Join Seth and Jay as they discuss when is the right time to be frugal and when is the right time to just spend the money and also discuss if you should amass reviews in one location or spread them out.
Hello, hello, welcome to this edition of the law firm blueprint. I’m your host Jamie Wait, CEO of from flex, as well as mastermind of the criminal mastermind, Seth over there my man he is back from Chris. He is the traveling man by so you got to have a date night this weekend with your wife posted on social you know I follow you on social because you could always keep up with social is my man all the SEO digital marketing as well as the managing partner with Seth price over there, Seth J price the J show that’s you know what I rarely bring it up. But it is kind of crazy. It is
crazy like my entire life because j is as a name and as an initial used a lot of even Tyson used to call it Seth Jayma. And so it’s just funny that I never put two and two together. So we started the show. So how’s your how’s your week going? It was going good, you know, Chris was, was quite an incredible sort of just sensory overload. It was probably the largest b2c gathering of lawyers, period. It was it was really quite, quite extraordinary, sort of what ABA would have done, maybe maybe had they continued, but not many people had the balls to do what was presented. It was definitely big picture, you know, people like Schwarzenegger, Mr. Wonderful, just really got out of the office major thing. So I really enjoyed that, and got home and spent some quality time with the kids and my wife. So
you know, it’s interesting that you bring that up, because sometimes just changing where you’re sitting, can force you to look at things from a different perspective. You know, and I would recommend to everybody in our audience, you know, you know, if you have an office, go and work at a, you know, at a at a we work or some sort of other shared space for a day. And think about your you know, how you approach your office, because you can change up your, your perspective and really make some things that make a difference to you long term.
You know, I go one step further, which, which is no, no, what Yes, yes, that’s awesome. And look, I take this to the nth degree. But you know, that when you get on a plane and you go somewhere, whether it’s MTL or any of the few conferences, you go to, stuff happens, interactions happen. I spent some quality time with the Jersey Boys, both on a personal professional level, really was able to eat up things, click the gel, I mean, I take it to the end, I go way too far. It’s don’t don’t follow that. But I’m a big believer that getting out of the office and being with other like minded motivated people, because in our own space, we’re putting out fires, we’re making money. But like when you leave that world, you’re able to sort of think about where you want to be you see other people doing things. And you’re like, hey, is this something I want to do? No, I don’t want to emulate that. But I really liked what they’re talking about here. And I want to consider it.
Now that that brings me to a point and actually something that I want to talk about in our first segment of the show this week. And it’s something that I actually personally struggling with. And you, you almost are on the opposite session. So it’s not really a debate here. But it’s something I think it’s important for our audience to listen to. I you know, I bootstrap my firm, I didn’t have, you know, like a lot of us, you know, you don’t start out with money. We’re undercapitalized for the longest time, and I have a tendency to say, hey, if I can get there 80% 90% away, I can do it really cheaply. That’s the way to do it. So I have a, a bias towards achievement as possible. Not spending the money, you know, and figuring out how to make it work for my 15 Five example, right? You integrated that. I you know, I said, I can make this work 90% of the way there with a with a Wufu form, and a weekly scheduled email, I don’t have to use some of their services, because I just want the basics. So I found a way to do it inexpensively. And that sort of you know, has been my calling card throughout my whole office. I’m like, How can I do this cheaper? How can I? You, on the other hand, have said no, I’m going to invest? I’m actually going to spend a little bit more money in certain areas. I’m not saying that you are, you know, it’s actually funny, because when we’ve been out socially, like, what’s cheaper, Uber or Lyft? I’m just like, I just get the care. You know, so it’s sort of like this really weird thing where
I was thinking about I am jealous of your ability when you go out. You pick up dinner, not the crazily but you you create a social order around yourself, and it’s a blessing and a curse. I’m choosing Uber left, which might be a $4 difference, and yet, I’m spending, you know, $800 a month on a SAS base version of a software, you’re like, hey, I’ll do it myself. You know, but I do. I do love the fact because in a lot of respects, you’re not frugal, and you are gregarious, and you do things whether it’s Yankee tickets or otherwise that are awesome. And over the top wears on the guy waiting for the morning of on StubHub, can I get a deal?
And well, you’ll be able to come to a Yankees game with me next season, you know, for throw all the lobster tail you can eat, you know, that type of thing. And I’ll sit in the nosebleeds with you down at a cap scale. Okay. That’s
because David Breton runs that. So again, as I’ve gotten older, and I think there’s certain things that look, season tickets are a great example. And look, you’re a great example of using season tickets brought you great, great stuff. I feel like it’s almost like certain things I’m going off in a different direction or like a timeshare timeshares are not a good investment, but it it forces your family to go on vacation once a year, and have a lot of friends that do that they know that February break or spring break or whatever they know where they’re going, or that they’re gonna go somewhere. To me, that is a huge deal. I am the points guy. So to me, I have to sort of like get it together and make that happen. Growing up, I grew up in a family where my mom would always over, you know, shop and research, many vacations never happened, because they were still trying to figure out what the right place with the best place to go was. And I think to a certain extent, my reaction to that, but coming back to this, I think there’s a happy medium, you know, I think the law man for a long time use his own software. For case management, you got to do a similar on that. I think there are certain areas where if you stuck it up, especially when you’re smaller, few licenses is not going to kill you. And I know that you may love building your own software, I just don’t see it as as a as a best business practice, you have so many things to worry about. And yes, you might be the one out of 20 amazing people that figure stuff out now you got a business selling software. But if you’re not paid, pay the piper pay what you’re supposed to, and then move on. Just like that piece, I can’t tell you, like, all of this stuff is only as good as what is you use as you’re using it. And you don’t want to be the guy like me who bought a noon subscription, tried to lose some weight, and then got the RE upped it that I didn’t read up but they reopened sent me an email, here’s your receipt, and like I haven’t used it in the year. Please don’t charge me this. No, no, we have to because we already charged it, you can get it off next time like no. And it looked that was an example of three times. So I think there’s a benefit to questioning and being frugal, because your profit margins are probably better because of that. But I think there’s certainly plenty of pennywise and pound foolish to go around.
Yeah, you know, the interesting thing, I mean, you can talk a little bit. You know, the reason why we invested in continue to invest in our own software is because when I started scaling, the software didn’t exist in the market. And so I put in, you know, 203 $100,000, before all of these other products that ostensibly are better, right, because they have, you know, a lot more bells and whistles, they have a lot more functionality. But for now meeting as in training for this, I am with all the additions that I’ve made to it, you know, to transfer over to go to a new file, you know, go to something like file vine, or go to Cleo? I mean, we’re talking a couple $100,000 worth of time and effort and get all my people involved in it. And
but okay, I’ll challenge you. If you really want to step away, can somebody else be the one who builds and manages this, this this pyramid you created?
Or are you interested in my office now?
Right, when they leave what happens? And the question is,
for me, our system is built on FileMaker FileMaker FileMaker, which is a it’s a world class database product. There are hundreds of 1000s of FileMaker developers that can take it over. And
and I would argue you’re successful despite it not because of it. No, it works. And it works. It’s expensive. Because Lord knows these Well, you know, software used to be I when I opened a mini storage place like 20 years ago, like you bought software and you update it every three years. Right? It was we were done. Now, let’s proceed per month. I mean, this stuff is not it’s not for the faint of heart at the same time. It works. And if you can focus on other things in your practice, God bless.
Yeah, I mean, and that’s what and that’s one of the challenges. I know I have personally, you know, people come to me with ideas and I’m like, I don’t know if I want to spend that kind of money. You know, like having, having a staffer that’s you know, an auditor I you know, I was resistant for years, but now we have somebody doing it. It’s it’s opening eyes. It’s making this better. We’re finding earrings, you know, in other areas because we’re paying attention to things, things aren’t falling through the cracks. You know? And so in that respect, you know, I don’t really pennywise and pound foolish. And so the real question comes down, like, you know, what, what should you be spending your money on? When money is tight?
Well, two things. First, is your sound quality. It might and you’re not as funny. So it’s always good. Okay? Look, there are a lot of different ways. And some of the advice depends, like, Should you buy a place first rent, right? If you’re in a small market, you’re not going to, you’re not going to expand and you can afford to buy something. We can awesome. You know, my mentors are always like, you know, get the space you need to you could expand we’re right now at a point with COVID. And everything else. First, we expanded then we can track now we need to expand again. Now the question is what everybody outside of DC we’re moving to, you know, suburban footprint. I’m fighting people, I want them to be hotel style. And they some of the guys don’t want to, they want their freakin desk. And I’m like, There’s no desk. And anyway, so I think that it is a constant challenge to push back and say, Where are you spending money, and making sure that you’re not skimping on stuff that can make you money. And look, you we all do what we like you like your software, you like the fact that it brings you some joy, and it saves you some money. Awesome. The truth is, there’s a certain amount of brain power that this is that because you’re doing something outside of the box that if you really wanted to detach that would make it harder. I believe that if you had something that is turnkey, where there’s another group that’s charging you money, because they’re watching it every month, that’s good. Again, it’s, you know, are you putting your money into the things that make you money, or that frees you up timewise to do those things. And I think that is a constant piece layered on top of what do you like to do. And if it brings you some joy in the detail world we live in, great. But there are times when you know what, I’ll give you this the story. My dear friend, the family was had his own business, he went from a driver and an air conditioning company on a truck to owning the company in New York. And he went to meet us after work one day, and we were at the old Yankee Stadium. And he wanted to meet us he got there like the fifth inning. And he’s walking around with a $5 bill trying to bribe his way in with one of the ushers to the ticket taking thing and nobody was biting, he looks over. And it’s like, you could buy a general admission ticket for $6. And just walk right in and not have to wait out there for another inning and maybe get arrested or whatever. There are times when it may be incrementally more, but it’s just going to make your life easier and do it and not that you should be a spendthrift. But know that money can’t just sit one of my sayings, the book that I’m reading a book right now in SEO, but the book that one day will write Money solves almost every problem. That said, if you spend too much of it, you don’t have profit margin, but knowing that you can, you know, a client is furious. This is the worst thing ever, you want a $1,500 credit back, I’m the happiest person ever. Employee, this is terrible. This is terrible. Here’s here’s a $5,000 bonus, I’m good. I mean, each of these things play a part. And I think that you’re constantly trying to figure out that balance between efficiency and money. And again, if you don’t, if you really don’t have the cash, you got to pull back. But if you if we’re talking to an audience of people that are trying to build and grow, that there’s you need to sort of be able to put things in place to allow for that. And part of what goes circled back to our first topic, as we conclude is getting out of the office and hearing what works for people and doesn’t work. You know, if 15 Five gets higher engagement, great. You’re a force of personality, you may not need that. I know for myself, when I just sent out the the roofer forms, my engagement plummeted. The elegance of the SAS works at a much better level, because I don’t at the scale that I’ve created. I can’t go and touch the people to make them do those things.
Gotcha. Well, and the reason why I bring this up about the frugality is that you know, it’s the it’s the middle of November now, we’re coming into December, and December is what I call cutting month. And so what I do in the month of December is I actually look at all my providers, and I start to see where there are saving so we’re looking at the cell phone plans of the wars in the office that have cell phone plans. Back in the day, it was our copier, lease and that type of thing. You know, our internet access
today you still have it. You may not use as much still there.
copier, yeah. We don’t have a copier. We haven’t had a copier, oh no, we got rid of that like 10 years ago and I can remember everyone’s saying, You’re crazy. Why are you getting all of my staff are revolting. I said look ScanSnap Epson printers on every desk solves the problem. And essentially printers I hate, it’s terrible for the environment. But printers are at a point now where they’re essentially disposable. You know, you just, you need a new one, you just get a new one and you move on. And we’ve been able to get rid of that expense. Because I looked at it every year and said, you know, what can we do that was different or better.
mutual friend, John, John Knox, Hazel tell you, you know, take your top 20% of your top 20% of your expenses, you know that very often 80% of your total spend, and hit those first like to say, Hey, I could send save a buck here or buck there. But like, where are those really, really large ones?
And savings? Yeah, absolutely. And so I do that every December. I mean, you know, back when we had a divorce practice, you know, people weren’t getting divorced in December. Divorce is not in house, not in house anymore, I ship that off we are, we are really sort of narrowing our niche. I was talking to John about potentially expanding into another state in our niche, rather than adding new verticals in our state.
We just opened up Virginia for family, I have a number one rank that just kills me that I can’t scale it easily. It’s the people well, and people that I with a scale firm, because there are people that like there’s some people that are awesome, and they just want to be by themselves. And there are people that you know, we right now have a personality, in an expanded firm, over 40 lawyers, we have one lawyer is just not communicating, we’ve tripled down on core values, you know, I for many years would poopoo it. And we because we were trying to fit it into price and this and that. But when we got like, my staff came to me and said, Hey, we see three that really stand out, right, which was passion, integrity and excellence. And as that’s been there, it moved from being we don’t even have a plaque on the wall that says it nicely. But we have a guy who’s not communicating. And that is, you know, that doesn’t. That’s not excellence, right? Like you, if you’re not communicating, it’s not so the idea that we’re now making both hiring. And now I don’t say firing, but like, you know, we are now deciding what to do with people based on it, as opposed to a plaque on the wall that the team they created it. It’s an it’s, you know, the piece that that I love is that, you know, passion. If you’ve got both both of us, whether it’s criminal defense, PII or whatever you’re doing, that’s what drives us on this stuff. You know, keep making the core values, not a plaque on the wall. That’s a pleasant tree, but something you deeply really believe in, I think goes a long, long way.
Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, that’s good. On that topic, I have another topic that I want to talk to you about. And this is also a struggle of ours. So it’s almost like I mean, therapy today was set. And maybe it’s my ego that’s coming into play, but I look at some of my competitors. They have one office, and they’re, you know, 567 100 reviews in their one office. Now I have the fence. Yeah, this is criminal defense. And I have myself, you know, two of my offices are another two of my offices are at 200. I mean, if I took them all, and had them in one location, I’d be, you know, I’d be over 1000 easily, probably close to 1500 among all my offices. And we’re, you know, so that’s the question do, is it better to focus and have like, you know, fu numbers on one office on 15 105 star reviews to the 4.9 average, versus somebody else who’s got, you know, 700? Or is it better to just be at, you know, three, four or 500 there and be in the mix, but have multiple offices with that many. So where people find you, they see you got decent numbers, and are few and far between majority of people in the market are 25 to 75. So I’m well beyond them pretty much across the board. It’s just a couple of competitors that I’m fighting with.
Right. So I would I would say is, again, a lot of it has to do with what you’re trying to accomplish. I mean, I know that sounds like let’s take it back for a second. Right. And so when you’re dealing with this, I think the piece that’s important is like we’re doing we’re not doing for health we’re doing to make money. So first we’re trying to optimize I call it Moneyball. Right? So assume these are all legitimate reviews, former clients, any games, just put put that out there. Now the question is, and it’s crazy, because it’s like, just like, the SEO side is crazy with content where you need a DUI page for every place in Connecticut, but the laws are the same throughout Connecticut. So you have to somehow personalize and we’ll put that aside that it’s because it’s not like you’re a Hilton, where, you know, you stated Is Hilton in the reviews for this hotel. And there’s a Hilton in Albuquerque. And it’s a different Hilton here. It’s very amorphous. So that what you’re saying is is there as this people touch multiple offices, you have discretion as to where you put it. And I get that we’re where you asked for it. If you’re using a
staff I am I have somebody whose job it is to look for reviews, right? And she says, Where should I put them this week?
The first thing I’d say I’m looking at Google, you want to make sure you’re doing nothing that looks spammy in any way, not natural. Second, ironically, just this morning, there was a, there was an article in one of the trusted trades in the SEO world, talking about the fact that Google is now showing how many reviews you’ve left in an area, which I thought was fascinating. And if you saw that this morning. So now what they’re trying to do is prevent the the paid reviewer who’s reviewing crap all over the country, wherever they’re paid a buck and saying, Okay, no, you’re really a New Haven, this person has reviewed 17 things in New Haven, it’s more likely that that’s real than the guy who’s reviewing the Jiffy Lube in Denver, and the the gap in Tulsa, you know, right, like we were somebody’s actually so. So again, I think that you have a couple of different factors now, one that people don’t talk about is what’s the review number? I assume you’re to 484950? Right? Ideally, right? So first, assuming you have decent numbers, this is a real issue. And I use John Fisher as my case in point, I really didn’t mind me talking about this. But this is a guy who has like 500 reviews or something in upstate New York, it crushes everything by an order of magnitude. I begged him, please stop with the reviews there. I think I may have had the cameras, Margaret or somebody else, you know, start building them in Manhattan. Imagine if he gets his next 500 in Manhattan?
Oh, my God, that’d be awesome.
Right? It’d be cool. And he could eventually have for medical malpractice and things like that, that are not as competitive in New York, you could actually have a real footfall. So I think that, you know, once you get to a number, now yours is a little bit different. So there are a lot of people that dominate a space. And my point was stop. Let’s now diversify around. Right. And that once you sort of, if you look at it, then it’s an easier question to me. Because if your closest competitor has 300, and you have 500, we want to keep an eye on it. But having 567 isn’t any different, or some people that have 500. The next one has like 75, Insanity and diversify. Second, let’s say it’s close, and you have the most, but it’s only by 100 200. You want to keep an eye on that and maybe sprinkle something once in a while. Yours is I think, the most difficult of the questions at why you asked it in the sense that there’s no right or magic answer. Part of it is what makes more money. I would say to you, the only reason to double down on the main office and try to compete with that and maybe add enough to be in that world is what is coming up with a statewide search. So that’s the one piece because normally I like what you did, right? I want you to spread the reviews out statewide because you’re going to make more money. It’s practically all one place. Right? You’re dominated stay put like, Yes, this one crazy guy who does traffic tickets can, you know in volume is beating you. Right? And yet you have your criminal practice, which isn’t nearly half because you know, Mr. Symington, got tons more reviews. Right, exactly.
I mean, you could pull those in if I wanted. Nobody cares
about saying they got a speeding ticket, they don’t really want to talk about the sex crime got them off for the DUI they got. So what I would say is, I applaud what you’ve done, and stick with it in less that main office is what comes up on a statewide search, and the other statewide searchers have it and that’s the one place that I think you have to be careful is that there are times that you can win the statewide search, although frankly, I have found the statewide search does not make you nearly as much money as the local searches will keep showing the local piece. So I would say stay the course in less when you’re experimenting and doing incognito is in different parts of the state, you have a location that’s showing statewide really well, and that you’re not competing against other people with a large number. And like part of it is plumped on that one office. Who cares, get the rest of the geography with it with a meaningful number of views because the proximity update that hit November December 21. Like it’s going to do you more good. I’ll show you one. It literally hit this morning. It’s funny how you bring this up. And I wasn’t even thinking this way. We dominate for criminal in the DC DMV. In DC, specifically, criminal does well, everywhere. It’s such a strong powerful profile DUI With our main, with our single nap in location in DC, is doing well on one side of the city. But on the other side is city, which is a wealthier side of the city, there is much less visibility in the three pack. I don’t really one of a second location in DC, but I have an attorney in my DC office who’s whose listing is suppressed because you can’t get two in the same building. So I’m like, Okay, I have an asset with 100 Reviews on one site, and nobody can see it. Nobody can see it. And it’s an old one. It’s Ted, the guy’s been with me 1011 12 years. He’s an amazing lawyer. Should I be moving that to the other side of town? I know in Connecticut, you like no problem in DC? It’s sort of like I would you know, do I get get ourselves in office on the other side of town? The if the right answer is yes. You’re like, What the hell are you doing? Why are you not doing this? The answer is, I should probably do it. I think at one point we did when I had a secondary office on the other side of town, and I never went back to find a place that that could go. But that’s a great, great example, I can get the heat maps potentially to show you that we’re missing a bunch of of location, which would go to you know, what I you know, be in play? And our is your competitor with all those high reviews? How is there? Are they five stars? Are they like a 4847?
Stars? It’s our mutual friend. I mean, that’s my main competitor in the space. One of what sets fraternity brothers is, is my main competitor in the space we get along
by your home office, that’s just one of your satellites.
Yeah, I actually moved that satellite away. And
it’s a good just like him on give him his space, and then you’ll get another space, which is why I thought you’d make more money together than apart. Right? So that’s
what that’s what, that’s what we’ve done, we’ve actually moved away from trying to compete head to head because I can’t keep up with his review count in that local area. Because he’s getting, you know, local people will local reviews, and we’ve got an
irony of his story is he probably send you most of the DUIs because he focuses on another area of law primarily.
So it’s all working out, it’s all working out fine. I mean, that’s, we’re heading into the end of the year. And that’s a great time. Unless you’re really firing on all cylinders, take some time, maybe change your perspective. Call your office or have somebody call your office and, and do do a sales call where they shop you and make sure that you’re getting they’re getting added to your mailing list and following up and all those things. Be part of that conversation. Make sure I mean, even if you’re a solo with somebody, you’d have source your your answering of your phones, it’s wise to have somebody check on that, to make sure that it’s being done in the manner in which you told them to do it. Right. So I mean, this is a, this is the time as the holidays come and you’ve got some downtime.
Well, what you look at anytime is a good time, this is the logical time again, you know, thinking about you know, when you have made money, are you You know, we historically have tried to pre pay rent towards the end of the year, anything you do if you got the cash? What why not? You know what, why not take some expenses now?
Yeah, by Amazon and Apple gift cards, because we know we’re going to use them all year. So we’ll get that we’ll get that off the balls.
A lot of sort of prepaid blue shark, you know, it’s like, it’s I mean, the idea is anything rent, marketing, anything you can get into that calendar year, your account will thank you. You know what I’ll say one thing about the secret shopping that made me think as we sort of wrap up was a funny story, I think you made were here may have been hadal, or some David Handelman, a friend of the show. If you make your secret shopping calls, put a little bit of thought into them that because remember, if you remember, we made a secret shopping call, it was a terrible experience, like the guy who pays to give a short trip. And what the fuck when that guy came upstairs to the office, we were all under the roof. And he’s like, I knew it was crap. Meaning was, make sure that when you do them that it comes in the regular cadence. If you’ve never listened to any of your recorded calls and don’t know what to call this sounds like the odds of you being able to make a call that sounds people you know, in your intake as they get good. They get very savvy as to what nonsense is. So if you’re going to do them, make sure that it sounds like a real call and not one that they’re like, I don’t know what’s going on. But this is not real.
Yeah, absolutely. So that’s going to me finish off the call with you set and heading firm flex offices. We’re actually launching a new product this week. It’s been in beta for a while, but we’re it’s our social super system that we’ve been working on. My brother did some really good tinkering behind the hoods. And we actually set it up where everybody wants to try it out and get a free trial. So 14 days to be free from flex, so I wanted to put that out there for people who might be listening that they’re interested in. So definitely check out the website and see if it’s something that interests you. And we also have were we whole thing, but people, people can lessons from the criminal criminal law, so in the market, and you want to purchase them and get them out there. So I just wanted to put that out there for people because there’s some exciting times going on at firm flex and I wanted to share that.
Awesome. Can’t wait. I’ll have my guys beta tested. Look forward to it. Have a great week, and I will, I will see you soon.
Awesome. Thank you much. Have a great day, folks. We’ll see you here live every Thursday at 3pm. Eastern 12pm Pacific and of course, you can download the Law Firm A Blueprint, podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I am Jay Ruane. He is Seth J price. And we are the law firm blueprint. Bye for now. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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