In this episode of Your Practice Mastered, hosts Richard James and MPS sit down with the remarkable Tom Rich, a seasoned expert with a diverse background in business consulting. Tom shares intriguing insights on how legal firms can leverage customer insights for unprecedented success, delving into the art of differentiation and cultivating an understanding of client needs. He also speaks about his career journey, his daily habits for success, and the importance of constant improvement. 

Tune into this episode to benefit from Tom's wisdom and discover how your firm can reach new heights. Don't miss this fascinating discussion - listen now!

It's a commonplace thing. They assume all lawyers are created equal. So any lawyer is just as good as the next lawyer. And when that is the driving force behind the perception, right? The only point of competition can be price. So you have to find something that is a sustainable competitive advantage other than price because you will always find someone who can out cheap your cheapness.

Like the one person like, Hey, I got a million dollars from my auto accident or whatever else. Like, there's stuff like that where now they're saying, okay, this person got that result. Therefore I will also. So you got some social proof going on in there, but it helps set them apart from the collective masses.

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MPS: Law Firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.

MPS

MPS: Yeah. Today we're joined by Tom Rich and I'm super excited to have you on Tom. Both everybody in our community and both ourselves just. gravitates towards you. You're a great guy. You've got great lessons and you provide a lot of value. So we're super excited to have you on today. So

welcome

Tom Rich: I

MPS: on

Tom Rich: am, I'm super stoked as well. This has been when I got the invite, I was absolutely willing to jump on. Love you guys. So this is going to be a fun conversation today.

Richard James: Yeah, you know, real quick for those of you that are listening, right? So you're the attorney who owns a law firm and you're listening to this, or maybe you're an attorney who's trying to own a law firm or thinking about on a law firm, whatever, wherever you are, you should know that, you know, in our program, we've been around for 15 ish years.

He lives this stuff each and every day in his own businesses and he owns local. Brick and mortar like business that he can draw this information from as well as other investments that he has too. So I just hang on, like this is a power packed session. We're going to have today. We're going to hear about his journey and I'm sure we're going to draw out some nuggets along the way.

Michael, I'll pass it back to you. I

MPS: Yeah. And I just want to give the heads up that although Tom is not a law firm owner, man, is he well practiced in versed in the world of business. And so today the law firm owners that are listening, watch it. We're going to draw some lessons and pull them together to law, but we want you to take. This stuff open minded with business, right?

Tom Rich: Oh man. Not everybody knows about me. From about the ages of let's see uh, 1 to 25. I spent most of my nights in improv comedy.

I

Richard James: didn't know that

MPS: I didn't know that.

Tom Rich: Yeah.

Richard James: that's great.

Tom Rich: It didn't play very well, but it was fun.

Richard James: Oh, you know, it's funny. I've always thought about never to pull the trigger. Always thought about doing improv comedy to improve my presentations

You can't ever play direct to the joke. It's a situations that are funny. It's spectacular. And so, you know, When you're looking to be in front of an audience, improv comedy training is absolutely, if anybody has a chance to do it, strongly recommend it just because of how comfortable it makes you.

MPS: Yeah,

Richard James: it makes you very uncomfortable in the moment you're there.

MPS: it

Tom Rich: Well, the people who are most successful in life do that, which is uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable.

Richard James: Ain't that the truth?

MPS: a good point. I see where the quick wits come now, Tom. I mean, that's it makes sense now. The improv.

Richard James: We

Yeah. We

just

thought you were raised on the East Coast like we were.

Tom Rich: Ah no, no. Some of us need to be trained.

Richard James: It's just beaten into us.

Tom Rich: Yeah it's, yeah, I get it.

Tom Rich: So, my dad was in marketing. He was started off in Procter and Gamble, went to Polaroid, FritoLay just kept getting better and better jobs, moving us from all over the country. I, Moved, I think, throughout my life about 26 times. It was like, every couple years, we'd pack up and we'd go. It was like we were running from the law.

But it's hey kids, come on, let's go. No, leave the stuff, let's go. But no, it was a, I'm sorry about the background noise, I've got some construction going on, so I don't

Richard James: No that's noise of success, my friend. That's the noise of success. That's

Tom Rich: Well, I think it's just successful I got them here today. So that's a good thing.

Richard James: right.

Tom Rich: So, anyway I, so I've always kind of been drawn to marketing, drawn to sales and have been paying attention throughout my life as to why people do certain things.

I obviously don't do an awful lot in Chinese anymore. Sadly. I wish I did went after, after that went to Work for American Express as a financial analyst was a crazy stint. I decided that was as much fun as that was, I needed to go on to grad school, went to Thunderbird. When I went to Thunderbird, you entered either entered bilingual or left bilingual.

We made giant beanbags. Now they see their ads everywhere, sectionals. And I was there during the invention of the sectional. And that was a kind of a really fun time. To, to be there. I helped take 'em from about a dozen stores to 85 stores plus five international. And then I got recruited away and I've just been focusing more and more on my life on sales and business growth, business development.

And just, you know, I really I have been blessed to have a crazy, exciting life. I just.

And the courses he's taking, I thought we're going to be kind of BS, but they're not, they're extremely practical courses on management and international business structures and mind boggling the things he's learning. So that's one side of your learning. And then you talk about Russell Brunson, who is, a direct response marketer 101 I mean, he learned at the feet of Kennedy as you did as well. And so juxtapose those two educational processes, the formal one in college versus the direct response one that you learn

And that was one of those things that, yeah, I was, I went through Thunderbird during the time where everybody. Wanted to be a brand manager and I was like, what in the world, you know, and there was this one class off to the side called direct response marketing. And when I saw

Richard James: They taught that at

Tom Rich: Yeah, I had a direct response marketing class and I took to it like a moth to the flame.

Like it was I was hooked. Got into with love Sack and there wasn't a lot of opportunity in direct response through retail channel like that. It was, you know, yeah, we could do some couponing. We could do some other things like that, but it wasn't nearly the funnel type of, you bring them in, you qualify him.

We were selling them a product. Then the, then we would sell them a three day and then the three day would sell it like the personal development sale has. Easily become my favorite and it's one that I've really sort of dialed into. It's kind of how you and I got connected. It was, you look at how there, you know, there's, there are people who.

Especially in the professional space, look, they could be a phenomenal attorney, but if they're not good at business, it's not going to matter the best attorney in the world. If they don't have that front end, they don't have that word of mouth. They don't have the people. It's not like it's a, if you build it, they will come type of component.

Like they just people don't show up.

Richard James: But they all think that it is.

Tom Rich: Yeah,

So that's part of

the

problem

Tom Rich: well, sure. But I mean, it used to be where specialization was seen as a way and slash convenience. Like Walmart put all the mom and pop shops out of business, right? They come in with a lower price. They shut them all down and then they raise price. Like, it's just constant. And they're constantly accused of dumping and trying to do whatever, you know, unfair business practices.

But the simple fact is that, you know, you go to Europe, right? I lived in France for about six months. Fantastic experience. Oh, my gosh, that was great. But the they were fighting the hyper marks coming in the Carrefours the, and they had one called hypermart. But because it's, For them the experience of shopping was, well, I go to the bakery and the man at the bakery asked me how my day is.

So you go to You know, back in the day, you used to have in a particular town of a particular size, you had the dentist, you had the lawyer, you had the, you know, undertaker, you had the, and there was that one person that could fill that role. Well, unfortunately, because we've grown and mass marketing has become more and more, there is, there are more people trying to fill the positioning mentally in people's heads.

And so. You used to be able to get away with that because there you were the lawyer and now you're not the lawyer anymore. You're a lawyer. And that's the real driver in, in the change of that business model.

So we have a system to go to the grocery store so we don't speak to another human in, in the entire time we're there, and I think that comes on the back end of We were the undertaker in town, right? So we own funeral homes. And when we used to go to the grocery store, you had to actually dress up like you wore a suit and she wore a nice pantsuit because you knew everybody in the store and it was going to take you three hours to go grocery shopping because everybody knew you.

So we so fried and crispy from that. We, both of us hate grocery shortstopping, so I don't know how well we would do in France.

Richard James: Well,

Tom Rich: you as

an

Richard James: I

have become their commodity, right? It's how much time has become their most valuable resource, right? So everybody wants more to get more juice out of 24 hours we have. And honestly, in many ways, and I say it tongue in cheek, like I'm serious. We don't love girls that go in the grocery store but I don't think it's actually, I don't see it as a win.

By the way, I see it negative yet. Yes, we gain more time, but we lose what is really in many cases important in this world. And that's connection with other human beings and making

relationships

Tom Rich: absolutely. So when you look at and this I hate to belabor this point, but it's the, when you look at. Like you say, time has become the commodity and it's one of those where it's the most precious commodity, right? Everybody says time is money. No time is precious. And it's the one thing that God gives everybody an equal amount of every day.

And this is, I think, where most attorneys and, you know, I do the same thing I did with a dentist chiropractors. I've got a client that does it with shop owners. Like, it's everybody kind of does this, but the, Main problem that most business owners have, and I'm just going to, I know that a lot of attorneys hate being referred to as a business owner, but let's, I'm going to clump you in there, but most business owners fall into the commodity on the other side of that, right?

Your cheapness price is not a sustainable competitive advantage, at least on a discount side. And so you have to do something that allows you to charge a premium price and justify it to the world so that everybody coming in goes. Oh, I went to that attorney. Okay. Right. And you'll see that it's a lot of the, you know, on the, on the PI stuff, you'll see it on the billboards all the time.

Like the one person like, Hey, I got a million dollars from my auto accident or whatever else. Like there was there's stuff like that where now they're saying, okay, this person got that result. Therefore I will also. So you got some social proof going on in there, but it helps set them apart.

Right. From the collective masses.

Is that right?

MPS: Yeah. I mean, look, they they struggle because they believe that if they raise their fees they will either not get as many people to retain the firm and, or they think that they'll all disappear and nobody's going to retain the firm. And I would tell you it has mainly everything to do with the sales process you have in place and the ability to convey the value and what you need to convey.

And so to Tom's point, yeah. I mean, in a commodity based market, you're racing to the bottom on price and that's not going to do anybody any good. And so for the law firm owners listening, you got to make sure you price, right. And there are opportunities to absolutely raise your fees, depending on your market practice area, the whole nine.

But Tom,

Let me just quickly compare, right? If I were to say, I got a 10 bottle, 10 bottle of wine and 1, 000 bottle of wine, which is better.

1,

Richard James: Thousand dollar wine

Tom Rich: $1,000 bottle of wine, right? If I got a 100 an hour attorney or a 1, 000 an hour attorney, which is better?

Richard James: thousand dollar an hour.

Tom Rich: Presumably, right? They could be equal in terms of their success rate in court, but one charges a much, much higher rate. And so just by virtue of communicating the price, you put yourself in a performance expectation or that echelon.

Richard James: for the plug.

Tom Rich: absolutely.

Hey, no, listen, it. It happens once every 13 weeks. It's like clockwork. Just get there. So, but the thing that I'll point out, though is that most of them are still in this. Well, I want to be average with everybody else. I want to be the same as everybody else or maybe a little bit cheaper. But so let's talk about what price communicates.

Right, Rich I know you're very much into To clothes and whatnot, like you, you like nice things. If I told you.

Richard James: You've turned me onto them. I learned from you brother.

Tom Rich: Well, if I told you that, Hey, listen, I'm going to get you I'm going to hook you up Holland and Sherry, you know, fabric, beautiful. So like we, we get you a custom made suit. That's going to be a 3, 500 suit. I tell you, it can be yours for a hundred bucks. What is your question? There's only one thing that comes to mind.

Richard James: How

If you are differentiating yourself with better service, better product, better results. Shouldn't that also spell out or come out in the price that you're charging?

MPS: Absolutely 100%. Yep. Well said. Very well said.

Tom Rich: I didn't want to, I didn't want to get off price until I had that opportunity for that

Richard James: No. That's

MPS: No, it's a good point to belabor. It's a good point to spend time on because it's something that so many of them get wrong. And so, it literally has the difference to make an instant impact to the practice if you change it and make it right.

Richard James: But

MPS: I'm...

Cause a lot of times they don't listen to me about price. So I'm grateful that you did that. Thank you so

much

Tom Rich: Well here's the funny thing is with price, you have full control over what you charge.

MPS: Yep,

Tom Rich: choice.

Richard James: your choice.

Tom Rich: You want to pick a low number. Congratulations. It usually, by the way, and this is. It happens on most business owners subconsciously, especially in the service industry that they subconsciously communicate what they think they're worth and so listen, we have to charge for the problem that we're solving in somebody's life and if we're charging too little, it were either communicating that we're not really worth what we're asking.

You're pulling. If you're getting catfish and you're going for sailfish, you got problems.

Richard James: That's correct.

MPS: Yeah, you're spot

Tom Rich: And so now, but also if you charge more, you can serve better because you don't need to get so many. And now I will tell you, hands down, listen, if I had to choose between 10, 5,000 buyers. Right. Or one 50, 000 buyer. I'll take the 50, 000 buyer every time. They complain less. They do what you they, there's a certain level of expectation.

Well, yes, I can do that, but you got to do your part. Well, I didn't know I had needed to do anything. It's I'll tell you, it is easier to take somebody from good to great than it is from bad to good.

MPS: That's, yes. That is a very true statement. That is a very true statement. Heh,

Tom, obviously you got a lot of fun and good and excellent stories on this journey of yours. Have you had one pivotal down moment? And if so, what'd you take from it?

Tom Rich: So great question. I I remember probably the low point of my career was ironically enough at Love Sack. And it was one of those. Moments where I look, I speak Chinese. The owner also spoke Chinese. He Sean Nelson really smart guy. You know, we were constantly fighting constantly.

I was on the road nonstop almost all the time. And I remember walking by a uh, you know, one of the Hudson or Hudson news kind of thing, like it's the bookstores and they had this book QBQ in the front. And it was the question beyond the question or behind the question. I can't remember what the B stands for.

It doesn't matter. The book is QBQ. And. It's such a short little book. Like you can finish it on a flight. It's, but it's that book transformed the trajectory of my career. I remember pulling that up and going, Oh my gosh. Cause it was one of those where it was just focused on taking responsibility.

Like it's empowering questions. And as soon as you start asking that. You start, your brain starts proactively identifying levers, you can move buttons, you can push that if you continue to assist in a victim based mentality, then, you know, they won't let me do my job. All the woes that go on, it's, I think if I had to look at one pivotal moment, it was that, and then secondarily deciding to.

Start a consulting company.

Richard James: That's interesting. I, it's funny. I never read that. QBQ. I just looked it up. It's a John Miller. Yeah.

Tom Rich: Great book.

And there is a book or a mentor or something that you heard. And I love that. I didn't know that about you and I love that you shared that. Thank you.

Tom Rich: No, thank you. Like I, this is the getting to know Tom hour. I love it.

Richard James: yeah,

what it's

well, that's all about.

Tom Rich: This is confession that I'm willing to share. I love

Richard James: That's

right. Confessions are willing to share.

MPS: Should be the new name.

name

Richard James: yeAh. See secret yet. No, nobody will listen. No, we'll have to get so, okay. So you pivoted into coaching and. So I'm curious, you've been around our world. So we obviously identified price. We identified maybe finding the wrong client.

Tom Rich: Yeah. It's home hospice. We go to where the patient is.

Richard James: Right. And so you, my point is you have very diverse background and then I drop you in the middle of working with lawyers over the last, you know, 10 years ish.

And so my question to you is now that you've been around them and observe them, what do you think is the biggest difference between the way they view their businesses and maybe everybody else use theirs? Is the answer, there is none. Everybody's the same. Is there a major difference in you see, as you work with lawyers and talk to lawyers, what's the one thing you could give them as an observation that you can go, you know, this is what I notice.

And you know, if you could just you may be able to make a little paradigm shift. Is there anything like that?

Well, every freaking law firm can make the same stupid claim, even if they're terrible at customer service. And so the points of differentiation don't necessarily align with the more important value props of the customer. So I, you, I don't think there's a lot of, Deep understanding of who the customer is.

And so, and then once you have that, now, you know how to go and differentiate yourself from everybody else in the space and that differentiation by itself will help justify a higher price. Like it's all of this thing that you. You keep staying in this cage that you've built and it's almost like I say, you know, why don't they listen to me?

How many people have just unnaturally confined themselves to this is the type of law that I practice and that's great, right? You do have to have some degree of specialization, but then there's the question. Okay, so you're a bankruptcy attorney What makes you different from every other bankruptcy attorney and if you can't answer that well, I help you file the papers Well, if all you're doing is filing papers, you're not doing a great job to do something that clearly demonstrates the value that you're bringing to the table.

And so that's step 1. And then step 2. So, so those, they have almost an impossible time differentiating at all. And then those who do specialize they do struggle with understanding how to differentiate. And I agree with you not all of them, obviously the ones that we have in our world are, you know, they're.

They've learned some of these things, so they're better at it. But as they come through our doors, we recognize they haven't figured out how to differentiate themselves and create, you know, a unique competitive advantage and elevator pitch, whatever we want to call it, whatever name you want to slap on, it's something you can answer that question.

And so that's a, and that ties into copywriting and sales script writing and all that stuff that. That they were never taught and they were never you know, they were never taught. And so, so we know they're in our world and they're listening, but let's take them outside of our world for a second.

And if you were going to give one of them advice as to where to start to learn this stuff, where would you point them besides us? I appreciate that you might say us but besides us, where was, would

you point

us

That where everybody gives up one yard away from success one foot away from scoring the winning touchdown. They just give up and it's, they don't have the fundamental. Data to help them make the decision. And so they just say, ah, it doesn't work and it's too hard or whatever else. And they are right freaking there.

And then they still leave that. And they give up too early in the process. So, in terms of where to learn stuff like this. To me, I think the best determinant of future customers are going to be interviewing your existing customers. Why'd you pick me? How'd you find me? Where do we, you know, what were you looking for?

Richard James: That point, a, such a great point, such a great point. Leverage the relationship you already have with your existing prospects and clients and find out the answers directly from them. What a great point, Michael. I know we're coming to the end. I w I don't want to derail you any longer here.

MPS: No I'm just curious, Tom what are some of the things that you do on a daily basis, habit wise, that contribute to your continued and sustained success?

Tom Rich: So I hate wasting time. Now that says, you know, it's not that I don't enjoy the quiet moments or whatever else. I'm terrible at vacation. My wife hates when we vacation because I'll calm down for a day or two and then I just get bored. And so we always have to be doing something. But every morning I wake up early.

I'll go to the gym every morning. Sundays I take off, but I still managed to get 10, 000 steps every day and 10, 000 on Sunday just to keep something going because it's really easy. Especially the older I get. I've noticed that if I don't move it, it doesn't keep moving and it starts to hurt when you move it later.

Most people, they'll sit and go to the gym and listen to music and that's great, right? Get you pumped up or whatever else. But I would sacrifice if that gets, if that's what's required to get me to 100%, I'm still working out. I'm still getting maybe a 90 percent workout. I'll sacrifice the 10 percent to multitask.

I, you know, the idea of multitasking is often hard for a lot of people. And it's. Very seldom does it work out well, right? And if you don't believe me, you know, take a sleeping pill and a laxative at the same time and just see what but, but the bigger point is that,

Richard James: I got nothing HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

MPS: There's nothing to combat that. I mean,

Richard James: The whole new meaning to wet dream. Sorry, am I allowed to

It's always investing and always looking at yourself because at the end of the day, yeah, you're, you've got competitors, but your biggest competitor is yourself. And if you can't look at yourself from a year ago and go, I'm better, I'm stronger, I'm smarter, I'm better, you know, more well off, whatever it is.

You got to start making different decisions.

Richard James: Yeah, you can move forward. You can move backward, but you can't stand still. That's just the way the good Lord made this world we live in. There's no such thing.

Tom Rich: Well

Richard James: I, it's been such an honor to have you on today. I know we're coming to the end of Michael's time for the show, but I

Tom Rich: we're just getting started.

Richard James: I know we could.

MPS: You,

Tom Rich: my, my, my pleasure, Michael. I just, it's not like you didn't know when the event was

MPS: There we go.

Richard James: Yeah, Tom's like, well, he should just delay his honeymoon. I go, I don't disagree. I just don't know that his wife does or his future wife agrees with

MPS: we, yeah. I don't know how much or how well that one would've went over,

Tom Rich: Ah

Richard James: we got you, Michael. That's all good. We got you.

MPS: dad, Tom's stepping in and he is gonna rock it.

Richard James: He's going to rock it for

sure.

Tom Rich: Well, I'll, I will do my best to fill your shoes

Richard James: Well, I tell him, I do really do appreciate you. Appreciate your friendship. Appreciate your counsel. Appreciate, appreciate who, what you are to our members. And so thank you for coming on today. Michael, anything you want to tell the folks before we get off today?

So that way you don't miss any of these, right? Because we love doing it and we want to make sure you guys are getting value. And as long as you are, we're going to continue doing this, but thank you for listening. And Tom, yes, very much appreciate you popping on today.

Tom Rich: anytime, guys. Thank you so much.

Richard James: Thanks, my friend.