to be trusted with the incredibly important task of a job.
Let me let me go there because I know we’re leaving systems for him. Now we’re dealing with like personnel. Sure, and I look into me, you know, intake, you know, One thing to be able to get the phone to ring, but if you’re not, if you’re not monetizing it, whether it be contingency or fee for service like, Jay, my question to you is that something that we have struggled with first, a burnout effect, just the idea that you’re dealing with all sorts of needy people with high stress potentially. So part of hiring the right people for it, I get that. But the idea that no, are there people that, again, my journey was that we started with recent grads that were young, energetic that we knew had a two year cycle with management layered on top of them, versus career people that might not be as what’s your feeling on filling that in now, when they post COVID? We have a third where we have an international team to sort of help triage our, you know, in funneled back down to our top people, what are your thoughts on? Is this in life or job? Is it something that should be played shorter term, etc?
Fantastic question. We have tried all three. We have a bit of all three going on right now. We have a large firms who have a lot of calls. So we have internationals, we have lifers. And we have newer people, always when we hire a newer person, now, we we are not looking at it as I want you for two years, and then I’ll rotate you out. Because you’re going to burn out. Well, we tried to do a good job of we don’t always get it right. But what we try for us to find that lifer. We don’t want someone who’s using it as a stairstep. We want. And to my surprise, there are people that never burn out on it. I’m a natural introvert. I couldn’t imagine talking to clients all day long, every day and have a series of five to 15 minute phone calls all day. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Now, contrast that with the intake people and ask them would they be interested in my job? They couldn’t stand it. And I think that’s the whole beauty of it is that if you, if you have someone that’s burning out in the job, then you’re asking them to do something that they’re not a natural fit for?
Well, and so so is there have you found any testing any personality traits? That will not just say they’d be good at it? Because we have people that are great at it, but they don’t want to do it for more than two years? Yeah, versus, you know, is it a situation we joke about this a lot like schools that people go to Don’t, don’t aim too high? Are there certain ones where the person might be amazing, but they’re really a salesperson that’s going to want to commission track at some point away from your world, versus, you know, somebody who will stay with you in the law firm ethos, you know.
I would say, we do we use behavioral testing, we happen to use the Preview, and we test people and as part of our hiring assessment, I would say it’s really the people who can genuinely empathize with somebody else, it’s really someone who, who puts self or others above self, and that they can really get caught up in the emotion of what that person is going through as opposed to this is just a number. This is called number 14.
And and to that end, John, have all your data, all your successes and failures within the firm. Are there any benchmarks on particular tests that you’re like, hey, this is work more often than not? Or is it a constantly evolving? I’m trying to move from gut. If you’re on this test, you store over this number. All the people I know, a cool exercise would be would be to find the top firms in the country that have you know, 20 year intake department’s find out people who make it more than five years, and then get them all tested and figure out could we come up with something that would sort of…
Sounds like a research project for BluShark Digital since they have so many connections? It’d be interesting to see if we can get that done.
It does. I would trust BluShark with that, for sure. Love BluShark. But the the the point where I was gonna go with what we do right now, and I’m not trying to evade your question.
Oh, no, no, it’s just.
It’s a great it’s a great i It’s a great thing to figure out is we have our test happens to score people on 10 different traits. And so what we did was we took our star performers like Tony and Laura, and we had them take the test and that set the benchmark. And so there’s a scale of one to 10 introvert to extrovert or independent, submissive, whatever, it’s and it’s really that combination of how good of a fit are you? So it’s not any one of those traits. But But what I find fascinating about your question is Is there is one of those traits that’s more important than the other nine. And I haven’t looked at it that way to be, you know, full disclosure, I’ve only looked at it as this is the best overall fit you map, you look like you scored like other people that are successful in this role. And we start with them.
Well, I mean, think about that. I mean, you can have a starting quarterback in the NFL, who, you know, who is running a five second 40. But everything else works. And you know what that’s, you know, that that’s I don’t think he’s Tom Brady, but you get somebody who can perform at an exceptionally high level, even though they can’t necessarily, you know, blow people off the starting blocks when it comes to running. So I mean, when you look in the aggregate, I think that’s what you’re looking for with these people. But John, let me ask you a question a little bit more when it comes to intake, because I’m fascinated by the intake process. We spend a lot of time working on that I want I don’t want to get away from systems. But when it comes to intake, are there particular KPIs that, that you say, are non negotiable KPIs that, you know, because one of the problems is, is that as lawyers, you know, we have a tendency to say, Okay, we’re going to look at absolutely everything. But I think as business people, as entrepreneurs, we can maybe find three things that matter. Or maybe even one thing that truly matters, and focus on that KPI or there are on intake, have you found things that actually matter to your team, and what are those?
The one that I care about on not exclusively, but just about exclusively is the signed percent of wanted leads. So that’s, that’s the ultimate measure for me. It’s I you know, I, someone will say, Okay, well, this person had a fantastic week because they had seven signups. And that was better than this other person who had only four. Well, maybe depends on the calls that were funneled to that person. How many, you know, you think about in baseball. You know, how many at bats that matters a lot. And so one of the things that I like to point out when I talk about this is who’s the all time career hits leader? Well, it’s Pete Rose, who has the all time highest batting average tie cop? Okay, those matter who has the all time career record for most at bats? Who cares? Nobody knows that answer. It might be Pete Rose, but it’s it doesn’t matter. It’s what did you do when you got to the plate? And of those of those good at bats have the ones that were desirable? How many times did I get a hit? Okay, get it signed? Alright.
Well, I’m gonna go take this one step further. So as a disgruntled Yankee fan at the moment where it’s slumped, with the time that we’re talking to you, there’s I think, another stat which is it’s great to have a high batting average here regular season, but when it gets to the playoffs, when you have the catastrophic case, and you’re in the series, are you A-Rod? Or are you Jeter? And so that like, so it’s one thing if you can hit off of, you know, Kansas City pitching, but when you’re in the playoffs against the top two, three teams of the year, and have their aces night after night, can you hit those verses? Great, you were able to sign up these the slip and fall and they the fender bender, but when it really matters when any person is talking to three other firms, and you and you’re fighting for that, how do you do there?
Right. And that goes back to you know, the I hate to make another sports metaphor, but it’s, you know, good in the living room. It’s those college coaches that can come in and sell the parents in the living room that get the premier players on their squads, basketball, football, whatever.
Right? But it’s not the total number, they can go to 20 living rooms, but there’s two that really matter matter that are gonna make or break their neck for years.
Just interestingly enough, Pete Rose is the all time at bat leader with over 14,000 at bats. Second is Hank Aaron with over 12,000 at bats. So there you go. I mean that you know, that that gets you the most hits, if you have the most opportunities for hits, I guess.
Yeah, it certainly helps. But the the the point of it is you want to have over 90% I’ve heard 92.5 Maybe 95 Some people claim 98% success rate of getting those cases that they are those leads that they wanted actually signed. That’s what’s critical. And to your point earlier, Jay is that doesn’t just happen out of magic or, or a person tries hard. It’s there’s a process it is the result of a deliberate process where you can you can drive those results by adopting best practices and ensuring that they’re routine.
One caveat I’m going to send out there because I also, I’m putting myself back in the shoes of somebody had 10 years ago, 15 years ago watching this sure is that your percentage of a marketing ad where somebody calls a single place, and we get marketed through SEO, PPC, that number is actually higher, and you can do those high numbers, the craziest part I have found, is referral work, where a law firm in town sends us the odds are they’re going to send it to other legitimate outfits, and that you’re battling? Not, you know, are they hiring me, you know, based on my personality and perseverance, but there’s a jump ball and other legit places, and that your numbers will vary if you’re in a referral based business versus a direct marketing business.
You know, since you bring that up, and I’m curious how John has seen that, what we have found is that lawyers in the, I guess you would say, over 50 range now that I’m over 50, have a tendency when they give out referrals to give two or three names. But what we’re finding is that younger lawyers in the late 20s 30s, they’re just giving one name. They’re not giving it feels to me like there’s some sort of shift in the in the paradigm of ultimately, I think it maybe goes back to, you know, there are fewer younger lawyers participating in Bar Association’s and that type of thing. It’s less of a of a fraternity sorority of lawyers. But what we’re finding is, when we’re getting referrals from younger lawyers, it’s coming. They’re saying, You’re the only name they gave me. And I’m curious if you guys have seen that as well, because I think there’s a shift that’s coming in the, in the overall in the, in the way referrals are generated.
So it’s interesting, we tend to refer more out than we are lucky enough to have come in. And when we refer them out, we’ll only send it to one lawyer at a time. So we’ll send it to a lawyer they’ll make we’ll chase them for their decision, do they accept it or reject it, and if they reject it, we might try to re refer it to someone else. But we try to only have one ball in the air at a time. And then as far as them coming in? I haven’t heard this pain point that there’s multiple that we lost it to another attorney. So I’m going to be optimistic and say that we probably are getting, we’re getting it.
And I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole. I was telling you about Inbound referrals, where you’re getting it from other highfalutin sources that that you’re that I was shocked that our percentage would drop compared to marketing, where they don’t know us what for the touchpoints we put online close rate was significantly greater.
Yeah. We only meaningful difference that I’ve seen is is actually from lead generation companies where you know, if somebody searches for and we don’t use lead gen for what it’s worth not, we just haven’t. But we have somebody is searching for Mike Morse. And they call Mike more than we’ve got a really good chance of getting them signed, because they asked for us. But if they respond to some generic wording or AD and then we say Hi, we’re Mike Morris, well, they’ve already heard of us. And they chose not to call us in the first place. So our likelihood of landing them is probably going to be less.
We’ll look in our remaining moments, I’m going to come back to I like a speed round, but no argument in take there. What are some of the sort of other areas that you you and I want Jay to sort of share as well, we’re gonna say with, you know, you have a lot of fires to put out as an entrepreneur lawyer, and, you know, what are some of the places you say, Hey, if you put a little bit of time here, you see, you see great bang for the buck?
So I would say one of it is I think it’s understanding your capacity at your factory. So in pre litigation and litigation, so typically, litigation, if you if you’re willing to litigate, and take it that far, you’re probably going to get more value, in most cases. What is your capacity and litigation? And I think most people’s knee jerk reaction would be, oh, they’re overwhelmed. They’re busy, they’re full. Well, is that data or is that emotion or what is it that’s causing you to say that has your capacity gone up? Or is it down? Are you at 80%? Are you at 140? And I think trying to find numbers where you can determine here’s my capacity, and here’s where I am, would be really enlightening to people And then you can start to steer the ship. And you can understand where you know you’ve got spigots. How many lawsuits? Can my factory handle this week? How many can I let flow from pre lit Into Lit? How many cases? Can I sign up out of intake into pre lit? How many marketing leads do I need to drive? So how much money should I spend on marketing is going to drive the number of leads, which is going to drive the amount going into pre lit. And I would just say Don’t let life just happen to you, but actually have that data have a dashboard that tells you what your capacity is in each area. So that you can be adjusting the spigots and allowing the flow to to happen and fill all of the wasted capacity.
Energy what do you what are your some of your favorite ways you speak to a lot of people on the smaller side from like, where do you see a bang for your buck.
So for me, when it comes down to bang for your buck, what I what I think a lot of people start to realize as they scale is that they finally have dollars that they can put into digital marketing. And they abandon the traditional ways that lawyers gets cases. And that’s through having relationships and that type of thing. If people were to take 10% of what they’re spending on digital, and spend that on their referral based business, you know, I don’t know I’m not going to speak for, for Mike Morris’s firm. But I can tell you that my best case is historically over the last 25 years have been cases that were referred to me, they are the highest paying the easiest to close the clients that were easiest to work with the best revenue, and some of the most challenging cases that actually gave intellectual satisfaction to us as as criminal defense lawyers here at my firm, and I think that a lot of people start started, they start off looking for referrals, and then they quickly exit that and say, I’m just gonna throw all my money into digital marketing. But I think that that it’s in today’s legal economy, you are missing out on a great opportunity to actually have a system in place for developing those referrals, rather than just letting them happen by happenstance. That’s my that’s my thought.
And Seth, I want to jump in with supplement to what I’d said. And that is another bang for the buck is in my mind, it’s no bucks, and you can get bang, you can increase your speed. By filing the lawsuit sooner because the clock starts ticking. As soon as you can get the case into litigation, you can force it to its end point. But if your average time to file suit is 200 days, rather than 150 you’ve just wasted time. And for no cost. You can just do that same work sooner and get that clock started earlier. And you can get your your speed improved.
This is awesome. Guys. I know we could we could go on forever with this and we will definitely have you back wanting to spend a few moments. John sounds like an awesome joint venture between fireproof National Trial Lawyers business of law conference coming up in Arizona this November.
It is it’s November 13 through the 15th. The first day is a National Trial Lawyers new business of law conference. It’s at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn and Resort and Spa In Scottsdale.
We’ll get links up to it so you don’t remember what you said. But basically, if you want to see John and other legendary players…
In the lineup is amazing.
You know, focus on the business of law. This is the guys that bring you NTL in Miami are creating a day in Arizona November 1 day is more traditional NTL business of last second day. How to fireproof your firm to two for one, you know, who doesn’t want to be in Arizona in November?
That’s exactly that’s exactly right. And we’re very excited to have our own very own fireproof day, Mike and I will both be speaking on day one as well. But we get we get day two and it’s going to be a fabulous time. I hope to see everybody there.
Another we might even get you we might even get Jay Way.
Maybe. You know, we’ll say I’d like to do and I’d like to do it.
As an introvert. It’s not my thing. But I’m also going to another conference in September 28th through the 30th is the brain trust marketing and management summit there?
Oh, yeah, I’ve heard great things about that, you know, you know, as my kids age up, I’m gonna be able to start taking them on some of these trips with me and go to many more seminars.
I’ve been blessed. I’ve taken my middle guy to A bunch of conferences and he’s seen more concerts as a, you know, you know, before the age of 10 than most people do in their 20s. So, it’s been a lot of fun.
The brain trust one is in Vegas, Jay and you just strike me as a Vegas guy. So I’m just.
I’m definitely a Vegas guy. My best friend lives in LA. It’s a great place for us to meet. So good.
Well, thank you so much, John, this, this has been awesome. And we will see you in Vegas at Derral Eve’s mastermind. Brain Trust, and we’ll hopefully see on NTLM Arizona, but we’ll have you back because you know, what Jay has tapped into in our herd. You know, you’ve just sort of lived and breathed and put together in the plaintiffs practice it just a PhD level. So thank you so much for making the time to…
Love. I’d love to have you back on to talk about Okay, once you have a firing intake team, what are the what are the systems that you need to get installed next? That’ll be that’ll be a never ending journey. But there are things that you can get the best bang from, and I think that should be a conversation we can have.
It’s never ending. I love being with you guys. So I’ll be back anytime and we’ve made every mistake. least that we can think of. So we’d love to pass it on to others don’t have to. Awesome.
Thank you so much, John.
All right. Thank you. Yeah. All right, folks. So that’s gonna do it for here this week on the law firm blueprint. Thank you so much for being with us. As always, you can catch us every week live 3pm Eastern 12pm. Pacific here in our Facebook group or follow us anywhere that you catch podcasts. Look for the Law Firm Blueprint. Bye for now.
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