Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Why Most PI Firms are Lighting Money on Fire | James Helm, TopDog Law

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Why Most PI Firms are Lighting Money on Fire | James Helm, TopDog Law · The Jon and Marc Podcast

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  Every law firm is really selling the same service with the same
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  offering. And so it just became a matter
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  of, well, how can I differentiate myself?
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  I'm social media native. I'm a lot different than all
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  these other law firms. A 60 year old lawyer is not
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  going to be figuring out what's trending on TikTok.
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  You know the bottleneck is really creativity.
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  Usually attorneys just mirror each other and if you're
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  creative isn't remarkable, it's not worth remarking about.
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  Then you're just kind of losing the ad dollars.
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  Welcome to the John and Mark podcast.
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  We're here at National Trial Lawyers in Miami with the one
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  and only James Helm from Top Dog Law.
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  Thank you so much for joining us, James.
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  Excited to be here. I just gave my presentation
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  downstairs. Seeing you guys down there of
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  like front row. Yeah, like those are my guys.
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  I was like about to ask a bunch of questions and John was like,
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  no. Save.
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  Them for those of you that don't know, which I don't think is
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  anybody watching, but for those of you who are meeting James for
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  the first time, he is one of the most incredible operators and
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  marketers in the legal game right now.
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  James does incredible things on social media, on TV, on radio,
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  on billboards, on buses. What am I missing?
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  OTT Streaming. Pretty much pretty much
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  everywhere. We're trying to be omnipresent,
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  you know? Top dog law is now a name
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  synonymous with personal injury across the nation.
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  You guys are expanding at like? How many states are you
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  currently working in? I would say like 30.
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  We're in most of the major Dmas to different extents, right?
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  Like some of them were the biggest advertisers, some of
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  them were the 10th biggest advertiser, but we're in most of
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  the main cities. We actually just launched here
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  in Florida last week. So we acquired a Florida law
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  firm and there was, you know, you have to have a equity owner
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  in a Florida firm to advertise in Florida.
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  So we did that and now we're launching in Florida.
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  So one of the most competitive markets.
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  We'll see how it goes. Interesting how you made
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  yourself appear on our show today.
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  You had reached out to me through a mutual connection four
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  years ago. I think that's about when you
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  had really started Top Dog, right?
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  This is not like a story of a firm that's in existence that
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  has come through like a a parent who is retired like you created
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  Top Dog Law about 4-5 years ago. Yeah, I think coming up on 7,
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  but the first couple years were pretty slow.
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  I was actually selling advertising to lawyers.
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  And so I was kind of trying to get my own thing off the ground
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  my first year of law school as I was actually still trying to
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  sell lawyers advertising. Yeah, And it has been an like
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  exponential compounding growth year over year over year.
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  People watch this show because we don't go through the history
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  and like the trials and tribulations.
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  Everyone wants to know how do you grow your law firm?
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  And there's no better growth story than what you guys have
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  done over the past, you know, half a decade.
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  And it's really awesome to see when you really started, you
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  know, pushing the pedal on this stuff 4-5 years ago, Like what
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  were the things that you did immediately that move the needle
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  the most? Because right now there's no low
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  hanging fruit for you, right? Like the low hanging fruit is
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  gone. But for firms who were at that
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  point where you were at five years ago, what were the first
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  motions that you did that really helped grow the firm?
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  No cases are going to be as cheap as your first cases.
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  The way we think about growth is the incremental cost per case is
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  always higher in every market. So your first 500 cases, at
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  least for me, were the cheapest 500 cases a month that I'm ever
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  going to get. And then it was more expensive,
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  expensive to get the next 500 cases a month.
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  And then it was more expensive to get the next 1000 cases a
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  month. And so in some ways, I'm more
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  envious of smaller law firms because I'm like, Dang, they can
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  go out and get cases for a lot cheaper than we can.
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  It's the same thing with like investing.
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  Like if you look at Warren Buffett or somebody, it's like
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  with a smaller capital stack, he can get a way higher return.
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  Then once you have like huge amounts of money, it's harder to
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  get that return. So the first thing I started
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  with was social media. I was bringing in a couple 100
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  cases a month just organically and then put on the paid ads
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  throttle Organic social media is tough, right?
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  I did a lot of crazy stuff that we can talk about, but.
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  Kind of what's your number? I caught like some lightning in
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  a bottle. I got a lot of traction working
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  with like big personalities in my city.
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  I handled a case for like the most famous YouTube in Philly at
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  the time who had two million YouTube Subs and everyone was
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  obsessed with this guy. He ended up going to jail.
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  It's a whole a whole different story, but not he literally
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  called me to settle his Corvette case like two weeks before the
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  statute of limitations broken leg simply because he just like
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  didn't care about the money. And I was like, yeah, I will.
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  But I really parlayed that into we made like 3 or 4 videos and
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  now all of a sudden I was owe me in a Hellcats lawyer.
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  And so if I was like looking for growth and maybe I didn't have a
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  huge capital stack, it's like, how can you find local
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  influencers in your community? How can you leverage paid media
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  to become known in your city? And those two things, like if
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  you're doing paid social and you're doing some type of like
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  collaborative influencer strategy and you're working on
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  Instagram through organic content, you can probably bring
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  in cases for like 1000 bucks a case right now up to a certain
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  limit. And then eventually you're going
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  to cap out at that. But that's what I would do.
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  What do you tell the people who have tried that and they're like
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  stuck at like, I'm getting 200 views on every reel that I post.
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  Like how long should it take for them to actually get some real
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  traction? The bottleneck is really
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  creativity. You're not working by spending
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  like tons of time documenting, you know, your life or the life
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  of a lawyer, right? It's like you really need like a
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  couple of really hard hitting videos and they might likely be
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  with people you need to pay to do them right.
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  Like think about it like ATV shoot or a movie shoot where
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  it's like you're paying like star actors and you're like
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  designing a video that you're hoping to go viral and then
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  you're pushing a bunch of paid media behind it.
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  Those first couple 100 cases for me all came through just like
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  hustle, creativity, making viral videos.
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  There's this lawyer in Boston who just came out with a diss
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  track against me and he has one against Morgan and Morgan.
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  And I'm not trying to endorse this guy, but it is an example
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  of someone who's like hustling, doing creative things that's
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  actually going to garner attention.
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  Like I would talk about remarkable means worth remarking
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  about. I would guess if you're getting
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  200 views a reel, like your reels probably aren't worth
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  remarking about. Now could it be a personality
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  thing where some people just want to go a different path
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  because it's more likely? Maybe that's also true.
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  It's interesting, like finding the people that you can
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  piggyback on their visibility to enhance your visibility.
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  Yeah, it is doing that over and over and over again and
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  eventually you become your own thing that people want to see on
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  its. Own that's exactly right,
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  especially now in the world of like collaborations on
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  Instagram, like you can collaborate with like 3 or 4
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  people. So you get like paid promotion,
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  like a, hey, I'm going to pay XYZ person to collaborate with
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  me and then we're going to collaborate with someone else
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  who has a pretty decent following.
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  And then we're going to create some type of concept where we're
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  like, hey, people are going to find this really funny and or
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  interesting and at least then you're getting attention.
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  The thing for me was realizing the name of the game was to get
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  attention. Every law firm is really selling
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  the same service with the same offering.
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  And so it just became a matter of, well, how can I
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  differentiate myself from the way everyone else is doing it?
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  I thought I had a lot of things going for me, especially with
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  age. You know, I started in my mid
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  20s. So it's like I'm social media
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  native. I'm in my mid 20s.
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  I'm a lot different than all these other law firms.
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  Like, how can I leverage TikTok in a way that a six year old
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  lawyer is not going to be figuring out what's trending on
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  TikTok, you know? I think the interesting part is
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  like you keep harping on like the creative has to be good.
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  And so many times I've see lawyers that try to do social
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  media, they just try to like have someone else come up with a
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  basic concept like a random social media person, like, hey,
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  record this quick video and they're not like bought in.
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  They're like, OK, I'll record real quick.
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  They post a video. This is what you should do if
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  someone rear ends. It's not like creative, it's not
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  like inspiring, and they're just kind of like phoning in a
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  script. They're doing it to chat.
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  They're doing it to chat about I.
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  Post it on social media. Yeah, I think too, if you take
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  this creative idea and you extrapolate it out of just
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  social media, because for some people social media maybe just
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  doesn't work. But even for us on TV or for
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  radio, like we spend 20% of our dollars on the actual creative.
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  I think most firms just look at the media buy as the dollar is
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  going into the buy, but they don't actually spend the time
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  and the money investing in the creative.
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  Like we got a trained dog for our connected TV commercials
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  that now we're using like on our website and our billboard.
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  That dog was making $5000 a day, right?
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  But it could do all these like, crazy tricks.
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  Like we had the like bad guy insurance agent and he like
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  jumped up and grabbed the settlement offer.
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  Like, oh, people are going to love that, right?
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  And it's like we went out and shot it at like Fox Studios in
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  Beverly Hills and brought in like a bunch of super talented
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  people and then took a bunch of creative risk on it.
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  And I think generally law firms under index on the money spent
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  on the creative and they put 9598% of the dollars into the
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  actual buy. And if you're creative isn't
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  remarkable, it's not worth remarking about.
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  Then you're just kind of losing the ad dollars.
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  If I went to most lawyers in the space and was like hey I
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  recommend you spend $100,000 on paid social and then on top of
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  that this craves would cost 20 grand.
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  They would laugh me out of the room.
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  They said you are insane. They're like I don't pay $20,000
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  for my TV commercials. But they'll go and they'll spend
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  6 figures on their TV media buys.
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  Yeah, right. With no attribution, with no
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  targeting and like you just kind of hope.
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  With a commercial that's thrown in for free from the station.
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  Yeah, right. It's got like imprinted lower
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  third phone number and, you know, a testimonial on it.
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  So when you're talking about the creative though, like we were
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  having this conversation this morning, like we're trying to
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  think about what's the right way to structure creating social
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  media for law firms at scale. That's not agnostic, right?
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  When you talk about creating content for Instagram or TikTok,
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  those are not the same thing. How do you structure your social
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  media team to come up with the creative concepts?
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  We're having this debate because we're building a social media
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  department right now and I'm like staffing it.
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  I approached John at breakfast and I go, I think my approach
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  has been wrong. I was like, I think my next
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  hires, I want to hire a head of Instagram and then a hire a head
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  of TikTok where their full focus is, how do you be successful on
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  that platform and only create content for that platform?
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  We have other social media people around them, but people
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  that all they do is just focusing on what, how do you
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  drive success on each of those individual platform?
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  What I like about that approach is you can hire based on someone
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  who's done it. Like my favorite hiring saying
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  is I hire people who've won gold medals, not people who I think
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  can win a gold medal. OK, you're going to be great at
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  TikTok. Show me the pages that you've
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  built, right? I can look easily at the views
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  and likes and engagement and say, oh, you do know something
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  about TikTok? Because if not, you wouldn't
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  have built these couple pages up for us.
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  The way we have our marketing, it's evolved over the years, but
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  how we have it set up today is under our CMO, we have creative
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  lab. So that's like a director that
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  basically overseas all our creative.
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  And I know Morgan's is sort of set up to, they have like a big
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  ad agency guy, like someone they poached from an ad agency in New
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  York that comes up with their creative concepts.
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  And that's what we try to do with our director of our
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  creative lab is like across the org, like your goal is to come
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  up with different creative concepts.
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  And then under that person you have like the person who does
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  influencer slash collaborations, you have have the person who
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  does our organic Instagram, you have the person who does TikTok,
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  right? And so you're sort of
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  structuring it that way. So when you're doing the
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  influencer stuff, how do you find those people to do the
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  collabs with? A lot of it comes down to just
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  outreach how I used to do it. This is like the hustler way to
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  do it. If you're just getting started
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  is I was just yamming people myself and saying, hey, could I
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  give you 50 bucks to post this? Hey, could I give you 200 bucks
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  to post this? We live in the same city.
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  Can we make a video? I'll pay you 1000 bucks to make
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  this video with me. That was like my way of doing it
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  when it was just me on the DMS. Now that I'm not as involved in
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  the process, it's a lot more agency stuff, right?
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  Like a lot of the people we're targeting today are bigger and
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  they have agents and then you're negotiating it and there's
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  contracts and it's like a whole formal process.
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  But you know, I've wondered like, you know, how much is it
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  to get someone like Drewski, the biggest people out there and
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  collaborate with them? The.
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  Parallels that I'm hearing from James.
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  You sent me Mr. Beast's manifesto, right?
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  That big giant document that he sent out to all of his
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  employees? Like you're becoming the Mr. I
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  hate to say it Like the Mr. Beast of Legal.
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  I made a video action on organic social of like how would Jake
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  Paul approach personal injury marketing?
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  And the reason why I think that way is like so much of what
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  happens in marketing in our space is just mirroring of other
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  people. Like I'm in Arizona and it's
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  just a plethora of attorney billboards that are like the
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  same thing. We've actually pulled all our
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  outdoor in Arizona. It's one of the only markets
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  where we've launched outdoor and we've just pulled it because I'm
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  like every lawyer is doing outdoor.
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  It's weird. It's like if you look at the
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  other channels, the spend in Arizona isn't dramatically
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  higher than other markets, but for whatever reason, outdoor,
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  it's off the roof on media radar.
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  And my theory behind it is that usually attorneys just mirror
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  each other. And so it's like if there's no
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  originality or creativity, you're just copying what the
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  next person is doing. And that's actually the least
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  effective strategy for marketing because then your marketing just
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  looks the same as everybody else's.
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  What I admire about the Mr. B, so the Jake Paul's, the
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  influencers is they went into like, you know, CBD, like with
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  Prime or Mr. B with the chocolates.
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  It's like he wasn't looking at what Hershey's chocolate was
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  doing, right. He approached the marketing of
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  chocolate from his own lens. Aside from social media, which
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  was a big focus of your conversation this morning, and
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  lead generation, you went really big into data, which I did not
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  know about you. For us, it's not complex because
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  we see like this is the stuff that's needed in firms that are
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  very complex themselves. But for the everyday Pi firm to
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  see that you're talking about data warehouses and
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  interconnecting data from a bunch of different sources and
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  visualization. Visualization.
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  Business intelligent like actually having business
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  intelligence like breakdown reports at a granular level to
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  like make decisions. It was very good.
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  Thank you. I'll say this so you can
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  probably tell by you know how I'm lighting up about the social
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  media and the creativity. That's how I started.
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  That's like my unique ability. Everything else has been like
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  talent acquisition. I've learned along the journey
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  that like my superpower is like the B to C marketing, the
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  creative conception. It's what it what lights me up.
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  But I've learned over time that law firms are in the data
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  business. There's tons of pieces of little
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  data in the marketing funnel, in the intake funnel throughout the
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  pipeline of a case. You just bought a law firm in
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  Florida and we're doing cases in house now.
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  And just the amount of data throughout the pre litigation,
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  medical records retrieval, litigation settlement stage,
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  it's all a data business. And so a lot of my hiring has
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  been focused on how can I bring in super talented operations
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  folks and even our technology department.
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  Now we have like 15 to 20 full time people like software
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  engineers, Salesforce administrators, data engineering
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  talent. Again, I think it comes back
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  into like the mirroring conversation of like I could
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  just buy some of the vendors out-of-the-box products that are
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  here, but how do I look outside the legal industry at, you know,
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  what you guys are doing or another professional services
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  industry and say, Oh no, my business should look like this.
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  So I hired both our CMO and our CFO from the third largest used
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  auto company in the US. They had 149 locations and they
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  were obsessed about data. Their program for trading
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  analysts was so good. They measured everything.
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  And so it's like, oh, this is awesome.
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  I'm going to take this competency that they've built in
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  auto and I'm going to pull that into legal because we have the
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  same business. It's just that legal, for
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  whatever reason, is behind. Go car dealerships.
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  It's very interesting you say that like I can give you
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  multiple examples of people who've entered the legal
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  industry from the auto industry. This is just the the most recent
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  one. We have another client in
• 16:54
  upstate New York who just hired a couple of people from like the
• 16:57
  biggest dealerships in upstate New York.
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  Marketing agency that just did car dealerships across the
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  nation. That company got acquired by
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  cars.com. We ended up hiring 15 of them.
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  So that's amazing. So the company that my CFO and
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  CMO came is here called Drive Time.
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  They spun out Carvana and they're local here in Arizona.
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  They have, you know, 5000 employees.
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  They're incredibly sophisticated.
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  Like what a brilliant business. Like our CMO was spending nine
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  figures advertising and his biggest competencies were TV,
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  connected TV and search. And if you look at what Top Dog
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  was spending money on, it was like social radio out of home.
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  And I'm like, I don't know how to do, you know, TV and I don't
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  know, had it to run search. I'm like, oh, well, here's
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  someone who's overseeing A9 figure budget in that.
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  And it's like, well, we could have hired somebody who knew the
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  channels we were doing, but then where would we got growth from,
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  right? It's like if you can another
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  hack for growth, if you can bring in marketing talent who've
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  deployed dollars in channels that you're not using today and
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  say, hey, do that here. That seems like a lot easier
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  path to grow. If you look at branding
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  channels, let's put like the lead generation stuff to the
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  side for a second and you had a pie chart.
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  What's the biggest chunk of your brand spend?
• 18:10
  Does it change my market? Or is there like one thing that
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  you're like, yes, that's where I get the most bang for my buck?
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  It's evolving today. So I think if you look at media
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  Radar has like most of the top single event Pi firms, the data
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  is pretty accurate and you can see like most firms spend about
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  70% of their branded dollars on TV.
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  Most of that is actually like linear TV, like broadcast and
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  cable, we've been inverted. And the reason why is I've
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  historically just believed we'd optimized for the 20 to 35 year
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  old consumer and they're just not on linear TV.
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  And so I'm like, why would I spend 70% of our budget on a
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  channel where I don't think our customers are?
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  And so if you look at our kind of pie chart, I think on branded
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  stuff and depends kind of what you put in branded, you'll see
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  the biggest things are actually social, like branded social
• 19:03
  radio and out of home. And now we're just doing
• 19:07
  connected TV. And so I'm super excited about
• 19:10
  that. Obviously, we're looking at
• 19:12
  YouTube. Netflix is eating everything,
• 19:15
  Amazon Prime, Hulu, and then all the fast stations.
• 19:19
  And what I like about connected TV, it's much more measurable
• 19:22
  than linear TV. It just takes a lot of data
• 19:25
  analysis to figure out. And then also more targeted.
• 19:28
  Yeah, Yeah. I think if you look today to
• 19:30
  answer the question directly, you would see radio out of home
• 19:34
  and paid social and a smaller chunk for TV and I'm hoping as
• 19:39
  things evolve that TV will actually become the biggest or
• 19:43
  around the same as radio and out of home.
• 19:45
  From a connected streaming standpoint.
• 19:47
  From a connected streaming, yeah, the other one, and I don't
• 19:49
  know if you put this in this bucket is branded AdWords.
• 19:53
  The amount of money we spend on protecting our brand is
• 19:56
  unbelievable. 8 figures a year. Yeah, it's crazy.
• 19:58
  You got a ton of competitors who are buying your brand
• 20:01
  piggybacking off of all the media visibility. 100% and I
• 20:03
  also think, and you guys I'm sure know this is like Google
• 20:06
  has also changed. So it used to just be folks that
• 20:10
  were intentionally doing this. Now if someone runs a campaign
• 20:14
  for personal injury lawyer or car accident lawyer, unless they
• 20:16
  have a negative, Google's just serving that on top dog law
• 20:19
  searches. So it's like people, so it's
• 20:22
  like people aren't even like aren't even being malicious.
• 20:25
  You can't even like, you know, send the mating.
• 20:27
  It's like Google is just the one doing that.
• 20:30
  That also means that top dog has become synonymous with those
• 20:33
  keywords. It's flattering in a way that
• 20:35
  you pay like an 8 figure tax and you're you're like, yeah, oh,
• 20:38
  this is so nice. You know, I tell all of our
• 20:40
  clients that the best money you can spend is to protect your own
• 20:44
  brand because otherwise someone's going to come in and
• 20:46
  just grab a net and scoop up those cases.
• 20:48
  When James was speaking on stage about an hour ago, that was one
• 20:51
  of the things that someone asked was like, how do you do this to
• 20:54
  get catastrophic cases? And that was the response was
• 20:56
  people go to the brand. We've said this.
• 20:58
  They know, like and trust. Before the law firms are like,
• 21:01
  hey, I want to start branding myself better.
• 21:03
  I want to start doing social media, creating content.
• 21:06
  They're like, I'm not interesting or I don't know what
• 21:08
  angle to have creativity wise. That's like you're you're fired
• 21:11
  up about it, you're passionate about it and it's probably one
• 21:13
  of your greatest assets and skill sets is the creative piece
• 21:17
  of it. What is your advice to them to
• 21:18
  get started to find like the content that they can create
• 21:20
  that makes them unique that they actually enjoy making?
• 21:24
  Leaning in on your strengths and then hiring your weaknesses.
• 21:27
  So for me it was the inverse, right?
• 21:28
  I loved the brand, the creativity component, and it was
• 21:32
  about hiring tech and operations talent and litigators, right?
• 21:36
  If you're like a litigator and you really want to develop that
• 21:40
  marketing muscle, but you don't think you have that creative
• 21:43
  instinct to come up with, hey, how can I create something
• 21:46
  disruptive to personal injury? The answer might just be to hire
• 21:49
  it, right? How can you hire somebody likely
• 21:52
  outside the industry, right? I think another common theme is
• 21:55
  like trying not to hire in the industry.
• 21:57
  If you do that, you're going to get what other people are doing,
• 22:01
  right? They're just going to have a
• 22:02
  mindset of like, this is what this firm is doing.
• 22:05
  This is what this room is doing. This is what this room is doing.
• 22:07
  But if you bring somebody outside the industry who's maybe
• 22:10
  worked in an ad agency environment, they're like, oh,
• 22:12
  no, I'm going to make this like this pizza company's ads that
• 22:15
  are hilarious, you know? And so maybe it's just bringing
• 22:18
  in a talented person. That reminds your conversation I
• 22:20
  had with our social media manager that works at our
• 22:23
  company. He was like, yeah, I was like,
• 22:24
  this is like the top performing, except I'm seeing for other
• 22:26
  lawyers doing. I was like, I don't want like
• 22:28
  the top performance of all the what their lawyers are doing.
• 22:30
  We need to come up with like new concepts that's working outside
• 22:33
  the industry to bring into the creative stuff that we're doing.
• 22:36
  I agree. And I love the approach too,
• 22:37
  because it's like it's a kind of a mindset thing.
• 22:40
  It's like I'm going to be an innovator and a disruptor in
• 22:43
  this space. Like I'm committed to not
• 22:45
  mirroring what anybody else is doing.
• 22:46
  And if you guys take this approach with your company,
• 22:49
  it'll also have a differentiated offer.
• 22:51
  I think something I respect about you, too is if you look at
• 22:54
  your content, you're willing to take risks, you're willing to do
• 22:57
  some silly stuff. You know, not everything pans
• 22:59
  out, but like, you do a ton of testing and a ton of content,
• 23:02
  and then because you're willing to take a ton of risks, you find
• 23:04
  out really quickly what's working, what's not working and
• 23:06
  resonating with the audience. 100% I mean, even look at Morgan
• 23:09
  like they take a ton of risks, yeah.
• 23:11
  Where it's like their social has been on fire.
• 23:12
  Recently, yeah, it's been good. I was texting with Dan Morgan
• 23:15
  and he was talking about he went, they did the Kentucky
• 23:17
  basketball, so. Good, I said it to.
• 23:19
  John, he got, he got on. He's like channeling my inner
• 23:22
  top dog, right? But it's like, I respect that
• 23:24
  because I know you're in a room with a bunch of videographers
• 23:28
  like this one and a bunch of Kentucky basketball players.
• 23:31
  It takes courage to get on that table and like, shake your butt,
• 23:34
  you know, and look like a Jackass.
• 23:36
  One of our best performing posts or videos of last year was we
• 23:40
  called it Pillow Talk. We did the episode with all
• 23:42
  three of us in bed at the Bellagio.
• 23:44
  You know, that episode was like Bobby you something with Drake.
• 23:47
  They did like a podcast. So we imitated that episode and
• 23:50
  like the most engagement we got on the post was just from the
• 23:53
  thumbnail of all three of us in bed snuggling up talking about
• 23:56
  mass torts. I don't know if it was like a
• 23:58
  rap video or like a skit that we dropped, but I remember getting
• 24:02
  ready to post it and I'm like, and I'm thinking in my, my
• 24:05
  belly's like a little bit like, Oh man, should I really do this?
• 24:08
  And then I actually had the thought, I'm like, Oh, this is
• 24:11
  probably going to be a banger. Like if, if, if, if I'm actually
• 24:15
  like somewhat nervous about posting it.
• 24:18
  Like it's probably a good indicator that I'm like pushing
• 24:21
  the spectrum a little bit. One thing that's gotten funny as
• 24:24
  we've gotten bigger is now we have like a general counsel and
• 24:28
  an advertising compliance lawyer.
• 24:30
  So, so there's there's not James making the compliance related.
• 24:35
  Decisions. I would love to be in those
• 24:36
  meetings. They're like James can't really
• 24:38
  like, but I can't. But he's going to be so good
• 24:41
  overall. I've done a music video so good.
• 24:47
  The DMX stuff so good. You guys are so creative.
• 24:49
  Highly recommend. Follow James personally on
• 24:52
  Instagram, he posts some really great content like I follow you
• 24:55
  personally. Like all the exercise stuff,
• 24:58
  like taking care of yourself. There's a very impressive high
• 25:00
  rocks result by the. Way.
• 25:01
  Oh, thank you. Yeah, I love high rocks.
• 25:03
  That's my latest kick. I like this concept of
• 25:07
  controlling for new where it's like you only do one new thing
• 25:10
  like sometimes life gets a little stale and you're like oh
• 25:12
  I have to change all these things and instead you're like I
• 25:14
  just need to introduce like one thing to be super excited about
• 25:17
  each day and for me that's high rocks.
• 25:19
  I created the personal channel because in Top Dog I'm
• 25:22
  constantly thinking about like disruptive advertising.
• 25:26
  It's become like a persona of some sort.
• 25:28
  And I'm like, oh, you know, what I feel really good is to
• 25:31
  actually give the like authentic James kind of behind the scenes
• 25:35
  of like my life and how I'm thinking about and like how I've
• 25:38
  grown as a person while building this thing.
• 25:41
  And it's like that way I can kind of keep the top Dog stuff
• 25:44
  separate. I still love it.
• 25:45
  That's definitely part of me. Like there's multiple parts of
• 25:47
  everybody, but then there's also, I feel like this part of
• 25:50
  me that's very. Different when you're saying
• 25:52
  that. The only thing I was thinking
• 25:53
  about the entire time, I was like, he has this Hulk Hogan and
• 25:56
  then what? Terry Something is his real
• 25:58
  name. Yeah.
• 26:00
  Yeah, it's his two personas. It's.
• 26:01
  True. It's like everyone knows.
• 26:03
  You as Hulk Hogan? You're a top dog.
• 26:05
  Anybody who has like, a wife or a girlfriend, Tony Robbins says,
• 26:08
  Like, knows this is true, right? There's multiple personalities
• 26:11
  to people. Like we have multiple facets of
• 26:14
  each other. And it's like, I love leaning
• 26:16
  into that like creative Hulk Hogan persona.
• 26:19
  I've also have this whole other side of me that I'm not really
• 26:23
  able to show on the top dog stuff.
• 26:25
  And for me, when I got sober, I really looked up to other people
• 26:30
  who had changed their life like that and then went on to be like
• 26:33
  successful entrepreneurs because that's what I wanted to do.
• 26:36
  And so it's like if I can be that person for somebody else
• 26:40
  where they're like, oh, you know, maybe this could be me.
• 26:44
  If I'm willing to make this kind of change, I want to have a
• 26:47
  place to do that. It's very exciting to see where
• 26:50
  the firm is going to go over the next 5 or 10 years.
• 26:52
  You do amazing work. You're incredibly intelligent.
• 26:54
  When Mark and I were sitting there listening to you speak,
• 26:56
  like, honestly didn't know what I was walking into.
• 26:58
  Yeah, I learned things from what you said.
• 27:00
  I think a lot of attorneys should be following you to see
• 27:03
  the things that you're doing, to learn from you, not necessarily
• 27:05
  to emulate, but to learn the creativity.
• 27:07
  Funny, when you walk in, the room is like kind of empty to
• 27:09
  start. I was like, whoever's not here
• 27:10
  for this first session of the day is an idiot.
• 27:12
  Why they put you at 8:30 in the morning, I have no idea.
• 27:15
  Any firm in the nation you should like should have sat in
• 27:17
  that session. Yeah, thank you.
• 27:19
  Well, you guys missed the beginning part.
• 27:20
  That was when I was teaching people how to build a hook on
• 27:23
  the rat song. You know, I had everybody.
• 27:24
  I had everybody standing up, coming up with bars, you know?
• 27:28
  No, no, but I love coming on, right.
• 27:29
  I think that I've gone through my own journey.
• 27:32
  We were talking downstairs where like when I first got started, I
• 27:35
  was just in like head down, you know, I want to win mode, You
• 27:40
  know, I think a lot of us start with motivation where I'm trying
• 27:44
  to prove myself and a lot of it stems back to my childhood and
• 27:47
  my relationship, my dad and all that stuff, right?
• 27:48
  I'm trying to prove myself. I'm trying to be successful.
• 27:52
  So the drive, the ambition sort of comes out of like a negative
• 27:56
  place, right? It's like I want to be enough,
• 27:58
  right? And I think at some point in
• 27:59
  your journey, you need to make that shift of like, no, I'm
• 28:04
  doing this like to celebrate this journey and like out of
• 28:07
  enjoyment and out of like a positive fueling.
• 28:10
  And that's for whatever reason, like shifting my mindset on
• 28:13
  wanting to be more active and just like sharing what I've been
• 28:18
  through because I'm like, oh, the purpose of this is really
• 28:20
  actually to just like help somebody else going on their
• 28:24
  journey. And I found the kind of a new
• 28:27
  motivation to be like sort of less competitive and more I want
• 28:30
  to help all other people starting at law firm.
• 28:32
  There's a guy downstairs I met today from Philly where I grew
• 28:35
  up. And he's literally the only guy
• 28:36
  I think here that shout out Jake, who's like a first year
• 28:40
  lawyer here in Philly who's obviously followed all my stuff
• 28:43
  and like trying to figure out how to generate clients for his
• 28:46
  firm. And like, dude, come with me.
• 28:48
  You're with me all week. Like, I just love that.
• 28:51
  That's a really great point. Like I've heard it so many
• 28:53
  times. I believe it's like that
• 28:54
  negative fuel is like jet fuel. It's like it burns bright and
• 28:57
  hot, but it only lasts for so long, and then you got to switch
• 29:00
  it at some point. Yeah, more sustainable fuel that
• 29:03
  goes forever in a positive mode. That's 100% right.
• 29:06
  And I think it's also inversely correlated with like happiness
• 29:09
  or fulfillment. If you're constantly trying to
• 29:11
  like prove yourself, you're always going to be in a place of
• 29:15
  like, I need to do this or this or this in order to like be
• 29:19
  enough or to prove myself. And instead, if you say, you
• 29:22
  know, hey, I'm enough just how I am and I'm building for the
• 29:25
  purpose of like I always say, this is like Monopoly or this is
• 29:29
  all a simulation, right? It's like I try not to take the
• 29:33
  building of the law firm so serious.
• 29:36
  It's more just like a fun project where, you know, I'm a
• 29:39
  kid, I'm on franchise mode in Madden and I'm like, this is my
• 29:43
  team that I've been playing with in dynasty mode for like 4
• 29:46
  years. This has been awesome like for
• 29:48
  the audience to actually see like the real James versus the
• 29:51
  persona like the you know that guy James.
• 29:54
  Great content. Obviously you guys all know top
• 29:56
  dog. Continue to see what top Dog is
• 29:58
  doing. James and his firm are a leader
• 30:00
  in the space will continue to be a leader.
• 30:02
  You guys do awesome work. I thank you so much for making
• 30:04
  the time to join us here. Really.
• 30:06
  Appreciate it. If people want to get a hold of
• 30:08
  you, how do they get a hold of you?
• 30:09
  I would check out that personal Instagram.
• 30:11
  It's James D Helm at James D Helm, or my e-mail is just James
• 30:15
  dot Helm at Top Dog. Any final words to the audience?
• 30:18
  No, I'm super grateful to be here.
• 30:20
  You guys are awesome and you guys are going to kill it with
• 30:22
  the business. Thank you very much, so much.
• 30:24
  Really appreciate you coming on.