Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Amassing Wealth Series: Andrea Sager Shares How She Parlayed Her Legal Skills into a Wealthy-Generating Membership and Digital Product Business

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Amassing Wealth Series: Andrea Sager Shares How She Parlayed Her Legal Skills into a Wealthy-Generating Membership and Digital Product Business · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

0:02
Unknown: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the wealthy
0:04
woman lawyer Podcast. I'm super excited about our guests today.
0:07
Of course, I'm super excited always want to have guests on
0:10
because it's so fun. But this particular guest is somebody
0:13
I've been wanting to interview for a really long time, because
0:17
I've been following her work since day one. And that's Andrea
0:21
Sager. Andrea is the CEO and founder of legal printer. So if
0:26
you're a lawyer in at least in my circle, I know you've heard
0:30
about legal printer. It's a legal tech startup that focuses
0:33
on providing affordable legal services to businesses of all
0:38
sizes. While working at a corporate firm, Andrea noticed a
0:42
gap in the legal industry, no one was catering to really the
0:46
small innovative startup brands that were dominating her social
0:50
media feeds. And as a serial entrepreneur, she knew firsthand
0:54
the importance of building a business with a solid legal
0:56
foundation. However, she also knew that many new businesses
1:00
simply do not have the funds to hire lawyers and have their own
1:05
lawyer, that realization led to the development of legal
1:08
printer. And because legal services should be accessible to
1:12
everyone, she wanted to create something that would make that
1:16
possible. In addition to running her company, Andrea is a mom of
1:20
two in Houston. And she's passionate about all things
1:24
health, wellness, poker and business. And we're going to
1:27
jump in and talk about all of that. So Andrea, welcome,
1:30
welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited about
1:33
this. Yay. So why don't you start out by telling me you will
1:39
tell me when you started your journey as a lawyer? Did you
1:42
always know you wanted to be a lawyer? Or was this something
1:45
that, you know, later in life, you said, you know, I think I'll
1:48
go to law school and become a lawyer. Yeah, so I didn't always
1:53
know that I wanted to be a lawyer. I just grew up knowing I
1:57
want to make a lot of money. And then in college, I just thought,
2:01
oh, I want to be a lawyer make a lot of money. And not knowing
2:05
that, really being the business owner is what makes you the
2:09
money. But growing up, I didn't know any lawyers or
2:13
entrepreneurs, my parents are retired from the post office.
2:16
And so they had, I mean, they had no guidance for me, they
2:21
just always told me, and I believed them when they said,
2:25
You can legitimately do anything you want, and always, you know,
2:29
encouraged me to go to college and just do bigger things. And
2:32
so that's what I did. And that's what I tried to do. And when I
2:37
was in college actually was in the army, and I was supposed to
2:40
be active duty. And because of that I did so I did ROTC, I
2:45
commissioned as an officer. And I call I got what they call an
2:49
educational delay to go to law school. But I was actually
2:52
supposed to be an active duty officer. However, my who is now
2:56
my ex husband, he ended up being active duty. So they allowed me
3:01
to like not basically, long story short, didn't have to
3:04
serve an active duty. And luckily, I got the big firm job
3:09
out of law school. And so I'm thinking I'm set for life, I,
3:13
you know, got the big firm job. I was like, I'm gonna be married
3:17
to my job, this is gonna be great. I'm never gonna have to
3:19
think about money again. And little did I know, that was not
3:24
the case. I remember. I remember starting at the big firm, the
3:29
first week I was there. And it just hit me all of a sudden, I
3:33
mean, I did my summer internship. But that first week,
3:36
I so vividly remember sitting there in my office, and watching
3:40
all of these old white men and three piece suits walking down
3:44
the hall, getting ready for retirement, and I was like, Oh,
3:48
my gosh, they've been here since they were my age. And that
3:53
moment, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot be sitting at this desk
3:59
for the next 40 years of my life. And so from literally the
4:02
first week, I was like, How do I get out of here, but we had our
4:06
son, who is now five, he was eight months old when I started.
4:11
My ex husband was started staying home with our son at
4:14
that time. So I was the only one making money. And I had another
4:17
small business that I sold as soon as I started at that firm,
4:21
and really what it really just came about organically a lot of
4:25
those business owners that I met from my other business, it was a
4:29
clothing boutique, they would reach out to me like hey, I need
4:32
help with this. I need help with this. Can you help me file a
4:35
trademark, and I'm thinking the firm's gonna love me because I'm
4:38
a first year associate, I'm bringing in business. And I was
4:42
like, this will be my place in the firm. I'm just a rainmaker
4:45
and most of the time the clients couldn't afford the rates but
4:48
finally I had somebody that said, Andrea, I don't care how
4:51
much it is. I just want to work with you and I need to get a
4:54
trademark done as soon as possible. And I'm like, great.
4:56
Like we can do this and I'm I was excited and
5:00
When I had a partner tell me he was like we, he told me this to
5:03
my face. We do not want small businesses, they're not quality
5:07
clients. And in that moment, it hit me. And I think a lot of us
5:12
have these defining moments in life when we realize, hey, I'm
5:16
meant to be on a different path. And that was it. For me, it hit
5:20
me, I said, I have to get out of here. Like I'm from that moment
5:24
forward, I was planning my exit, because I saw this consistent
5:27
flow of small businesses that needed some help. And they
5:31
didn't have anybody to go to, they didn't know who to go to. A
5:33
lot of them would go to, you know, whoever their dad sent
5:36
them, like their dad's lawyer, for whatever reason, they didn't
5:40
understand, I can't tell you. So anyways, I started.
5:44
I started my firm, I think, a month and a half after that
5:49
incident.
5:51
I launched my firm, and I'm not going to say was always,
5:57
definitely not always smooth sailing. But luckily that night,
6:00
I had I that night that I remember posting in a Facebook
6:03
group, I was like, Hey, I'm finally out on my own. I have my
6:06
own law firm, I can help you with, you know, trademarks,
6:09
copyrights, whatever you need. And because I was still trying
6:12
to find my place, and I had my first trademark client that
6:16
night, and and Andrew Sager law was born.
6:22
That's a great story. That's a great story, I want to touch on
6:26
the incident that you had, because I find that really
6:28
interesting when I worked for I worked for a large law firm. At
6:32
the time, I was not a lawyer, I was the marketing manager for a
6:34
large law firm. And they, the partners, you know, I had a lot
6:40
of access to the name partners, because I was doing all the
6:42
marketing for everybody. And I was on the Marketing Committee.
6:45
And I remember, one of the name partners said to me, we do not
6:49
want, we don't care about business development from
6:52
associates, because we want them in here working. And we're going
6:56
to be like in the back, keep in the back room, throw in a meet,
6:59
and they're just supposed to just grind out. And they did
7:03
want new associates to get started on business development
7:07
until they were seasoned and older, because they said they
7:12
are not going to bring in the type of clients that we want.
7:14
Just what you said. Right? The very, and that is that's typical
7:18
of big, big law. But that leaves for those of us who are
7:21
entrepreneurs like you and I are, we know that leaves a big
7:24
gap. Because there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are
7:28
small potatoes and their mom and pops and they may never get to
7:31
be huge. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of
7:34
legal needs. They probably have more legal needs. Oh,
7:37
absolutely. Right. Absolutely. So how long was it before you
7:44
decided that you needed to even be more dialed in and efficient
7:49
in sort of serving this population?
7:52
Yeah, so because I had a small business before I kind of knew
7:57
the marketing game. And I knew from the outset, okay, I want to
8:01
grow my audience, I want to get in front of more people. And I
8:04
knew when I first launched, I was like, Okay, I think I know,
8:07
this is what they're going to need. And at the beginning, what
8:11
I thought that was was a huge push on trademarks, and
8:13
copyrights, which was later refined to mainly just
8:17
trademarks. And so I kind of lead with what I thought, and
8:22
then I listened to the clients and what they were needing. And
8:26
soon enough 80% of our revenue was coming from trademark
8:31
matters. And what happened then was, those clients would come
8:36
back and ask for more help with contracts or Entity Filings. And
8:41
so I from there, I kind of refined our core or what I call
8:46
our core offerings. And then what I realized very quickly was
8:51
these, just like you said, they need more help the small
8:54
business owners, they need more education, because they they
8:57
don't know what they need. A lot of small business owners know
9:00
they need legal help, but they don't know exactly what they
9:04
need. And they don't know why they need it. Because a small
9:07
business owner, they're not going to know what to look for a
9:10
lot. I can't tell you how many times clients asked me like,
9:12
hey, is this infringement? Or is this okay to do? And so really,
9:18
it's a matter of educating the entrepreneurs, small business
9:22
owners. And so very quickly, I came up with the philosophy for
9:26
us is that hey, we educate everything for free. Like we
9:30
will teach you everything you need to know. And then when it
9:33
comes to how to do it or doing it for you, that's when we're
9:36
going to make our money. Because I remember
9:40
I think I learned this from roommates at he's the author of
9:44
I Will Teach You To Be Rich. And I remember reading his first the
9:48
first edition of his book back in 2010. And so I've been a
9:52
longtime follower of his and he always used to teach lead with
9:57
like, give like, teach everything for free because
10:00
That's how you gain the trust of your clients. So I have always
10:04
done that. And I attribute that a lot of that to our success.
10:08
Because clients don't know what they need. And instead of them
10:13
wanting to, they don't want to work with an attorney that's
10:15
like, hey, hire me for a trademark it so they hear from
10:18
those attorneys. And then they hear from us, like, Hey, this is
10:21
what a trademark is. This is how a trademark protects your
10:24
business. And this is how a trademark can actually make you
10:26
money. Like, oh, I want that. Right. Right, right. Absolutely.
10:31
I have I remember when I started my virtual firm in 2011, I had
10:36
had a firm before that. And then I sold out and it started when I
10:40
was I decided, well, I'm going to do, I'm going to focus just
10:44
on business, small businesses. And I was doing estate planning
10:47
still. And I was going to this networking meeting with a lot of
10:50
small businesses there. And we had this hot seat where people
10:54
would get up, you know, when they talked about what they did,
10:56
every week, I was getting them telling me what I did. And then
10:58
one day I was on the hot seat. And I said, you know, I I said I
11:03
am. You know, I don't remember exactly how I said it. But it
11:06
was like, I'm a business lawyer. So I help you with writing
11:09
contracts and doing things like that to protect you. So you
11:12
don't wind up in litigation. I did not do litigation at the
11:16
time, nor did I have an interest in it. And one of the people
11:20
said to me, so what I hear from you is that you want money now,
11:24
you want my money now, and then you're not going to be there for
11:26
me when things go wrong. And I thought about just the lack of
11:31
like understanding I wasn't communicating
11:35
the value of what I was providing. And they were so they
11:39
had their own their own stories that they were telling
11:43
themselves so that it goes back to, if you're not telling the
11:47
right story, then they're going to fill in the gaps with
11:52
whatever their history is and bring it to the table. So what
11:55
you're doing is you're really weaving a story and telling a
11:58
story around through your education around what it is it's
12:02
necessary, if you want to own and operate a small business,
12:06
because now more than ever, people are starting businesses,
12:10
they're reading all these articles about how great it is
12:13
to have your own business. So you have a whole lot of people
12:16
who have no idea what they're doing, and can get in to a legal
12:19
quagmire very quickly.
12:22
And so the education is in place for them to go. Absolutely.
12:27
Yeah, the education has been huge for us. And so now we have
12:31
a pretty decent following on tick tock, and that's just
12:34
solely from education. And it's just learning. It's and we
12:38
haven't, I mean, I definitely have not always nailed down the
12:40
education. I remember, really what came when this came about
12:45
was I think it may have been my first year, I was I created a
12:50
course, about trademarks and copyrights. And I, of course, I
12:55
have these huge plans like I'm going to, because at that point,
12:59
I mean, everybody was talking about, you know, launching a
13:01
course and making six figures from this launch. And so I had
13:04
like all these big plans. And I had somebody helping me create a
13:09
it was like a VA and after I mean, we sold a few, but it was
13:14
definitely nothing. What I wanted, and we kind of had a
13:18
break down meeting to you know, break down the numbers. And you
13:22
know, the messaging and she's like, Andrew, I think part of
13:24
the messaging is people don't know why they need it. Like,
13:28
clearly, you know what you're talking about when it comes to
13:30
trademarks and copyrights. But there's a disconnect, because
13:34
people don't understand why they need it. She's like, I know why
13:37
because I you know, I'm in here, I'm creating this. I'm deeper
13:40
into it than they are. But there's a messaging disconnect.
13:44
And and from that moment forward, I was like, yeah, like
13:47
they're not educated to the point to where they know what
13:51
they need and why they need it. And so we've I've just broken
13:55
from then on, I've just kind of broken it down what I call our
13:58
core three for small businesses, and just educate, educate,
14:02
educate. And then because we've educated them, they trust us,
14:06
and now they use us for whatever they need. Yeah, wonderful. So
14:10
you are I remember a post that you made at one point it was a
14:15
blog you wrote or something where you hit you were very
14:18
close to half million dollars, like in one year. I don't know
14:22
if you did that year one with legal printer, or what so tell
14:27
me about that film fill in the gaps for me. Yeah, so I launched
14:32
my firm. It was like the end of April early May 2018. And I
14:39
launched it then but we very slow year. Wasn't really all in
14:44
at that point. We moved across the country. I studied for the
14:48
Texas bar exam, and actually forgot to turn in my essays so
14:52
it did not get scored.
14:55
So that happened that summer. And then after I took the bar
14:59
exam
15:00
Um, I
15:02
started really picking it up and I started pushing, you know,
15:06
pushing for a lot of podcasts. And so that first like from
15:10
April, May, and 2018 on, I think I brought in that year 60 to
15:16
70,000. But my first full year of business, I brought in
15:19
$430,000. And I, I always so that's a huge number. I like
15:26
looking back now. I'm like, that's crazy. And I remember
15:29
that is crazy. Yes. And I remember at the time, my goal
15:33
was actually 500,000. And so there was part of me that was
15:37
like, I didn't hit my goal. But looking back, I realized this, I
15:43
think a year ago, I've never actually hit a financial goal of
15:46
mine.
15:47
Which I think is kind of cool, because I just actually set
15:50
these outlandish goals. And then I just come short of them. So
15:53
it's still like, holy shit, like I just made all this money.
15:57
Yeah, I said, I said, do the big, audacious goal, do a
16:00
stretch goal, like not so ridiculous, that you're like,
16:04
oh, we'll never achieve that. But enough of a stretch, that if
16:08
you fall short, if you were to set the goal that's first in
16:11
your head, and you achieve that, you'd be okay, that was great.
16:15
But if you stretch goal, and then you go above that original
16:18
goal that's in your head, even if you don't meet your stretch
16:20
goal, you've made a lot more money. So you're not leaving
16:23
money on the table, by setting yourself a stretch goal. So you
16:26
actually feel better. Because even if you don't achieve the
16:28
goal, you have made more than you would have from your first
16:32
inclination, which is that reasonable, you know, the
16:35
reality goal that we're gonna set. Right. So that's, that's so
16:38
wonderful. What do you think, was the key to you? So you had
16:43
your law firm? Did you ever she started out practicing kind of
16:46
one on one, and then you decided we need to go with this sort of
16:50
model where we were providing products, we're actually giving
16:54
bundles and products and, and, and courses and things like
16:58
that. So it's, it's a lot more education, but also service,
17:01
right? At what point did you decide
17:06
to the legal printer model was the one the one you wanted to
17:10
do? Yeah, so that came about when
17:17
we launched it right after COVID hit and right before COVID hit.
17:22
I was thinking about this model.
17:26
And the event. So this was 2020. And I was wanting to go all in
17:30
with legal printer then and sell my firm because I mean, ever
17:33
since I think, yeah, I think it was 2020. I mean, I've had
17:37
people trying to buy my firm. And I so many times I've come
17:40
close, and it just never went through.
17:44
And each time I was just like, I'm just not ready. I'm just not
17:47
ready. And finally, I'm actually in the middle of closing the
17:50
deal right now to actually sell it. And I am going through with
17:53
that because it it actually is time to sell your actual law
17:58
firm. Andrea Sager law and so yes, not the governor, not the
18:03
league, correct? Okay, correct. So,
18:07
at this point, what I was realizing, so we had a really
18:10
good hold on the education component. We're just constant
18:14
inbound leads. And I always told people like, Hey, we're very
18:19
middle of the road, we're not the cheapest, we're definitely
18:21
not the most expensive, very middle of the road. And I was
18:25
very happy with where our prices were. But even then, I saw
18:29
clients
18:31
not being able to afford it, but absolutely needing it. And
18:36
really, what, when it came about the first product was contract
18:40
templates. And what had happened a number of times was clients
18:46
would come to us and like, Hey, I'm launching a course, I need a
18:49
course contract. And so I would take them through my process of
18:52
drafting the contract for them. And they literally had no idea
18:56
what they needed. So they just ended up using my template. And
19:01
in my head, I'm like, Well, this is great for me, because I'm
19:03
obviously making more money than just selling them a template.
19:07
But I know there's more people out there that need these
19:10
templates. So after seeing that happen a number of times, I
19:15
decided, Okay, it's time to start a separate company,
19:18
selling these contract templates, and selling and of
19:21
course, at the time, I was like, Okay, we're gonna start with a
19:23
template, and we're gonna, like, do all these other things. And I
19:26
didn't think it was going to take a number of years, but it
19:30
did, which divine timing. So
19:34
So at launch the conch it was the contract vault, we launched
19:37
that and then slowly started building that from there and we
19:42
had our it's our legal printer membership is our signature
19:44
product that gives clients all access to an attorney, and that
19:48
was launched.
19:50
That was actually launched in the law firm 2019.
19:56
And we just now put that in the legal printer company.
20:00
A year ago.
20:03
Basically, at the end of 2021, early 2022, we transition that
20:07
we launched the app and everything, but really seeing
20:10
how more clients needed the resources, because they still
20:16
couldn't afford our our rates. That's really when legal printer
20:19
came about I Right.
20:23
And
20:25
for legal printer, you have kind of a bigger vision with that as
20:29
well. So getting selling the law firm is part of allowing you to
20:32
sort of focus on this bigger vision for legal printers. So
20:36
why don't you give us an idea of kind of what your bigger vision
20:39
is? I say that I know you have a live event. And you have a book.
20:45
I want to hear all about like the yes, we have very, very big
20:50
dreams for a legal printer. So it was actually last year. So
20:54
meanwhile, I
20:57
September 2020, I decided to step away from my marriage, it
21:00
was not fulfilling basically, we were in two different books. And
21:04
I didn't realize at the time, how, like, I knew I was kind of
21:08
being held back. But I didn't realize to what extent and so
21:13
stepped away from that I didn't realize, like even though I was
21:16
the one walking away, I didn't realize how crazy things would
21:19
be for the next year. So So
21:24
did a lot of healing work a lot of just figuring out, you know,
21:28
who am I what do I want. And mind you, at this point, I was
21:32
making a million dollars in the law firm a year, working maybe
21:35
20 hours a week. And things were easy, things were great. But I
21:40
was I was no longer motivated by the law firm. And I'm in a
21:44
Business Mastermind and the last meetup last year and 2021. I
21:50
almost didn't go I had told it to my business mentor Chris
21:53
harder. I had already told him I was like, Hey, I'm not gonna go,
21:56
I just have too much going on. And he was like, okay, he's
22:00
like, I really think you should be here. It's gonna be really,
22:02
really beneficial for what you're doing. And at the time,
22:05
legal printing was still was just like our templates. It we
22:08
had a trademark course that we launched, it wasn't what it is
22:11
now. And so I so I wasn't going to go to this meetup. And
22:16
literally, within two days, my best friend who's my COO, she,
22:20
she kind of her dad passed away. And then my other best friend,
22:23
literally the next day, he called me and told me he found
22:27
out his son had cancer. And so I literally, I was just in a
22:32
matter of like, 48 hours. I was like, What is going on? I need
22:37
to get away. And because there was nothing I could do for
22:41
either of my friends like they were having to deal with this
22:43
stuff on their own. And I was like, I need a trip. And I was
22:46
like, Oh, I have a trip books. Let me just go to the mastermind
22:50
meetup. And I went, and you can ask people that were there. They
22:55
can tell you like my transformation throughout the
22:57
week, I show up and I'm like, Look, I'm here. And because at
23:00
this point with the law firm, I was just like, I'm motivated. i
23:04
But it's, you know, obviously it's good money. But I just
23:06
don't know what's next for me. But I you know, I just at that
23:09
point, I was feeling like I was done with the law firm. So I go
23:12
to this mastermind meetup. And it was basically a perfectly
23:15
curated week to realize, Wow, this is what I meant to go all
23:21
in with, because I remember Chris was talking about, he was
23:24
like, a lot of you are actually sitting on something great. And
23:29
you're holding yourself back, you're selling yourself short.
23:31
And so he, the week was built on talking, having a lot of
23:35
investors come in actually talking about building a
23:37
business to sell. And so he actually made us do a shark tank
23:42
pitch competition. And I got groups and like, certain people
23:46
pitched in, my group had picked me to pitch and I was like, Holy
23:49
shit, like I've been sitting on it the entire time. Like it is
23:53
now time to go all in with legal printer. And so I saw the vision
23:57
for it back when I launched it, but then, you know, I decided to
24:01
go through a divorce instead. But now it's finally coming to
24:04
the forefront. And what was really beautiful was I had done
24:08
so much healing the whole year before that. And I realized the
24:13
reason I was no longer motivated with the law firm. i Are you
24:16
familiar with the Enneagram? Yes. So I'm an Enneagram. Three
24:21
High Achiever like always achieving, and healing like all
24:25
the childhood trauma and everything I realized, like
24:28
everything I had achieved up to that point was to gain the love
24:32
of others. And including my law firm, I was building and
24:37
building and building to try and gain a love from my ex husband
24:40
that I was never going to get. And so once I reconciled that I
24:44
just realized like, this is why I'm no longer motivated with the
24:48
law firm. And I actually can go all in with legal printer and
24:54
build this and achieve what I want to because I want to not
24:58
because I'm trying to achieve anybody
25:00
else's love. It's because I want to. And because I can. And so
25:05
year ago, we decided to go all in with legal printer. And now
25:09
we have a goal to sell for a billion dollars the thing. So in
25:15
five to 10 years not happening tomorrow, but
25:18
eventually we're gonna sell for at least a billion dollars. And
25:22
so we're taking, obviously the legal printer membership, which
25:25
is our signature product, we're building another version, a
25:29
smaller version of it. And now what we're creating our big
25:33
project for the end of 2022. Early 23 is an attorney
25:36
certification program to certify legal printer attorneys to teach
25:40
them a how to serve clients the way we've found success and
25:46
serving them be how to truly run a business because we've learned
25:49
a lot of attorneys actually don't know how to run a
25:51
business. And we're handing them clients. So we're getting the
25:56
clients for them. And we're handing them the clients that
25:59
they can now serve. So it's going to be a two way,
26:02
essentially a marketplace.
26:05
And we're also going to be creating legal printer payments,
26:08
which is going to be our own payment processor, we're our big
26:12
thing is going to be guaranteeing against chargeback
26:14
protection. And so a lot of clients that we see
26:19
it's not chargebacks, honestly are not that big of a deal. But
26:23
it is a huge fear in the minds of clients. And so if we found
26:28
like, hey, if we can just take this fear from them, and
26:32
guarantee like, hey, even if you get this chargeback, if you can
26:35
prove, you know all the things that the credit card people ask
26:40
to prove, and they still deny you. And you're actually using
26:44
our contract templates, you're doing all the things that we're
26:47
teaching you and telling you then no matter what you're going
26:50
to be guaranteed against that chargeback.
26:53
Well, that's powerful. Because I know that's a huge fear in the
26:55
coaching. In the coaching community in the coaching world,
26:58
you've served somebody I've heard of, you know, I had a
27:01
colleague who delivered all year long and then had somebody
27:05
charge back and didn't tell her so that was a huge chunk.
27:08
Imagine an annual private coaching experience so brutal. I
27:15
want to go back a little bit, I know, I know you're selling the
27:18
law firm. So you kind of left that behind. But before we move
27:20
away from it, I want I would love it if you would share
27:24
because I know a lot of our audience wants to hear they
27:26
heard that little part of Yeah, we got it to a million. And, and
27:30
this is all happening really fast that people don't know if
27:33
people realize that. But like, those of us who are in the
27:36
business world who've been doing this for a long time. I think a
27:40
lot of people through the pandemic have been experiencing
27:43
things really fast,
27:46
certainly in the online space, but in your law firm, I'd love
27:51
to know, I'd love for you to share with the audience, how you
27:54
think you were able to scale to a million dollars so quickly, in
27:59
terms of getting the clients like what marketing initiatives
28:05
did you have?
28:07
So
28:09
one of the big things, I think was actually marketing, I think
28:14
a lot of attorneys think like, oh, if I hang my shingle,
28:17
they're gonna come but no, you're I actually have a market.
28:20
And so I went into my law firm with a mindset of, hey, I'm a
28:25
business first. Not like, I'm not trying to be the best
28:29
attorney, I'm trying to be the best business owner. And not
28:32
that I'm not trying to be a good attorney. But there's a very,
28:35
very, very big difference there between trying to be the best
28:39
attorney because it actually doesn't matter if you are the
28:41
best attorney in the world if you don't have clients. And so I
28:45
always went with the mindset like, Hey, I am going to put
28:49
forth the effort to have as many clients as I can. And I will
28:53
figure out the law stuff as I go along. And that's what I did I
28:57
so my first big thing was really pitching podcast, and really
29:01
getting in big with those I like I like to call them business
29:05
influencers, but people with an audience. And so my big goal
29:09
was, hey, I want to build my audience, I want to build my
29:11
email list. And that's what that was really our big push to get a
29:17
lot of clients and it worked.
29:21
I don't want to say like, Hey, my legal skills weren't up to
29:25
snuff. There was a new
29:29
a new study or not study but a new ranking published, which a
29:34
lot of the like trademark attorney rankings are like, hey,
29:37
top law firm for applications filed, but there was a new one
29:41
published that actually took all the data into consideration. And
29:45
it was like as far as applications filed, versus
29:49
registered, you know, successful responses to Office actions, and
29:54
I never ever cared about those lists. And I I've never applied
29:58
for any of them. But this
30:00
One, they actually analyzed all the data and out of 50,000
30:04
trademark attorneys, I was actually number 27. And I was
30:08
like, wow, like I, really, that's you, thank you. And I
30:13
think it. I know, it's really easy to get lacks and repetitive
30:20
in our practices, especially if you only are doing estate
30:23
planning, you're only doing trademarks. And so you think you
30:26
know the answer. But very early on, I just saw a lot of these
30:30
small business owners like they just needed somebody to give
30:32
them a chance, they just needed somebody to work with them. So
30:35
there was a lot of matters that I took on that a lot of other
30:39
attorneys wouldn't take on, I had so many people out there,
30:42
like, Hey, I talked to this attorney, and they said it
30:44
wasn't worth it. And I looked, I'm like, Hey, like, it may
30:46
actually take some extra work, but I think we can get this
30:49
approved. So if you're gonna, if you can trust in me, that, hey,
30:52
this may take some extra time. Like, I think this is going to
30:55
work. And so luckily, I had a number of clients that, you
30:59
know, believed in me and trusted me. And we went a lot of things
31:03
that we were actually surprised that we won.
31:06
And some days, you know, some days, we did lose things, or
31:08
like, we definitely should not have lost that. But I think it's
31:14
really going above and beyond for the client, because at the
31:17
end of the day, we're all human, and we want to be seen and
31:19
heard. And so actually taking that empathy and those, you
31:23
know,
31:25
human intelligence skills to your clients, like that goes a
31:29
long way. And so first, like, our the big thing was getting an
31:34
audience once we had the the audience and the clients, it was
31:37
really treating them as human beings and seeing them and
31:41
hearing them, and then just referral after referral. I think
31:46
that's a huge piece that a lot of law firm owners miss,
31:51
certainly I see it in some of the discussions on social media
31:54
of sort of complaining about the clients and, you know, coming on
31:59
and telling some clients story. And, and I do think there is a
32:05
piece here that there's an opportunity missed.
32:08
Of above and beyond service, because especially now we live
32:12
in such a world where it's hard to find good service, everywhere
32:14
you go, you're frustrated, because you're dealing with
32:16
people who don't want to be there don't want to be in their
32:18
job. And so whether it's an airline or a restaurant, or
32:22
whatever, a doctor, where you can't get an appointment for a
32:25
year, you know, there's a lot of this kind of lack of service, I
32:29
do think people are missing the opportunity of providing that
32:33
boutique, high end service that that service where we're really
32:36
paying attention to what the clients are saying, and
32:42
responding to them and kind. I recently had an experience
32:46
myself where I had a negative experience with somebody that
32:50
I've just hired to do something, and I paid them a lot of money.
32:53
And I emailed like three people, including the lady who owns the
32:57
firm who sold me on the service. And I've heard back from this
33:01
the lowest person on the totem pole, and that the owner of the
33:06
company has yet to come back to me. So of course, that's in the
33:10
back of my mind. And I'm going hmm, you know, what I what
33:14
review? Will I leave for this person? What? Yeah, well, I tell
33:17
other people, because I'm, you know, I had somebody, email me
33:21
who said, Hey, I had this experience, it wasn't great. So
33:24
I think there are missed opportunities for not really
33:26
treating people as human beings on the other side, whose money
33:30
is valuable to them. Right, right. And that's this owners
33:34
have that finite amount of money, and that's valuable to
33:36
them, you know? Yeah. And that's honestly one of the things that
33:40
we're going to be teaching in the legal printer attorney
33:42
certification, because what I realize is going through my own
33:46
healing journey, like these actually aren't things that were
33:49
taught. And it's literally sometimes just as simple as
33:54
fully hear, like being present, when hearing out the client and
33:58
having them like give this even if you know, like, it doesn't
34:02
matter, them giving me these details, like clients literally
34:05
just want to be heard and feel seen. And so it's just maybe
34:09
sometimes just as small as actually hearing them out and
34:12
saying, Wow, like, I'm so sorry, you had to go through that.
34:15
Let's see how we can get this handled. I can't tell you how
34:18
many and so many times that I've actually dropped the ball on
34:23
something, and the next phone call with the client, like of
34:26
course, I'm dreading it because I'm like, waiting on them to
34:29
like, chew me out. But you just still take the empathy and, you
34:34
know, take the, you know, have the bigger, I can't think of
34:37
what I'm trying to say take the high road and say, Look, I
34:40
totally dropped the ball here. And I'm so sorry about that. And
34:44
this is how I'm going to make up for it. Like some attorneys in
34:46
that situation there. They just ignore it. They just like try to
34:50
sweep it under the rug, and you just have to take ownership of
34:53
everything. And that really just goes a long way and that's it
34:57
sounds so simple and
35:00
It's, I've talked to some people that are like you really going
35:03
to teach that in the certification? I'm like, yeah,
35:06
like, unfortunately, I was never taught a lot of this stuff. Like
35:09
I actually had to learn this. So I know if I had to learn this,
35:12
other people have to learn this as well. Yeah, yeah, we have
35:16
those discussions a lot in the league and the wealthy woman,
35:18
lawyer League, where we're, you know, they're learning
35:20
everybody's learning business skills, and how to grow their
35:22
business. And we have a lot of those kinds of discussions of
35:26
how to handle you know, situations. And it's so
35:28
important that customer service piece, that client service piece
35:31
isn't on met opportunity. Because you know, if somebody
35:37
feels like you're their attorney, that that's going to
35:40
be a lifetime loyalty that you can get and the referrals that
35:44
come from that.
35:46
Before we run out of time, I want to cover some other things,
35:48
though. And one of them is you just came off of a live event.
35:52
Why don't you tell us a little bit about the live event? And
35:54
then tell us about your book that's coming out? I think in
35:57
January, so launching in January? Yes, yes. So last year,
36:02
I had two things that were on my heart. And I, it was so crazy,
36:08
like I never ever thought about doing these things. But that was
36:12
number one hosting a live event. And number two, writing a book.
36:15
So the event it first it was called legal printer live. And
36:19
the idea behind it was, hey, we are a company founded on legal
36:25
education, legal services. And most people view that as scary
36:30
and intimidating. But in order to break down that barrier,
36:34
we're going to host a conference. And that lets people
36:37
see like, hey, like, yes, we mean business. But we also like
36:41
to have fun, and we want to help you grow your business. Because
36:44
if you're not in business, then we don't have clients. So very
36:49
quickly, I learned, okay, people think this is only for
36:52
attorneys. And it's for anybody it was, you know, we had
36:56
attorneys there we had any type of business owner there. And
37:00
that so we renamed it to dream bigger. And that was because I
37:05
realized Chris harder helped me realize, like, Hey, I'm actually
37:08
not dreaming big enough. And so to dream bigger, that stuck
37:12
really well.
37:14
And so we hosted that last week. Oh, it was incredible. I can't
37:18
tell you how many people literally came up to me and even
37:21
since have deemed me and they're like, that event has changed my
37:24
life. And I'm like, oh, yeah, so you went from attending an event
37:29
that changed your life to hosting an event that changed
37:33
your life within the span of a year? Yes. And I honestly wasn't
37:38
expecting people to be like, Wow, this changed my life. I
37:41
just wanted people to walk away and be like, Oh, my business is
37:44
my business. And I am going to be better because of this. But
37:47
people were just so moved. And I think a lot of it is just
37:52
realizing there is so much more for us. And what I kept talking
37:57
about was like, Hey, if you're feeling this, like you're
38:00
feeling this hate, there's something more to life for me
38:03
like this can't be it. Like this event is for you. And so many
38:08
people were like, yes, like that's exactly where I am. And
38:12
it just makes my heart so happy because so many people walked
38:15
away and they're like, this 100% changed my life. How many
38:18
attendees did you have? So we haven't speakers? Yeah, so we
38:23
had about 70 in the room. And we want to grow this to hopefully
38:29
be an annual conference and just continue growing and breaking
38:33
down the barrier of having legal be scary. Yeah, yeah. That's
38:38
wonderful. That's wonderful. You're, and that's a good,
38:42
that's a good size event for your first event like that.
38:44
That's I mean, people who've ever thrown events, realize what
38:48
it takes to get butts in chairs, and get people to commit not
38:51
easy to travel, somebody had traveled to it.
38:56
Before we talk about your book, I do want to go back and touch
38:59
on one thing with your that you are licensed in Texas and where
39:03
else, I'm actually only licensed in Ohio. And so listen to this
39:10
one. So this always threw people for a wrench. So I lived in
39:14
Kentucky. I went to school in Kentucky, but I worked in
39:17
Cincinnati, so I got licensed in Ohio. And then I moved to Texas,
39:21
which is why I did the federal trademarks. And so for a while I
39:27
did have an attorney that worked for me that was licensed in
39:31
Texas because obviously a lot of people thought I was licensed
39:33
there.
39:35
But I remember the first call to like my getting my first
39:38
malpractice insurance. He was like wait, so you have a
39:41
Kentucky phone number, your license in Ohio, but now you
39:45
live in Texas, and I was like malpractice carriers like this
39:49
sketch. Yeah, he was like, I just want to make sure I have
39:52
this right. And I was like, Yes, I was like I promise I'm only
39:54
practicing federal matters. And so and honestly that's why we're
39:58
creating
40:00
The legal printer attorney certification kind of like that
40:02
network, because a lot of small business attorneys, a lot of
40:06
those solo attorneys,
40:08
I want to create the network that essentially the big firms
40:11
have, who are licensed in Ohio. But because they have an office
40:15
in New York, they felt like they they do whatever the client
40:18
needs in New York, even if they've never met the the
40:21
attorney trying to expand your network of resort, right? Hey, I
40:26
want to ask you, because I because the contracts is what
40:28
comes to my mind is how are you you have people from all over?
40:34
Because the internet's everywhere? Billing these
40:36
contracts? And so how do you kind of ensure that that works
40:40
for them where they live? So for our contract templates, we tell
40:45
them, hey, this is industry best practices. You want to have a
40:50
local attorney in your state or country review them? We so the
40:55
legal printer right now we serve clients in the US, Canada,
40:59
Europe, and Mexico.
41:04
And always expanding, and with. So even for the International,
41:10
we've had a number of international clients. So like,
41:12
hey, will this work in my country? And I tell them, hey,
41:14
it's a great starting point. But have a local attorney review it
41:19
for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wanted to be clear on that. So
41:22
people listening, the attorneys listening, sort of understand
41:25
that. So before we wrap up, tell us you you do have I've
41:29
mentioned your book a couple of times, what's in your book?
41:32
What's it going to be about? Give us the scoop? on it? Yeah.
41:36
So like I said, I was last year, I was feeling very cold to write
41:40
a book. There's, I mean, I don't we did our research, I don't
41:43
believe there's any book out there like it. It's called legal
41:46
printer, the business owners guide to legally protecting your
41:49
business. There's no really legal guides or books out there.
41:55
For small business owners. They're all just textbooks. And
42:00
nobody wants to read that. So it's really teaching, putting
42:04
all of our free education in one place. Because our if any, I
42:07
tell people, I'm like, Hey, if you want to learn about this,
42:11
like go listen to the podcast, go to tick tock Instagram, go to
42:15
our blog, like it's all out there for free. But now I'm
42:19
like, Hey, I think we need to write a book to compile it
42:22
concisely in one place, and really weave in stories,
42:26
examples from clients, and really easy to understand, like
42:31
how tos. And so that's exactly what the book is, it's
42:35
legitimately a guide to legally protecting your small business.
42:39
And so that's going to be launching in January. Super
42:43
excited about that. One thing I'm actually really excited
42:47
about as well, is we've been doing a lot of partnerships with
42:49
Nationwide Insurance. And so that Yeah, yeah, so I'm hoping
42:54
they're, we're talking right now about possibly having them
42:58
sponsor,
43:00
like the book launch party, having more resources, you know,
43:04
back and forth between them to help
43:07
small business owners get insurance and getting those that
43:12
are already insured, you know, legal questions answered. So
43:15
hoping to take that partnership with the book to the next level.
43:19
Congratulations on being an author. I understand the amount
43:24
of work that goes into that my first book took me years to get,
43:29
because I had so many pieces and parts and stops and starts. And
43:33
then finally, it took somebody just to say, Okay, you just need
43:36
to sit, volunteer and get the thing done. By the time I wrote
43:39
the first book, I was already on to the next to next and next.
43:42
And so to me, it was, you know, not not where I was at that
43:46
time. But it's always wonderful to provide those levels of
43:52
education. So there's the somebody who has $20 to spend,
43:57
can get answers, if they will take the time to sit and read
44:02
the book, right? And then, and then those who want to go a
44:05
little deeper, or learn in a different way, then you have
44:09
resources available for that, and so and so forth, you know,
44:12
so I think that I think that is a wonderful way to sort of serve
44:15
people is to offer a lot of different options. And so you're
44:19
between your book, your podcast, all those things, plus your
44:23
courses and your templates, and, you know, and you're speaking
44:27
the conference, all those things, it sounds like that
44:28
you're doing a lot of that you do have the vision, so we're
44:32
going to be cheering on cheering you on and watching, it seems to
44:34
me that the legal printer has been around for longer than you
44:38
said. So when you started talking about dates, I'm like,
44:40
Oh my gosh, you know, it hasn't really you've done that in a
44:43
very short period of time. So definitely something you should
44:47
be very proud of. And I know you are. Thanks so much for being
44:50
here and sharing with us today. I hate that we're about out of
44:53
time, but tell us how people can connect with you if they want to
44:58
where they can look out for updates.
45:00
It's get on your mailing list and all that stuff. Yeah. So
45:03
right now, if you want to preorder the book, it's the
45:06
legal printer.com/legal printer book. And if you have any
45:10
questions, just want to connect. I love talking to attorneys that
45:14
have questions because what I've learned is so many attorneys,
45:17
they also need help. You may be great at your craft, but you may
45:22
not be great at running a business and so I love just
45:25
helping out when I can. So my email is Andrea at Andrea
45:28
sager.com. And you can follow along on Instagram at Andrea
45:31
Sager law. Great, thank you so much, Andrea. I appreciate it.
45:36
Thank you