Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / 195: Joey Vitale | Trusting Your Team for a Stress-Free Law Firm

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195: Joey Vitale | Trusting Your Team for a Stress-Free Law Firm · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:00
  Joey: If you were really good at this thing in your business, you would be able to teach it to anyone on the street and have them become good enough at it for your company. If you were really, really good at it, you would know how to train someone and you could say, bring me anybody out there as long as they're able to follow instructions that I'll make super simple. I trust that they can become a master at this within six months.
• 0:27
  Intro: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from six to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams.
• 1:14
  Now here's Devina.
• 1:18
  Davina: Hi. This is Devina. And before we jump into today's show, I'd like first to introduce you to some of our sponsors. Over the last four years, Noble Marketing has tracked more than two fifty law firms and discovered 60 to 80% of new client calls were generated through Google My Business and Google Ads. Basically, you need to be on Google, noble marketing can help.
• 1:43
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• 2:22
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• 3:01
  Davina: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Davina Frederick. And today, I am here with Joey Vitale, the infamous or famous however you know him, Joey Vitale, who is an internationally renowned speaker, award winning attorney, and business growth consultant. He has spoken to tens of thousands of people across the world. Joey has worked with influential brands like Cultivate Advisors, HoneyBook, Maximum Lawyer, and The Future.
• 3:28
  As a trusted business growth consultant, Joey helps mission driven service based business owners who want to achieve exponential growth and transform into recognized thought leaders so they can have a bigger impact. His forthcoming book is The Business Growth Advantage, How to Run Your Business in One Hour a Week, Practice Social Media Code, and Make Limitless Income and Impact. One hour a week, you are going even further than Tim Barris did.
• 3:57
  Joey: There we go. Right?
• 3:58
  Davina: We're going way in on it one hour a week. I love that. So has the book come out yet, or when do we expect it to come out?
• 4:06
  Joey: Thank you for asking. Hopefully, it will come out by the end of this year. There are some other priorities that are taking some precedent over it. But, Davina, first of all, thank you for having me on. I cannot tell you how big of an honor it is to be a guy that you've chosen to highlight on this podcast.
• 4:23
  It's not lost on me that I don't know what I did to get in your good graces to this extent, but I very much respect and love coaches like you who are carving out spaces to raise and elevate women. And I have four sisters. So when I started going out on my own business, I very much gravitated towards the other female entrepreneurs that I knew, and they were kind enough to call me a babe dude and bring me into a lot of their women only circles. So I very much appreciate it today.
• 4:56
  Davina: Your personality, I could probably tell you that you had sisters based on sort of your empathetic and sensitive personality, the way you are sensitive to other people's feelings. So I'm really happy you're here. I'm gonna enjoy this conversation with you today. You and I have had a lengthy conversation recently, and we probably should have just recorded that because it was so awesome. I'm glad you came back today so we can have it and share it with other people because we're gonna talk about some good stuff.
• 5:22
  I also in your intro, it did not say that you are the founder of Indy Law, which is an online law firm business. You have an online platform to help your clients with trademarks, and that is where you sort of started. And where you're heading, what has been going on with you is you're making a shift into the business growth advantage, which you have recently renamed Skybreaker. Am I correct?
• 5:47
  Joey: That's correct.
• 5:48
  Davina: Rebranded. Okay. Good. So we're seeing that wonderful branding, and we'll talk about that in a moment. Do you still have a global vetted VAs?
• 5:56
  Joey: Yes. So Skybreaker is turning into almost like an umbrella agency of sorts. So if you go to skybreakergroup.com in the future, we just flipped the switch on this over the weekend, and you go to a work with us tab. You'll see that we have global vetted VAs, which is a matchmaking service. We have one to one services, and we also have a growing number of programs that we have available.
• 6:23
  All of that is what we say powered by Skybreaker.
• 6:27
  Davina: Wonderful. And we'll be sure to include that in the show notes. So before we get too far down this path, I wanna introduce yourself to those who might not know you. I know a lot of people in this space know you and know who you are, but they are I'm sure there's some listeners who don't. And so tell us a little bit about your journey from law school to lawyer or what made you decide to go to law school and then Absolutely.
• 6:49
  You know, start your practice and what that journey was like for you.
• 6:53
  Joey: Yeah. So I went to law school mostly because not so much a love for the law, but a hatred of concrete. And my dad runs a construction concrete company that a lot of my family, especially my brothers and I, were led in that direction. And after a few months loading and unloading trucks, I was like, nope. This isn't for me.
• 7:16
  And so my dad was like, well, if it's not bad know. Right? So my dad was like, well, if you're not gonna join the construction company, your older sister is a doctor, so we need a lawyer in the family. So go to law school. And I was like, okay, dad.
• 7:29
  Davina: Logical.
• 7:30
  Joey: Yes, yes. And going to law school sounded like a great idea. At the time I didn't really know much. No one in my family had ever been a lawyer before. And then I got to law school and I realized something I should have seen coming which is I don't like to argue.
• 7:44
  And so all of my friends and classmates were just crushing it in trial ad classes and mock depositions and stuff. And I like that stuff in theory, like when it was just a class, But the more that I got experience working inside other firms, the more I was like, oh, I'm getting stressed out every single day. Because being that kind of bulldog fighter, whether in the courtroom or in depositions, just is not the way that I tend to show up. And you spoke to that earlier, Davina, with just kind of the fact that it's obvious that I have sisters. And for years, I thought that that meant something necessarily wrong was going on in my brain.
• 8:29
  And it got to a point where even I had partners at my firm saying, Joey, do you really wanna continue going by Joey? Because no one's gonna take a Joey seriously in court.
• 8:38
  Davina: Wow. Wow. That's horrible.
• 8:41
  Joey: It definitely felt awful to hear. And I spent the better of two years at this really great law firm trying to turn what I was perceiving as my weaknesses into strengths. Mhmm. Ultimately, got pretty burnt out by it and thought, you know what? Maybe this just isn't for me.
• 9:00
  So I decided to quit that law firm without a plan b, moved from St. Louis to Chicago with my wife, and started interviewing for jobs that I realized I was gonna hate. And then I found other business law attorneys. And one in particular really took me under her wing. She was an incredible mentor for me.
• 9:21
  We were working together for a few months. Ultimately, she got really clear for herself that her business, her law firm wasn't yet able to bring on another associate, even part time. And so she said, Joey, I'm happy to help you and point you in the right direction. I'm not going to continue to just kind of keep paying for you of counsel. But if you decide to go out on your own and learn something like trademarks, I can send you some work because I don't know trademark law.
• 9:48
  Davina: K. And so voila, Indie law was born.
• 9:52
  Joey: Yes. So at that point, we decided to focus on trademarks, went out on my own. And I cannot tell you how amazing it felt to start getting visible, to start getting inside Facebook groups and stuff. And for the first time in my lawyer life, I was seeing the pluses and the strengths to going by Joey. And there were business owners who didn't want your typical courtroom fighter attorney.
• 10:19
  And so all of this stuff that is true about me that I had been working on for two years and trying to change about myself ended up being a real secret weapon with this new client base that I was building.
• 10:30
  Davina: Right. Right. I love your story. I have heard you talk about this before. And it's interesting because it's something you and I have in common with our law practices.
• 10:41
  Because when I started out, I went to law school because I had a cousin encourage me to do that. I had an opportunity for a different career, and I had been in marketing for years. And I am a real lifelong learner, intellectual. You know, I love to study and learn new things, and it really appealed to me. And of course, there's a lot of mystique and glamour to law.
• 11:02
  So I decided, that it would be a good second career for me to go to law school and become a lawyer. Unlike you, I've always been a lifelong arguer as well, but it's really not the same thing in court, in litigation, going in and having that sort of day to day stress and anxiety around always being in an adversarial position and oftentimes with dirty players. Yeah. And not feeling that alignment, you know, for myself, even though I can do it, even though I have the skills and abilities, but it wasn't something I wanted to do on a day to day basis. And then when you couple that, I started my own law firm right out of law school.
• 11:40
  So I'm trying to figure out how to do this. I was in a litigation practice. I brought in a partner, grew a team, and it was a lot of stress and anxiety. And I am somebody who is what people would probably call a highly sensitive person. So for my whole life, I'm the person that people call sensitive because I am very emotional.
• 12:00
  But even physically, any little thing, you know, I'm a delicate hothouse flower. You know, any little thing my husband says, if there's a side effect to a medication, you're going to have it. So I'm just kind of that personality and that physicality. Right? So here I was in this high stress pressure cooker, and I was shocked, you know, that this was not working for me the way that I thought.
• 12:23
  So I relate to you in that way and sort of finding out that you don't really fit in this. And I had all the from the outside, my husband's family connections. His father was a prominent attorney in the area. I have the book. I have the presentation.
• 12:39
  I have the skills, all of that from the outside. But from the inside, it did not feel good to me what I was doing. When listening to your story and talk about that, I'm like, yeah, I totally get that. And I don't think we are anomalies, not from the people who call and ask for my help.
• 12:55
  Joey: Yeah. To anybody who's tuning in and they can relate to this, I hope that you're being inspired that there are practice areas or
• 13:04
  Davina: Career paths.
• 13:05
  Joey: Clients and career paths, people you can work with that they are looking for an attorney with your personality and characteristics and strengths. And we live in a time now where there have been so many amazing lawyers who have led this like you, Davina, who are making it easier and easier for business owners and lawyers especially to figure that out without going it alone.
• 13:30
  Davina: Yeah. Yeah. I remember a mentor of mine told me because I started my firm right at the beginning of the foreclosure crisis that swept the country. And in Florida, was significant. So that was my bread and butter money.
• 13:41
  I got into that work, but my goal was to become a family law attorney. But I really didn't like the nastiness of it. And so I tended to lean a little bit more toward collaborative, even though I didn't do collaborative law. I tended to act more with my clients like let's negotiate and settle versus go fight this out. Not that I didn't litigate if it was necessary, but that was my style.
• 14:06
  Right? And I always felt like maybe am I under serving my clients because I'm not willing to be that sort of pit bull that goes to court. And one of my mentors said to me, no, actually, that makes you a really good attorney because in family law, that's the kind of attorneys that are needed. We need more attorneys like that, you know? And so it's interesting what our perspective of ourselves versus others.
• 14:28
  But really for me, it was about how I felt on a day to day basis of what I wanted to be doing and not doing. And so with your law business, what was your moment that you could do this without being in this kind of anxiety provoking situation
• 14:45
  Joey: Yeah. Yeah. All the time. So, unfortunately, I really had to hit rock bottom before I figured all of this out. So I was about a year into running Indie Law.
• 14:55
  We had at the time, a $100,000 for the year was our big goal that we were chasing. And it's a different game depending on your practice area. And some personal injury firms hear a 100 k for the year. They're like, oh, I could get that in a day. It's a little bit of a different game that you're playing if what you sell is trademarks.
• 15:13
  And so there is a lot of volume that goes into hitting a number like that and beyond. And so there was a lot of hustling and grinding on that way to a 100 k as much as I enjoyed it and as much as I would rather have done that than continue at the firm that I was at before. But about the time that we hit the one year anniversary, I had a really significant panic attack. And if anyone listening has ever had a panic attack before, you know that it literally feels like you're dying. And I've had some in the past but never this severe.
• 15:46
  I was rushed to the ER. They gave me medicine. I went back home, had another panic attack. And if I'm being honest, I'm sure that there were work stresses that caused the first panic attack here that I was having. Mhmm.
• 16:01
  But something was going on. Something wasn't right. My wife, my family, they were seeing that this wasn't common, and the doctors were like, we don't know why he's having them back to back. I had another one, went back to the hospital. This time I was having them so frequently that I was staying at the hospital.
• 16:18
  Wow. And they were running tests. Eventually, they ran brain scans and credit to the doctors here in Chicago. I mean, I'm lucky to be living in a city with some of the best hospitals and doctors in the world. They didn't quite know what was going on.
• 16:32
  And when they especially ran the brain tests and the brain scans, there was like, we don't know what we're gonna find here, but there's got to be some signs pointing to something. Once the brain scans came back negative, they thought a little bit more creatively, into things, and they realized eventually that I have a super rare allergic reaction to most antianxiety medications.
• 16:57
  Davina: Oh, wow. Wow. And so you were taking antianxiety medication before the first incident? No. Or did they put it onto you after the first incident?
• 17:06
  Joey: Yes. So I'm sure that I caused that first one, but it was the medications
• 17:09
  Davina: that you gave it. It's just yes. It occurred. Yes.
• 17:13
  Joey: So the first one occurred, and then the other ones were worsened by this. And so once they figured that out, they were able to to find a medication that could help me with the stress and the anxiety, but in a different way than the other medications were. And so I was getting better, but I'll never forget on my last day of outpatient care. And this is, I think at this point maybe three weeks where I was in the hospital, didn't have my laptop, wasn't working with clients. The doctor said, you know, we think that you're gonna make a fine recovery, but your brain went through a very traumatic experience.
• 17:49
  And you're just one more super stressful day at work away from another panic attack and coming back to the hospital.
• 17:56
  Davina: Wow.
• 17:57
  Joey: And so you have to do everything that you can to create a stress free law firm for yourself, and that's doctor's orders.
• 18:05
  Davina: Wow. Wow. And I've never heard of such a thing, stress free. I know. I'm sure you were like, how does one do that?
• 18:12
  Yeah.
• 18:13
  Joey: Luckily, at this point, I did have the beginnings of a team, and they really stepped in when I was gone. Not that I would ever recommend that anybody go through what I went through or wish that on anybody. But whenever people say like, hey. How are you building your team? How are you developing trust so quickly?
• 18:30
  Because of the experience that I went through and my team stepping up, I was like, okay. You guys can have my social security numbers. You guys can have like, you have earned it at this point because you've shown that you can do x y z. Mhmm. And this was not an overnight flip of a switch, but what we ultimately did was we did a lot of strategic planning around how can we turn a dial every quarter, every month so that the company depends less and less on me.
• 19:01
  Right. Because we've learned not only is it good for my mental health, but it's good for the business. And the more the company depends on me, the less it's worth.
• 19:12
  Davina: Do you mind if I ask you when in terms of the anxiety provoking part, was that about working with clients or was that about the pressure of needing to know everything or to have all the answers? Or is it like, I just really don't like to be around people? Like, what do you think that was about? Because I think there's something there that a lot of other people could relate to.
• 19:33
  Joey: Yeah. I will say one of the things that I have learned to do, and this is kind of like words that I've taken from my therapist, Mhmm. Look at the monster under the bed or in the closet. Because I think a lot of the fear that I was having, if I actually thought through what I was afraid of, there was nothing to really be scared about. Yes.
• 19:51
  I had certain fears of like, what if a client gets super upset and like blows up at me? I think I had bigger fears of what if business suddenly dries up.
• 20:01
  Davina: I think that's very common.
• 20:02
  Joey: Yeah. What if I go month to month and all of a sudden I made these big investments and nothing pays off? And I had to go through being real with myself and learning how to be okay with the fact that I have certain blessings and privileges in my life that I am aware of, I am thankful for, and I know that at the end of the day, I do have safety nets in place.
• 20:25
  Davina: Right. Right. Right.
• 20:26
  Joey: Not that I'm gonna lean on that or get lazy, but it was really helpful for me to know that worst case scenario, if something bad happens with the business, I have a family that supports me. My wife's got a great job. We don't have any kids. I have it pretty good in terms of, you know, what is the worst case scenario.
• 20:46
  Davina: Right. Right. I really appreciate you sharing that. I know that's a very vulnerable share, and I really appreciate you doing it because I have so many conversations with women lawyers who have similar fears. And it could take the form of how am I going to pay the bills?
• 21:03
  How am I going to pay to hire somebody? I know I need to hire somebody or whatever. There are all kinds of whatever those specific fears are. But one of the things we opt that I often do to help them sort of overcome some of those in I'm not a therapist by any means. This is just a little tool that I've learned through the years, which is how we tend we're hardwired to sort of go to worst case scenarios anyway.
• 21:25
  The human brain, like 85% of the human brain goes to negative thoughts. And so one of the things that I've done over the years to help get me through is take it all the way out to the worst case. And I go all the way, okay. Well, I'm gonna lose all my clients. The whole business is gonna fail.
• 21:40
  We're gonna be living on the streets in a box in a cardboard box. Know, like I take it all the way out and then I start backing myself up with the truth and going, okay, would we really live on the street in a cardboard box? Probably not. My husband and I are both educated people and you know, we don't have any kids. And so a lot of it is and for other people, their scenarios are gonna be different.
• 22:01
  They may have kids. They may you know, their career depends on them, but they can back it up too. I will get a job. I'm a highly educated person. I can get a job there.
• 22:10
  We all have some sort of blessings and points of privilege, or we wouldn't have been able to get through law school to begin with. Right. And be where we are. Right? Our intelligence alone is that.
• 22:21
  So backing up from kind of the worst case scenario, but take it all the way out, run it all the way out to, you know, we're living under I four in a box. And then you'll realize, like, how much your brain sort of blows things up for you and then taking and sort of backing that up.
• 22:38
  Joey: A part of why that's so powerful is it forces you to be more aware of the fear instead of just living in it. You can kind of look at it and observe it and trace yourself back to the present moment. One thing that I often tell my team and the clients that we work with is, you know, everyone says have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset or a limiting mindset. Mhmm. The truth is you can only have one of those mindsets at a time.
• 23:05
  And so when you're in fear or stress or whatever mode I love what you said about lay that all out until the end. Yeah. And then get back into your abundant growth mindset mode because your brain can't simultaneously be Right. You gotta get all and looking for growth at the same time.
• 23:26
  Davina: Wow. You gotta get all that feeling out and take it all the way out because your mind is telling you a story. So just go with the story. Go all the way where the story and just and what else? And what else?
• 23:35
  Other terrible things can happen? What other terrible and then when you get it, then you start to feel ridiculous. You get to a point where your brain starts going, that's ridiculous. I won't actually do that. I won't be living in a frigid air box.
• 23:46
  Like, you know, so whatever it is, then you start to add a little levity, which can help you. Yep. And I've done this with clients in our group. You know, I had the last week, I had somebody who was freaking out about hiring somebody. She desperately needed to hire somebody.
• 24:01
  She And was like, I'm just worried that I'm going to this is gonna happen. I said, well, what else? What else will happen? What else? And I took her all the way up because she wasn't thinking living in a cardboard box, but I took her.
• 24:10
  And then they're gonna be terrible, and my my clients are gonna hate me. It's all gonna fall apart, so and so forth. And it got everybody laughing, but also it gets you thinking. It got her thinking like, you're right. I'm telling myself all these stories.
• 24:23
  And if I could tell myself that story, what other stories can I tell that might support where I am now? But we've gone down this deep rabbit hole, and thank you for going there with me.
• 24:32
  Joey: I love it. I think it's also worth giving a little bit of tough or blunt love here. One thing that I've learned because as your business grows, the issues that you face, they don't get any smaller. Right?
• 24:45
  Davina: Right.
• 24:46
  Joey: And I don't want this to come across as judgy or insult y. But something that I've learned about myself is if I can't learn how to confront these issues as a way of I'm excited to play the game. There have been so many times in the past where the business has been faced some type of challenge and I'm like, Ugh, I wish that we could just skip this to the good part where stuff is easy.
• 25:12
  Davina: Right. Right. We all know that feeling. Right?
• 25:14
  Joey: The place that you're going through this hard episode, this hard phase, that is the good part. The sooner you can wrap your mind as a CEO, I have a duty to lean in and love the game of there are always problems. The problems are getting bigger. What can we do to solve them? The faster you will grow.
• 25:35
  And if you ultimately feel and find that you yourself just don't enjoy that game of there's new level, new devil
• 25:45
  Davina: Mhmm.
• 25:45
  Joey: Then owning and running a business might not be for you. Not because there's anything wrong with you, but because this is the nature of growing a company. And you might value other things more than the results and consequences you get from having to play this game.
• 26:02
  Davina: Right. I just had a similar conversation with somebody this morning. She's trying to figure out if this law firm business thing is going to work. Like, there's something missing that she's not able to sort of figure this out. And the first thing I asked her is I said, are you sure that you want a business?
• 26:20
  What about getting a job and being a lawyer? And so we were able to talk through that, and I found out that she's has been through kind of that process in her own mind, but she's come to the conclusion she definitely wants the business. Okay. But there's a knowledge gap. Right?
• 26:33
  And so that we can fill in. But if somebody doesn't want to do the thing to begin with, then don't spend your life doing that. Go. There's no shame in working for another firm. And I mean, I've had many jobs.
• 26:45
  Right? And I've gotten something out of every experience. But you definitely do have to enjoy overcoming challenges because there's always going to be something. And because you're transforming into a per into a different type of person. It's your growth.
• 26:59
  It's the personal growth that's going on. It's not just your business growth. When I say law firm solo to CEO, it's the transformation. And the transformation comes from facing leadership challenges and overcoming them and growing into the person. Because when you were there at that 100 k with Indy Law, you were a completely different person than the person who's grown that into a larger business and now is launching a whole new business model
• 27:28
  Joey: Very true.
• 27:29
  Davina: That you started out with Global Vetta VAs, and now it's evolved into something else and something more. So you've transformed into that person, and you're still transforming.
• 27:38
  Joey: Mhmm.
• 27:38
  Davina: Right? So owning a business is a great way in terms of if you really love growth and you wanna get the most out of your life in terms of growth and really living on the edge, it's a great way to help you do that. It's not so great in terms of, you know, if you don't love that. If you don't love it, don't do it. You know?
• 27:58
  There are a lot of other challenges that you can undertake and still have growth experiences. I want to talk about team though, because this has evolved into your area of expertise because you had to rely on a team, whether they were the IT team or not, you had to rely on them because you were just taken out of the picture. Yeah. And you've told us a little bit about what you learned from that experience, but go a little deeper into that. What was it like to suddenly say, oh my god.
• 28:25
  Now I have a business that I can't work in every day because it's too much for me. I need to take care of myself first. I have to trust other people.
• 28:37
  Davina: I hope you're enjoying the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. We'll get back to the show in just a moment. But first, I'd like to thank some of our sponsors. In the next ten years, 90% of legal services will be delivered online. Gavel is the software lawyers are using to streamline internal document automation and build online legal products like landlord legal or hello divorce.
• 29:04
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• 29:37
  Wealthy Woman Lawyer helps women law firm owners scale their law firm businesses to and through a million dollars without overwork and overwhelm. If you are a woman law firm owner who wants to make more money, but doesn't want to work yourself into the ground in the process, then I invite you to check out my free training three stages from law firm solo to ceo, how to get to 7 figures faster with my proven million dollar law firm growth roadmap. This is the exact same roadmap I've shared with hundreds of other women law firm owners so they could create and scale a profitable, sustainable and wealth generating law firm business that allows them not only to easily fund the lifestyle of their dreams, but also to have the time freedom they need to enjoy it. Do you want to travel more, spend more time with family and friends, or just have more time for yourself, but you're afraid that your law firm will fall apart if you're not there day in and day out, then this is the training for you. Visit https:go.wealthywomanlawyer.com/training now, or you can just click on the link in the show notes.
• 30:47
  And now back to our show.
• 30:49
  Joey: Well, let me rewind to, like, the month after I was finally set home from the hospital. During that time, my family and I were quickly gaining confidence that as long as I was taking this new medication, I would be fine. But there was still a risk, and there was a month where my wife wouldn't let me sleep without her in the room. Like, couldn't travel. I couldn't do whatever.
• 31:12
  She was like, need to be here because I was usually having these panic attacks, like, in my sleep because of a nightmare at this point.
• 31:18
  Davina: Oh, wow.
• 31:19
  Joey: And so she would be around and she could help calm me down if I started showing any symptoms. That being said, there was enough of a threat that this might happen again where our attention was how can we first make sure that our existing clients are taken care of if something happens to me? That was the number one big concern. And we now have four or five different departments across the company. At the time, we just had three.
• 31:45
  We had growth, we had fulfillment, and then we had operations. Think we're a little different than most law firms and that our operations department is not the department where our clients get served. Our operations department is where all of our operations and processes, and it's almost like the backstage of the businesses. Yeah. And so our big priority was to get me out of as many of the doer tasks under fulfillment as possible.
• 32:12
  And once we started doing that, I was still the bottleneck at the management and the leadership level. So my business sidekick at the time, she started to replace me at a management level and then ultimately became the department lead of fulfillment. Once we had that in place, we were like, okay. Clients are being taken care of, but there are various processes that aren't streamlined or aren't even processes yet. We need to figure this stuff out.
• 32:39
  We're growing the team now, so it's less dependent on Joey. We need processes for that as well. So then we shifted to that operations department. And my sidekick then eventually moved over to leading our operations department, and another rock star teammate of ours became the fulfillment team lead.
• 32:57
  Davina: Right.
• 32:58
  Joey: And around this time, it was like, okay. We don't think that there's a huge risk that I'm going to be back in the hospital anytime soon, but we're starting to see all of these benefits to me designing myself out of various roles in the company. And that was when we started to say, okay. If we did start to remove Joey from the marketing and sales side of things, how would that look like? It's important to talk about even, like, voluntary time off.
• 33:24
  If you wanna take a vacation, it's pretty hard to take a vacation if all the client work revolves around you. But even after you move that to the side and have someone else doing it, it can be really hard to take a vacation when you know that by taking that vacation, you're not doing any prospecting. Clients might be taken care of during that time away, but no new work is coming in and you're hurting the future of the business by taking the time off. And so then that became a game that we were playing was how can we build it so that if something happens to me or anyone else on the team, it's not affecting the calls and the sales that we're making every week and every month.
• 33:59
  Davina: How long did that process take to sort of pull you out? I call it pull you out of the day to day operations of the business, but also really it's the day to day. So management, the way I sort of help explain it to people is management is where you're helping your team, you're guiding your team operations of the business. CEO leadership is more visionary. It's more setting and holding the vision and inspiring people to galvanize around your vision.
• 34:25
  Right? So how long did that process take for you to sort of pull yourself out of all of this so that they can operate independently of you?
• 34:34
  Joey: We work very much in ninety day and quarters. So it took, I wanna say, two quarters for us to officially bring someone else to leading the fulfillment side and designing me up out of a good chunk of all of that work. It took us about a year for us to have a growing team that was taking over a lot of the operations in fulfillment. And then it took about two more years to design me out of sales and then marketing. But a lot of this, I wanna be clear.
• 35:04
  It's not like from day one, I had this plan of, oh, I'm gonna get myself out of this and then this and then this. All that I could see at the time was I need to get out of all the client work that I'm doing. And then that happened and I was like, What else is there that's taking up my time that would be helpful for me to design myself out of? And by the time I realized, oh, it would be nice for someone else to help me with the sales side of things. At that point, I was doing all of the sales calls for the firm.
• 35:30
  Once we started making shifts, fast forward twelve months, and I wasn't doing any more sales calls.
• 35:35
  Davina: Yeah. Yeah. With each piece that was being released for you, it made you much more open probably to releasing the next piece. Because the hardest part, I think, for most people is just that beginning part of just releasing something. What I always tell people is you're not the best person for every job in your business.
• 35:56
  Like on an intellectual level, objective level, you have to know you're not the best person for every job in your business. And yet solos tend to operate and struggle to hire people because on some level, they believe that they can do every job better than somebody else. That's particularly difficult for lawyers because we know we're highly intelligent. We're highly educated. And so once you've gone through law school, you're like, man, I mean, I see where doctors get this.
• 36:26
  Right? Once you go through that, you think to yourself, there's nothing I couldn't do if I had the time to learn it. Like, there's nothing I couldn't learn if I had the time to learn it. Yeah. Because I know I'm an intelligent person.
• 36:38
  I was able to do this so I could learn that. And I think that winds up being our enemy because really, truly, just because you could learn something doesn't mean, a, you have the time to do it. It doesn't mean you'd be great at it. Right? I could learn to be a really awesome CPA and bookkeeper, but I hate those things.
• 36:56
  And so theoretically, I could go learn it. But my god, you know, kill me now. I could not do it. Right?
• 37:03
  Joey: So I wanna take I love what you're saying and I wanna take it one step further, which is this. If you were really good at this thing in your business, you would be able to teach it to anyone on the street and have them become good enough at it for your company. If you were really, really good at it Wow. Wow. You would know how to train someone and you could say, bring me anybody out there as long as they're able to follow instructions that I'll make super simple.
• 37:30
  I trust that they can become a master at this within six months.
• 37:34
  Davina: I don't think any solo small fur person thinks in that in those terms. I mean, I think that is a real moment for people to listen to what you just said. Because now if you're complaining about all those people that those butt in seats that you've hired that aren't working, you have to look at yourself and go, well, if I know it so well, if I'm so much better at it, then why can't I teach it to them? Why are they still being incompetent? It's the whole, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders thought.
• 38:07
  Right? That's a really powerful moment. When did you sort of have that epiphany or do you remember somewhere along the line?
• 38:14
  Joey: I don't know exactly what caused the epiphany, but I'll tell you what it translated to. Because my team and I led with this energy of give us anybody and we can train you how to do x y z. I can't tell you how many overseas assistants that were paying $10 an hour or less, which is good money for where they live.
• 38:34
  Davina: Right.
• 38:35
  Joey: And we are putting them on tasks that if we put out a job posting or try to pay a vendor here in The US, we could easily be paying 30 to $50 an hour plus. I mean, we took someone who was interested in Facebook ads but didn't know how to do them. And through trainings that we invested in and learned ourselves and learned how to teach and pass the baton forward, she can compete with any Facebook ads expert out there now.
• 39:02
  Davina: Wow.
• 39:03
  Joey: And we're doing that with trademarks. I mean, we have law school interns who can probably run circles around some trademark attorneys just because of the processes and systems that they have access to at this point.
• 39:16
  Davina: But at some point, you had one of the things you've mentioned is your right hand person. Right? At some point, you made some good hires to have people who had the capability of taking over for you operationally and helping to create those systems and train people. Because I don't imagine that you were grinding away all by yourself creating the systems on top of your business and training people. Right?
• 39:43
  Because I think that's the vision that a lot of solos have is that, okay, that's great. But in my spare time, like I'm working in the business, how am I gonna hire and train these people? Because I don't have all this documented. Right? And so oftentimes what I say to them is that you gotta hire people to help you do the documenting.
• 40:02
  Like, it can't just be you documenting everything. But percent. How did you find those first people that sort of became your core team to help lead you through this?
• 40:12
  Joey: Yeah. I wish I had, like, a hidden website or something that I could share with you guys. The truth is that I told some friends that I needed to bring on a team member, and a handful of them were like, oh my gosh. You need to work with this person. A lot of the people who are on my team either run their own businesses or they have several clients that they do this type of work for on a part time basis.
• 40:33
  And when I first had my one or two, like, US based teammates that were elevating into management and leadership, I didn't realize I was doing anything super unique at the time. But I was like, you guys, I think that you're awesome and I don't have the money to pay you all full time. And I don't wanna put the pressure on my business to pay you guys full time quickly. So what I'm happy to do is connect you guys with other business owners who could use your services. And so, I mean, I must have given my team three, maybe four other businesses for them to work with within the twelve months that we worked together.
• 41:08
  And my promise to myself was as long as I maintain a really great work culture and one of their bosses or or leaders that they love working with, I have nothing to worry about. Some of my lawyer friends are like, why would you do that? If they pay more, they're gonna leave you. And I was like, I'm willing to take that risk.
• 41:29
  Davina: Did you ever switch to a model where you have employees, w two employees kind of in those positions? Or I still have no employees. Okay. Alright. Another moment for people is it's very interesting.
• 41:42
  And I think this is something that is so unique to our time. People will often hear me discuss this because I'm in my mid fifties. And so my career, my first career was in the nineties and second career, you know, in the February, in the early two thousands. And when I started my law firm, Facebook was only about three years old and Instagram wasn't even a thing. Right?
• 42:04
  There was no such Instagram. And all the automation tools that are available to attorneys now that came out of the pandemic even. Right? So so much has changed in technology where there was a time if you had your own business, you had to have employees. You had independent contractors.
• 42:19
  It was a very unique it was a certain thing in certain industries. Right? And a unique law firms would not even have considered not hiring people as employees. Right? I think that's a really interesting model to discuss a little bit.
• 42:34
  Joey: Yeah. I will say that it's not necessarily something that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, especially without knowing the particulars of their business or their law firm setup. When you look at the specific people and roles that we have, over half of our team is overseas. And given the laws of where they work, the the laws are very friendly towards them being contractors, and they really like being contractors because almost all of our VAs work with other companies. They were the inspiration behind global vetted VAs.
• 43:07
  So in the same way where I was kind of pimping out my team to other attorneys, eventually, my overseas VAs were like, hey. Could you do the same for us? Because we'd love more people to work with, and we don't wanna put indie law's budget in a grind by keep asking for more hours.
• 43:21
  Davina: One of the challenges that I've experienced is you're working with somebody and they're great, and they're like your best kept secret. And then people ask you, well, how are you getting this done? And you start referring business to them, and then they start growing, and then they start bringing in employees to do your work that are not as good as they are. And so it's something that I've experienced in working with vendors who they're small. It's just them.
• 43:46
  They're doing the work, and they're doing a great job. But as their business start to grow based on your referrals, then they start plugging in writers who aren't as good or whatever is as good. And so it is you say this.
• 43:58
  Joey: We have a couple of guidelines in terms of team building. One is that we keep the number of vendors that we work with to a minimum. Just because we've learned that there are enough great resources and programs and books out there that a lot of the vendors that we would work with, either they or a company like them, has something where it's like you can work with them directly or you can buy their course or whatever, which is just as good as working with them directly. You just don't have them handholding you. So we do as much as we can in terms of how can we do the work of internalizing processes instead of having our business depend on the vendor doing their job.
• 44:34
  And the contractors that we work with, they are team of one in terms of their companies that they really like being an independent contractor over an employee for various reasons. But one thing that we highlight and if you saw under the hood of our business, it's very obvious, is we create coverage for every single role in the business. Both because we want you to feel confident that you can go on vacation and you don't have to worry about your roles in the business not doing well or you having to take out fires while you're gone. And because we want everyone to know that, look, if you find another better opportunity and you'd rather not work with us, I don't take any of that personally. I want the best for you.
• 45:18
  And the most effective way to make that transition is to already have someone who's kind of on the bench on that task so that you can
• 45:27
  Davina: work with the institutions away. All over the place. Yep. All over the For your core team that have their own businesses that you refer business to, though, you never had any of that experience with any of them?
• 45:39
  Joey: Any of them bringing on a team member and then
• 45:42
  Davina: Where you refer more business, their business grew, and so they weren't as hands on in your business anymore.
• 45:48
  Joey: It happens and it's a good thing. So let me give you an example. So one of my sidekicks is now the COO of the company. And other companies like her, and so she's starting to do more work with other people. And as her other clients that she was working for said, you know, we'd love you to do more work here.
• 46:07
  And she was like, Joey, can I? I was like, great. Let's figure out a way for you to become just the COO of this company. And how can we minimize your hours with us by taking off all of these lower level tasks? And we can probably give you a pay bump in terms of an hourly rate.
• 46:24
  So it's a real win win there for her to see, oh, if I can work fewer hours with Indie Law by being, you know, this super fractional COO that doesn't really need to do much because the business is pretty streamlined and rocking and rolling.
• 46:39
  Davina: All of this is an evolution. So I think for people who are having a hard time wrapping their mind around it, if you think of it in terms of just incrementally, like it's incremental progress over the course of a few years, as you discussed, you didn't start out with this grand vision of this is ultimately where I'm gonna go. I'm gonna have this fractional officers in the business and somebody's gonna be handling all the way. Right? This is something that has just evolved naturally for you and your business as your business has grown.
• 47:08
  Well, naturally with intention. I mean, obviously, at some point you made some decisions.
• 47:12
  Joey: Right. When I look back and what I now help other business owners clarify is that there are what we've identified as five main identities, a CEO. And as you build your team, you elevate or evolve to the next phase. So you go from a true solopreneur to a hustler where you're still doing most things but not everything, to a systemizer where you start to fall in love with systems but you're still managing everything and all of the systems, to a leader where you now have managers in place who are overseeing those systems for you. And you start to take a back seat to, like, what's the newest app that I can use all the time?
• 47:56
  Because you're more focused now on the people than the tools and processes. And then finally, the the visionary level is you have a team of leaders who are leading the departments for you.
• 48:08
  Davina: What advice would you have for law firm owners who are wanting to really grow internal managers and management levels and pull themselves out of that management circle because I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. Hire and they sort of conflate management and leadership. They're very two different things. Leaders Yes. Managers are leaders, but the business leader can be a manager as you're growing, but eventually you wanna pull yourself even out of that management.
• 48:38
  What advice would you have for them in terms of identifying and then cultivating internal leaders in your business?
• 48:46
  Joey: Yeah. So when you look at the managers on our team, both currently and historically, you'll see that the way that we do business, the management seat is filled by one of two different people. Either the manager is one of our overseas VAs who has really just proven themselves to be a real rock star. And so when we elevate that VA to be a manager, they are elevating themselves out of all those doer tasks, they're now managing VAs who are doing the doer work that they used to do. That's one way that a manager can look.
• 49:23
  Another way that the management seat can be filled is someone who's more US based, maybe even local to you. You're working towards them becoming a leadership team member. And in order for them to really confidently lead the team and be in quarterly strategic planning meetings with you and annual planning meetings with you, they first have to understand how to manage the doers. You'll have these weekly department meetings where the team lead is meeting with the managers. The doers don't have to be a part of this meeting.
• 49:55
  Davina: Right. Right.
• 49:56
  Joey: So the manager is either this superstar overseas assistant for us, or it's like a team leader in training and in transition.
• 50:08
  Davina: Your elevation of your people to management of systems and processes at the very least was an accelerated process because there was a crisis involved and you were out and people either stepped up or they didn't step up. And in your case, they stepped up. They're self identifying, but I can lead this company while you're out, which I think is fantastic to have that experience. Have you ever had an experience with someone where you hoped that they would be able to take over a process or a part of the company and they didn't rise to the occasion?
• 50:42
  Joey: The only time that it hasn't happened, it's been on me.
• 50:45
  Davina: In what way? Can you give
• 50:46
  Joey: us an example? This two ways. So there were times where we tried to bring people into a leadership team in a department like growth where we didn't really have proven systems yet. So for example, we had someone who was leading the marketing and growth department and they were like, Joey, I'm trying to do what I can to get us leads for this week or for this month, but I don't know what I can do this week to get the phone ringing. That was on me because we hadn't yet figured out what those leading indicators were, those levers that she could pull day to day, week to week so that the phone would ring.
• 51:25
  Davina: Right.
• 51:26
  Joey: Another issue that we ran into was when my now COO decided to take on the position of COO. Her and I were both a little uncertain about it because for all of the strengths that she has, and she has many, there were parts of responsibilities of being a COO that were not in her just natural wheelhouse. And if you were to run her through a skills test or whatever, they likely would say like, this person is not a COO. But she is one of those people who said, I don't care what my strengths are. I don't care what some personality test says for me.
• 52:04
  I want to be a CEO of a company like Indy Law. And so we have worked on those personality types and strengths of her. And we found too that, like, the company doesn't need a a plus COO right now because other things are running smoothly. So we could afford to bring on a b minus or whatever level COO and have them work up. And she has grown so much.
• 52:32
  And so that's another thing that I wanna share is I do think that there is a time and a place for using strength test and personality test to figure out who would be a good fit for various roles. But I think you also have to consider what do they want for themselves. Mhmm. And if they are willing and committed to work on certain things because that's what they want for their future, I believe in infinite possibility.
• 52:59
  Davina: Right. Right. I love a good personality test. I've taken many. And it's always interesting taking them and then comparing them and seeing, yeah, that's me.
• 53:06
  And they're like, what's very interesting is I took one within this last year or something, and I was reading the weaknesses of that particular personality type. Mhmm. I was going worked on that in therapy, worked on that in therapy, worked on So that there's a lot of things that we can grow and mature, and we bring other experiences into our world. We connect with other people. We can grow.
• 53:29
  And I think that's what you're talking about is creating a nurturing ground for people to grow as long as they express a willingness and a desire to do that. One last thing before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask you, what would you say to law firm owners who are hesitant to work with an overseas VA or a team or anybody because maybe they feel like there's a control issue there. This idea that I don't know this person, they're in another country. I can't lay eyes on them, my hands on them. And also, you know, what about my confidentiality agreements and all that kind of stuff?
• 54:04
  Like, if they're physically out of my control, what is that like?
• 54:08
  Joey: This is very unlawyerly of me, but I will say keep in mind, you've probably heard this before, but don't sweat small stuff, and almost everything is small stuff. I can't tell you how many business owners, myself included, that I talked to, including myself inside my head, going through various issues and worst case scenarios and eventually being like, oh, yeah. Like, our business, it grows from making mistakes and learning from them over time. And when I look at my VAs, especially when I look at, like, the numbers of what my VAs are doing right now, all I see are snowballs over time getting bigger and bigger. And there is so much opportunity to saying, how can I bring somebody on less than minimum wage here in The United States?
• 54:57
  And month by month, quarter by quarter, give them more and more work. I mean, that's such a huge profit saver for the business over time. Right. And that's been amazing for us. The other thing that I'll say is I have yet to talk to someone who's told me that they have gotten their confidentiality broken by an overseas VA.
• 55:19
  One thing that you need to be mindful of is that if you bring on someone who wants to work with your company and wants that sustainability and security of getting paid, they are not going to jeopardize that.
• 55:30
  Davina: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. I think on that note, we will wrap it up. You and I could probably talk for another hour at least, but we probably need to end this recording at some time.
• 55:40
  So we'll end it now. But I want to ask you, tell us how we can connect with you and find out more about Skybreaker and watch all of that evolve.
• 55:51
  Joey: No. I really appreciate it. Yeah. If you go to skybreakergroup.com and then you can click on the work with us tab to see more about the types of services that we offer. You can also go to skybreakergroup.com/bettercall Joey.
• 56:08
  If you wanna hop on a free thirty minute call with me, I'd be honored to chat with you.
• 56:11
  Davina: Wonderful. Thanks so much, Joey. As always, I've enjoyed chatting with you, so thanks for being here today. And I think we shared a lot of great information on this podcast. I am curious to hear how our listeners react.
• 56:23
  So you guys are listening and you like it, make sure you leave us a review and let us know that you like this kind of content.
• 56:28
  Joey: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 56:30
  Davina: Thank you.
• 56:30
  Joey: Thanks, Divina.
• 56:33
  Intro: If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.