In this episode, Jason Melton, a Florida-based personal injury lawyer and Founder of legal outsource company Regents Remote shares insights from his challenging legal career. He discusses the power of mastermind problem-solving and offers strategies for legal and entrepreneurial success in a conversation with host, Jay Berkowitz. Whether you’re navigating the complexity of difficult legal challenges or in search of entrepreneurial advice, this conversation offers real-world experiences and strategic insights that serve as a guide for professionals seeking advice in legal or entrepreneurial worlds. Tune in now!

Timestamps:

• 00:04 - Introduction to Ten Golden Rules podcast
• 00:26 - Guest introduction: Attorney Jason Melton
• 00:44 - A look into Jason’s background: 20-year recap & lessons learned
• 02:49 - Challenges in Miami’s legal scene, advocating applicable lawyer experience, & additional background
• 06:46 - Legal shifts post-pandemic
• 07:34 - The Whittel & Melton Law Firm’s story
• 10:25 - The $47,000 case turned $4.7 million brain injury case with direct client impact
• 11:40 - The client experience: understanding and empathizing in challenging situations
• 12:55 - Setting up for success + key annual planning strategies for a law firm: building purchases, tax reduction, SBA funding, labor quality & productivity frustration and inspiration
• 20:31 - The evolution of learning to an entrepreneurial initiative: Regents Remote Services
• 23:54 - “Masterminds” - mastermind meetings and the power behind the mind of an attorney: competition, networking, BNI groups, PILMMA, National Academy of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers
• 26:44 - Jay’s mastermind and network experience: The Seven-Figure Agency
• 27:37 - Real-world advice from mastermind experiences/therapeutic effects
• 28:27 - Mastermind webinar to come with Ken Hardison and Ben Glass - early 2024
• 28:56 - Jason’s apps & techniques for personal productivity: Pipedrive (CRM)
• 30:03 - Jason’s consumption recommendations for the industry: The Wall Street Journal, Instagram Lawyers
• 30:30 - Diversification of Jason’s client base through Instagram - video, content creation, daily posts
• 31:18 - Best content practices & why: authenticity is key
• 33:06 - Blog, Podcast, YouTube Recommendations - Lawyer Dad (LA Lawyer Links, Instagram, TikTok), Kyle Newman (NY Lawyer Link, Instagram)
• 34:40 - Outro: contact at Whittell and Melton: thefllawfirm.com, regentsrs.com, Instagram at @jasonmeltonesquire

Content Recommendations:

• Lawyer Dad (Los Angeles Lawyer Links, Instagram, TikTok)
• Kyle Newman (New York Lawyer Link, Instagram)

Mentioned Resources:

• Check out SBA funding to assist your law firm
• Check out Regents Remote Services for outsourcing of work
• For networking/educational resources, check out groups such as BNI groups, PILMMA, The Seven-Figure Agency, Ken Hardison & National Academy of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers
• Pipedrive (CRM) is recommended as a great personal and professional tool to make you more efficient
• Contact Whittell and Melton for personal injury lawyer legal needs
• Follow Jason on Instagram
• Connect with Jason on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Ten Golden Rules on YouTube 
• Connect with Ten Golden Rules on LinkedIn
• Follow Ten Golden Rules on Facebook
• Connect with Jay Berkowitz on LinkedIn

About Jason Melton:

Throughout his career, Jason Melton has earned his reputation for developing and executing on individually tailored strategies for difficult and tragic personal injury and wrongful death clients in Florida. Jason started his career fighting for victims in Florida's criminal courtrooms and has continued that drive for equity and accountability in the civil arena against insurance companies and some of the countries largest corporate entities. He is a life member of both the Million Dollar and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Jason has also earned an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell, and has been listed among Florida's Super Lawyers. He is a founding member of the National Academy of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers and was named Top 20 Motorcycle Injury Lawyer in the United States in 2020. To top off his grand list of achievements, Jason was named among the top 100 High Stakes Litigators for his experience in cases worth over $2,000,000– less than one-half percent (0.5%) of litigators in the United States are qualified for this distinction.

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.

About the Ten Golden Rules Internet Marketing for Law Firms Podcast

Join host Jay Berkowitz on an innovative journey through the world of digital marketing for the legal industry. With his expertise and passion, and world-class guests, Jay empowers legal professionals to thrive in the digital age. Explore topics like Search Engine Optimization, Google advertising, Artificial intelligence, intake strategies, content marketing, and other law firm growth strategies. Jay’s practical advice and industry expertise equip legal professionals to navigate the online world. This podcast is your invaluable resource for unlocking your law firm’s full potential. Get ready for an extraordinary adventure with Jay Berkowitz as your guide in the ever-changing realm of internet marketing for law firms. Your success story begins here!

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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. My guest today is attorney Jason Melton, we've got some great stuff to talk about. So let's just get right into it. Jason, welcome. And tell us a little bit about your background.

Thanks for having me on Jay. Well, I've been a lawyer for over 20 years now. I grew up in Texas, went to law school in DC area Catholic, and I took on my first job as a prosecutor in Miami. And that first job really sort of molded almost everything I've done up till now. It's incredible, like the things you learn in those first couple of years, and how it affects all the decisions you make. Moving forward. You know, starting at the State Attorney's Office in Miami, is really interesting, because you start with, like, 50 people, right? That's not like you got a job. And you know, some office where the you know, like, you're the one person they hired that year, you start with 50 people. So it's almost like going to another college or another class, right. And so like those people are friends or colleagues are some sort of relationship for the rest of your life. And then from those people, they're just like trees of new people. And for someone who didn't go to law school in Florida, that was super important, because I knew essentially nobody down here, right? So. But that Job was a great job. I think for young lawyers, I don't, I don't really believe there's a better job than being a prosecutor or a public defender in either the state or federal jurisdiction. I know there are more Steve Jobs like clerking for judges, and these sorts of things. And for some of those really, really, really bright people who are great writers, and will probably never have to waste their time, maybe speaking to a client, then I guess those are great jobs for them, but forever for the rest of us who need to deal with people and need to work on client skills. And you know, because we don't eat, they don't teach that in law school, and learn to develop skills in the courtroom in particular, they're the best jobs because you're essentially doing the government work. Right. If you're a public defender, you're helping people defend themselves where they couldn't otherwise afford a lawyer. And if you're a prosecutor, you're helping the government prosecute cases in court for really reduced wages, I would highlight reduced.

And is that why they start with 50? Because it calls itself out pretty quickly.

I? Well, I think in Miami, they start with 50, because they just have I mean, arresting over 100,000 people, you know, a year just for misdemeanors not let alone everything else like that. The demand on there is crazy. But I think yeah, I think there's a lot of turnover, right? Because they have limitations on what they can pay people because of their budgets. And so for me, it's like go to law school, but then you should sign up for two to two and a half, three years of public service, because it'll help you for the rest of your career. So, you know, after working down there for only a little bit of time, I had so much trial experience that I was well ahead of the game, in terms of understanding the X's and O's of handling a case and moving a case all the way to the verdict. And even doing some appellate work boils down there. And, you know, for a lot of these folks that get hired at like what they called good paying jobs, they don't get a lot of experience, because they're kind of playing a lot of gopher for an older lawyers. So, you know, if you were broke like me and don't know the difference between being broke and poor, then it's a great way to go. And if you're okay with being broke, because you're actually rich, and you can afford to be broke, then it's a great way to go. I think the folks in the middle, those decisions are a little harder. I think people want to pat themselves on the back for taking these jobs when they're already broke. Honestly, it really wasn't that big of a stretch. I was already I was already broke. So I have just enough to live by again for another couple of years, you know, wasn't that much of an extension, but I was certainly ready to get out of there when I was because it was it's very hard to you know, sustain a living that you're happy with but awesome, awesome educational background. And then basically the next steps for me are sort of a blueprint of everything I've done. And what I say that is the next thing I did is my now partner and I who are prosecutors together decided to open a practice literally in the middle of the state in a in a postal code, not even a city still isn't And Hernando County and Spring Hill, Florida, the firm is called woodland Melton. And, you know, it was like everybody was rushing to towards the cities. And we went out into the middle of the state. And that was a conscious decision. Well, Somewhat, yeah, my partner was running for Congress. And we sort of along the way, realize as he's running for Congress, hey, we're probably not going to win this race, because I've taken off a leave of absence to help him. And, you know, Hey, we should stay here, practice law, all the lawyers here are essentially older folks. And they're not super aggressive. They're not hustling, looking for cases looking to help people. And I was like, we should stay. And so it was a conscious decision after I got there and realized, kind of what was going on. And to that point, like, you know, I was super involved in, you know, internet marketing, way before the Lord's War. I've been blogging since 2005. But I was doing it from the middle of the state. And so that gave me an advantage on top of an advantage, right, because of the location of where I was from. And, you know, through that, like, I was able to amass, you know, reputational sort of advantage over other lawyers my age, because they were in Tampa or Miami or Orlando, competing with literally, you know, 7080 years of marketing, you know, Florida's a relatively newer state, right, versus where I'm at where I was, I was dealing with nothing. I was basically creating, creating the the platform right. Now, lots of people are in our area of advertising. But, you know, there was a time when it was me and not, not too many other folks, you know?

Yeah. I guess for a long time people didn't advertise in an area, they didn't want to go to the court there. So that's correct. And that was now it's so much more virtual? Well,

yeah, the pandemic, you know, had some interesting effects. That was one of them, is that people felt fancy free about taking cases 250 miles away from their office, because they figure well, I'll just show up via zoom in before I can remember conversations, I'm not taking a case there. There's no highway to that courthouse. Right. And I remember conversations about building highways. And people would say, is there any way we can talk to the legislature about building that highway so that it doesn't connect to the courthouse? So it's just a little more difficult for folks from the big cities to come up to the

crazy lobby or market? So yeah. Firm and how you built the firm? And where you're at now?

Yeah, so basically, my partner and I figured out early on, hey, listen, a lot of the lawyers that are making waves appear to be doing personal injury. And personal injury is pretty close to what we were doing the prosecutors because we're working on behalf of victims in many cases, right. And I didn't know how to do it. So I immediately took a job with a local personal injury lawyer, and, and work there. For two years, my partner set up his own practice doing criminal defense, we work together on criminal matters. And then after I felt like I've learned enough that I was ready to go out on my own, my partner and I decided to, you know, create a partnership and create a firm. And, you know, so I've been he and I've been working together, essentially, since about 2006. Seven. And formally, I think our corporation was formed in 2009. We have like, an affiliation of professional associations, we're sharing space, sharing the work. And then we said, hey, let's just make this a firm. Right. And it's been, you know, it's been interesting. We've got, I think we, along with councils, I think we have nine or 10, or 11. Lawyers. We've got staff here domestically, and we have staff in Mexico, which I can talk about in a minute. And it's been terrific. We've tried different things. We tried doing employment law for a while, which I still love as a practice area, I just hate that I'm in Florida doing it. It's not the greatest circuit to be doing employment law. What I mean by circuit is many of the federal minimum many most of employment laws sort of governed by case law that comes out of the federal courts, and the 11th circuit is quite conservative. Whereas let's say I was in New York, you've got more interesting rulings in the state government, of course, weighs in on that as well. And Florida is a conservative state. You've got a conservative circuit, as I mentioned, it's not the greatest place to do employment law. But I you know, we still take the cases if they're, you know, situated just right. But we really just focused on criminal events and personal injury and wrongful death cases. And, in many respects, you know, my partner and I have basically managed those two areas with our firm, and we've been very successful doing it had some great verdicts, some great results. And, you know, it's somewhat of a challenge because we're in a conservative area of the state. So our juries are less apt to We'll open up the wallet. But with the right case, and sort of the right situation and positioning of the case, you can get a great result just a couple of months ago, we got $4.7 million on a case that the first offer was $47,000. And that's, you know, it's that's not every case. But point is, you know, when you pick your battles correctly, I think you can get,

can you tell the story of that case? Like, how did that evolve?

Sure, I mean, I can speak in generalities, it's a, it was a head on DUI collision, family was in the car. And essentially, they were injured, they had a lot of sort of the normal injuries that would occur and a head on collision, some of them ended up being surgical with regards to their neck and back. But the biggest component of those cases were brain injuries. And so we had to work really hard to get these folks in front of people who could work with them, rehabilitate them, as well as diagnose them. And, you know, because the case went on so long, that was that was the toughest. And in terms of value, maybe the best part of the case is that you could watch you watch these injuries really affect your own clients, right. And the two clients in particular, in that case that were of note, one was a retired clerk from the courthouse, and one was retired deputy. And they were married. And they were basically like, your civil servants, people that you like, we hope that we live next door, right. And you could see some decline. And the way they spoke to each other the way they spoke to therapists, but for me, it was the way they spoke to us, and the way they handled us. And I have a child who's autistic and ADHD on spectrum. And so I've had to learn sort of the hard way, having no experience of dealing with people who need a little extra help and need a little empathy. And it's kind of helped me in practice of law too, because he's folks with brain injuries. You gotta take a deep breath before you talk to him, deal with them, because you don't know what version you're gonna get. You don't know what's gonna set them off. And, you know, deep down, they're not interested in being, you know, the odd man out. They have, but life comes at them differently after an accident like this, right? So it's a, it's one of these cases that candidly shouldn't have taken four years to get resolved. But the insurance companies involved, thought otherwise and felt like it was something they wanted to put their put their flag down and take a stand on and they did not choose wisely.

Congratulations, that sounds like you've got the right product and, and help some folks out. Yeah. You know, this episode will come out late December, early January, now. It's ever evergreen. So someone hopefully listen to this. And 2025 2026 Give Jason a shout out. But if you do listen to it when it comes out, talk about annual planning, because it's a theme we've been talking about a lot the last couple of weeks. How do you guys set a plan for the year? And what are the two or three of the key things that affirm that's getting started and wants to grow to your size should do in terms of setting a plan? Well,

I appreciate the comment about the timing of this episode. And when people might here. The first thing I'll say is if you're doing annual planning in December, unfortunately, it's probably too late. And December, I think the best you can do is go buy stuff. Right? So that you can reduce your tax burden. The planning really needs to occur probably August, September, maybe even October. But there's lots of things. One of the things early on, we did as a firm is we went and bought a building. I think it's a super, super important strategic thing that all firms need to do. People might say, oh my gosh, that's such an investment, blah, blah, blah. Listen, if you're serious about advertising, you're gonna spend way over the value of that building. Moving forward, right? Yeah. I say building because I'm in Central Florida, we have space, but you could be in a larger city and you could you know, buy a flat or or whatever it is. But discontinuing the requirement of paying rents that are out of your control, and having a landlord that's out of your control is an important factor. You have eliminated so many new emergencies from your life and your business life that don't need to be there by simply acquiring your own property. Right. I think also it's, I mean, it's a good decision tax wise to one of the Things that we were fortunate is because we're in Spring Hill, Florida, which is in Hernando County, that's where our home offices, we were in an area that that was available for SBA funding. So to the extent that you can get SBA funding, because of either your individual status or where you're wanting to buy, then avail yourself of that funding as well. It's what it's there for. And, you know, all these, this is like, to me, these are like, super important activities that should occur probably, in the first, I'd say, three to five years, you know, cuz that first couple years, you're not sure if this is going to work, whatever, whatever, once you start to put your roots down, go get yourself a piece of real estate, you know, it's an asset. If things happen with your firm, you can do things with the asset, you can transfer ownership, you can sell it, all sorts of things, but there's so many advantages in buying a building. The other thing that I think is super important when planning is labor. You know, unfortunately, we probably are working right now and one of the worst labor markets in the United States. What's the worst one that I've experienced as an adult? And I can only imagine in comparison with others and talking to older people, it's one of the worst in a long time. And why do I say it's the worst? Well, it's not because the wages I mean, yeah, do are we paying more for for labor than we were before? Sure. But we're paying more for a lot of things. And, you know, at the end of the day, that's not really going to move the needle that much. The issue, though, is the quality and the productivity of the labor. And right now you have a generation of younger folks who went who grew up in the shadow of 911, a horrible recession, wars and the pandemic. And they frankly, are not motivated, like you and I were coming out of school and wanting to work show a good, you know, face showing up early, doing the extra effort, all those things, essentially creating a career path. career paths are not a goal right now. They're I don't, it's not it's not so much the Yolo generation. But there's a lot of that, you know, if it doesn't feel good right now, go do something else. And we experienced a lot of that in the 2017 2018 2019. To the point where I got so frustrated with it. I was replacing the same positions, I was training in the same positions. And I wasn't getting that, that bit up out of bed show up before everybody else. Yeah, what else? Can I do? Extra question. Those people weren't around anymore. Which puts you in a bad position. You're either overpaying for younger people who aren't producing work, or you're having to really break out the checkbook for older employees who are experienced and do a good job. But like you're grossly overpaying for their services, because you need to keep them on because there's nobody else are the junior roles, right? Yeah, exactly. And so I was talking to a friend of a friend and I hooked up with this guy in Monterrey, Mexico, who does a lot of employment, HR work for larger American companies. I said, Hey, listen, what do you think about working with a small law firm like my like mine? And could you help me find a couple of paralegals to work remotely? Right. And his response we'll never forget is Jason, why would you hire paralegals in Mexico? To do apparently with the work in the States? And I couldn't understand the question why he would ask that. Because obviously, I want, I want to hire the position to fill a hole right thing is like you have such a currency advantage. Why don't you hire better for the same role? And I was like, What do you mean, he goes, Why don't you hire lawyers to do legal system work? And I was like, Wow, do you think they'll do that? He goes, of course, if you pay them. He's like, it's an honor to work for an American law firm. And if you pay them and train them properly, they would love to do it. And so we went down this path, and for two years, I didn't tell anybody about it. I did it. It was incredible, incredible experience. We we've been now working with virtual assistants in Mexico for years. We have graphic artists, we have video editors. We have folks who work in the pre suit area. So they're working with the insurance companies and health providers to make sure that the records are up to date, though we have folks working in litigation, drafting different parts of our litigation, like our lawsuits and our discovery, we probably haven't drafted a lawsuit that wasn't first drafted in Mexico several years. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing how much work you can get done when some of that first level work is done elsewhere. Now, people are like, Oh, this is great. Because you're not paying them that much. But the issue is not what you're paying them. Yeah, you're Making great savings by by paying them way less than you would in America. But the issue is the quality, because you're dealing with much smarter people because they're better educated, better trained than what you would hire in America. So when I'm training someone to help me litigation, who, you know, maybe went to high school, or graduated high school, and maybe went to paralegal college in America, versus someone who went to law school, and has maybe even practiced law, when I train that person, that person is going to be better equipped to learn the material faster. I think that's what's a real advantage. Yeah.

Well, what I was interested in is you've actually turned this into a business. And it sounds so great. But the good news is you've made it available to other attorneys. And yeah, so that evolution, what's the name of the business? And how can what type of positions are available for other companies to hire?

Yeah, so about two years ago, I just said to my partner down there, I said, Listen, I'm talking to lawyers all over the country all the time, because the different mastermind groups and associations I'm with, they're having the same problems I'm having, we should start selling this service. And let's create a business. And he's like, Yeah, let's do it. And so the name of the business is regents remote services, you can find online and regions Rs, R, E, G, E, and T s rs.com. And we can feel basically every need in an office, not just law firms, any business, but from intake, to legal assistant to graphic design, video editing, we have a medical doctor on staff who can summarize records, and provide insight to what's going on medically, by reviewing charts, they are not going to practice medicine, obviously. But they can review records, having some like that on salaries is a major advantage. You know, like my calls right now, on my law firm during the day are all answered in Mexico, we still have a nice service that we can service but their answer to Mexico. And you know, a lot of people hire call services, and you're essentially hiring your name and your portfolio to go into a databank of you know, maybe 1000 Other companies for the same 50 people to answer those calls. Those receptionists are never going to get any better with your calls. Whereas in my office, I have four people all they only answer my calls. Every week they get better at what they do they get better with understanding what the caller's needs, are. It communicate with my office in an improved way every week, because that's all they're doing. Right? And their English is great. Right? Terrific. Yeah. So we do most of our most of our people we staff out of Monterrey, Monterrey is probably the most American of the Mexican industrialized cities. It's not too far from the border, but just about every American businesses down there. And one way or another in manufacturing, and other outfits. And the just the culture down there is very Americanized, like all of our food is there. All of our TV is there, our entertainment is there. They watch the NFL. It's not like Mexico City. It's not like, you know, Cancun, this is, yeah, it's a very industrial town that some people refer to as like Pittsburgh of Mexico. It's a really cool town. Like what people liked about it, too, is, you know, the alternatives for virtual staffing are basically like the Philippines, India, you're not getting on a plane and going to see those people ever. And certainly, they'll they'll crush us on price. But I think the quality and the cultural connections to America being so close to the border and basically, involving themselves in our in our, in our culture, make them better representatives for anyone's company. You can't go to South America a little bit too. But you know, Monterey, there's like 27 flights a day the United States from Monterey. I can be there tonight after doing this interview, if I want to it's not a big deal. It's awesome, direct flights, masons,

you touch on the mastermind. I know that's been a big part of your life and your evolution. Talk about your mastermind and the power of the mastermind, for an attorney.

Yeah, so I'll dress the last part first, for me. My mastermind. Meetings are like therapy. Because one of the problems of being a personal injury lawyer is that you can't really talk about everything in your community. Because you're essentially going to be speaking to your competitors in one way or another either through someone or directly. And so we hold so many so much information close to the vest. A lot of us owners don't even talk to our associates about how we do marketing and where we do marketing, which marketing has the best ROI. Because we know that some of these associates might end up being competitors at some point. And it's a really strange world that we work in. And I know some people have had success going into like BNI and some of these groups, but the problem BNI again, is that these are all local folks who They have friendships with other folks to getting a mastermind, especially when it's on a national scale, where you can have meetings with people who do exactly what you do. But don't do it in your area. And in many respects, don't even do it in your state. It's, I mean, it's like a hot shower that you were looking for, and didn't know you needed it. It's wonderful. Because they're having the same problems you're having, a lot of times they've had the problem that you're having, they resolved it, and they tell you how they resolved it. And then you also get a group of people to, to brainstorm how to fix something for you coming from the same vantage point that you have, because they run a similar type of firm. And in doing that, I've had relationships all over the country, I, I joined Panama, in 2016, or 17. And I've never stopped, it's been one of the very best business decisions I've ever made. I'm also currently the president and founding member of the National Academy of motorcycle injury lawyers. And that's a secondary mastermind that I'm in as well. And through that, I've met all types of lawyers throughout the country as well. And through those two networks, it is, you know, I don't sit around and wonder, as much what might work and what might be a good idea, my firm, I really, because I come away with, you know, eight to 10 really good ideas at every meeting for each of those groups. Like I don't need to wonder, I guess, and throw money at the wall and hope some of it sticks. I can I can talk to people who have had things work before. And the odds of those things working for me are incredibly enhanced, which makes the value of the membership. Incredible. Yeah,

no, I'm with you. I've been very fortunate to join a mastermind of seven figure agency. And there's 300 agencies that are members of this group. And then there's about 20 of us who are in the what we call the Titans elite. But the what we share with each other as best practices, what's working for us? And then like you said, if you've got a question, we have an online forum, you just ask, and five or six other folks have gone through exactly what you've gone through. You know, picking a software. Yeah, hiring issue, a staffing issue, a legal issue. You know, it's fantastic, the feedback. And then you go to these mastermind meetings, and the energy, you come back with the ideas you come back with. Yeah, the hard part is picking. I was trying to pick the top three things to do. Because I've got a list of 20 things I wanted to do. Yeah,

so I should have noted, I come away with eight to 10 things to do, I usually only accomplished two, maybe three, right? But nevertheless, I don't have to go search for them. I don't have to go to a Tony Robbins like, you know, Pump up the jam thing downtown for two days and get excited and then try to figure out what to do. It's just real world advice. And, you know, the therapy part of it is that, you know, you're not crazy when you go to those meetings. Right? You know that what you're going through? It's not that unique. Other folks are doing it, too. There's no reason to get hysterical about your stuff. You know, I think sometimes we get our own little cacophony. And we don't realize that a lot of the stuff we're going through other folks are going through two. And that's it's it's a it's a somewhat of a breakthrough to find those groups where you can talk to these people, and they're, they're just as willing to talk to you as you are then

we're gonna do a webinar on masterminds. I hope Ken Hardison will participate from Belmont and classroom GLM, and our John from how to manage and we have a really great session. So look for that early in the new year. We've got invitations out, just a couple of quick questions. Jason, I know you got to run these, we call these quick snappers or whatever, give us a couple apps or techniques you use for personal productivity.

So for me, within my you know, because I'm affiliated with a lot of different businesses, one of the great business apps that I've come across is something called Pipedrive. I think it's terrific. I think it's really good. I don't hear it mentioned very often. That's why I think it's a second time I've heard that tell us about it. It's just basically like a, an interface to help you with following up on leads, customer good customer service, via if you're selling something to somebody, or if you're just making sure people are happy. I mean, at the end of the day, so much of what everybody does, whether we like it or not, it just boils down to customer service. And so I really like it as an ongoing way to manage your own ability to serve your customers. And

is it an app or is it a people access? People

know it's an app? Yeah. So you put in your own information. It's not it's not a social network, like a CRM, essentially. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not as it's not as developed as like my CRM and my website, but in my in my law firm But it's yeah, it's basically like CRM forever.

That's business books.

So I'm a bad person for this question, because I don't read books. I haven't read books. Since college. I read a lot of magazines and newspapers. Yeah. So I, you know, I read the Wall Street Journal almost every day. And I read a lot on Instagram. People may know me from Instagram, I have a lot of followers. And

you were up to like, 150,000. Right? That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. On Instagram, what do you do on there? And how did you build it up?

So the reason I went on Instagram is I wanted to diversify my client base, because we're my main offices, we have an older client base, and I was like, I need to get younger. So where are the younger people? So I went to Instagram. And I just started shooting videos, and the beginning of videos weren't that great. Certainly the quality was bad. And through my agency in Mexico, I hired a video editor. And now I send him the content, he edits, it sends it back to me, if I like it, I publish it. If not, I fix it and publish it. We're able to produce lots of content, I'm able to I basically post every day. And our content is as good as anybody else's on Instagram. And it's not a terribly difficult process, because I have that editor in Mexico. What content works the best? Yeah, so that's interesting. So first of all, though, content that works. The best is when you're just being yourself. Why does it work the best, not because it's maybe the most entertaining, but it works the best because you're being yourself. And that's a really important part of the process. The reason it's important is because you're being yourself, you can create new content very quickly, because you're just being yourself. A lot of times, like you and I grew up in the era of like the crazy Eddie TV commercials, you know, I'm crazy, everything's going on sale. And you see people on Instagram and some of these Tik Tok, and they're dancing, and they're doing these things. The problem with that is, yeah, it's very entertaining. And you can bust out maybe 1015 videos, but like, that's not sustaining. You can't do that all year long. If you're literally just yourself, you can, you can create 23456 pieces of content a day, it's not a big deal. And if you have an editor, you can chop that up as many different ways as you want. So I think being authentic, not as a catchphrase, but more as just an issue of instrumentality. It's the only way to do those things for long standing. Success is just be yourself, because that's gonna give you the ability to keep producing content. And I I set out to get younger clients. But what happened is, my Instagram is mostly successful for getting referrals from other lawyers. I don't know, it's not it was not my intent. Maybe because I'm just being myself that maybe I speak in a way that other professionals want to hear, I don't know. But I have not gotten a bunch of young people to hire us because of my Instagram noteworthiness. But I have had created a lot of relationships, quite literally through Instagram. And that, that makes it well worth it.

And what blogs, podcasts, YouTube or other Instagramers do follow.

I really like there's two lawyers, I really like on Instagram. There's a lawyer in Los Angeles called lawyer dad, and there's a lawyer in New York, Kyle Newman, I think they do the best on Instagram, I think they produce really good content, thoughtful. It's not the same. You know, one thing I will say in the last few years that I have really noticed is people are, I think are just now starting to appreciate the value of LinkedIn. And I think for me, the folks watching this podcast is think about what you're doing on LinkedIn. And I can say, admittedly, I don't do enough on LinkedIn. But the work I do on LinkedIn is very fruitful. It's worthwhile. So if you're putting together a social media marketing strategy, think about including LinkedIn, especially if you're a lawyer, but even if you run any kind of business, I just, I think it's invaluable. I think the audience there is really good, is the fastest way to get in front of your peers, without a doubt. And I just think it's really worthwhile and people should should spend more time on it. I do think like, I think tick tock. This may be the last year of tick tock. I could, I could foresee Congress doing something there. I think Instagram is a little more safe. Domestic. Entertainment,

Instagram. It might make sense to last questions. Who's your NFL team?

I'm a Browns fan, for sure. I mean, he couldn't Browns fan. It's a struggle. It's an easiest team to follow. Hasn't been around. We're on our fourth quarter back to here, but you get some. You get some flare ups over the last 10 or 20 years. Oh, yeah. And that where can people get in touch with you? So you can certainly contact me my law firm will Melton, the web address for the firm is the FL law firm, that's th e f L. Li w f irm.com. So the FL law firm, or you can contact me through regions, which is regions rs.com. Either of those businesses, I'd be happy to work with you. And of course through Instagram, you can DM me, Jason Melton, Esquire. Be happy to chat with you there. But, you know, I'm, I've gotten to the point now where I feel like a lot of early years we were so hell bent on trying to create our own secret sauce, and compete and compete and compete. And I think as I've gotten older, I've gotten to the point now where I feel like my secret sauce is sharing. It's no longer competing. And through sharing, I'm actually more prosperous than I was competing before, which is, I think to say, but we're still competitive. But I love helping people. And if people need help, I mean, I take random calls from lawyers around the country all the time, and it's, I'm happy to do it. Awesome.

Well, Jason, thanks for your time. This was full of awesome stuff. Stay in touch.

Who's your NFL team?

The offense I came here from Canada. That was, you know, Team agnostic, I, you know, had some allegiances. And, you know, 20 years somewhere, the watercooler talk was always about who we who we acquired and our new coach and yeah, I'm fully in and thank God, we're having a fantastic year. Finally, the

team is is really good. I really liked the team and your coach is what a gem

like, it's great. So if anybody's team kind of sucks, and you're not gonna make the playoffs, you know, feel free to hop on the bandwagon for the rest of the year. And watch hard knocks on HBO. This season is fantastic. Yeah. Terrific. Awesome. Thanks

for having me on. I appreciate it.

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.