In this episode, host Jay Berkowitz chats with Daya Naef, who specializes in coaching law firms after 16 years of practicing in construction law and litigation. Naef brings a wealth of knowledge and real-world experience as a former attorney, sharing insight on how to build your ideal practice and book of business while preventing burnout. They discuss the important strategies and techniques for driving traffic to law firm websites and converting that traffic into clients. Daya shares her insights on women in the legal field, building a network for referrals, and the necessary mindset for success. The conversation also explores the need for consistent client development, business planning, and collaboration within a firm. Tune in today!

Timestamps:

• 0:04 - Introduction and Welcome
• 0:43 - Importance of reviews and ratings
• 1:25 - Start your 2024 business and marketing planning now! 
• 2:10 - Implementing EOS with Gerardo Escalona + resources to learn more
• 3:17 - Introduction to Daya Naef: construction law, government consulting, and housing work
• 7:36 - Selecting clients in a Wild West economy
• 9:13 - Strategies for female business owners and attorneys
• 10:55 - Premier premonition analytics for law firms
• 12:33 - Strategies to utilize when venturing out as a solo attorney 
• 14:05 - Community involvement and career growth
• 18:50 - Personal branding and networking for females
• 21:23 - Help! I’ve fallen out of the top 3 of Google Screened and I can’t get back up: a webinar
• 22:06 - Challenges and opportunities for women in the legal field
• 25:45 - Building complementary relationships: a $500,000 referral network with Charley Mann
• 28:15 - Jay’s top 10 business book: Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
• 29:42 - LinkedIn: the 24/7 networking event
• 31:31 - $4M of business through Business Network International
• 34:24 - Law firm growth and expansion/exit plans
• 37:10 - Pivoting careers and personal productivity hacks using Calendly
• 40:57 - Podcast and show recommendations: the Huberman Lab Podcast, Neil Tyra’s The Law Entrepreneur, 48 hours, 20/20, Only Murders in the Building
• 42:22 - Getting in touch with Daya on thesuccesspartner.com and LinkedIn

Good Reads:

• Traction by Gino Wickman
• Get a Grip by Gino Wickman and Mike Paton
• Start With Why by Simon Sinek
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
• Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
• Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation by Kevin Roose

Mentioned Resources:

• Check out Jay’s 2024 business and marketing planning webinar
• Contact Daya by email at daya@thesuccesspartner.com or by phone at 504.669.1020
• Follow Daya Naef on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Ten Golden Rules on LinkedIn
• Follow Ten Golden Rules on Facebook
• Connect with Jay Berkowitz on LinkedIn

About Daya Naef:

Daya Naef, the driving force behind The Success Partner, specializes in fractional direction and business development services uniquely tailored for law firms. Drawing from the principles of Accomplishment Coaching, her approach encompasses life, leadership, and business coaching exclusively designed for lawyers, law firms, and entrepreneurs. With a focus on comprehensive professional development, Daya collaborates with legal professionals and entities, offering specialized training, business development, and dispute resolution services, particularly in construction law. Her expertise guides attorneys preparing for partnership and mid-career professionals seeking redirection, fostering a harmonious work-life balance. With licensure in both Louisiana and Michigan, Daya's commitment to the success of construction projects is evident in her streamlined and cost-effective dispute resolution services, reflecting a lifetime of immersion in the construction sector.

About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is a digital marketing strategist with decades of experience in the industry. As the CEO of Ten Golden Rules, he has helped countless law firms and businesses harness the power of the internet to achieve remarkable growth and visibility. Jay is also a renowned keynote speaker and author, sharing his expertise at various industry events and in publications worldwide.

https://www.tengoldenrules.com/

Facebook.com/TenGoldenRules

AmplifYou : Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now, here's the founder and CEO of 10 golden rules, Jay Berkowitz.

Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever time this podcast finds you. Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. We have a great guest today. Daya Naef is with us. A couple housekeeping housecleaning items before we get rolling. If you're listening to this on iTunes, we love you for a five star review. If you're watching, listening on Spotify, or YouTube or anything, we love those reviews because it helps you It helps us It helps us get found and it helps us get great guests because a lot of times when we're talking about authors and speakers and prominent people, they want to look at the podcast and see how many folks listen and have reviewed what our star rating is, so we can make this podcast better for all of us. My name is Jay Berkowitz. And we it's planning season. So if you're listening to this podcast, when it just came out, we'll probably be releasing it. early December, we did a great webinar on writing your 2020 for business and marketing plan for law firms. So you can find that on the 10 Golden Rules YouTube channel. Last year's webinar was viewed over 24,000 times. So I assume the current version will be equally valuable. And I highly recommend getting a head start on your business planning. Because if you if you get started in December, you can come hot out of the gates, because you actually know what your target is for January. You've got your strategic goals, you've got your tactics, and you've got someone lined up to work on those tactics. So definitely do that. The other one I want to give a little plug for we are formally implementing EOSC entrepreneurs operating system. And there's two great books if you haven't read traction, that was the first one out of the gate. But if you're more of the founder, the visionary, the one at the firm comes up with all the big ideas and drives your C O your chief operating officer crazy with how many new ideas you bring to the table. You should actually read the book Get a grip. And that's the book that I read because I had traction sitting here. I kept trying to start it and then I hear this with all of the other what what do us calls visionaries. tractions more of the technical book for the integrator or implementer at your firm. So we are running EOS. We have a phenomenal implementer which is the external person who helps you run EOS. His name is Gerardo and we are launching in January Gerardo Escalona is going to be on the podcast in January, as well as Gino Whitman's first client is going to be on the webinar. So we're gonna have an amazing EOS for law firms. He's an attorney. And we're gonna have an amazing EOS for law firms webinar in January. So don't miss that. Anyway. So without further ado, Daya, welcome to the 10 Golden Rules podcast.

Thank you, Jay. I loved all the stuff you just said. Those are some of my some of my favorite books as well.

Now she's here for a couple reasons. First of all, she's one of those recovering attorneys, who's now coaching other attorneys and so she's She brings a tremendous wealth of knowledge and real world experience. Some of us coach attorneys without having had to struggle through law school. And so she's she's got the real deal, the real grits. And she's also brings a particularly interesting line of experience. And she has some really great content about women attorneys, how to women entrepreneurs, how to build your business, and how to like super succeed in that category. So Dan, why don't we start with a little bit of your background and tell us, you know, where you came from and how you chose law school and and how you chose not law school?

That's a great question. I was in that. Actually, I don't know if it's a majority or a majority of the people who graduated college without a whole lot of plans. had done really well in school. So I knew I could do that. I also knew I wanted to travel. And I thought I was going to do something very international with my career. And so I ended up choosing Loyola, University of New Orleans for their very robust international and study abroad program. So that's what I ended up doing for law school. And that has not great

place to do that. Right.

Yes, exactly. And to say that, that did not play out into my career, ultimately, but I certainly had a colorful Law School Experience.

That's great. And what kind of law did you practice?

I did Construction Law for about 16 years and in New Orleans.

Great. And were you at a firm? And what cut? What size? The firm? Yes,

we had a small, small partnership. And I also was general counsel for a few years. And that was an amazing experience.

Oh, great. Awesome. So what was the business environment? Like? Like, where did they get most of the business? And what were some of the lessons learned? When you're on the lower side? Oh,

absolutely. Business development is key, making a name for yourself, especially you're in a niche market. So I really developed a specialty I grew up in construction. So I was grew up, you know, grew up in it. It was a family business on both sides for many relatives out different things that we incorporated into a to daylight, landscaping and plans and inspections and things like that. We're all common language to me growing up. And I ended up in in New Orleans practicing I had taken the bar in 2005, which was the year of Katrina. And I had well, yeah, I know, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I had had another bar. But I had mainly been doing another another state. And but I had mainly been doing consulting and contract work, and, you know, government consulting, and then also housing work prior to that and decided I was going to settle down and practice. And lo and behold, all of a sudden, a great need for lawyers with a construction background appeared out of nowhere.

Did you need a lot of background? Or was it pretty straightforward, or were the insurance companies fighting back,

I did both insurance, I did contracts within private contracts, defect work, collections, pretty much at pretty much every anything and everything. So not just your standard claims work. But even more people having to sue their architect for architects having to get paid and waterproofers trying to trying to get paid. And then other people, obviously different parties suing for water intrusion claims. So it was it was definitely the wild wild west.

So you jumped right in and got like, super experienced, and business development was not that important. Your first couple of years, the

first couple of years, first couple of years, client selection did become more important after that. So in that sort of Wild West economy, you know, you don't know who the players are going to be how long the players are going to be there, who they're going to be, you know, if they're if their roots run deep, which they do not usually in this sort of circumstances, and, and then who dies. And that's how I ultimately ended up being general counsel for a larger construction company that was an old school, Louisiana.

Well, we live in Florida and 10 golden rules was based in in Boca Raton. But we we were all across the country now. But um, I'm still here. And it's amazing. Like I do a lot of local networking, you know, local networking groups and whatnot. It's amazing, when you know, even a small hurricane hits, somewhere like in the Panhandle or something like all of a sudden, everybody's gone to the Panhandle in in the trades, and the attorneys who work in insurance claim stuff and the property adjusters and like, all of a sudden, like, you don't see them for a year, because they're all like working and tremendous amount of work comes up, unfortunately, that people's lives are disrupted, you know, who get hit by the hurricane. And then people's lives are disrupted by a ton of business that comes away. Why don't we get into some of the differences and some of your strategies for women, business owners and women attorneys, and some of the coaching you do in those areas?

Yeah, Jay, that's, that's a great way to lead into it. And of course, this is, you know, good for other other practitioners as well. But I was asked to develop some programs for lawyer women's Bar Association's specialty bars on client development and business development that is focused to women warriors. So there's a lot of things that are inherently are innate in women. So the community building aspect, the way that we socialize, the way that we build relationships are on an organic and natural level, and then find commonality in things like common interest causes, social justice, you know, globally and locally, just as something as getting better school. was in your district, or starting some sort of program for for people or rebuilding a playground, things like that where we are known as women to go ahead and collaborate more naturally. And collaboration has been shown to bring in more revenue and serve a larger market. And so even if you're a solo women, solo attorney, male or female, developing a network across collaboration partners, you can act almost as a US firm in air quotes to actually serve a greater audience and make a bigger impact. So this is something that, you know, comes comes naturally. So, you know, even even Forbes has noted it that, you know, strong female support groups really help the practice. There's a group called premier premonition analytics, and they're like, women make they literally say, where we make better lawyers, and how are a better value to their client. Now, I don't know if that is a secret word for undercharging. But that's a whole nother topic. You know, and it's also been recorded that women attorneys actually report higher jobs, job satisfaction. So then, and then attorney, so all these things go together to really solidify that, yes, women should be and in the practice, and make the impact that they want to make. Yeah,

yeah, I realized early on in my career Marketing and Communications, that women are really, really good at it. You know, they tend to be, you know, smarter, more organized, and more efficient than, than most of us guys. And, you know, one of the things I actually theorized early in my career, if I stuck with it, that, there'd be an opportunity for me, because some women are naturally going to drop out of the workforce, you know, some opportunities are going to be, you know, my experience is going to be relevant. So, you know, I got, I kind of figured, like, hey, you know, it might not be such a bad thing that like, a lot of the agencies I worked at, there was, you know, six to four, seven to three percentage of women to men. Talk about, you know, your young woman, and and or an attorney, just, you know, going out on your own, you know, what are the actual some of the things they should do? Like, you talked about community, you know, do they get on boards? Or like, what are some of the strategic things they should do? And what kind of cadence is that? Should that take?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, just like, the finding out the why, first of all, like, why, why are you a lawyer? Why are you practicing? Why do you want to have your solo have a solo practice, if that's what you're called to do? The ever popular Simon Sinek book, you know, start with why. And that is really the best place to start. So think about, like, why you went to law school, like, who didn't you want to serve what interested you like, I had no interest in international law, I didn't actually end up going going in that direction. But it was something that was very inspiring to me at the time. And I learned to apply it to other things. But a lot of people go to law school, come out of other backgrounds, especially returning students, they've come out of other fields where they've seen where they want to make more of an impact. But look at what it is called you to practice law to begin with, and then leverage that into how you want to move forward. So some people like to pick, pick a specific cause who they want to help a certain type of people, they want to fight an injustice, you know, or they just they have a love of what they're doing a love of advocacy, a love of learning. Some people have very specific practices, like, I know, I know, a woman attorney who has an animal law practice. And that's all she does is animal law, animal rights, the things associated with animals like animal custody,

and she's just following her passions, right? He's following

her passion and building and building a practice has several other attorneys working with her and that's all that they do.

A lot of people wonder, you know, how do I get involved in a community activities? And like, what do I do and one of the tips that I have, many years ago, I was fortunate to get involved with the Toronto Film Festival, which is, if people don't know, it's like number two in the world, it's a huge Film Festival and tons of the big Halloween movies are, are released there because it's in September, and so it leads into the holiday season and whatnot. And the first year, I did big surprise, the marketing and communications. So we did like no, I got the artists at the ad agency I worked out to do the tickets and T shirts and stuff and and then the committee was thrilled with the could leverage with the printers to do inexpensive printing and, you know, I really stayed in my lane and was able to contribute to the committee, you know, right out of the gate. And then the next year I said, you know, hey, all Do something, you know, I'll stay in my lane, but I want to learn something additional. And so I took on public relations. And so I had worked, you know, jointly with the public relations teams, because we were the advertising team. And so I had seen press releases written for the client, but I hadn't written them. So now I was writing press releases, reaching out to the media to promote our events, and build some media contacts and got really good experience in that area. And then the third year, I said, Okay, now I'm gonna step right out of my comfort zone and work on like the finance committee or something. So it's still not my comfort zone, but at least I, you know, had to manage the, the receipts and the p&l and, and put the financial reports together for the board, because we actually reported to the Board of the film festival, I was on the, what was called the film crew, just like the young young executives. But it was a really phenomenal experience. And then the fourth year, they asked me to be the CO chairman in the fifth year, the chairman. So it was, you know, I use that example, that people it's like, if you want to get involved in the community, and community stuff, you know, you pick the first one, right? Go with something you're passionate about. Number two, you know, I say get involved, and get involved also, like data on the board, volunteer, like every board, everywhere, every church, every synagogue, every bar association, and everyone wants help in detail. There was maybe like 10 in the world, have too many applicants. But when you get involved, you get so much more value. So I don't want to steal the thunder here. What what do you recommend in terms of activating those types of, you know, associations or volunteering kinds of things?

Oh, absolutely. What you just described was, was like really going deep. And it's going really deep in an organization. And of course, you rose the ranks. I applaud you for that. I know that is no small feat. So but guests definitely go in and go deep in organizations. You can also be in other organizations, but just remember your bandwidth, because you are also running a law practice. So make sure that you can commit. And that's something I do work with my clients with. It's like, what what should you commit to? What can you commit to? Where do we need to put some boundaries in place? And what you know, what's the score, and when you can get a double duty like that, it's great. So you're doing something that you're passionate about, you're making an impact, and you're also making a name and a reputation for yourself at the same time. So same amount of effort spent, and double duty.

Yeah, that's a good one. There's friends of ours, that one of the law firms have, like a training program for the young attorneys. So one of the things we recommended was pick one personal and one professional organization to get involved with. And you because you talked that thought of that you talked about the bandwidth. And it's definitely one of those things where, you know, everyone's busy, but everybody knows they need to, to, you know, build their professional opportunities. And, you know, when you're an attorney, and you want to build your book of business, like even if you're working at a firm, if you bring in business is definitely going to help you on the path to partner. And you definitely if you want to have your own firm, one day, you better learn how to how to build your network. And, like a lot of skills, it's a skill you can learn. You know, I have a tremendous network, thank goodness here in the United States, but I came here from Canada, the only guy I knew was my cousin didn't, I really had, you know, didn't go to school. And in the United States, I came from Canada, and had a very, very limited network down here. So you know, the one person one professional, and getting really involved what what other tips would you have for folks, you know, either working at a firm or getting started on their own?

Yeah, absolutely. Making the time again, like the why to where do you see yourself going? And especially those folks that are in firms and going for a partner? It's like, where do you see yourself going? What do you want to specialize in or get involved in, you know, in the firm, working on the relationships there inside inside the firm, as well as your exterior relationships. And I know it sounds like a lot of work and it sounds like a lot of extra hours. But if we sit down and really peel it back, find out like what consistently that you can apply over time, that will that will build and then in making those collaborative relationships within the firm. Now, if you're solo, which you know, a lot of there's a lot of solo female, female owned firms, female run firms, and then it's more collaborative, like what other types of complementary firms like family law and estate law like these people go together? So how can they jointly provide services or jointly service the same market together? How can they present it together what kind of events and activities can they do? Should they be getting in front up so that they can keep each other top of mind. And I know some people are absolutely not going to get in front of people like public speaking is not going to happen for them. And then we look at other things, other things that are creative for them that are effective. So putting on putting out articles sitting out white papers being published, things are a little bit more backstage, but still, with consistency, develop that name, reputation, as well as that sort of business development marketing piece.

Yeah, I love it. You know, it's, people always ask me about personal branding. And I talked about thought leadership, and we do our monthly webinar or weekly podcast, you know, blogs on a regular basis, monthly newsletter. And it's all thought leadership, right? Like, it's like, just sharing the latest news in your industry sharing, you know, what I always tell people, like just answered questions. What's everybody asking about? You know, and everyone's asking me, like, how do I get in the top three of Google screen, and people are saying, like, I started hearing all the time, like, so this new program came out local service ads, Google screen, and we were in it, and then we fell out of the top three. So we did a webinar called Help, I've fallen and I can't get back up and the top three. So you know, that's a great platform for your your branding, your personal branding, is creating content, I love that. And obviously, the ultimate is if you can do this kind of stuff. You know, some people be a little too shy to even do an audio podcast, then I or not. Neither of us are shy, like we'll go on stage. So if you're looking for someone to talk about, you know, women's women's attorneys and marketing and building a network, there's would love to those opportunities. And of course, I'll talk about anything that has to do with building your law, firm law firm growth and marketing stuff. He talked about, you know, relationships and relationships within the firm. I mean, why don't you go on to some of the kind of touch your stuff like, is it easy, hard for women to get promoted these days to become partners to win business? Like, what are some of the issues that you see people dealing with?

Lau J, how long do we have? Um, there are a myriad of things that go into how women are progressing in the in the profession overall, the ADA has done some great white papers on it and have some great panels on women in the profession. One of the things that I bring up directly with the women that I work for, what's their? What's their goal? And like, what's their mindset around money and revenue, and even some of the some of the men that I work with to extremely service orientated people. And so we really have to get down to what you need to make to operate your firm. What do you need to make to grow your firm, and I have certain benchmarks that I that I come in with, but it's it's some of its geographic dependent. I work all over the country and in Canada. So some of it we we have to kind of look at the local benchmark with cost of living and cost of running a practice. But some people are so service orientated that looking at the bottom line, and looking at the amount to charge, and the longevity of the clients, and what's that going to pay out over time. It's difficult, it's a, it's a tough look at sort of our own beliefs about money. And coming out it and unpacking that, for women has been especially has been really eye opening.

So, I mean, I'm kind of simplified. You know, in my mind, what you said is like, a lot of the women are, you know, very talented attorneys, very organized professional, you know, very, very good at what they do. And maybe they need, you know, if they hit on all those other points, they build the relationships, build the network, build the business and understand their goals, their career goals, they should be able to super succeed, right? There's no reason not to.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I getting getting over hurdles getting around hurdles, and certainly not saying they're not hurdles out there because they sure are, but identifying which ones are real, and which ones are something that we've perceived even more so. So there is sort of a there can be a internal bias against our own success because of the roadblocks that we hit. So working our way around that, and strengthening where we can strengthen and keeping, let's say positive is a lot more to it than that. But that keeping the course and looking for a lot of looking for alternatives and ways when someone, someone does throw up a roadblock.

So look, I now want you to give us some of the good stuff. So poor women attorneys are sitting, you know, at the at a, you know, at a conference and they break away, they're having a cocktail, and but what are they saying about the man? Come on, give us a real deal.

How they get heard more, it would be like chimeric the J said the exact same thing I said, and everybody goes, Gee, what a great idea. And nobody said, Do you know what a great idea. And now, you know, a lot of that is, in the presence of Ben, the uniformity of men, they are generally speaking, still Mormon in the room. So we tend to listen to people who are like us. So there's, you know, eight men in the room and two women in the room, the men are gonna pick up on what the men are saying more than they're picking up on what the women are saying.

But why don't we just say, you know, men feel like we have the same problem, but it's like, a certain guy, you know, always gets hurt and certain person. So we, I think some of that's human nature that we all feel will pick our opinions better than everybody else's. And when it gets listened to half as much as it should, there's a thing in speaking, you know, and education, which is, you know, tell them what you're going to tell, tell them and tell them what you told them. We, on this podcast, you mentioned something that someone else did a whole section on. And if you haven't listened to the Charlie man interview about building your $500,000 referral network, listen to that episode. But what you mentioned was building relationships with complimentary attorneys. And you talked about, you know, like, you know, family lawyers, working with estate attorneys, for example, because, you know, when there's a divorce, everybody needs to do well. And when someone dies, you know, there's issues for the family law and prenups, post, you know, whatever it all is, it's all like, there's tons of examples of stuff that super connected. And Charlie talked about two meetings a week. And he's what he said was, you know, really great strategy is, you want to just set up two meetings a week. And it's those attorneys that you see at the court all the time, or the guys who went to law school with, and you want to just have a whatever they like Starbucks in the morning, or a lunch or cocktails after work, like whatever they like, and just, you know, have a conversation about their business and what's a great referral for them and make sure they reciprocate. And they ask you and he said, what you end up finding out is exactly what you just said. So what's your strategy for building those complementary relationships?

Strategy? Well, if you were going to that direct approach to where you're actually having sit downs, which I love it, there's a wailed book called never eat lunch alone, which I think is yeah, that

I love it. It's definitely one of my top 10 business books. Yes.

Actually, what I what I have people do when we're sitting in a workshop together is I actually have some spheres that are that are sort of pre designed, that come out of my, my mindset of things that I think go together, and we actually go around the room and put spheres together so that those people can go ahead and get acquainted with each other. And set things up, set things up for the future. And I always like give away give away gift cards, and I'll give them to like one person and not the other. So it's like, okay, you've got to set this up, because one person has the gift card for the both of you. So putting those together, so being strategic about it. So thinking about it. So if you said I'm a I'm a business lawyer, I do small business transactions, like what am I what am I going to think of? So you're gonna need you know, a tax lawyer, you're going to need maybe a, you know, franchisee specialist, commercial real estate person. So think about those people in your network. Tapping your alumni network is great, especially if you're practicing in the same area where you went to school. Great idea. A lot of us are some of us aren't. But there's also alumni networks worldwide. So being online is amazing. I love LinkedIn. I'm a LinkedIn guru. I love to be on there. It's a 24/7 networking event. I'm a networking event kind of person as well. But a lot of people aren't and a lot of people don't have as much time. So that's where you want to be selected. So do you want to go to your trade group, like say you're a woman in a state law, so go to the women in a state law group? Yeah. That's because that's great for education and content, and keeping up with trends, but you're not going to get referral sources there. So that's when you would want to go to the state planners lunch, or within something out something else that you like, Rotary or Lions Club or one of those that think about it lions is Lions Club soldiers. For men, I think

anything exists,

though, yeah, that would be a way away way throwback and going to like a civic, civic, charitable organization, and getting to know people there. And of course, there are very specific networking groups that are for attorneys putting putting things together like pro visors, that's a very specific type of group where it's attorneys and people that work with attorneys, accountants, people who do be all b2b. And, and then, of course, if you're local, and you're doing something like family law, you know, a BNI is great, because that's, you know, you're b2c, and you're working with people there that need Family Lawyers for some medical claiming lawyers, or know someone who needs a family lawyer at this point in time. And so you'd had breakfast with these people, you know, every week for a good good bit of time, they've gotten to know you got into your personality they've gotten and trust you. And then that's where you can also get good support and and client generation client referrals. Yeah,

BNI is awesome business network International. If you're, you know, just starting out in business, if you're just starting out, in law, or you know, or just at any stage, frankly, BNI is great, because you get a local network, you know, particularly in a local business. First of all, you can be the I got a guy, I gotta get out, you know, person, because then people will know, like, hey, I need an air conditioner. Do you know someone, you know, do you know, a good plumber, do you know, a good landscaper, and you've always got a guy or got a gal, you become sort of a go to person, which is one of the principles of great networking. And then, you know, in terms of building your business, you've got like 30, or 40 people in the room, who are all trying to send referrals to you. Our little BNI in like two years has generated over $4 million of business. We started in the middle of COVID. Online, we don't even meet in person. And you know, people have made, you know, like the landscapers young, young, startup business, and he's doing two $300,000 a year now, just from his BNI. So, you know, same thing for the attorneys, and we're working with the personal attorney, in our BNI group. So I highly recommend it. You touched on, you know, relationships and know, like and trust. The, you know, old saying is, you know, we do business people we know, like and trust. So do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. And especially in a field, like the practice of law, you want to you want to trust your lawyer. I know it's a I have a coffee mug that says, Trust, trust me, I'm a lawyer. So it's a little tongue in cheek. However, when we are in need of an attorney, we call an attorney, we call someone that we know, it might not be in the practice area, I get calls all the time for people who know I'm an attorney, but they have a personal injury issue or they have a divorce issue or they have a tax issue. And they don't know anyone to call. But since they know me and they know I wear that hat then I'm then I'm then I'm first call for them. So they they trust me and so therefore they will trust someone that I I tell them to call or I say hey, usually I give them a couple of people unless I know they have a very specific area that only one or two people handles because it is a relationship thing. So can you hire an attorney and for some reason, guys, don't click y'all have opposing football teams, or whatever the case may be, then you know that there are others there are others lawyers, no other lawyers, surprisingly enough, and we can certainly find you the right fit.

Awesome. So thanks for s you know, doing some of the easy questions and some of the tough questions about you know, women's law. Talk about your practice your business as well in terms of, you know, you were telling me about some great work you do on expansion plans and exit plans and the focus of some of the people and some of financial management stuff. Talk about some of those areas of expertise.

Yeah, Thanks, Jay. Love to talk about stuff like that. Um, so my my sort of bread and butter market is the small firm the under 15 Lawyer firm. And we come in we right now it's just me the success partner however, I do aspire to have other coaches on my team when they you know when they're reading and when that when that grows out of our own business plan. Um, but we come in and and everything is custom. So we really look at what's going on in the firm where you want to go the visionary, you mentioned from CEOs, the visionary, and the implementer. So like, what's working there? What's working or not? And is it in line with the firm owners vision, or the partners and the principals in the firm? And sometimes the partners are not principals of the firm don't have the same vision. It's like, okay, this is why we're not going to work to do here. Yes, this is not where we're at is this, this is what's going on. And there's definitely a mix up here on what's going to happen with the firm, and it will ultimately cause the deterioration and possibly implosion of the firm, if not yet brought to the table. So, you know, each year at least, there should be some hard conversations and I've been happy to mediate, facilitate those conversations with folks. But even more frequently, a, I generally meet with my people, like every every two weeks, for the first year. And then we spaced out a little bit as they as they go on, and we do a growth plan. But again, that all of that is based on the first conversations that we have. Some people just need an intensive, something or another. Some people need some customized continuing education that's specific for their firm. Some people are doing some, some transitions, some people are doing some staff transitions, and it's like, what kind of staff do we need for the particular practice area that we're serving? And it can be it can be very different from one to the other.

I love it, you got he got a lot covered, and a lot of expertise? Well, as I mentioned, I always wrap our podcasts with a couple quick and easy questions. This one's not as quick and easy. But I'm a member of a group called the strategic forum. And our group is audited by the MBA students. And so we always ask the speakers, you know, tell us about a pivot or a major life decision that would be interesting or valuable to the students. And maybe, you know, in your instance, like, obviously, you made the pivot to go to law school made the pivot out of practicing law, you know, talk about those decisions. And people, you know, you lawyers, people, considering law school people considering, you know, getting out of practicing law, well, how did you make those decisions? And how, you know, what kind of factors should people weigh in those decisions? Yeah, absolutely.

weigh some factors, prototype some things out, there's another book that I love called Designing your life, came out of Stanford. And I think it was some engineers and architects that actually brought it brought it to life. And then now it's actually part of their curriculum, but prototyping what your life is going to look like, should you choose the various paths that you're thinking about choosing? I made a lot of decisions based on like what was in need. So it's like, well, at the time someone needed construction lawyers, I fit that bill. So that's what I did. At the time, I was graduating from college and didn't have enough specific subject areas to go to graduate school, then I was like, oh, law school, they take a nice, good rounded General Studies Education. Let's do that. And I'll take the LSAT and see how it goes. So you know, not not a bad choice. I found law school very interesting. And, you know, and other people did, I said, I've got to be the only person who's in law school because they didn't actually know what they wanted to do. And I found out that like, 30 to 40% of law students are actually in that category. So, okay, yeah. And then we and then we later make a little bit. And, yes, yeah. And then developing a business. So I'm obviously in a service orientated business. You know, my company does also products, courses, and book in the works, that kind of thing. But generally, in that service, you know, and I've always represented, and represented businesses. So even if you're a solo practitioner, you are a business. So when I was in construction, I represented businesses. So again, even if you're a guy with a truck and a hammer, you're running a business. And you're sure, like, yeah, so what's the good of that? What's the good of the business? Like, what's the good of the child? What's the good of the project? What's that? Like? Let's look at that as its own entity that you are also creating that you're giving birth to that you're living with throughout its throughout its lifecycle.

Great, do you have a couple or one personal productivity hack or an app or something to be more efficient? I love those.

I do too Jay I really do. I must have I don't even know how many hundreds of apps have it found the perfect one. They say to write down there was a there was another book I read it's future proof, I think, anyway, but they said every time you run into like a problem, write it down for like 30 days at the end of 30 days and you have your like next you have your you have your million dollar idea. And so all the apps that I use If I don't have one that covers, you know, areas, there's always some sort of bug. There's always some sort of, Oh, if only it did this if only did that. So I have, I have certain things. I do use a calendar, I live and die by my calendar, I have a scheduling link just like you just like you do.

I don't know what I do without Calendly saves me about 100 of similar.

Yeah, and you know, it's funny, some people will still refuse to use it, they still work because they they write back and give me times or they'll look at it, and then call me back with some times and I'm like, just click the button.

Just I know, every time I don't use it. It drives me crazy. Like I sent a candidate some times for an interview tomorrow. And he replied by email, but I didn't see it and then booked over the times I gave him. How about any blogs, podcasts or youtubes? Anything you subscribe to anything you don't miss every month. I

got on the Huberman podcast at the Hebron labs. I love bioengineering biohacking it want to live forever. And you know, actually, my, I'm blessed with longevity and my family like we live a very long time. And I would like to be functional for that long length of time. So I got very interested in in the biohacking and of course my Neil Tyra law entrepreneur, friend of mine. Definitely love his stuff. And he has some great featured presenters as well. Yeah. Oh, and then my guilty pleasures as true crime. I listened to 48 hours and 2020 but not too much, but not too much. It gets to be too much.

Lots of it now. We're only murderers in the building was a lot

of fun. Oh, that was hilarious. Yeah.

All right. And last one, your NFL team?

I gotta be saints. Gotta be saints. So I was I was always a new or linear at heart. And I was like, that was my also my team when I grew up when I grew up in Alabama, because it's just, it's just down the coast. So that's our that's our regional team.

Good. Well, you know, I think you guys are rebuilding a little bit, but you know, you'll be back. Awesome. We'll do thank you so much for your time today. And all the insight and all the book. I'm gonna have to load up in about four from Amazon. And hopefully everybody else does, too. But thank you so much for your time. And where can people find you? What's the best way to reach you?

The success partner.com And then LinkedIn, always.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, and we'll be in touch.

Awesome. Jay Thanks, . Bye.

AmplifYou : Thank you for listening to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. Please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 Golden rules.com. That is podcast at t e n Golden rules.com.