Today I’m excited to sit down with Craig Paxson, a seasoned fractional COO specializing in small law firms of up to 20 employees. In this episode, we dive deep into the key strategies that drive success in both law and business, focusing on the importance of a clear value proposition and long-term vision. Craig shares his experience using tools like EOS, "Ninety.io," and "Motion" to streamline operations and boost productivity. We also explore business development strategies that build trust with clients and set the foundation for sustainable growth. From the significance of understanding core business principles to Craig's commitment to mentoring and leadership, this conversation is packed with insights that apply to any industry.

Craig breaks down how essential it is to have the right pricing strategy and trust-building promises. His hands-on approach to operations goes beyond traditional coaching, offering a fresh take on business success. Craig shares some of his favorite resources, like "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt, and lessons learned from his journey from CEO to small business coach. Whether you're in the legal industry or simply looking to refine your strategic approach, this episode is full of actionable advice to elevate your marketing and business game. 

Key Topics

• 02:50 The shift to working with small law firms, initially through referrals and enjoying the experience of bringing an outside perspective to the legal realm.
• 03:25 Elaborating on his role as a fractional COO or fractional Chief of Staff for small law firms.
• 04:25 His responsibilities, including strategy work, employee relations, technology solutions, and facilitating weekly staff meetings and monthly deep dives.
• 05:02 All engagements are in-person or remote, and Craig confirms they are all remote, with no local clients in Nashville.
• 06:15 Discussing operating systems, with Craig emphasizing the importance of understanding the principles behind different systems like EOS, Scaling Up, and the Great Game of Business.
• 06:32 The approach of melding different systems into his own, focusing on strategy formulation and execution.
• 08:18 Experience with EOS and the importance of understanding the why behind business practices.
• 09:03 The importance of having the right kind of meetings, differentiating between strategic and tactical meetings, and the rhythm of meetings as described in Scaling Up.
• 09:53 The importance of metrics, preferring to call them KSMS (Key Success Measures) to focus on measuring success rather than just performance.
• 10:03 Quality assurance and the importance of understanding statistical processes when using scorecards.
• 11:26 The 3-13-7 framework: three-year vision, 13-week quarters, and seven-day execution, to ensure focus and accountability.
• 13:21 The importance of executing a strategy that includes both winning in the market and achieving organizational results.
• 14:18 Approach to vision statements, focusing on what the world should look like rather than just aspirational goals.
• 15:13 The importance of a clear value proposition and how it influences all aspects of business, from marketing to service delivery.
• 15:45 Personal mantra: build cool stuff and mentor people, highlighting the joy of creating and helping others grow.
• 16:40 Key pivots in his life and the lessons learned, leading Craig to share his experience with Toastmasters and the importance of stepping out of comfort zones.
• 17:37 The value of forcing oneself to do uncomfortable activities to grow and develop new skills and relationships.
• 18:06 The importance of personal development and how it can lead to significant changes in one's professional life.
• 19:45 The six questions for defining a value proposition: who are we serving, what product or service do we have, how is it priced, why do they need it, why should they choose us, and why should they trust us.
• 20:06 The importance of understanding the pricing model and how it impacts the value proposition.
• 20:35 The concept of the three whys: why do they need it, why should they choose us, and why should they trust us.
• 25:44 The difference between a fractional COO and a business coach, with Craig explaining that a fractional COO is more hands-on and embedded in the business.
• 26:23 The importance of having someone to manage operational tasks and processes, allowing attorneys to focus on billable hours and business development.
• 26:50 The benefits of having a fractional COO for law firms with multiple staff members.
• 27:15 The need for operational support as firms grow, beyond the initial setup and coaching phases.
• 27:52 The use of Ninety for project management and time blocking.
• 28:38 The importance of time blocking and how it can help manage tasks and projects effectively.

Resources Mentioned

Books:

1. "Death by Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni
2. "Measures of Success" by Mark Graben
3. "The Goal" by Eli Goldratt

Apps:

1. Ninety.io
2. Motion

About Craig Paxson:

Craig Paxson is a Board Certified Executive Coach, Certified Exit Planning Advisor, and Strategic Planning Professional, specializing in helping business owners maximize business value, reduce their involvement, and achieve scalable results. With over 30 years of management and consulting experience, Craig has a proven track record of guiding businesses toward success. As a former CEO of an $8 million business, he brings practical, hands-on leadership experience to his coaching practice. Craig also serves as a mentor at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, Jumpstart Refinery, and SCORE, where he helps emerging entrepreneurs grow their ventures. His expertise lies in turning vision into predictable, scalable outcomes for business owners.

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 publications worldwide.

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Everything flows from that value proposition, whether it is how you sell and market the service, or whether it's how you deliver the service, right? If we say that in the Domino's perspective, if we say it 30 minutes or it's free, that tells us not just about, okay, we're going to market to that. We're going to sell to that promise. But also, we better build a system that can deliver a pizza in 30 minutes, right? So everything from the how we sell to how we actually deliver the service is all contained and stems from that value proposition. That's the most important thing to do, right? If you don't have a solid value proposition, if you don't understand, what are we selling to who? How is it priced? Why should they pick us? What promises do we offer? If you don't understand that nothing else matters, all the fancy marketing schemes don't ever they don't matter whatsoever. You have to have your value proposition down first.

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 morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you're listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube, welcome to the 10 golden rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. My name is Jay Berkowitz. We got another great guest here with us today before we get rolling, just take a minute to tell you about some cool things upcoming. First of all, fall conferences, and there are a bunch of things coming up. Hope to see you. If you're going to Great Legal Marketing, I'll be speaking there. Also going to business of law. Maybe we're about 5050 on whether or not we go to Lottie gras or mass torts made perfect. So hopefully we'll see you all in live and in person at one of the upcoming events. We were just at pimcom. It was fantastic. Further news, we've signed the contract tgr live 2025 our conference 10, golden rules, growth strategies for law firms. Event has been confirmed for the opal grand Delray Beach, March 10 and 11th of 2025 so we'll be having information about that on our website, and we do hope you can join us. We had an awesome year. Last year, we had Bill Biggs talking about culture. We had Justin lovely talking about artificial intelligence. We had an amazing video panel. We had a great technology panel. So we'll have more unbelievable speakers as as I go to all these conferences, frankly, the best speakers I see, I recruit them for tgr live. So we're going to have amazing content. I'll be sharing some content. We look forward to seeing everybody at tgr live, 2025 anyways, without further. ADO. Craig Paxton, welcome to the 10 golden rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast.

Thank you, Jay, glad to be here.

So tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey and how you got to your current place.

Well, my entire journey would take a long time to go over. So let's just start about eight or 10 years ago, I was CEO of a $8 million business, and we merged with a couple other companies. And after transition, I was given my bronze parachute to go away, not a gold parachute. I still have to work, just a bronze one. So I decided at that point that I would go into small business coaching and consulting was right before the pandemic hit Great timing, but I've been doing that for four and a half or so years now, working with small businesses on strategy and execution topics. I got a one law client, and she referred me to another, who referred me to another, and I was like, I kind of like working with these lawyers. It seems like it's working out pretty well. I've never worked in a law firm. I don't have any law background, but I enjoy working with the owners of these small law firms. And, you know, bringing that different perspective of outside of the legal realm, I think is really what makes, makes me and my clients work together so well. So yeah, so now being a fractional COO or fractional Chief of Staff for small law firms,

great. What does that normally look like? Like? How often are you meeting what? What are the functions that you're doing on behalf of the the CEO or the partners?

Yeah, I mean, it's what I am. I look at myself as sort of the strategic right hand man to the owner of the law firm, right? So in some cases, I'll be doing strategy work, helping them. Plan out. How do we win the market? What are the things we have to do in order to to get the results that we want? In other cases, I'll be helping them with employee relations, right? How do we have a coaching conversation with employee hiring and onboarding? What kind of it or technology solutions should we be looking at, right? Whether it's a law firm specific platform or it's something completely different, right? And it's, you know, a platform for training, or a CRM or something like that. So one of my clients, I'm we are developing a brand new product that's going to include a lot of investment for developing a new app. So it's kind of wide ranging all over the board, as far as the functions or the things that I work on. Generally, I since I'm acting as the COO or Chief of Staff, I'm facilitating weekly staff meeting and then facilitating monthly deep dives. I usually meet with the owner of the law firm on a weekly or biweekly basis, just to make sure that we'll stay in on track. And yeah, it's kind of then it's just doing the work, right? I'm meeting with individual staff members. I am embedded in the organization. I am truly I'm not just a coach. I'm truly in in the organization.

And are these typically in person, or are they remote engaged? All

remote? Yep, all remote. I don't have a single client here in Nashville that I meet with, so everything is remote, which is actually a lot easier,

by the way. If you were watching this on video, you'd see Craig's got a Smashville logo in the background, and he's in Nashville, and I'm from Winnipeg, and I'm a Winnipeg Jets fan, but we're going to leave that rivalry till the end. You know, definitely got to cover that one. So I guess the other question I had was operating systems. We touched on this a little bit the other day, and you kind of have sort of a hybrid solution of Eos, a little bit of rock feller habit gazelles, you know, talk to me a little bit about what you like for the firms to do as an operating system.

Yeah, one of my, one of my operating principles, is actually principles before practice. So it's, I tell my clients, it's much more important to understand the why something works than just the the step by step, right? And that's what I what's what I've always preached, right? I'd rather be a chef than a cook. And so rather than saying, Okay, I'm just going to take one single business operating system, whether it's scaling up or whether it's a great game of business or Eos, let's really understand why these different things work, and then meld them to something that actually makes sense for me, that I like to to teach and utilize, right? And then it all fits in together with my strategy, my strategy of formulation, process, the seven questions of strategy. And so I've basically just melded all this together into my own system. It links, how do we compete in the market? Which is the most important thing, what kind of results do we want to get all the way down to, what do we do today and this week to make sure that we actually get to those things? Don't utilize any proprietary terminology, simply because, you know, I don't want to get it confused with anything, but the system. Think it's like the best of all breeds, kind of put together

cool and so what are some of those functioning principles? Like you talked about a weekly meeting in EOS. We have, you know, our L 10 meetings. We have our right PTO, and all of our different Yeah, in terms of how we run our company and when we're running on EOS. And I think I told you, we had a great webinar. And if those of you are interested and haven't read the book traction, or heard about Eos, or started starting here the buzz about it, there's an awesome webinar. And just go to our YouTube channel where you can see all of our past webinars. We had a great session with Mike Morris from the Mike Morris law firm, $200 million law firm that's was one of Gino Wickman, the author of Eos, one of his first clients, 15 or 20 years ago. And so he's, he was awesome. And Gerardo Escalona is our implementer, the person who helps us run EOS. And we have our quarterly meeting this week. So we're embedded in Eos, and we love it. But anyway, so my question was, what are some of the core functions that you all use? Yeah,

yeah, you know, um, it's funny. Before I had ever heard of Eos, I read Patrick Lencioni book death by meeting, and he talks about having the weekly tactical meeting. And that's where, that's what I started 10 years ago. Started basing all of my tactical meetings, my weekly staff meetings was based on Patrick Lencioni weekly tactical meeting. And death by meeting is a great book of if nobody's ever read it, all of Patrick Lencioni stuff is, is really, really good. It? Yeah, so that's one of the core principles, right? Is, is having these, these meetings, one of the things that we want to make sure we do in our meetings is we don't want to confuse strategic and tactical, right? Meetings? Really, 90% of meetings exist for one of two reasons, either to to answer questions or make decisions. If we don't have questions to answer, or decisions to be made. There's no reason to have a meeting, shoot an email, send a voice note, something else, but we don't want to mix those up. And so that's part of the the cadence of meetings. They talked about this in scaling up Vern Harnish does about having this. This a rhythm of meetings where some meetings are strategic, and some meetings are tactical. So that is part of the right making sure that we have the proper kinds of means at the right time. Obviously, metrics are very important. You know, we a lot of people, we say KPIs. I like to turn my metrics ksms, because I like to measure success. KPIs tend to be something more about, how can I beat up somebody who's not doing well, then how I'm actually measuring success? So I like to call them ksms, but you know metrics, right? And I have my very first masters in is in quality assurance, so I have a big background in statistics. And so when I look at things like scorecards, I looked at those in terms of statistical processes. And so I never teach my clients. We're only going to compare our results versus some arbitrary target, right? We have to understand the statistics behind it. Mark graben wrote a great book called measures of success that really talks about how just comparing our current performance to some target can lead us down the wrong path. And so we want to make sure that we're using statistical techniques to understand when should we intervene or when should we not intervene. And that is one of the drawbacks that I see in a lot of scorecards. A scorecard is better than no scorecard, but a scorecard can be really poorly utilized if we don't understand the statistical stuff behind it, right? So that's one of the drawbacks about using a scorecard, just as taught in the OS, is that there's not that. There's not that extra foundation of, when do we intervene? We may intervene when we shouldn't and should intervene, and we don't, right? So that's the other thing, the the those two things, and then there's the quarterly stuff, right? This has been talked about a lot, whether it's the 12 week year, another really good book, but, you know, quarterly projects, right? So I think the three most important numbers for every single business is 313, seven, three years. What do you want to look like in three years? That's a really good time frame, right? Cameron Harold's book, vivid vision. Who really talks about that? I like to take that and then. So, okay, great. We got this really vivid vision. Let's put some numbers behind it to tell us if we're actually getting towards that vivid vision. So 313 13 week quarters, right? 12 weeks to execute, one week to review and plan, as described in the 12 week year, and then seven, seven days, right? How do we execute every seven days so we actually get stuff done? So 313, seven, so everything that we do is based on that 313 seven framework. So the quarters for actually focus getting stuff done in a quarter that moves us towards that three year vision is really important.

It's so hard when you're a busy business, it is. Quarterly rocks, right?

It is, it is. And so, you know, with a lot of my clients, you know, they keep throwing stuff out. I want to do this. I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to do this, I want to do that, right? And you can't do everything. You certainly can't do everything well. So, you know, we put it on a list. It's, you know, it's put in a parking lot, okay, yeah, you say you want to do all this stuff, we're going to come back to it during our next, either monthly or quarterly planning and say, do we want to do this now? And if we're saying yes to this, what are we saying no to? Right? That is, you know, coming from the Coaching Habit, you can tell I read a lot of books, right? So if you're saying, if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? So that's the other thing you know, that quarterly execution. So then you know, there's, there's key processes too, and we document key processes in a very interesting way that I could get into, but it could take forever, but all that stuff rolls in. And really, the thing about about execution, strategy and execution is that you want to execute a strategy. And again, strategy is these two things, how do we win in the market and obtain the organizational results? Right? We have to have both that we don't win in the market, meaning they were actually getting customers. We're creating value for customers, and we are then capturing some of that value for ourselves in the terms of revenue. We're not going to survive. But it's more than just you. Winning in the market. We also want to go somewhere, right? We want to create a world that looks like something, a world for us as the owner, a world for our firm, a world for our customers, right? So, you know, we look at what I like to say in my vision statements, instead of saying, you know, to be right? You see lots of vision statements like says to be the world's number one leader in blah blah, blah, blah blah, right? Nobody cares what you want to be. What do we want the world look like? I envision a world where my clients feel like this. My clients have this. I envision a world where I look like this. I feel like this. That's how I think about vision. So how do we get to that vision? How do we compete in the market? Everything flows from there. Cool.

I love it, and I love how many books look every answer is like the very well solved from but by an author and a full book that you've, you know, drilled down to one operating principle. I love it. How about like, what's your personal why? You know, everybody's heard of the Simon Sinek TED talk, what gets you up in the morning? What makes your heart beat faster?

Yeah, you know, when I first became CEO, I had executive coach, and he was, you know, want me to figure that out. And I went through many, many iterations, and this is where I kill with my operating principles, but my overall mantra is this, it's build cool stuff and mentor people. That's what I do, right? So where that building cool stuff is building a new production system or improving a process, or building a youth baseball team I coach, use baseball that is competitive, whatever it is that's I love, just build, let's build some cool stuff and then mentor people, right? I mean, helping people grow, helping people get better. My My biggest success as a CEO was I had some young managers who went from not understanding a profit and loss statement to actually being in control completely of their profit centers, understanding all of their drivers and metrics and improving stuff and taking actions that I never, ever even knew what was happening to make their their businesses better, and mentoring them to get that good was just the biggest thrill. So that's build cool stuff and mentor people. That's, that's what I do.

Love it. Love it. You know, I always ask a question about any key pivots or changes in your life, and the lessons learned from those that a young business person or young attorney could apply you know, you definitely made, made some big pivots. What are some of the lessons that you could share with folks, maybe, maybe save them a misstep. Yeah,

yeah. So I'm this is going to be a very personal story from from probably well, almost 20 years ago now, I had a manager who had a different perspective than I did, not saying that she was wrong, but she She, at one point, told me to go to toastmasters because I needed to be better interpersonally. You know, to me back, even though I was very successful as a manager, I wasn't the most personable person. So, you know, she told me to go to Toastmasters. I remember sitting the in the parking lot of Toastmasters. It was at noon on a Wednesday, thinking, I really don't want to have to walk in there. I'm going to be the center of attention. Who's this new guy walking in? And I sat there, and some point I said I gotta go, because I told her I would. So I ended up walking in five minutes late, which meant that I was actually more of the center of attention to anything, right, but, but I started going to Toastmasters, and then I started just learning to go to other places where I would be a stranger. I went to every single networking event. Didn't matter what it was about, whether it was something that was interesting to me or useful to me, or not just that I could learn to be around strangers and introduce myself, make small talk, those kinds of things, and so, you know, what I really learned about from all of that was throw yourself in force yourself to do things that are uncomfortable, because it's going to make you grow, right? It's going to make you different. I am a completely different person because of that exercise that I forced myself to do, of going to places where I was a stranger, of having to meet people and make small talk and all of those things, I developed some friendships that I still have to this day simply because I force myself to do it. So, you know, I think that's a big lesson is, is you may not like to do something, but it may be good for you to do it anyways, force yourself to do it, and you never know what you're going to discover about yourself and how you might change just because of that.

That's awesome. I love it. Yeah, I was also that young business person who wasn't that confident. Speaking in front of groups and went to Toastmasters and got pretty good at it. Yeah, yeah, been on 100 stages in the past 10 years. So, yep, yep, fantastic. So you know, this is we do call it the 10 golden rules Internet Marketing for law firms podcast. So hence the marketing piece. Next question, tell me about some business development strategies for attorneys. What do you find is working best for your folks? Yeah.

So this is, I think the the most important thing is to really narrow down on, on the on your value proposition. Basically. Why do people pick you, right? So I go through them with my clients, on on these six questions. One is, who are we serving, right? So, you know, when I niche down to serving attorneys, it made everything so much easier. But who are we serving? Right? Their demographics, their psychographics, their needs, you know, the problems that they need to have solved, that's one thing. What product or service do we have to serve that core group, right? You know, whatever that might be. The next thing is, how is it priced? And I think a pricing is more than just, it's a cost on a price tag. It's, you know, it's, how much is it? What's the timing? Do we charge beforehand or afterwards? Is it half and half? Is it a one time? Thing is subscription. How long does it last? All of those things go into the pricing, right? And those completely change what a value proposition looks like, right? Charging $10,000 up front, or $10,000 over the course of a year and in 12 equal payments is two completely different things, right? So, and then then going through what I call the three whys. So. The first, why is, why do they need this particular service? Why do people need this right? Why? I go back to just using a very simple analogy for this. Why do people need a pickup truck, you know? So that's the first why. Why do they need this service? The second, why is, why should they choose us as opposed to a competitor and the pickup truck? Why choose a Toyota versus a Dodge versus a Ford, right? Um, so that's the second, why? Why? Why Choose Us, our differentiation. Then the third, what, why is, why should they trust us, right? What are the things? And there's two aspects of trust. One of them is the looking backwards thing, right? So this could be, you know, degrees, awards, accolades, social proof, those kinds of things. As far as white people should trust us, but also the going forward things of we promise certain things. And I look at a at a promise as two parts. One is, it's a guarantee plus a penalty, right? So hopefully some of the audience is old enough to remember this Domino's 30 minutes or it's free, right? The guarantee was, you get your pizza in 30 minutes. The penalty was, if they didn't deliver in 30 minutes, then it was free, right? This is when we always just go in the dorm room, and everybody would try to call at the same Dominoes Pizza for that game. That's fun. So, yeah, but so, you know, so that's, that's the going forward part of why. So they should trust us, right? We don't answer your phone calls in 24 hours. Then we're going to take, you know, 1% off of your off of your invoice, or whatever it might be, right? So I that's the that's the most important thing. Everything flows from that value proposition, whether it is how you sell and market the service, or whether it's how you deliver the service, right? If we say that in the Domino's perspective, if we say it 30 minutes or it's free, that tells us not just about, okay, we're going to market to that. We're going to sell to that promise, but also, we better build a system that can deliver a pizza in 30 minutes, right? So everything from the how we sell to how we actually deliver the service is all contained and stems from that value proposition. That's the most important thing to do, right? If you don't have a solid value proposition but don't understand, what are we selling to who? How is it priced? Why should they pick us? What promises do we offer? If you don't understand that nothing else matters, all the fancy marketing schemes don't ever. They don't matter whatsoever. You have to have your value proposition down first.

Yeah, it's so true, and I've been explaining it a slightly different way. And for many years, we were asking this question about landing pages, which is the best one, because we used to always do landing pages. Today, you generally go to an interior page of the website with paid ads. And so for personal injury, everybody understands it. Should you show a car accident? Should you show the lawyers? Should you show a courtroom? Should you show the lawyer, you know, with boxing gloves, with the insurance company? Should you show a big check? Which one is the right one? Do you know the answer? By the way,

I would think it would be. The person, the victim with a big check would be the best? No,

you actually just gave the answer. And the answer is, for each firm, you should show what it is that is your value proposition and what you guys true to, because if you're like the family firm that's going to give you great service. You know that should be on, on your landing page, on your on your homepage, right? If you're the, you know, big check guys, you should be the big check guys everywhere. Your brand should be consistent, your billboards, or even, you know, your Google ads, like, we'll get you the biggest check. And that's what you know, that's what your value proposition is. And that's how the firm's set up. Yeah, because, you know, some firms are just not set up that way. Some firms that will get you a check fast and they're not going to go to court, you know, so, right, you know, I think your point was very well made about narrowing down your value proposition. Now, I just want to make sure I had, I had four and the the fourth was the Three Wise. Did the three wise mean four, five and six?

Uh, yeah, four, five and six, yep, yep. So really the first three is going to be, who do we sell? What do we sell? How is it priced? And then the three whys of, why do they need this? Why should they choose us, and why should they trust us? Great,

perfect. So I got it right. And for posterity, those of you listening, if you were like me and you taking like when Craig speaks, it sounds very authoritarian. Like, this is going to be great. You know, here's the six things to narrow down your value proposition. And those of us who use 10, you know, 10 golden rules, or six things you know, when you start a list, people want to know. Yeah, okay, that's great. Well, I think, you know, maybe I'll just open up to you like, is there one other thing people should know about your product and service if they're thinking of looking for some help managing their law firm? Yeah.

So you know, it's different than being a coach, right? I worked with three of my clients are with law firm mentor, right? And they have wonderful business coaches who I've met, actually, I've worked with and but I'm not a coach, right? So if you want somebody embedded in your law firm, if you want somebody who's going to talk to your staff, who's going to work on processes, who's going to document stuff or help you design something different, actually, you know, keep track of your scorecard. That's you need to, like, a fractional COO or a fractional Chief of Staff, right? It's different than coaching. So that's what, that's what I tell you know, clients, I hope, if you're starting out as an attorney, if you're just starting your own firm as an attorney, you need somebody like law firm mentor, right? They're, they're great. They really help you set up your stuff, right? But when you get to have four or 510, people embedded in your firm, right? You know, attorneys, paralegals, marketing folks, you know an admin, whatever it might be, you don't have time as an attorney now to have one on ones with everybody, make sure their projects are all staying on track, right? I met with a one of my one of my clients, their marketing person. This morning, we went through all the marketing projects. Are we staying on track? No, we're not okay. What are we going to do to get back on track, right? And so all of that operational stuff that you cannot do as an attorney, that you don't want to do as an attorney, right? You actually you should be out billing, um, you know, make, get more billable hours, or drive drumming up more business. That's when you need a fractional to come in and actually manage those processes for you. So it's different than coaching. And I'm in, you know, a fractional is embedded in your business. And so that's that, that's people. I think that law firms need that kind of stuff. A coach is essential. A coach is important, but at some point you need that operational, hands on help.

I love it. That's a great answer, and it delineates for me, and I'll help my clients with that. Yeah, at the end of the podcast, we always ask some quick one liners, are there any apps or techniques that you use for personal productivity?

Wow, I force all of my clients to use 90 simply, so that we are all on the same page. It's embedded into my pricing. We must be

90 is like, well, it's, we know. I know it from EOS, and it's like your project management. It's got your

all your scorecard meetings? Yep. So that's the big thing, right? For people who don't, who are just kind of by themselves, there's a tool called motion. You can get it at use motion.io I am a big believer in time blocking, and so that's one of the things I do with all my clients, is, let's figure out time blocks to do stuff. Motion is a really good project management tool, but it also integrates with your calendar, so it puts blocks on your calendar to help you understand when you should be working on a certain project or a certain task. So motion is really, really good.

Love it now you. Already hit on a few of them, but my normal question is, what are your best business books? But I'm going to write this one more business book that you haven't mentioned. Yeah,

so, and you can kind of see a little bit of it up there. But the goal by Ellie Goldratt, it's a book from the from the late 80s. It's, if you've ever heard of theory of constraints? Ellie gold rat coined that term and introduced us to the topic of the theory of constraints in the book called The Goal. It is a set in a manufacturing area. But if we think about cases moving through a law firm, they are basically moving through a manufacturing process from intake until resolution. And so I tell everybody, if you haven't read the goal, it's a story, it's an easy read, but the principles in it are just so profound. So the goal is the that was the like, the first business book that I ever read, and that's what got me hooked on reading business books. And so, yeah, start with the goal.

How about digital, blogs, podcasts, YouTube's what, what comes across your feed and you stop everything, and that's, well, it's 10 golden

rules, obviously, right? I mean, that's the very first one every single time, right? I mean, have to check that all the time. Yeah, yeah. Alex hormozi, right? If you don't it, he's, he's one of the top ones. Alex from hormozi, is great.

Um, the only thing about hormozi, I was actually listening to him in the gym yesterday morning, and he said, like, he put up 45,000 pieces of content in the last three months, right? I can't even figure out, but, but the interesting thing he says he was putting out tons of content that was getting huge viewership. And then he realized that someone actually told him this. He couldn't figure out what's going on because his sales and conversion were down a little bit. And someone told me. Said, you know, Alex, I love you, man, but I stopped following your feed. He said, What do you mean? Why? You know, because this guy's his perfect avatar. And he said, you know, you're, well, you're just, you're putting out too much stuff about cars and this and that. So he realized, now all his content is about business. It's about Yes,

that's right, yep, yep. And, you know, Alex, I went through, I don't know, three months ago, maybe, and I just started looking at all at all of his content and realized how repurposed his content is, and now he can take a hour long talk and repurpose it into 100 different pieces of content out of that hour long talk, right? So, video, yep, so it's it, yeah, but Alex romozi is just great, right? Ryan, DICE is another really good one to watch. Um, so that's, that's, those are two hormozian dice. I think are two good ones to start with. But there's a, I mean, there's, it's impossible. There's so many out there. So

I always ask, who's your NFL team? But let's not waste time on that

well, but it's not who. It's not who you think it is. Okay, go for it then. Yeah. So I grew up in Colorado, so I am a die hard Denver Broncos fan. When I moved here to to Tennessee, before the Titans got here, I thought it was wonderful. Broncos Ron all the time, and then the Titans moved and just stole all the TV viewership, and that just sucked. And I hate the Titans, even though I live in Tennessee. So yeah, but you are a

Nashville Predators.

I do root for the predators. Yes.

Are they looking this year? What can we expect? Well, I

would say I'm not a die hard fan, so I have no idea. I won't I don't really follow until the playoffs happen, yeah? So I

don't know. They signed one of the biggest free agents ever, Steven Stamkos, you know, couple couple time stay on the cup winner, superstar with Tampa. Everybody thought he'd be Tampa for life, but at 3435 he he got like, a six year contract and left for Nashville. So be interesting.

Nice. See, you know more about the President I do. Well,

look, I'm Canadian. I'm Winnipeg Jets fan. So, you know, I it's actually fun for me. Since podcast came out, I listened to a Winnipeg jetspot, a couple Winnipeg Jets podcast, and that's how I find out what's going on in the city. So it's, it brings me, yeah, no. And then they talk about, you know, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team, blah, blah, blah. What's a great introduction for you? Who's a great intro? Yeah. So

any attorneys who own a law firm of 20 or less, people who want to be more entrepreneurial, right? That is, don't want to have just a practice. They want to actually have a real, a real good, solid business. Those are people who are great intros for me, whether it is for fractional co work or half day strategy sessions, which I also do. Those are really, really good introductions.

Great. And if somebody knows that intro, where can they find you?

So go to visionary results. Dot com. That is the, that is my website. I have a couple, there's a couple things going on there. One of them is, I have the 2025, law firm excellence brief, downloadable from there, which has a lot of basically, it's kind of like doing a SWAT, or at least the the opportunities and threats. Part, growth rates, some, some industry factors that may affect small law firms for 2025 and then from that, they can go and take what I call the firm foundation assessment, which is an assessment designed for small law firms, compared to compare themselves with the Baldrige Excellence Criteria, criteria. Baldridge is a federal government program run by by national the National Institute for Standards and Technology, NIST that has you can get awards and stuff at that. I was a Baldrige examiner for a while, so it's a great way to compare how your firm does compared to the best firms in the world. So, yeah, it can take the firm foundation assessment and get a 12 page report to probably tell you more than you want to know about how your firm is doing compared to the way it should be. I

love it. Super business oriented approach to business.

Business, yep. I mean, you know, I have a friend, though, who says, who says, you know, make, make good friends and then do business with your friends. So, you know, that's, that's kind of it, right? Uh, it's Yeah, words about business. But you gotta have, you gotta have friends in the world too.

Well. Craig, thanks for the time, and congratulations on sharing a ton of great content. I'm sure this is going to be one of the ones that people stop, rewind and listen to over and over again. I

hope so. Hope so. Hope people reach out. Reach out anytime, on by my website or on LinkedIn. I love the chat, as you can hear. I love to talk about stuff, so you want to talk strategy or execution or metrics or anything. Yeah, reach out. I'll listen and ask a lot of questions and then probably talk till you, you know, want me to shut up. So perfect. Thanks

so much.

Thanks, Jay.

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