Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Automate Your Law Firm, Reclaim Your Time.

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Automate Your Law Firm, Reclaim Your Time. · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

0:00
Hi, everyone. I'm Davina Frederick, welcome to the
0:02
wealthy woman lawyer podcast. I am the host and also the
0:06
founder, wealthy woman lawyer where we help women law firm
0:09
owners scale their law firm businesses to and through a
0:13
million dollars in gross revenue so they can easily fund and have
0:17
time to enjoy the lifestyle of their dreams. And I'm super
0:20
excited today because I have Sam white here with me on the wealth
0:24
Memorial podcast, and he like me absolutely loves to help
0:28
lawyers, scale their businesses, and he's a real guru of
0:33
automation. So we're gonna pick his brain today and have so much
0:36
fun. He's also the founder of mulighed law. So he has a law
0:41
firm, as well that he he tested all this out on before he
0:46
actually started. Legal funnel.com So Sam, I'm super
0:51
excited to have you here. Welcome.
0:54
Thank you. Thank you so much, Davina. I'm super excited. I've
0:56
been looking for this for months.
0:58
Now. Good. Good, good. Yeah. We tried to start to get together
1:01
before Christmas. But we having happening we it took us a little
1:04
while but battery here. Um, so start out for those of you who
1:08
are who have not yet heard, start out tell it tell us how
1:12
you became how you came to be a lawyer to begin with? Was this
1:16
something that you always you always asked? I'm always curious
1:21
with lawyers, you know, did we start out with little kids
1:24
wanting to be lawyers? Because we want some favorite TV show?
1:27
Or is it something that's passed down to the family that father
1:30
did this mother did this? So I'm going to do it? Or is it
1:33
somebody that came later in life just by happenstance, so how was
1:36
it with you?
1:38
It For Me was actually I had a more of an entrepreneurial
1:41
background. As a young kid, I was started a bunch of small
1:43
businesses, I would sell jeans online, I started a touring
1:47
company and just a bunch of startups, which I didn't
1:49
realize, was kind of like that gene of a true entrepreneur. And
1:53
then my law school journey just kind of started because my
1:57
closest friends were going to law school, like I have to go to
1:59
grad school. And I didn't like Medical Associates just came
2:02
down to law or business. And I chose ended up choosing law. And
2:06
then while I was in law school, I started working. And I
2:09
realized, like, wait, the work that I'm doing right now, I'm
2:12
not really enjoying this, I was doing discovery, and target
2:16
stories and all that stuff. And I'm like, I also don't have an
2:19
epiphany. I'm like, wait, I'm necessarily want to be a
2:21
traditional lawyer like doing, you know, doing legal, legal
2:25
paperwork. And then while I was waiting for my bar exam results,
2:29
I started doing some soul searching, but what do I really
2:33
want to do in life, until I met one of my friends who started
2:35
his own law firm is when you're heard of me, and the fact that
2:39
when I noticed that he No, he would damage experience. And he
2:42
ended up starting his own law firm, to kind of give me the
2:45
insight that I could tube. So within six months of passing the
2:48
bar, I basically started my own law firm, didn't know how to get
2:51
clients at all, didn't know anything, I didn't have a
2:53
mentor. And I basically had to self educate and teach myself
2:56
how to get clients how to how to get started law firm. And fast
3:01
forward, that's been a really fun journey, I've actually been
3:03
able to kind of figure out the very practical ways to be able
3:07
to get it a law firm up, up and running, generate clients
3:11
automated, to be able to serve the clients get a lot of Google
3:14
reviews, and rinse, repeat, now have seven virtual law firms
3:18
that are currently actively running, all automated. And
3:22
because I'm kind of, you know, those are running on their own,
3:25
that's where I kind of most of my time now goes to legal
3:27
funnel, which is basically my passion project, teaching other
3:30
lawyers, and showing that it is completely possible to run a
3:33
completely virtual and automated offer.
3:36
It's wonderful. That's what I love that I love your journey.
3:39
And I really relate to it. Because I've, of course, I've
3:43
been listening to a lot of interviews with you and stuff in
3:45
preparation for this podcast. And I said, you know, what
3:48
point, and you just mentioned it now. Like, I think this happens
3:52
to a lot of us, like we have in our mind, you know, we're gonna
3:55
be lawyers, and we get through law school, and then we start
3:57
doing legal work. And the day in and day out. Like, this isn't
4:00
what I thought I was signing up for. And I know I'm certainly
4:03
the case of me, it was it was a lot more stressful on a day to
4:11
day basis, because what I was involved in litigation is very
4:16
adversarial. You're always feel like you're constantly arguing
4:19
every day all day. And so when I started my second firm, my
4:23
virtual firm, I really went with a transactional model for that.
4:27
For that reason, because I was like, this is just, this just
4:30
stinks. Well, one of the things that I think you really mastered
4:33
that early on, which I wish I had is that you've been able to
4:40
automate your model and you've been able to build a team to
4:43
actually do the work. Right. So talk to me about that a little
4:49
bit. What was that like? Because I think a lot of lawyers are
4:52
reluctant to even hire other attorneys to begin with. And for
4:57
you to go in and say I'm going to set up this firm A Law Firm
5:00
and I'm going to my job is going to be to set up these
5:03
businesses. And then I need other people to keep them going.
5:07
How? How did you learn to sort of let go of that and find those
5:12
people that you could trust that you didn't feel like, I'm going
5:15
to have to carry my bar card if they screw this up.
5:19
So running a law firm encompasses a lot of a lot of
5:22
things. So signing up the clients, be able to onboard the
5:25
clients, gather the information, gather the documents. And then
5:29
if you if you write down everything that needs to be done
5:31
from A to Z, you actually be surprised that there isn't done
5:34
much legal work that really needs to be done by an actual
5:37
attorney, a lot of the preparations, the drafting the
5:41
gathering, the documents, any of the clients, all that stuff
5:43
could be definitely handed off to even non lawyers. So it's,
5:47
you know, people are kind of used to the ways that they think
5:50
like the lawyer has to do this draft, not necessarily, you
5:53
know, could really question it and see whether you can get non
5:56
attorney is going to help you drop those things, and then you
5:59
become and review it, and make sure it's finalized and good for
6:02
your clients. And I know that might annoy people be like,
6:05
wait, but I mean, lawyer has been doing non legal work know
6:08
now that someone out suggesting, but, you know, question the ways
6:13
that the way you're currently doing and see if there's ways to
6:15
kind of work around it, and still be able to serve your
6:18
clients in the most proper way?
6:22
How did you find that to be a challenge? Or have you in the
6:28
last couple of years, we've had the pandemic and we've had a
6:31
great resignation, we've had a lot of people that have had had
6:35
to deal with the transition with suddenly the lawyers on their
6:40
team or the paralegals on their team are being recruited away.
6:43
They're being poached away? Have you experienced that? Because I
6:46
know you've run a lot of your businesses with virtual
6:48
assistants. And you really like to work with freelancers, not
6:53
agencies, right. Have you had any issues with having to, you
6:59
know, have good people doing the work? And replacing them? And
7:03
that kind of thing?
7:04
Absolutely. Yeah. Across all the law firms that we're currently
7:07
running, the number one problem we have is people hiring good
7:11
enough people that can run the manager or director, or the good
7:15
attorneys that can find to do the legal work. So yes,
7:18
definitely, you know, there's been major trends and a lot of
7:22
geopolitical and macro kind of issues that kind of contributed
7:25
to that. But yes, that is a theme, and is a trend, I don't
7:28
see it being fixed anytime soon, or getting any better. So yes,
7:32
you have to think outside the box and look into either
7:35
overseas people, freelancers, people that can divide their
7:39
time in, you know, in many different forms that can take on
7:44
this work for you, you know, things are changing. Whatever
7:47
works, pass, one would definitely won't work doesn't
7:50
need to in the future. So yes, definitely losing a lot of
7:53
virtual people losing a lot of freelancers, using a lot of
7:56
specialists. That's where it's definitely heading. And it will
8:00
be more of a teacher.
8:02
Talk to me about using a lot of specialists because I know for
8:05
me with just using my social media as an example, I remember
8:09
at one point, trying to get somebody to survey my social
8:11
media person, and loft on multiple platforms. And I found
8:15
that to be it didn't really work well. And so when I started
8:18
looking, okay, I found somebody who just loves Instagram, and
8:22
she eats, sleeps and breathes Instagram, I say, You're my
8:25
Instagram person, it completely changed everything for Bing. And
8:29
so using that on different social media has been helpful.
8:32
Tell me about your experience with that. So I could see your
8:35
smiling, you've probably been through the same thing.
8:38
Exactly. There's no such thing these days. There's so much
8:42
going on in social media and marketing, there's 1000
8:44
different ways to be successful. No longer is it possible to have
8:48
one person knows what they're doing across different things.
8:51
That's why it's so crucial, as you've mentioned, to find the
8:54
top channels that will work for you and just go hire an expert
8:59
just for that, as you mentioned, an Instagram experts. And if
9:02
you're thinking even if you're thinking I'm doing YouTube, and
9:04
I'm like, we're not trying to work on my YouTube channel, I'm
9:07
looking to hire three different experts when it comes to
9:09
YouTube, somebody who's a creative designer for the
9:12
thumbnails 1% for the editor, and then one person to manage,
9:16
you know, uploading and managing this team. So it's three
9:18
different people when it comes to even one. So that one,
9:21
really, I don't, so yeah, this more specialized it is, the
9:24
higher the value of the person goes up. And obviously the
9:27
better the result for you.
9:29
Right, right. And it's really interesting, you say that three
9:32
people because I'm in my podcast, I've recently changed
9:37
and I'm no longer using the podcast team that I was using
9:39
before. And so now, while between my husband and I, he's
9:45
my he's my tech guru. He's been done technology, you know, since
9:49
since the 80s. Right? So he's, he's wonderful at helping but I
9:55
certainly we can't do that we have skills. We can't be doing
9:59
all this. We need those Simple have a team and we're literally
10:02
assembling a team of somebody to write the show down somebody to
10:05
edit the video is somebody that like it and these are all
10:08
different people, um, but you really get the best product when
10:13
you do that because I always say to people, I was a cop I've been
10:16
a cop professional copywriter for years. And because I was in
10:20
marketing before I became an attorney, and copywriters, a
10:23
graphic designers are two very different people. And we think
10:26
differently and we think to ourselves, I'm just gonna hire
10:28
somebody to help me manage this, you know, whatever. And
10:32
copywriter is a very different skill from graphic designer,
10:35
which is very different from somebody who actually is going
10:38
to be the organized person to post and schedule things. Um,
10:43
and I don't know if you know, Sandy van, if you followed Sandy
10:46
banner, obviously any van is a master at she even started her
10:52
own company, they will support help at she's want to open my
10:56
eyes to the idea of you know, you don't need to hire one VA,
10:59
you can have 14 Va, right? We live in ourselves. And I imagine
11:04
that's how you're doing a lot of this stuff with your funnels is
11:06
that? Is that the case? That you're? You're using a lot of
11:10
people more so than people believe think we think?
11:13
Yeah, actually, how many of us do you think I have? You know,
11:17
oh, gosh, ah, I don't know, 30? Let's say 3088
11:23
is Wow, yeah, about about 5060 of them are pretty much full
11:26
time that they're not to have one ongoing test that they're
11:29
doing all the time. And then also have a good 20 to 30
11:32
they're sitting in my Skype account. At any point, if I need
11:36
anything done, they've already been on boarded. And you know,
11:38
they're clocked in, not clocked in, but they're there as soon as
11:42
I can message them, they'll be able to get anything done while
11:45
they're sitting my Skype account. So yeah, ADB is, I
11:49
think the best way to think of VAs is to think about there's,
11:55
you know, there's different types of people, there's some
11:57
people that are writers, they're good at writing. There's some
12:00
people who are good designers. So they're a little bit more
12:02
creative. These are like graphics, images, things like
12:05
that. There's people who are good at talking. So those are
12:08
people that are usually going to be talking to your clients to
12:10
closing, closing clients, things like that. And there's some
12:12
people were kind of like more macro visionaries, thinkers,
12:16
things like that to you. Hopefully, you'll be, you know,
12:18
you're you're the law firm owner, you'll be the visionary.
12:20
And then you have your writer designers, talkers around you to
12:23
embrace specialized things. Should we talk about vas?
12:27
Because I think that's super valuable. Yeah, absolutely.
12:29
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.
12:33
Well, I want to ask you this. And, you know, feel free to
12:36
share your your tips and secrets on that. There's a couple things
12:39
that come to my mind. One is, how do you keep yourself from
12:43
being the bottleneck in the pipeline? Because one of the
12:47
things that is the challenge of working with virtual assistants,
12:50
no matter what kind of business you have, is the quality of the
12:54
work and do they capture the voice to the capture and style.
12:58
And you as a business owner, you can be very quickly subbed into
13:03
the bottom because the bottom that because you have to approve
13:05
and review and give input everything for it goes out so to
13:10
hear what your insight is. And then the other thing is, as I
13:13
think it's important to address for attorneys, the role that
13:18
confidentiality an attorney client privilege case, because I
13:21
know in the mind, the brains, a lot of attorneys right now are
13:25
on fire screaming, as they're listening to this because
13:28
they're going, oh my god, I can never hire somebody from the
13:32
Philippines or whatever. It isn't for me because of
13:35
confidentiality, and I don't know them. And then who are they
13:38
all? All that kind of stuff. So you could address those two
13:41
questions. I'd love to hear your insight, your input?
13:44
Sure. So let's talk about, you know, how do you how do you
13:50
what's the model behind your law firm the way that I look at it
13:52
right now, the way that we're operating our law firm is a
13:54
hybrid virtual law firm model. That means you have in house
13:59
directors and managers or in house or your law firm that you
14:02
have direct communication with. And they're these directors
14:06
managers are running your virtual operation. And pretty
14:09
much 95% of our, of our staff is virtual, but but that one,
14:16
manager director is the one that you are in contact with. And
14:21
there, that person is essentially the bottleneck of
14:24
your law firm, or at least for not me. So if the anything that
14:28
happens day to day to day, that person's contacted. I'm not. So
14:32
I don't you know, I don't give out my phone numbers. I don't I
14:35
did. My team doesn't really email me. The only way that
14:39
people could communicate with me is through slack. But at that
14:42
point, you know, when once I set it up, hey, meet your manager,
14:45
media director, you know, they'll be managing and web
14:48
instructions and I'm only, you know, directly communicating
14:51
with the director manager. And then I step away, you know, once
14:55
I hand off, I basically have the tracking sheet right know what
15:00
the goal is, I check in, but I'm not, you know, daily day, I'm
15:05
not dealing with that. And then, you know, when I do communicate
15:08
with our team in Slack, I log out and log back in once a day,
15:13
once every two days or so. I'm not in, you know, people can
15:16
reach me that easily. And you know, that's very systematic,
15:19
no, it made me feel like some some new people that may join
15:23
your team, like, yo, where's the founder, I will talk to him. And
15:26
since I joined three months ago, and it's by design, and it is
15:30
like that, that's the way you need to be. And the idea is that
15:33
the more you matter to your law firm, the less your law firm is
15:36
worth getting them into, think about that, the more that you
15:38
matter to your lab, the less your law firm is worth, if
15:41
you're such a crucial part of your own law firm, then you're
15:44
capped by how much you can grow depends so much completely on
15:46
you. But when you take yourself out of the equation as much as
15:49
you can, and instead is your team, your operations, your
15:54
systems is what's keeping the glue of your funnel, then, then
15:59
that's when your law firm can grow beyond you. So that's one
16:04
and then the other thing we want to talk about is the whole
16:06
confidentiality. I think that's a major limiting belief that a
16:10
lot of people have, because it's something new. And as soon as
16:13
something is new people have started having FUD fear, you
16:16
know, fear, uncertainty and doubt. So it's one of those, for
16:20
me, it's just very obvious that it's a limiting belief. You'll
16:24
be okay. I think it's very important to hire good people
16:28
from good countries, treat them well give them respect, and
16:31
they'll know they'll return the favor. So far not hired over 200
16:35
days, my time, terminated a lot higher, a lot. Nothing has
16:39
happened. No negative thing has happened and never been
16:41
sabotaged. And I think ultimately just comes down to
16:44
just being a good person, treat them well. give positive
16:47
feedback. And people would do with that same respect back.
16:50
Right. Right. That's, that's great advice. And I assume that
16:54
you had a, you have a process, obviously, for everything. And
17:00
so I assume you have a process for hiring, that you developed
17:04
along the way, as a result of the hiring so many and sort of
17:08
learning from mistakes and whatnot. Can you give us some
17:11
sort of tips and advice on on your do's and don'ts when you're
17:18
when you're looking to hire, whether they're whether they're
17:21
vert VAs from other countries? Or they're just remote
17:24
employees, you know, in the United States or whatever. What,
17:29
what advice would you have,
17:31
I actually have three secrets some man just came up with just
17:33
last week after, you know, awesome, perfect time. Secrets.
17:39
So the first one is hire VAs like they're free, hire vas,
17:43
like they're free, a lot of people get bogged down on the
17:45
costs, can afford it, they don't have the cash flow, you know,
17:49
making any barely barely any money. What I found out is you
17:53
gotta if you look at it in a long term perspective, you hire
17:55
VA, after a year, you look at how much it cost you and how
17:59
much time and money that person made you buy you have, you know,
18:03
but then working for you, the ROI is ridiculous. It's probably
18:06
one of the highest ROI thing you've ever seen. And full time
18:09
you get up to you know, it doesn't have to cost that much.
18:12
It might shock some people maybe even $6,000 $8,000 for full time
18:16
VA, you know, if you're currently the value is, you
18:19
know, 60k Plus, I actually just analyzed yesterday, I've about
18:23
seven, eight full time views. That all adds up to about 60k is
18:27
absurd. But it's working, they're happy, by the way. I'm
18:32
happy, everyone's happy. So when you look at the big picture, you
18:35
know, the ROI, just tired, like they're free. And I promise you
18:38
the ROI is there crazily. Second is always higher to VAs at a
18:43
time for anything. I call it the rule of two's there's some
18:46
things in life that you have to do two at a time, hopefully not
18:50
getting married two at a time, but when hiring vas, I would
18:53
highly suggest tying it to V is at a time there isn't is it
18:57
seems like to me that V is or hit or miss completed her hit or
19:00
miss right now feels like 5050 for me. So in order for me to
19:04
protect myself against that is I was hired to I give is very
19:09
similar tasks both to them. And I I don't interview them by the
19:13
way, I don't interview a meet people in zoom, I just give them
19:15
the task. They're in there. The task that they do is my
19:17
interview. And I just look to see who can do it faster. And
19:21
and then does it better for me. If they're both good, great,
19:25
I'll keep both if not usually, they have one that's much better
19:28
than this. The second one, I'll keep the first one terminate the
19:31
bottom one and move forward with that. And that way you know if
19:35
you hire one and that person is not good than you then you have
19:38
to spend a week or two waiting for the next one. That's close
19:41
you don't want that. So if you're just hired to you know,
19:43
within a week or two, it's like easy AP testing right your your
19:46
yeah marketing, it's like a be testing your VA s and you'll
19:49
know exactly who's the best. The third one is, the longer you
19:53
keep your VAs the higher the value of the VA is goes up. So
19:58
try to keep your VA as as long as possible and you bring them
20:01
on, you know, they're kind of robotic, they just do what you
20:04
give them. But over time people come up and you train them and
20:06
they get exposed more and more to your law firm, then they
20:09
essentially came in run, like you're running your law firm for
20:12
you have to have my law firms are run being run by vas, any
20:15
customer support any issues, anything that happens, the VA is
20:18
running through the VA. And that's only because I've had
20:21
them for many years, I even still actually have my first VA,
20:24
my first VA ever hired from six years ago still with me. And
20:27
that VA if anything ever happens, it runs through her,
20:30
she can address it called clients, you know, pauses,
20:33
whatever, whatever that needs to be done, does it so? So again,
20:36
just to recap, hire vas, like they're free, hire two VAs at a
20:40
time, always up there. And then try to keep your VA that's for
20:44
as long as possible.
20:46
Yeah, I think that's all terrific advice. And I love to
20:49
hire two at one time, I've actually been advising a lot of
20:53
my clients right now to hire everybody, everybody they need
20:57
in their firm right now. I said, just just put ads out everywhere
21:00
and just run them and continue to run them even after you hire
21:03
people. Because we have so many people who are making decisions,
21:07
they may interview for six jobs, they wind up getting an offer,
21:10
they join yours. Two months later, that job they really want
21:13
to call them and then they're out. And so I'm telling people
21:17
just run ads always be interviewing, and I like that
21:20
Quinn, Gary, Glen Ross movie always be closing, I'm saying
21:24
always be interviewing, always be interviewing, because. But I
21:27
think it's interesting that you said you don't interview, you
21:30
just give them the task. And I thought that was a great tip. I
21:35
because one of the things that bogs, law firm owners down is in
21:41
interviewing, and what I have done with a lot of mine is I've
21:44
referred them to someone who actually handles that process
21:47
for them. You know, you don't need to eat, we kind of think we
21:51
need to do the one interview, we need to do that. And if you
21:53
don't yet have an HR person in your firm, find somebody you can
21:56
outsource that to and get them to interview and then they come
21:59
back and they go, here's your shortlist A and B, pick those
22:02
and you're you just skip the interview and go write A and B
22:05
which I think is great. How do you transmit instruction to VA,
22:12
because one of the things that I know a lot of law firm owners
22:16
say and I'm sure you've heard this before is I could do it
22:20
myself much faster than I could teach somebody to do this, how
22:22
am I gonna get the stuff out of my head? I know, right? So I
22:29
bring it all the Greatest Hits today for your inputs, I'm
22:32
sharing my pain with
22:33
you. Right. So this is something that everybody knows that they
22:36
need to do, but a lot of who are missing their standard operating
22:39
procedure. But you do it once, you should, at least you've
22:42
created once. And then you add, you know, you add to it over
22:45
time, but super crucial to create that standard operating
22:47
procedure, that every time that you teach anybody anything, and
22:51
it's to be a rule of thumb needs to be recorded, and in speed,
22:54
you know, uploaded and linked out in your sending operating
22:57
procedure for anybody who is joining your law firm to go
23:01
through those standing operating procedures. So the first few
23:03
days of joining my law firm doesn't matter what you do for
23:06
my law firm always send to this send operating procedure, I want
23:09
you to understand everything. And once you download these
23:11
tools, I want you to join slack, I want you to do this, then to
23:14
do that. And then by the time they you know, the third day,
23:17
they pretty much know 80 90% of exactly what they need to do.
23:21
And then, you know, whenever you do train people just again, as I
23:24
mentioned, make sure to record it and link out to it. So that
23:29
the next person, you don't have to do the training again. It's
23:32
really fun. I don't haven't done any trainings myself, because
23:35
everybody just goes through the training. And then if my team
23:37
does the training day, no, I didn't tell them anymore. That
23:40
was recorded, just put in there. And now over time, you have this
23:43
amazing kind of how to run a McDonald's restaurant, but for
23:48
your long run, anybody could come in, that's better, you
23:50
don't need to talk to the manager just to read this thing
23:52
you know exactly what to do.
23:54
Right? Right. Right. And what is wonderful about video too,
23:57
because I also recommend that is, in addition to videos you've
24:02
got, you can then transcribe, you can turn them into
24:04
documents. So no matter who you are, and you don't have to be
24:07
the one to do it, you can get a VA to do that for a year to
24:10
coordinate your systems and organize and whatnot. What's
24:13
beautiful about that, though, is that no matter what learning
24:16
style somebody has, there's, there's a tool for them to learn
24:21
right? So they can they can learn you don't you're not
24:23
dealing with people with different learning styles who
24:25
say well, I, you know, I can't learn from video I have to learn
24:28
by reading it or whatever. Right. Your I had some other
24:33
good questions for you today. Because one of the things that I
24:38
want to talk about is what works. What are there certain
24:42
types of firms that work better, better with a virtual model? I
24:45
know you started out you know, with a certain different types
24:49
and you sort of niche down and now you've got like multiple
24:52
firms. So we're talking about that. But also I know you've
24:55
helped a number of people now with different types of law
24:58
firms and I'm sure one of the questions they asked you is,
25:00
well, you know, yeah, that works for, you know, business forums
25:04
online, but that's not gonna work for my for my type of law
25:07
firm. Um, have you found that there are some firms that are
25:13
better students kind of this virtual model and some that
25:18
art? Yeah, I'm gonna share one idea. Hopefully that will be a
25:22
label for a lot of you guys. You're not the type of lawyer
25:25
that you are, you're actually a problem solver. So just to give
25:29
an example, you're not a personal injury lawyer, stop
25:32
saying personal injury law here. You're not an estate planning
25:34
lawyer, and stuff like calling yourself then stop putting down
25:37
your website, your funnels. Instead, always address the
25:41
specific problem that you're solving for your clients. You're
25:44
a problem solver. So your content, your videos, your
25:47
funnels, your websites, go talking to your clients language
25:50
of what specific problem you solve. As soon as you switch
25:54
your language to that and you make your language and you make
25:57
your funnels and you're upset all about that, then you'll see
26:00
good results. Okay, so in value your stuff is my website right
26:04
now saying, I do estate planning, and I do I do
26:07
bankruptcy like that, you do chapter 13 to avoid those legal
26:11
terms, nobody talks about those things are what you do is, you
26:13
know, resolve people's that you avoid, you know, declared the
26:17
bad things like that. So, you know, that that's one thing that
26:20
I think a lot of both could, could use. Second is yes,
26:24
there's definitely some Pakistan's are better. My thing
26:28
is I go focus on the blue oceans, I don't get into I
26:31
don't, you know, dive in into the personal injury space. And
26:36
you know, there's been, it's already a huge market super
26:39
saturated, a lot of money being spent, I'd rather go find those
26:41
specific niches that nobody's really tackling on. So the more
26:46
obscure it is usually the better. So you know, don't be so
26:51
don't be so traditional, loyal, do some research, talk around,
26:54
see what's out there. And there's plenty of things out
26:56
there, you just don't know about it, you'd have to do some
26:58
research, or talk to smart people, maybe that could give
27:00
you some ideas. And the third is, you know, be mindful of your
27:06
geographic location that you can that you can serve. Ideally, you
27:10
shouldn't limit yourself to just your city. Another aisle from
27:16
for most of us, you know, we are kind of limited to our state.
27:19
But there's ways to maybe expand to be a multi state Lawyer by
27:23
taking that up exam, that's something Something might want
27:25
to look into. Or if you look into federal claims, then then
27:30
that's like, amazing. At this point, I'm at a point where any
27:34
federal claim, I could pretty much guarantee you I could bring
27:37
you 100 clients within within within two months, if as long as
27:41
the federal claim. So see, if we, you know, be mindful of that
27:44
contract graphic thing. So just to recap, you know, you're a
27:48
problem solver. So get away from, you know, being a personal
27:51
injury lawyer. Second is look for those blue oceans. And
27:55
third, be there just mentioned that my mind is Be mindful of
27:59
your geographic location of who you're serving. Right? Yeah,
28:06
exactly. And just want to also put a little asterisk what I
28:09
shared is based out of love, and being mindful of what the future
28:13
might look like, or, you know, I'm not saying it to put anybody
28:17
down. So if anybody's offended, but, you know, there's look
28:22
beyond what's in front of you. There's nothing outside the box,
28:25
that's, you know, PA,
28:27
well, it's food, food for thought. I mean, what we're
28:29
doing, what we're doing is we're throwing out something and
28:31
saying, think about this, and whether it doesn't mean that you
28:34
can't just focus on that, if that's all you want to do, if
28:38
that's your passion, that's what you want to do. And I have one
28:42
client who was a patent attorney, and really, which is a
28:47
much more rare breed, you have to be you have to have, I was
28:51
putting sway I took Pat lawn in law school, and I don't have the
28:55
right undergrad degree, the patent attorney was like the
28:57
only thing available that I could take. And I took it, I'm
28:59
like, Yeah, I see why you have to have a different kind of
29:01
degree than what I have to be a patent lawyer, because I was
29:04
terrible at it. Because they don't have the tech, the
29:06
technical language for it. But I had a claim as a patent lawyer,
29:09
and then she offered trademarks, and hire somebody to handle that
29:13
for her as she has an additional thing. Because a lot of people
29:16
have that expectation of IP attorney as having a full bench.
29:21
So not just trademarks, copyrights, but also patent. But
29:25
we'll move on away from this topic for you and I get
29:27
ourselves into trouble. Um, one of the things that you you said
29:32
in another interview, I was listening to that I just wanted
29:34
to like reach through the screen and have you was you said that
29:39
people need to stop overthinking. And you were
29:42
talking about making decisions quickly making decisions with
29:45
adult sit on decisions. Yeah, I think you were specifically
29:47
talking about hiring. And you're saying don't sit on decisions.
29:52
That within a couple of days, you should be able to make a
29:54
decision about hiring somebody in your if you're staying more
29:56
than that. You're overthinking and I literally have had some
29:59
clients have gone years years and not been able to pull the
30:03
trigger to hire up attorneys and I, they'll hire staff left and
30:08
right. But there is a fear around hiring other attorneys,
30:13
and to go years while making excuses for not doing it. How is
30:19
it that you got to the point where you're like, stop
30:22
overthinking this, you really within a couple days to make a
30:25
decision, do it. What is your thought process? Was I mind that
30:29
Emery always that way? Or was this something that you've
30:31
learned over time?
30:32
No, I think all of us all humans are created with especially
30:36
lawyers, because we're so analytical with, you know, aside
30:38
that we're visionaries, we see something in our head, and we
30:40
want it to be that way. And if it doesn't line up with that,
30:43
then we're not, we're not willing to, you know, finish it.
30:47
So I think it's a mantra that I worked on. And it wasn't like
30:50
this again, I had to work on it. But it was the mantra is done is
30:54
better than perfect. And I said that to myself over and over and
30:57
trip signs around me kept repeating to myself that isn't
31:00
perfect, and I started practicing it. Especially when
31:03
it came to videos, I think that's it usually becomes more
31:05
practical when it comes to recording videos or putting out
31:08
content. And I got to a point where I do not care about the
31:13
quality of what I've put out. I am totally okay with spelling
31:17
mistakes. I'm totally okay with slip ups. I'm totally okay, if
31:19
my phone drops off in the middle of the podcast. I'm totally okay
31:22
with that. Go with it. It's totally okay. Because why it
31:25
shows your true size your real side. And I'm okay with just
31:29
getting it out. So just be okay with imperfection. It's totally
31:32
okay. And if you look at your life, your life isn't perfect.
31:35
Your relationship perfect, your marriage isn't perfect.
31:38
Everything's not perfect. Be okay with that, too, is stop
31:42
comparing stop. Whenever you get to the point when you're like,
31:45
is it should I do this, or this? It's a cool idea that my mentor
31:50
always says is like both went up both. Say I'm thinking of doing
31:53
this or this is like both? Do it, see what the result is. And
31:57
then from that point on, then you'll make a decision. So I'm
32:00
always looking for any excuse to do anything like I don't I don't
32:02
think about whether it should or not, I just I just do it, wait
32:05
for the result to come back. Then that also practically also
32:09
helps to have somebody that you can talk to, ideally, a mentor,
32:13
or a coach, or you know, somebody that you work with. I
32:15
mean, some some for some people, it could be your spouse, but
32:18
somebody that you run and thinking about this, what do you
32:20
think about this, they'll tell you their thoughts, just run
32:23
with it. I have a mentor, it's been such a crucial part of
32:28
growing so much. And now because I saw the power of that that's
32:31
basically I think, was one of my missions. And my intent behind
32:35
doing click funnel is for me to be a mentor to other people,
32:38
because I know how valuable that is. And I'm doing I know you do
32:41
that for a lot of people through everything that you put out.
32:44
Everybody needs a mentor. When you have a mentor, you don't
32:46
overthink things as much, because you're able to put your
32:49
ideas down. And this is what I practically do is as I go
32:52
through my day, different decisions, different things come
32:55
to me. If I can make a decision, great. I do it. If not, I just
32:58
park it into my notes, called mentor notes, whatever. And then
33:02
when I do get to talk to my mentor, I just go down my list
33:05
and Okay, think about this. And it just just tells me his gut
33:08
instinct reaction. I just accepted and I just act on it. I
33:13
don't you know, I just say okay, okay, cool. Okay, sounds good.
33:16
Okay, I just go down the list, record my notes, and I go just
33:19
down the list and it delegated or just implement, and start
33:22
things right away like that. So get a mentor, or get somebody
33:25
there. You can ask questions and clarify your thoughts.
33:28
Yeah, I love I love that. And I have when you're talking about
33:31
perfection, books sitting behind me is one of those things that
33:34
just we had editors, we had proofreaders we had. And the
33:40
first thing when I picked it up and opened it I saw a typo in
33:43
the table. Like quiz for people go find that typo in the table
33:47
of contents, I saw it immediately it was a miss
33:50
misspelling of words may have left out letter. And I just
33:54
like, Ah, I because I as a, as a professionally trained Ender.
34:01
This is like nails on a chalkboard to me and we get of
34:03
course, and I flipped through the book and I start
34:04
highlighting all the mistakes, everything I see. And, and, you
34:09
know, I was told send it, send it send us back and we can fix
34:12
it for you. I have yet to do it. Because I'm so busy moving
34:15
forward all the time. That to take the time to sit and go
34:19
through and mark everything and make sure it's done, pass off
34:22
and have them fix it just hasn't been as important to me because
34:25
the content is good. It's valid, there's great and for the people
34:28
that for the people it's meant to serve it will do that job.
34:32
And I think that's the hard part. It's an ego thing. You
34:36
know, it's very much an ego thing. And I experienced that
34:39
myself because I I just I just hate it when I put things out
34:43
and there's a mistake in or whatever. But now over the years
34:46
so many things go out and this takes that it's like I can't
34:49
always be I had some my mentor say to me, you can control all
34:55
the details you have perfectly every right if that's what you
34:58
want to do. Like you can control all details, or you can grow,
35:01
but you cannot have it both. And that's really hard for detail
35:05
oriented people like me, like a lot of other attorneys, who
35:09
just, you know, we want things, we don't want it to go out
35:12
unless it's absolutely perfect. But we have to, we have to weigh
35:19
the value of the thing that we provide what we're doing. So if
35:22
you're, if you're, as attorneys, the work is so important in
35:26
terms of in terms of it can be, save people money, it can save
35:33
people, they're long, they're very long, you know? And where
35:36
are those things are the most important? Yes, those things are
35:39
critical, right? It's critical when you're with somebody, life
35:42
is online, in your hands, and you're, you're there and you're
35:45
doing that, but from a business standpoint, from a son was
35:48
social media marketing, publishing a book, putting these
35:52
out there, or maybe hiring people and trying out their
35:56
skill sets, and then, and then deciding which one is best
35:59
letting one go, like overthinking all of that is
36:02
going to be the thing that's going to stop your growth. So
36:06
there's a time when it's appropriate to think like a
36:08
lawyer and that lawyer hat. And there's a time when it's
36:10
appropriate to think like a visionary that you need to be if
36:13
you want to grow your business, right?
36:15
Yeah. And practically, I think for most lawyers, and at least
36:19
in my experience, it's like, this whole idea of done has been
36:22
perfect. I think it's more applicable for making videos. A
36:25
lot of lawyers, I think everybody everyone has a law
36:28
firm owner needs to make videos these days, by the way, to kind
36:32
of incentivize or kind of tell people or motivate people to
36:37
make videos is to tell is to limit for me to tell you that
36:41
each video that you make is essence is essentially a rental
36:44
property. Back in the day, we had to save up a lot of money,
36:47
to be able to hopefully be able to put down a down payment for
36:50
us to buy something that we could rent out to hopefully that
36:53
will make us 1015 bucks a month a month of passive income. Well,
36:58
that in our generation of video could be those rental properties
37:02
they can create, put out to the world, and that will kind of
37:05
feed you and future clients for many, many years. But
37:08
unfortunately, a lot of go get stuck because they want it to be
37:10
perfectly, you know, have to be dressed up on that stuff.
37:13
Instead, if you just cherish and be okay with making non perfect
37:18
videos and just pull out your phone and just start talking and
37:20
just post it up and through experience, you get better and
37:22
better. That will take you a lot further and and kind of build a
37:26
foundation for the next 2030 years. If your law firm put out
37:29
these videos, and hopefully in 2022, they will live out there
37:32
for the next 1020 years.
37:33
Yeah, well, I think that's the fear some people have. And I
37:37
will say, you know, like, for those of us who are, I'm in my
37:41
50s. And so for me, it is one of those things that, you know, I
37:47
don't want to I don't watch the videos myself I am when I first
37:49
started recording my podcasts, of course, I hate the sound of
37:52
my voice, I don't want to listen to it. So I'm just recorded to
37:54
not listen to them. And I love God, I don't know, there may be
37:57
a lot of imperfections in my podcast, I don't know, I don't
37:59
care, I put it out there, I get, I get the feedback that I get
38:03
one way or the other. Um, but I know that it can be a challenge
38:08
for a lot of people because we don't, we don't want to see
38:11
ourselves or we don't want to hear ourselves. It's not who we
38:13
think we are in our mind or whatever it is. And, and we're
38:19
afraid people are gonna judge us I know, I have a my Instagram
38:22
person wanted me to do reels. And I've done some reels. And
38:26
I've had a couple that really hit tremendous success
38:29
considering that I've sold a real growth phase. But and they
38:33
were just the two dumbest reasons. Right. But that's the
38:38
thing is you never know what's going to hit and you don't get
38:41
better at it. If you don't do it, and you don't practice, I
38:43
still do enough for her. Because it's not always the priority for
38:46
me, but you don't know until you try and I try what I try to
38:52
focus on is I try to think about my own experience in listening,
38:55
watching videos or, or listening to podcasts. In that I'm there
38:59
for information. I'm there for what they're talking about, and
39:02
the subject, I'm not focused on whether or not the person looks,
39:07
you know, some kind of way in a video, I'm focused on now voice
39:12
definitely makes a difference. Um, you know, there are certain
39:14
people's voices that you can't, but that's okay, there. If
39:18
somebody doesn't like your voice, and then they're not your
39:20
audience, they're not the one who's meant for you. It's just,
39:23
you know, like, you'll find your audience and people who can deal
39:26
with all your little idiosyncrasies or whatever. But
39:29
it is hard to not to not be critical and judge ourselves.
39:35
Once you start putting things out there and you start getting
39:38
feedback from people going, oh my god, you just saved my life
39:41
or you just changed my life or, or, you know, that was amazing,
39:45
that little nugget that you shared or whatever, that's when
39:48
you start to know and you're not going to have that experience
39:50
unless you just jump in and do it.
39:52
Right. Correct. Or one of the thing I want to add to it to its
39:56
logical when they put out content they have expectations
39:58
of certain number of likes. shares, comments, things like
40:01
that. And a lot of people get bogged down on that, or they
40:05
rely on that too, in order to go to continue producing content.
40:10
If you completely just ignore numbers, and just focus on wife
40:16
control, which is how many videos you can put out how you
40:19
can serve your clients, then everything else will come
40:22
easier. For me at this point, I'm so numb to numbers, I don't
40:25
care, I'll I'll post as many videos with no likes, and no
40:28
comments, I could care less. Because I know over time, as
40:31
long as my intent is right, and I'm putting out good stuff,
40:33
that's all that matters.
40:35
What I always find is the workers are the ones who hire
40:37
anyway. So people who are looking and commenting or
40:41
whatever did not say that I don't love people who comment
40:43
and who like and give me heart, you know, I love that. But the
40:48
ones who are your buyers of whatever type of service you've
40:51
got are the ones who are following you for a while and
40:54
they're probably not commenting. They're probably not liking
40:56
there. And but they're the ones that got the cash and the money
40:59
to spend with you. So keep in mind you there's a whole shadow
41:02
audience out there that you're not even aware is out there. And
41:05
the more you put out, the more likely you're going to, you
41:09
know, expose yourself and the good work you do to those to
41:12
those people. Um, I do think with it, I don't know if you've
41:16
had this experience with some of your attorney clients, where
41:19
they are concerned, because they're concerned about putting
41:22
a video out there where they're going to share some legal
41:25
tidbit, and they're going to be wrong, or some other attorneys
41:28
gonna argue with them or anything like that. Have you had
41:30
anybody say that to you about it? Because I know that that's,
41:33
like been underlying secure insecurity in some people, but
41:36
I've heard,
41:37
yeah, again, another major limiting belief. But these days,
41:40
I'm like, so conscious of these limiting beliefs. As soon as
41:42
they hear it, I'm like, it's hard to like, argue against or
41:45
argue for it, just I'll just put out there. So limiting belief.
41:48
Yeah, we could get into it. But it is just a limiting belief.
41:51
Well, let's talk about what a limiting belief is, for those of
41:53
you who aren't familiar with that language, cuz you know, you
41:57
and I know what that means. So limiting belief, tell me how you
42:00
define a limiting belief.
42:02
It's a thought that you have about yourself that prevents you
42:04
from doing what you really want, what you're really capable of.
42:08
And the thing about limiting beliefs is that only you place
42:11
it on yourself. So it's self made. But in reality, what I do,
42:15
instead of our program, the first thing I do is I make
42:17
everybody write down their goals. Okay. Second thing we do
42:20
is if you do achieve these goals, how will you feel? So
42:24
that's usually your why. And then the third thing that you do
42:27
is what are some limiting beliefs that you have about
42:30
yourself that kind of held you back up to this point? A lot of
42:33
people will say, I'm not technical enough. I'm not, you
42:36
know, I'm not a good delegator, I'm not this and that, okay, put
42:39
it out there. And I just wait for people to put it out and
42:41
have great put it down on your worksheet. Now, I want you to
42:44
take this, the statement they just made to me and flip the
42:47
knots into his and his into his knots. So if I'm, if I'm not
42:52
technical enough, now, let's just flip that over to I am very
42:56
technical. I mean, and you mean, everybody flips it? And I'm
43:00
like, now repeat that to yourself. And everyone's like,
43:03
Oh, wait, I am technical enough. I am good enough to do this.
43:09
Yeah, I just realized, Wait, this is just things that I just
43:12
told myself, but doesn't necessarily have to be true. And
43:15
really is true. You know, I remember one time I got into
43:18
advice for how to remember names, is teacher was instructor
43:23
was, was teaching about how to remember names. It's like, let's
43:25
I'm gonna tell you one lesson. From this point forward, I want
43:29
you to tell yourself that you're great with names, you're given
43:32
names. And he just flipped it for us. And then from that point
43:35
for me was like, 10 years ago, I learned this, I'm like, No, I'm
43:37
actually great name. So since then, I've been craving names.
43:42
That is what that is amazing the power of the power of how we
43:47
talk to ourselves, what a difference it makes, and what we
43:50
can accomplish and not accomplish. And it's a struggle
43:53
that, you know, as human beings, we all have those points where
43:57
we're have insecurities, or doubts or whatever, but it's so
44:01
important, the language that we use when we talk to ourselves
44:03
who are good at work or not. And, you know, it's funny,
44:06
because you say that about technology, and we have a very
44:09
clear division of task in my household because my husband and
44:13
I both are entrepreneurial. And I'm the reader and he's the one
44:17
who handles the tech stuff. Because, you know, with my
44:20
experience as a writer, and as a tourney, I, you know, reading
44:24
contracts, whatever, I'm the reader, when it comes to
44:26
technical stuff. He's I don't have the patience for it. And I
44:30
also think that just because I don't have the mechanical
44:37
mindset or the technical mindset or the patience for it, doesn't
44:40
mean that I can't accomplish what I want to accomplish
44:42
because I'm looking at the WHO THE HELL right looking at who it
44:46
is, that can do that for me and handle that for me. And he's,
44:51
he's wonderful. You know that I live with my tech guy, right?
44:55
But also, I don't rely solely on him. I look for other people who
44:59
have hills have the skills to be able to help me set things up
45:03
and make things happen. And I know how to do things I learned
45:06
how to how to because I don't ever want to be at a point where
45:11
I can't get done what I need done. But it, it is not I know
45:18
it's not the highest and best use of my time. Right. So I'm
45:21
looking, I'm always looking for other people who can do things
45:23
to support me so I can focus on the thing that is really my, my
45:29
gift, you know, my superpower or whatever. And it can be hard
45:33
when you when you're good at if you ever heard the expression,
45:35
like, when you're good at a lot of things. You're really and
45:40
you're focused on those things that you're good at, you're
45:41
keeping yourself from the thing that your greatest your zone of
45:44
genius, or whatever you want to call it, because you're so busy
45:47
being good. And that was a big, a big aha moment for me how much
45:51
time I spent doing things I was good at. When I first started
45:54
this business, I was doing a lot of the doing for clients. And
45:58
really, the mindset work is the thing that was most powerful for
46:04
them. I didn't need to write copy or, you know, whatever, to
46:09
help them. Even though I'm good at it. It wasn't the thing that
46:12
I'm truly great at or truly wanting to do. You mentioned
46:15
such amazing plants right there, that division of labor and who
46:19
not to how one thing I also want to add to it, too is being so
46:23
self aware of who you are knowing yourself, and being true
46:27
to yourself that you know yourself that you're like this,
46:29
being true to yourself that accepting who you are. And
46:33
again, as you mentioned, you your actions should go towards
46:37
what you're good at, and what you enjoy doing. And then let
46:41
everyone else handle the rest. That is really like one of the
46:44
secret sauces of being successful. It's being true to
46:47
yourself and only doing those things that you're great at and
46:50
enjoy doing everything else they
46:51
have it off. Sam, I thank you so much for being here. You and I
46:55
could probably talk for another hour I know. But we probably
46:58
need to wrap it up. And I think it would be good to look
47:01
familiar podcasts. This is going to be coming out in about a week
47:05
from today. We're recording it. And we're also going to have it
47:08
on YouTube so a lot of people will be able to see and hear and
47:12
share their comments and their thoughts in you know, tell us
47:15
where we're right and tell us we're wrong. I really appreciate
47:20
you being here. Thanks so much.
47:21
Thank you so much, Davina. I'm gonna give props to you because
47:24
I know you serve her audience with your whole hearts on you.
47:28
You're really giving on to the world while your best that you
47:31
really enjoy doing so anybody who has been watching the
47:34
following Davina, listen to her, take her actions, whatever
47:37
program that she has, sign up, do it because it's going to be
47:40
good for you.
47:41
Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I'll talk to
47:45
you soon.
47:46
Thank you