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#69 - How Law Firm Culture Shapes Marketing Success with Adam Rossen · Sharp Strategies Sweet Success

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One thing that I've really learned about standards is standards
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are the minimums
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SPEAKER_00: that you tolerate.
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SPEAKER_00: And you can say you have certain standards,
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SPEAKER_00: but if you tolerate less,
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SPEAKER_00: well then those are your standards,
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SPEAKER_00: not what you purport yourself to be.
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SPEAKER_01: Sure.
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SPEAKER_01: Strategies.
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SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
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SPEAKER_01: Success.
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SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome.
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SPEAKER_01: You're listening to Sharp Strategies, Sweet Success.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Tiffany Spodensky.
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And today we are talking with Adam Rawson of the Rawson Law
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Firm down in Florida.
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SPEAKER_01: Before I misspeak, are you guys in Orlando?
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SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
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SPEAKER_00: No, we're in South Florida.
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SPEAKER_00: So between Boca and Fort Lauderdale.
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SPEAKER_00: So we're in the part of Florida that where,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: most of us came from the Northeast,
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SPEAKER_00: at least either recently or one or two generations ago.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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And I've known Adam for a long time through Great Legal
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Marketing and Ben Glass.
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I've met up with him at a few events and generally probably
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keep up with each other on LinkedIn.
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SPEAKER_01: I'll probably see your post every now and then.
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SPEAKER_01: And I really appreciate having him on the show.
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SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Adam.
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SPEAKER_00: Tiff, thanks for having me.
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SPEAKER_00: It's so great.
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I was thinking back,
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I think we've known each other maybe almost 10 years now.
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SPEAKER_00: It's kind of crazy.
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SPEAKER_00: Time flies.
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SPEAKER_00: And you see where the journeys have taken us and our friends and people,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: it's really cool stuff.
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So this is probably one of the last few podcasts I'm recording
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this year.
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SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking 2026,
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SPEAKER_01: marketing plans,
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SPEAKER_01: the future,
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SPEAKER_01: that kind of thing,
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SPEAKER_01: as people do at the end of the year.
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SPEAKER_01: What are you guys doing at the Rawson Law Firm?
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SPEAKER_01: Or what are your plans for marketing that you're wanting to share?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we're doing a ton.
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SPEAKER_00: And really...
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We can keep it in marketing if you want or if you want to talk
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just overall like
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SPEAKER_00: law firm growth management too.
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SPEAKER_00: But I'd say the last four months,
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four to five months have been some of the probably the most
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trying and difficult
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SPEAKER_00: time of my career owning a law firm,
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SPEAKER_00: which is now I think 17,
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SPEAKER_00: 18 years.
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SPEAKER_00: So it's been an amazing experience, extremely hard.
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SPEAKER_00: But it's what was needed.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm very happy and confident that we're on the right track.
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So it's I mean,
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if you want,
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we can definitely that's something to go into.
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And I've been focused a lot on our business plan and marketing
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plan for next year.
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SPEAKER_01: Well,
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much you want to reveal or talk about,
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SPEAKER_01: but like,
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SPEAKER_01: what have your struggles been recently?
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SPEAKER_00: Oh,
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SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: I'll definitely talk about it because,
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SPEAKER_00: look,
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SPEAKER_00: listening to your podcast and others,
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SPEAKER_00: these are the things that help me all the time.
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SPEAKER_00: So for the last,
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SPEAKER_00: I'd say,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe two years,
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we have a lot of different business coaches and we're in the
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firm and myself,
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SPEAKER_00: we're in some different groups.
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But a lot of our coaches have said that we had a massive
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culture problem at the firm.
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SPEAKER_00: And.
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SPEAKER_00: You think about it and you're like, well, not really.
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SPEAKER_00: Or you want to push back against your coaches.
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But it's funny because these are people that are not
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emotionally invested and
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SPEAKER_00: they're looking from the outside in.
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SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times they can see things that I couldn't really see.
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SPEAKER_00: And they said that really it stemmed from a lack of accountability.
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And we did not hold people accountable,
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and we had let our standards continue to drop.
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And one thing that I've really learned about standards is
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standards are the
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SPEAKER_00: minimums that you tolerate.
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SPEAKER_00: And you can say you have certain standards,
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SPEAKER_00: but if you tolerate less,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: then those are your standards,
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SPEAKER_00: not what you purport yourself to be or what you say,
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SPEAKER_00: right,
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SPEAKER_00: that the firm stands for all these things.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, it doesn't if you allow all these other things.
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SPEAKER_00: And so we had been told that for about a year or two.
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SPEAKER_00: And basically by the summer, I really started to realize it.
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SPEAKER_00: And I said, look, we have five amazingly talented attorneys besides me.
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SPEAKER_00: I've been out of production for four years.
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SPEAKER_00: But...
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SPEAKER_00: We had that all-star team of excellent attorneys, but no role players.
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Everybody wanted to take,
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if this was a basketball team,
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everybody wanted to take the last shot.
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SPEAKER_00: Nobody wanted to handle the little cases,
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SPEAKER_00: the DUIs,
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SPEAKER_00: the certain things that have a big part of the business.
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SPEAKER_00: So it really got me thinking.
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SPEAKER_00: And it became also just a lot of attorneys and other people saying,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: I disagree with the marketing.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't own the firm.
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SPEAKER_00: If you disagree with the marketing, you probably shouldn't be here.
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SPEAKER_00: We had a massive undertaking to go from an attorney-led sales team to a
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non-attorney with professional salespeople-led sales team
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because we've been
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SPEAKER_00: stagnant at our revenue level for three years in a row.
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SPEAKER_00: And
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One of my great wins of last year was I put together a private
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peer group.
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SPEAKER_00: You can call it a mastermind if you want, but really it's a peer group.
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SPEAKER_00: There is no guru.
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SPEAKER_00: I put it together,
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but I'm certainly not the leader of 10 of the largest criminal
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defense attorneys
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SPEAKER_00: across the country.
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And there's probably about 50 million plus of annual revenue in
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this room.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think we're maybe the sixth or seventh largest.
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SPEAKER_00: So we're definitely in the bottom 50% of revenue.
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SPEAKER_00: We have these monthly Zooms.
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SPEAKER_00: We have meetups two or three times a year.
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SPEAKER_00: And our very first meetup in May, we brought in a sales guru, Jeb Blunt.
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SPEAKER_00: who's very, pretty well known.
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Like,
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I mean,
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he's got books in the airport,
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you know,
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like Hudson in the airport.
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SPEAKER_00: So he's an airport book guy.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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SPEAKER_00: Kind of high level, paid a ton of money to have him come in.
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SPEAKER_00: And he did a whole sales day for us.
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SPEAKER_00: And everybody in the group who is,
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SPEAKER_00: larger than me has non-attorney sales people.
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SPEAKER_00: Myself and everybody smaller had attorney-run sales.
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SPEAKER_00: And just by asking everybody,
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SPEAKER_00: being vulnerable and talking to Jeb and everything,
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SPEAKER_00: I made the decision,
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SPEAKER_00: we're switching.
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SPEAKER_00: And I knew it was going to take pretty much the rest of the year.
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SPEAKER_00: And it has.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's gone exceptionally well.
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SPEAKER_00: Little hiccups here and there, of course.
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SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the attorneys didn't like that.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: And so I just knew I'm like, it's time.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, I had privately planned to do this over 12 to 18 months.
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And it just so happened there was a series of events that
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pretty much forced it to
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SPEAKER_00: happen in three to four months.
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Two attorneys left to start their own law firm and they're
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going to do very well,
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SPEAKER_00: the two of them.
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And I'm very happy for them because they're going to get to do
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what they want to
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SPEAKER_00: do,
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which is attorney sales and make their decisions on marketing
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and how they
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SPEAKER_00: practice.
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SPEAKER_00: And then we had an attorney pass away unexpectedly.
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SPEAKER_00: So from Labor Day,
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SPEAKER_00: we were already down about two lawyers before Labor Day,
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SPEAKER_00: but Labor Day is when pretty much everything just changed.
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SPEAKER_00: And so the month of September and October,
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SPEAKER_00: I worked every single day,
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SPEAKER_00: seven days a week,
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SPEAKER_00: at least minimum 12 hour days for at least 60 days,
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SPEAKER_00: those two months.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I mean, not much is...
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SPEAKER_00: let up, but it was really tough.
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SPEAKER_00: And it was extremely tough.
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SPEAKER_00: Now the two lawyers who left, they gave me plenty of notice.
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And I thought overall it was a very,
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it was a good,
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it was a good transition with them.
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SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate that.
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And I'm sure they appreciate the things that the firm did for
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them as well on their way out.
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SPEAKER_00: But it became okay.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't have the luxury of carefully planning this over 12 to 18 months.
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This is all happening all at once while still grieving for an
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attorney and a friend
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SPEAKER_00: who we lost unexpectedly.
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And obviously,
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and taking care of the team and taking care of our clients.
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SPEAKER_00: We're at 20 to 25 people on our team now.
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SPEAKER_00: So dealing with that, I mean, I learned a lot about myself.
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SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot about resiliency.
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SPEAKER_00: I've been in for six months in private mindset coaching,
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SPEAKER_00: which helped tremendously during something like that.
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SPEAKER_00: So that's been excellent for me.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm very excited to say that through this,
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we saw which teammates really kind of galvanized and banded
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together to say,
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SPEAKER_00: don't worry,
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SPEAKER_00: we got this.
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SPEAKER_00: And then we saw a few that struggled and,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: right,
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whether it was just with additional culture or with just some
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of the mindset
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SPEAKER_00: issues.
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SPEAKER_00: And they've also we've shed our skin with them as well.
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But the long story short is my wife's a prosecutor in Palm
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Beach County and I had a
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SPEAKER_00: lot of tough conversations with her saying,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: at first it was,
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SPEAKER_00: we interviewed a million people,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_00: Then it was,
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who were maybe about 30 days away from you having to leave and
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join the firm.
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SPEAKER_00: And my wife loves being a prosecutor.
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SPEAKER_00: She's in the gang unit.
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SPEAKER_00: She's been there 10 years.
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That's a big part of her identity and her having a separate
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work identity from me
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SPEAKER_00: and from like our relationship is very important to her.
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SPEAKER_00: It's important to me too.
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SPEAKER_00: But it's like, okay, the family business.
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SPEAKER_00: And so we're talking this through some arguments,
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SPEAKER_00: a lot of passionate discussions and just honest discussions,
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SPEAKER_00: but it is what it is.
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And she agreed very reluctantly,
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but also she's like,
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I'm going to find you people.
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SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, we got to hustle.
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Long story short,
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over the course of the last 60 days,
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we've hired a managing attorney.
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SPEAKER_00: who's coming in January 5th, who is just absolutely going to be amazing.
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SPEAKER_00: And I've learned a lot of differences where she can handle cases.
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SPEAKER_00: She can handle any type of case.
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SPEAKER_00: She still wants to be involved in cases.
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SPEAKER_00: And she has 10 years of managerial experience prior to coming here.
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So we just have to train her in our way,
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but I don't need to train her to be a leader.
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SPEAKER_00: or manager.
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SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed a lot of times when we're promoting people from within,
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SPEAKER_00: I've been very cognizant of the Peter principle,
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SPEAKER_00: is that people get promoted to a level of incompetence,
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SPEAKER_00: and then how do we prevent that?
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SPEAKER_00: Now, I even look at that for myself, right?
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SPEAKER_00: When we do become an eight-figure law firm,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm going to need to level myself up to be an eight-figure CEO.
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SPEAKER_00: And any figure owner of a law firm.
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SPEAKER_00: And so on and so forth.
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SPEAKER_00: But we're very excited for her.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of buzz.
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SPEAKER_00: And she's already attracting a lot of additional candidates.
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SPEAKER_00: We have some really exciting announcements that we can't make right now.
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But as far as some other really talented people in the legal
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industry that want to
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SPEAKER_00: come and are going to be coming to the firm.
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SPEAKER_00: And
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One of the other things I noticed is,
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or I made the decision,
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as I said,
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no more all-star team.
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SPEAKER_00: We're going to build a real team.
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And this goes back to me being a high school basketball coach
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for 10 years and
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SPEAKER_00: winning a state championship.
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SPEAKER_00: It's...
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SPEAKER_00: We need one or two alphas, and then we need really good role players.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait, I can just do DUIs?
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SPEAKER_00: I love DUIs.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't want to handle the heavy stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, great.
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SPEAKER_00: You might have a perfect spot for us,
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SPEAKER_00: being that utility infielder on a baseball team,
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or being that three-point specialist on a championship-level
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winning basketball
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SPEAKER_00: team.
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SPEAKER_00: You need role players.
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SPEAKER_00: You can't have five alphas who are all jockeying for position.
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SPEAKER_00: So making it a little hierarchical in nature,
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SPEAKER_00: and that's what we're very deliberately doing because it's like,
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SPEAKER_00: no,
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SPEAKER_00: we don't want that,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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We want people to fit in and find their niche and be happy with
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their niche because
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SPEAKER_00: we want a great work environment.
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SPEAKER_00: So it's been a ton of stuff, Tiff.
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And it's fortuitous that this is the reason we pushed our
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interview back probably
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two or three times because I went from not being the primary
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attorney on a case
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SPEAKER_00: in four years to overnight taking 80 cases.
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SPEAKER_00: And for the next few weeks, I have 150 cases.
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SPEAKER_00: That's only going to be for the next few weeks.
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But yeah,
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so it's been a lot,
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but learned a lot about myself,
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learned a lot about the team.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm always me.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm always trying to learn and grow and get better.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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we did have to reschedule the podcast a few times and it's not
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something I sweat in
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SPEAKER_01: the least because I'm in so many meetings,
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SPEAKER_01: honestly,
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SPEAKER_01: sometimes it's just like,
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SPEAKER_01: oh,
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SPEAKER_01: okay,
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SPEAKER_01: nice.
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SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it makes a whole lot of sense.
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It makes a whole lot of sense now hearing your story because
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that has been very,
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SPEAKER_01: you had a very turbulent few weeks and you mentioned resilience,
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which I'm hearing more and more about like people talking about
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basically like
11:52
SPEAKER_01: raising your stress threshold,
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SPEAKER_01: I think maybe.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: is probably like a way to describe it without defining it.
12:00
And one thing that you've talked about a few times is building
12:04
a team with that
12:06
SPEAKER_01: coach mindset,
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with the mindset that you're building a group of people who are
12:11
going to go out on
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SPEAKER_01: the court together,
12:13
SPEAKER_01: go compete together,
12:15
SPEAKER_01: and they all need to work together.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: And not everyone's the quarterback.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm tough with sports analogies.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Not everyone's the captain.
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SPEAKER_01: But I definitely get it.
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And I know attorneys who run their law firms as though they're
12:29
the coach and they
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see something like cheerleading for their team as being like
12:35
critically important
12:36
SPEAKER_01: to what they do.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a big piece of the culture.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And like you said,
12:40
SPEAKER_01: culture,
12:41
SPEAKER_01: just creating that whole culture where everyone is working well together.
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So it sounds like you're on the cusp of just like these huge,
12:48
big changes.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: You're getting these new hires in,
12:51
SPEAKER_01: you've offboarded some people,
12:52
SPEAKER_01: you're changing some,
12:53
SPEAKER_01: and you lost somebody too.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: And I'm very sorry to hear about that.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: That's terrible.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: So what are you using?
12:59
SPEAKER_01: Like any systems?
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Like what comes to mind is EOS.
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SPEAKER_01: Like, are you using EOS or some kind of similar system to rebuild?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: So we are, we've been using EOS since 2021.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny, right?
13:11
SPEAKER_00: When one of the GLM masterminds back in the day,
13:14
SPEAKER_00: maybe it was 2018,
13:15
Ben started talking about it and I was at three and a half
13:18
people and I'm like,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: nah.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: And Ben's like, no, you can take some principles and start slowly.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, nah, I'm like, I don't need this stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: I need more clients, more cases.
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I'm just going to focus on marketing and trying to sales and
13:28
build and make money.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:31
And of course,
13:31
2021,
13:31
when we were skyrocketing,
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I was like,
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oh,
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we need this.
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SPEAKER_00: And in 2021, we two and a half X revenue.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: We went from six to eight, six to 12 employees.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And then in 22, we went from 12 to 20 employees.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: So having that has been fantastic.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: But
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I have noticed tremendously that there's a lot of gaps in EOS,
13:52
SPEAKER_00: a ton of gaps,
13:53
SPEAKER_00: especially for law firms,
13:54
SPEAKER_00: especially at various revenue levels,
13:56
SPEAKER_00: because our whether it's P.I.,
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SPEAKER_00: family,
14:00
SPEAKER_00: immigration,
14:00
SPEAKER_00: criminal,
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SPEAKER_00: fee-for-service,
14:02
SPEAKER_00: law firms,
14:03
SPEAKER_00: or even the contingency,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: but just B2C consumer law firms,
14:07
we hit about very similar problems at either similar revenue or
14:13
employee or
14:14
SPEAKER_00: attorney numbers.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And EOS is not flexible in that at all.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So we've really made our own modified version of EOS.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: And the more I'm starting to meet people and talk to people,
14:27
SPEAKER_00: especially across the country,
14:28
SPEAKER_00: as I know a lot of people and in South Florida,
14:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to them about how we're deliberately modifying EOS to make it
14:36
SPEAKER_00: significantly more flexible.
14:39
The way you need to run your business at a million dollars is a
14:41
lot different than
14:42
SPEAKER_00: two and a half,
14:43
SPEAKER_00: three and a half,
14:44
SPEAKER_00: five,
14:44
SPEAKER_00: seven,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: ten.
14:45
And we've been in that kind of that valley of despair a little
14:48
bit with profits and
14:50
SPEAKER_00: growth and like we're not big,
14:51
SPEAKER_00: but we're not small.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And how do we not have death by meeting?
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my goodness.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot that goes into it.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: So I've deliberately shortened a lot of the meetings.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: So, look, 30 minutes.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's get right down to the point.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
15:08
That's something I've done,
15:09
which for my company,
15:11
I've restructured some of my programs.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's less meeting heavy on me.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: And that was an absolute necessity because when you're nine to five,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: it's nearly back-to-back calendar meetings.
15:21
You don't have time to do this stuff like work on your business
15:24
or do the stuff you
15:25
SPEAKER_01: need to do for your clients.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: So it just becomes a lot of talk.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: And very happily, I know very few people who want more meetings.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: So my calendar is emptying out for 2026 and I'm just so thrilled.
15:38
so you're modifying eos a little bit and you're doing like
15:42
coaching groups are you
15:43
doing just one coaching group are you doing like more than one
15:46
well i always try to
15:48
keep my you know my network wide but also not have too many
15:53
competing voices it's
15:54
like right and i've been victim of that too so i've been in htm
15:58
and how to manage a
15:59
small law firm so arjun robbins group for about three years
16:01
it's going very well
16:02
SPEAKER_00: i'm not in their masterminds but i'm in their group
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And we've actually,
16:06
SPEAKER_00: we're using them,
16:07
their chief sales officer program to help us with our
16:11
non-attorney sales team.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's been excellent.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And,
16:15
but I also like having the flexibility to go to some of the
16:19
masterminds like John
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Fisher's where I can come and go as I please.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: If I have an issue coming up,
16:27
SPEAKER_00: or an issue in the firm, or I'm able to take a trip, fantastic.
16:31
But I don't have to feel that I have to be at every single one
16:34
for the year because
16:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm paying a ton of money to be going to be locked in.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Same goes with Maximum Lawyer.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I spoke at their, they brought the conference back.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I saw our buddy Charlie there.
16:44
I got to speak on stage about some of the cool stuff that I'm
16:47
doing with my internship program.
16:49
And they have their guild,
16:50
which is their mastermind,
16:51
which I'm in,
16:52
but they have the guild day.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: So the day before the conference, I'm like, it works perfectly.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: But could I go this last January?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: No.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Am I going this January?
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Just the schedule's not allowing for it.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: So I like to have flexibility.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: I like to meet different groups of people.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing also a lot of local networking.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: There's a networking group called Provisors.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not limited to attorneys, but attorneys are one of the focuses.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I became a group leader of that.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And instead of the cheesy networking groups,
17:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to make it more of a business growth group.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: And also have some fun with it because I don't want to not have fun.
17:28
So there's a ton of things that I'm still involved in just
17:31
trying to manage it all.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you sound really busy.
17:35
Like how much are you still doing like 10,
17:39
12 hour days or have you backed that up a little bit?
17:42
SPEAKER_00: No, I am.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: So like.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: People talk about work-life balance.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: I think it's bullshit.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I like work-life harmony.
17:51
I had six conferences in seven weeks in the middle of the
17:55
shitstorm,
17:56
right?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: So in October and November, six conferences in seven weeks.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And I could have canceled.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: I could have said, well, I'm needed and legal.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, this and that.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But I really thought about it.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And I said, listen,
18:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm speaking at two of these.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I need to go to those two.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: But also, that's my happy place.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I miss my family when I'm there.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: My boys are now six and three.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I miss my wife.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But I get to go see people across the country.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm at NTL's Business of Law Summit in Arizona.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: I only knew two people.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: One was Ben.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there for two days hanging with Ben,
18:33
SPEAKER_00: where Ben is more of my contemporary,
18:36
SPEAKER_00: not a mentor,
18:37
SPEAKER_00: and he's not speaking on stage,
18:38
SPEAKER_00: and it's not his conference.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And we're just talking, hanging out.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And I got to learn about MSOs,
18:44
SPEAKER_00: managed service organizations,
18:46
SPEAKER_00: and the ABS model for Arizona,
18:48
things that I'm very interested in that we're looking to
18:50
position the firm for
18:52
SPEAKER_00: massive growth and beyond.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to go to that.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: So...
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's hard, but I enjoy it.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's the most important thing.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Plus, it's my business.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: This is my business.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: It's the growth engine.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want to do.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's been difficult going back into cases,
19:08
SPEAKER_00: but it's like,
19:09
SPEAKER_00: okay,
19:10
SPEAKER_00: I asked some people,
19:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
19:12
SPEAKER_00: They go, oh, Adam, you travel so much for work.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And I go, well, is that work?
19:15
Is me flying to Nashville to hang out with a bunch of my
19:18
buddies and speak on stage
19:19
for 30 minutes about the really cool internship program that I
19:22
built from scratch
19:23
that had 13 interns last summer and 300 candidates from across
19:27
the country to
19:29
SPEAKER_00: participate in an unpaid criminal justice internship?
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Is that work or is that exciting and fun for me?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: So I think a lot of it's mindset too.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's just the way that I bring it.
19:41
But one of the best investments I've ever made is I have an
19:44
executive assistant
19:46
SPEAKER_00: who's amazing,
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Carly.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And I've gone through a few virtuals that just I needed.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: The joke is that I'm high maintenance, so I need.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: But it's true.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: But I needed somebody here who also understood marketing.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: So Carly's in our marketing department.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: She's also my executive assistant.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And I'm able to fit into 12-hour days, probably 36 hours worth of work.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my executive assistant is just invaluable to me.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
20:10
SPEAKER_01: managing email,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: managing calendars,
20:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:13
SPEAKER_01: it's incredible how much that little help just can kind of transform your
20:18
SPEAKER_01: efficiency because doing something like
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Sending an email to check in about something,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: it doesn't take very much time,
20:25
but like working out of your email is just such like a time
20:29
suck and that's
20:31
SPEAKER_01: distracting,
20:32
SPEAKER_01: you know?
20:32
And so it's super helpful when you have somebody who can kind
20:35
of handle those
20:36
SPEAKER_01: things for you so you can focus on like the big picture stuff.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And Tiff, I read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell earlier this year.
20:43
And I feel like I was like two or three years too late to read
20:46
that because it's
20:46
SPEAKER_00: been out for a while.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: But it really helped.
20:48
And I really do think if I was starting over from scratch,
20:51
my first hire would be an EA.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's helped so much.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And for years, though, I was like, who am I?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of doubt.
20:59
imposter syndrome like does that make me pretentious am i now
21:03
fancy what are people
21:04
gonna think and again i've been in this mindset coaching
21:07
program for the last six
21:08
months where it's because this stuff is real and i'm just like
21:13
i am who i am
21:14
doesn't matter what other people think and yes i have an
21:17
executive assistant and i
21:18
don't feel it's needed and i don't feel guilty in some way it's
21:22
kind of like like
21:23
one thing they always talk about is when somebody has a measure
21:25
of success
21:27
There's a lot of fear in,
21:30
well,
21:30
if I reward myself with the really nice car...
21:35
what are my parents and family going to think when I show up to
21:39
Thanksgiving with a
21:40
SPEAKER_00: new Porsche or something,
21:42
SPEAKER_00: right?
21:42
SPEAKER_00: And what are they going to say?
21:44
And to me,
21:45
I mean,
21:45
all those thoughts and feelings are so valid,
21:47
but they're so terrible.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: They're so destructive.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: It's total middle-class mindset thinking.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And I've learned so much from being in that mindset program.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Now,
21:55
I haven't gone out and bought a Porsche and brought it to
21:57
Thanksgiving yet,
21:58
SPEAKER_00: but that's just one example,
22:00
SPEAKER_00: though,
22:00
SPEAKER_00: of where our thoughts of how we're judged –
22:05
SPEAKER_00: can really destroy some of our future growth and progress.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
22:11
my husband and I deal with that really acutely because both of
22:15
us come from rural
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Missouri.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: He grew up in a trailer house on five miles down a back road,
22:21
SPEAKER_01: and my parents had a house,
22:23
SPEAKER_01: but we weren't rich.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you guys were the rich ones with the house.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we had a house.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: And we moved out to Virginia, went to college.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: I think both of us were the first to finish college in our families,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: got careers,
22:35
and pretty quickly made more money than anyone else in our
22:38
family at Bragg.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: But it's kind of weird to reconcile that.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And we feel a weird kind of imposter syndrome, like we shouldn't be here.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: And it's tough.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: It's really tough.
22:48
And you have to like a lot of positive self-talk and just like
22:52
reassuring yourself,
22:53
like you wouldn't be where you are without working really hard
22:57
and earning it to
22:58
SPEAKER_01: some degree.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: But a fair bit of luck is always at play for sure.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Well,
23:05
and just because this is a marketing podcast and you mentioned
23:08
your assistants
23:08
SPEAKER_01: doing a lot of marketing for you,
23:10
SPEAKER_01: like what are you guys planning on investing in 2026?
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sure.
23:14
So,
23:15
I mean,
23:15
we've actually gone back into LSAs and they've been pretty good
23:18
for us.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I stopped it for years and we've put back into that's going really well.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Even PPC has been pretty good for us.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: We've been doing direct mail campaigns.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Actually,
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I've written two books,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: one a DUI book in 2023,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: but this year here,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: I got it right here.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's our domestic violence book.
23:35
So we're doing a lot of like direct mail,
23:38
but instead of competing on price,
23:41
SPEAKER_00: we're showing value, right?
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And that we're high end.
23:44
So that's how we're trying to stand out from the regular South
23:47
Florida jail mail
23:48
SPEAKER_00: of,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: oh,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: we'll do your case on the cheap.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's exciting, right?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I come home and my mailbox is fluttered with all these things saying,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: hey,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: you beat your wife and we'll do it for cheap.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, so again, we have literally a 200 page book.
24:02
We're also going to work on condensing it to maybe a 40 page
24:05
version and do some AB
24:06
SPEAKER_00: split testing on those things.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: And really we're moving more into branding.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: When I started GLM, I would have pushed back.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was the right move at that age.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't come to me at branding when I have...
24:21
200 grand,
24:22
when I have 100 to 300 grand in annual revenue,
24:25
I need more clients.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Five new clients is going to make a difference to me.
24:30
One new client a month,
24:31
two new clients a month is going to make a massive difference.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: And I get it where you can say,
24:35
SPEAKER_00: well,
24:36
SPEAKER_00: the way you speak to people,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: the way you treat people,
24:38
SPEAKER_00: your reputation,
24:39
SPEAKER_00: that is part of your brand.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And I get that.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: But that's the me doing, the organic part.
24:43
I think from a marketing perspective,
24:45
at that point,
24:45
I just need direct response.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I need clients.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Now where we are with 25 people,
24:50
SPEAKER_00: multi-million dollar law firm that's trying to get to eight figures,
24:54
SPEAKER_00: branding does,
24:55
SPEAKER_00: it plays a big role in it.
24:57
And we're deciding how much money to allocate versus time to
25:02
allocate and still
25:04
SPEAKER_00: going back to just general referrals.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: We're building, so it's really cool stuff, I'll tell you.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And this just shows how it's all part of the ecosystem.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: So I bought a 6,000 square foot office condo earlier this year.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: It's more money than I can.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's almost more money than I can afford.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's a major stretch.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: It's a major thing.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And we're gutting it and renovating it.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: But this is where vision comes into play and also just having faith.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And we're building a 40-person mock courtroom in it,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: which really is a lawyer-themed event space,
25:39
SPEAKER_00: right?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: We're going to host judicial fundraisers.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna host prosecutor fundraisers.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: All of my friends who are trial lawyers,
25:47
SPEAKER_00: come and do a mock trial and we'll help you get people,
25:50
SPEAKER_00: right?
25:51
You wanna host a meeting,
25:52
I will be mad if you don't host your meetings in my space.
25:56
We built a video studio where we're building a full on really
25:59
nice video studio.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And also with that courtroom,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: again,
26:02
that's one of the reasons that I decided to be a group leader
26:05
of this group called
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Provisors,
26:06
SPEAKER_00: professional advisors.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And there's now 500 people in South Florida
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Probably 150 attorneys.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And we're the Boca 4 chapter.
26:15
There's three other Boca groups that don't have a physical
26:18
location they meet on Zoom.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Again,
26:20
I will be upset if they're not using my location for their
26:25
in-person meetings or
26:26
SPEAKER_00: for happy hours and different things.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: So I really want this to be a major part of our referral piece.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: as well.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
26:33
we needed a full-on HQ and with some of the other businesses
26:37
that I'm involved in,
26:38
SPEAKER_00: it's done and designed to just house more than a law firm.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: But it's a major investment.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: It's a big gamble.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: But I know it's going to pay off.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of it's just some good old-fashioned
26:49
SPEAKER_00: networking, referrals, relationships, just being out, being seen.
26:55
We're continuing to work on the new sales process and build in
26:59
a gas call program
27:01
where we can constantly be calling our clients and former
27:04
clients just to check in,
27:05
SPEAKER_00: see if there's anything we can help them with.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Even especially for us, like being arrested is such a...
27:10
negative experience that we want to check in six months later,
27:14
a year later.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Just say, how are you?
27:16
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Do you need a referral on anything?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Or not even pitch our stuff because we don't want them to get rearrested.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: But what else can we do?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And so that's been a big piece as well.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: And we've built, this year was rebuilding our in-house marketing team.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: We have an in-house marketing team of five people.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Who are the roles that you guys or who are the people that you have?
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: So we have our own in-house video editor and graphic designer, Murillo.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: He's in Brazil and he's fantastic.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And we're really trying to amplify him with AI.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: We're not replacing him with AI.
27:52
We are amplifying what he can do because,
27:55
again,
27:55
there's a lot of branding involved.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Like even on this book,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: for the people that are watching this,
27:59
SPEAKER_00: I can't obviously if we're listening to this.
28:02
On just an audio,
28:03
we can't see it,
28:03
but we have similar branding among this one.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: We went with a black and white instead of the RLF blue and orange,
28:11
SPEAKER_00: but there's little pieces of orange in here.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: It's the shield,
28:15
SPEAKER_00: which encompasses this three quarters circle,
28:17
SPEAKER_00: which looks like Captain America has like the shape of like a
28:20
Captain America's shield because we shield our clients from the
28:24
government.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: We redid our logo down here.
28:27
So there's a lot of these things that just having this all look
28:30
the same,
28:30
I think matters.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And Murillo is great at that.
28:34
We do have another VA whose job was overseas and her job is to
28:38
just be more of the
28:40
organizer the categorizer the marketing just a true marketing
28:44
assistant can just do
28:46
a lot of things and her job is to really assist everybody else
28:49
we do have an
28:49
internal social media social media manager that was heather who
28:53
was dabbing me up
28:54
before but we do a lot on youtube still we're going to do even
28:57
more on youtube and
28:59
SPEAKER_00: just with youtube social media i've had a big focus on linkedin
29:02
SPEAKER_00: And next year is going to be even a more major focus on LinkedIn.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And we have, and that's Heather and she's doing an excellent job.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: We have Carly who is supposed to be like the projects.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Carly is my executive assistant.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And because I've been in legal positions,
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Recently,
29:21
she's literally had to stop a lot of the marketing stuff just
29:23
to assist with my
29:24
SPEAKER_00: calendar and everything else I need.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: But really,
29:26
SPEAKER_00: her job is to be more of a liaison with me,
29:29
SPEAKER_00: handle special projects,
29:31
SPEAKER_00: in-person events,
29:32
SPEAKER_00: just relationships,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: referrals,
29:34
SPEAKER_00: all that kind of stuff.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And then we have Laura,
29:36
who's been our marketing director and chief revenue officer for
29:40
the last two and a
29:41
SPEAKER_00: half years.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: But she's taken a big role.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: role in operations and we needed to revamp our sales force.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: We use Salesforce for the firm.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: We don't have like Clio or my case.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And so that's also part of the thing is we've been,
29:54
SPEAKER_00: this is the year of being in the middle and being in the middle sucks.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Luckily, we've finished the transition to the sales team.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And Laura's our CRO, Chief Revenue Officer.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: So really, it's supposed to be intake sales and marketing.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: But now we needed to revamp our sales force.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Massive project.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: It's getting better.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: We've had this attorney thing that,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: again,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to happen in a year that all of a sudden happened.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: So it's been the year of being in the middle.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: And the middle truly does suck.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: But luckily,
30:25
we have some amazingly talented people in the marketing team
30:28
that can also
30:29
SPEAKER_00: cross-pollinate.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And they can't either until they can just get back into marketing.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And we can really ramp this engine up.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: But the sales team's crushing it.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: They're doing a good job.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And we're on the way.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: It's exciting stuff.
30:44
Yeah.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, working on marketing is definitely fun.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Because you can't stop.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: So Tiff, I'll tell you one thing.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: But look, we made a mistake, but I knew this was going to happen.
30:55
And I feel like we still had to,
30:57
even though I knew it was a massive mistake.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: First week in October, it's like, okay.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: We have two attorneys leaving.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: One died.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Adam's back in.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: We just hired one who needs some time.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: We need to cut the marketing spend just for two weeks.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to do it, but I had to listen to my team and we did.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: And then of course, October was a very slow month.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And then by the end of October, I'm like,
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: We have to put it back on.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And we did.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And November was an amazing month.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And December has been an amazing month for us as well.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: So the lesson is you really should never stop marketing ever,
31:36
SPEAKER_00: which I know I've been taught that for 10 years.
31:39
But I think this was a little bit of a unique circumstance
31:42
where we had to.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: But I made sure it only lasted two weeks.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: But it probably affected us for four.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's good advice.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Never stop marketing, but we live in the real world.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And when you're running a business, you have to make tough choices.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully it's something you can come back from really quick.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Two weeks is nothing.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I talk to law firms and I'm like blown away.
32:05
It's like,
32:05
okay,
32:05
so when was the last time you guys thought about marketing?
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, we haven't had anyone work on marketing for two years.
32:12
I talked to a guy who's been in business for like 15 years and
32:17
has never marketed,
32:19
SPEAKER_01: but in spite of that actually has a pretty good internet presence.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned earlier,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: and I just want to say this,
32:24
SPEAKER_01: I probably said it on another podcast,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: but like,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: it's so funny how we come full circle on brand.
32:29
And I think a lot of people had the mindset that brand is like
32:33
the enemy or the
32:34
SPEAKER_01: opposite of direct response marketing.
32:36
But they're really just two strategies that give you two
32:39
different types of
32:40
SPEAKER_01: outcomes and both outcomes are important.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not a this or that.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, you need both for sure.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: And everyone's coming around on brand again.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: And when I look at marketing plans we're implementing in 2026,
32:53
SPEAKER_01: authority building is among them because that's what helps SEO,
32:58
SPEAKER_01: AI,
32:58
SPEAKER_01: all that cute stuff.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, exactly.
33:00
That's why one of the reasons I got back into this major
33:03
networking group or got
33:05
SPEAKER_00: really involved as more of the brand of Adam as not just,
33:09
SPEAKER_00: hey,
33:10
SPEAKER_00: if something bad happens,
33:11
SPEAKER_00: call me,
33:12
but also as to be able to share my knowledge that I've learned
33:16
from people like
33:16
SPEAKER_00: you,
33:17
SPEAKER_00: from Charlie,
33:18
SPEAKER_00: from Ben,
33:18
SPEAKER_00: from many others out there in the local South Florida market.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: And exactly.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: So there's so many aspects of brand.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, having the consistent fonts and colors
33:28
That can wait personally,
33:29
I think,
33:29
until you hit at least seven figures,
33:32
my personal opinion.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: But the way that you treat people,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: the way that you do the work,
33:38
SPEAKER_00: the relationships,
33:39
SPEAKER_00: that is a big part of authority building and brand building.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Your reputation is your brand.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that should be done day one.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
33:49
It's more important for me,
33:50
for people to know Tiffany Swedensky than it is Sharp Cookie.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: And I like the brand,
33:56
SPEAKER_01: but I know I'm going to do a logo redesign,
33:59
SPEAKER_01: something like that down the road.
34:01
And so that's just a good reason not to do anything with it and
34:04
then focus on you.
34:05
And this is particularly true for lawyers because you guys get
34:10
a lot of referrals.
34:11
And obviously I can talk about because I've learned that as
34:13
well recently where
34:14
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: look at some of the big people.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: It's Jen Gore.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: It's not her firm.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Nobody cares about her firm.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: They care about her.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: And stuff.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of those Mike Morris.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Like it's they care about him.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: He's the brand, even though he's not doing the work.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: So trying to learn a lot from people like them.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely the influencer culture these days.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: And what do they say?
34:37
Like people follow people,
34:38
not brands,
34:39
but yet branding is still important.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: We're working on one thing I,
34:44
one piece of advice I give all marketers is just increase the
34:48
number of times
34:49
SPEAKER_01: people talk about you on the internet.
34:52
And that simplifies something that's actually probably pretty
34:54
complicated,
34:55
SPEAKER_01: but just getting people to mention your brand name on their website,
34:59
SPEAKER_01: on a directory has a measurable effect on performance,
35:03
SPEAKER_01: but that's just SEO stuff.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: But that's even the chat GPT, the semantic searches is helping a lot.
35:10
I mean,
35:10
obviously we all want links,
35:12
but even if there's no links,
35:13
I know chat's algorithm
35:15
SPEAKER_00: It has a big focus on that,
35:17
SPEAKER_00: on just the mentions as well and the semantics,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: the semantics has reputation.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Linkless Brand Mentions is what I heard it called,
35:27
SPEAKER_01: and I'm going to stick with it because,
35:29
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
35:29
SPEAKER_01: it's not the backlink anymore.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: It's the name where branding definitely comes into play.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Well,
35:34
SPEAKER_01: we're almost to the end of our recording time,
35:36
SPEAKER_01: so I will ask my last few questions,
35:38
SPEAKER_01: which we talked about quite a lot,
35:40
SPEAKER_01: and you just have an amazing story for the past six months.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she said all that happened with you in the last six months.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
35:48
SPEAKER_00: there were some things in the summer,
35:50
SPEAKER_00: but really,
35:51
SPEAKER_00: really the heavy,
35:52
SPEAKER_00: heavy stuff was after Labor Day.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: But the transition period started in about June.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Well,
35:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
35:58
you definitely had like a hectic six months and hopefully it'll
36:02
take some time to
36:02
SPEAKER_01: rest pretty soon.
36:03
But is there anything that we didn't talk about that you were
36:06
planning on covering
36:07
SPEAKER_01: in the podcast?
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, a million things, of course.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: But I will.
36:11
I'm going to use this opportunity to say that our good friend
36:16
Charlie Mann was correct.
36:18
I've fought with him multiple times on his podcast and in
36:22
person about his levels
36:24
SPEAKER_00: of leadership and levels of law firm growth.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: And I've said, but Charlie, why can't it be a family?
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Why can't it be?
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Adam, you're the captain of the ship now.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: That's where you're at.
36:35
And you're really moving into the captain of the ship and the
36:37
leader of leaders.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: And I fought, I pushed back, but I think he was absolutely right.
36:41
Especially that's one of the things that this transition taught
36:44
me is that now you
36:45
could still be the captain of the ship and the leader of
36:48
leaders and care deeply
36:49
SPEAKER_00: for people and look out for your team.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, this is a business.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a professional services business.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: This is the revenue engine for myself, my family, my life.
37:00
And one of the things I really learned through this experience
37:03
is that I have to
37:04
make the best decisions for the firm as an entity and not for
37:08
individual people
37:10
SPEAKER_00: who,
37:10
SPEAKER_00: as much as you like them,
37:12
SPEAKER_00: as much as I like them,
37:14
there will be a time when they decide that they have to do what
37:17
they perceive is
37:18
SPEAKER_00: the best thing for them.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
37:21
But I made a lot of decisions over the last three or four years
37:25
in trying to keep
37:26
SPEAKER_00: people happy instead of worrying about what was best for the business.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Now,
37:31
SPEAKER_00: of course,
37:31
SPEAKER_00: when the business does well,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: when the people are happy and do well,
37:34
SPEAKER_00: it makes the business do well.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: But when it's one versus the other, I put the person over the business.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And those are things that I'll never do again.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's what you didn't ask me.
37:44
But if Charlie listens to this,
37:45
then he'll know and he'll hear my shout out that he was right.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to tag them for sure.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: And I would add on to that, but we're at the end of the time.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: So where do you want people to go learn more about you,
37:56
SPEAKER_01: your firm,
37:57
SPEAKER_01: your team,
37:58
SPEAKER_01: all that good stuff?
37:59
SPEAKER_00: We're, I mean, we're easy to find.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Rawson Law Firm, Adam Rawson, two S's.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Really LinkedIn is my new jam.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
38:05
SPEAKER_00: we have fun on Instagram and Facebook,
38:07
SPEAKER_00: but I'm doing a lot on LinkedIn for my personal brand,
38:10
SPEAKER_00: my professional brand,
38:11
SPEAKER_00: the firm.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: So that's been my big focus.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being on the show and telling your story.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: It was a wild ride.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: So I hope you're,
38:20
SPEAKER_01: like I said,
38:20
I hope you get some rest pretty soon because that's what I
38:23
would be wanting pretty
38:23
SPEAKER_01: desperately at this point.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Thanks everyone for listening.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Thank you again.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: And we'll see everyone next time.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: All right.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, Tiff.