In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Brandy Derrick discuss:
- Why lawyers are not great with money, billing, and books.
- How lawyers can reduce AR and overhead costs.
- Understanding your numbers and making more money.
- Delegating and outsourcing your bookkeeping.
Key Takeaways:
- You are not taught how to do bookkeeping in law school or typically at the law firm level.
- Collect a retainer up front and stay on top of the monthly billing.
- Consistently and timely send out your invoices. This shows that getting paid is important to you.
- Likely, you do not need to be spending thousands of dollars in rent for your office every month. There are more options than ever for working remotely or in a co-share space.
“Pay attention to your marketing. Understand which are the most profitable, and how you are getting those clients.” — Brandy Derrick
Connect with Brandy Derrick:
Website: https://legaleasebookkeeping.com/
Email: brandy@legaleasebookkeeping.com
Phone: 469-751-2150
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandyderrick/
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Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
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Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
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Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, people, bookkeeper, lawyers, bookkeeping, attorneys, money, pay, legalese, marketing, invoices, delegate, books, spend, numbers, helping, law firm, relates, practice, steve
SPEAKERS
Stephanie Vaughn Jones, Narrator, Steve Fretzin, Brandy Derrick, Jordan Ostroff
Brandy Derrick [00:00]
And then as far as with the increasing revenues, I think a lot of attorneys don’t pay attention to their marketing that well, they don’t have a good handle on what clients are the most profitable clients, and how they’re getting those clients.
Narrator [00:20]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:42]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I hope you’re having a wonderful day as the announcer mentioned, I am Steve Fretzin, the host of the show. And if you’re a regular listener, my hope is that every single time you listen to the show, you’ve got a takeaway or two that you can use to be your best self to be a better lawyer to be that lawyer, quite frankly. And that means to be confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Many people know that I’m coach and a trainer for lawyers who are looking to grow their law practices, whether they’re at a big firm or solo doesn’t really matter and the practice area, what people don’t always know is that I’m running some very successful peer advisory mastermind type groups, I currently have five running. And these are for people that are already doing really well at business development. So if you’re listening to the show, and you’re like, you know, I yeah, I’m getting some good ideas. But man, wouldn’t it be cool to collaborate with other top attorneys from around the country in a non competitive and private environment outside of your firm? Well, please email me and let me know steve@fretzin.com. And I will talk about getting you into one of our Rainmaker or business developer roundtables. And it’s just another way to to continue to keep your foot on the pedal of how you’re going to get your business to grow year after year. Accountability and collaboration with top attorneys is a good way to do it. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. For now. I’ve got brandy waiting in the wings. How you doing? Brandy? Good, how are you? Good, good to see you. And brandy was so kind to give the quote of the show. And that quote is behind every good business is a great bookkeeper. You don’t know who said that, though? Do you want to take credit? Why don’t you just take credit for it?
Brandy Derrick [02:20]
Because it’s everywhere on the internet. Like, you see it posted all the time. If I said I took credit for it, and then everyone would know,
Steve Fretzin [02:26]
you’re gonna get some hate mail? Possibly. You’re gonna get some hate mail people if you claim that you said it. Exactly. All right. Well, the obviously you know that. That is, I guess a truth that, you know, if we don’t have our books together and have our organization together, that’s not a great way to run the ship. Right?
Brandy Derrick [02:45]
Right. Yeah, you can practice law and be really great at that. But if you’re not really good at keeping track of the money, it’s can be your downfall.
Steve Fretzin [02:54]
That could be your downfall. And, you know, speaking of keeping track of how you run your business, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsors legalese marketing, we’ve got practice Panther, and we’ve got money, Penny, all there to help you automate, and take perfect care of how you’re running the marketing side, the practice management side, and, of course, how you’re dealing with your phones and your computer with money. Penny. So, Randy, give us a little bit. You’re the founder of legalese bookkeeping, and give us a little background on on how you got started in the business. But don’t give away your be that lawyer moment because I do want to ask you about that in a moment.
Brandy Derrick [03:32]
Okay. Well, I started doing bookkeeping, back in 2001. For my dad and his businesses, he’s not an attorney, but he has a couple of different businesses. And I worked for him forever, and then decided that I wanted to start my own firm. And I did take a class that was like, start a virtual bookkeeping business. And in it, they said you should niche and they gave some criteria on which you should look, think about and do you know people do you, industry? Do you have a story with them, and my husband was in a motorcycle accident years ago. And he, the attorney that helped us with that was amazing, and it just really went above and beyond. And so I thought, Wow, if I can help attorneys with their bookkeeping, then that frees up their time to go out and help a lot more people through some of the worst times in their life. And I thought that would be a really great niche to go with. And so we started six years ago, and I just have attorneys as our as our clients. Now I have about 120 solo practitioners and small law firms that we work with all over the United States, a team of five employees and, and we’re just trying to help out as many people as we can.
Steve Fretzin [04:44]
Yeah, and that’s a good lead in to your game changing moment. And that’s a new segment on the show for everybody listening. You know, everybody in their world has one or two or three maybe, you know, moments in their life where things just turn around for the better and whether you’re living out of your car and your Flies that’s no good. And came up with a way of getting out of there or whatever. Everybody’s got a different story. But what’s your kind of game changing moment there as it relates to your career?
Brandy Derrick [05:09]
Yeah, so I’ve always wanted to travel the world. And years ago, my husband and I decided that the best way to do that would be to go by boat. And we thought we would do it on a sailboat. So we saved up money for like 10 years and quit our jobs and sold our cars and our house and moved on to a sailboat. And that’s actually when I started legalese bookkeeping, I did it as a side hustle to just make a little couple extra bucks as we were selling around the world. And it was really helpful for me, because I’m kind of an anxious person. And I get stressed out and overwhelmed. And I tried to start other businesses in the past, but I’d always freaked myself out. And after talking to like, one potential client decided that I would never be able to start a business. But when with this, starting as a side hustle, made it so that way, there wasn’t as much pressure on myself to make it hugely successful immediately, and just slowly grow it and not need to worry about taking on a ton of clients. And just, like I said, just going slowly with it, which really helped me because I was definitely not emotionally ready to just take a whole bunch of clients and, and get all the rejections you get when you first start a business. And, and you know, it wasn’t, I wasn’t able to do that. But
Steve Fretzin [06:29]
you were like, it’s not I don’t want to say a power position. But when you have money in the bank, and you have time on your side, and you can dip your toe in and see, you know, hey, the waters warm, not a terrible way. And I think a lot of lawyers that are looking to go solo are looking to go out on their own, right, they know they can bring some clients with so they’re not gonna be starting from nothing. And they know that you can automate most things, you know, you can hire a bookkeeper, like brandy. Like, there’s all these things that make it an easier way to to make a transition. And I think you found that in, in that trip around the world.
Brandy Derrick [07:00]
Yeah, we didn’t make it quiet around the world.
Steve Fretzin [07:04]
I was gonna say, Yeah, we made it to, you know, the west side of Florida. That’s right around the Caribbean. That’s pretty cool. That’s some beautiful, beautiful waters and beautiful land. Yeah. Well, listen, let’s get into the weeds then. Because your specialty is helping lawyers with their numbers. So let’s, you know, I was I’m not trying to be negative. But I love to start off with like, why are lawyers so bad with money billing and books? Like what’s why is that group seemingly more need of help than maybe other groups? Are they not?
Brandy Derrick [07:34]
Well, I think that they are in part because they took all this school, they have all of this knowledge, but they never took a business class. Yeah, they don’t. They don’t teach how to do bookkeeping, in school for attorneys. But they do tell them that if they don’t keep track of their trusts account correctly, or their IOLTA account correctly, they’ll get disbarred. So they put this fear in them, but they don’t really teach them how to do it correctly. And also, I think that a lot of my experience anyways, is a lot of attorneys are very creative people. They’re not numbers, people, they’re more on the creative side. And so it’s just not in their normal wheelhouse to pay attention to the numbers and and understand them.
Steve Fretzin [08:15]
Yeah, there’s some CPAs that also get the JD and all that. But I think you’re right, a lot of lawyers, you know, math wasn’t their top subjects. So, you know, creativity and problem solving and things like that, that, you know, where you just got to use, you know, words and language and that type of thing is probably more up their alley, right? So the fact that it isn’t taught at the law firm level, it’s not taught in law school, etc, in that’s one of the reasons and especially people going out on their own, do many of them try to do the books themselves, and then realize that sort of a mistake?
Brandy Derrick [08:45]
Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, some people, they can actually do it and beat their head up against the wall and try to figure out QuickBooks and they and they’ll get it. But other people try to do it. And they’re just overwhelmed and can’t even figure out how to do anything. And maybe they’ll keep track of it in excel at a at a minimum. But even still, it’s very hard for them. It’s not something they like doing to them, they put it off as well, which then compounds the problem, because then they’re, you know, they’re having to think about what happened six months ago, and try to figure out how to keep track of it all.
Steve Fretzin [09:20]
Yeah. So let’s talk about, you know, we’ve talked about problems. Let’s talk about solutions. So how can lawyers reduce AR overdue invoices and having all that money just kind of sitting out there? And I know that that’s a big concern, especially with a possible recession. I used to say that I was confident there’s gonna be a recession. Now, you know, I’m less confident than a more common thing just sounds like I’m on a seesaw going up and down every day based on little things I hear from real estate people and other people in, you know, in different spaces. So what’s a way that they can reduce AR?
Brandy Derrick [09:51]
Well, first of all, is to click the retainer up front.
Steve Fretzin [09:55]
Get that? Oh, beautiful retainer.
Brandy Derrick [09:57]
Yeah. Then you have that money sitting in the back Thank you Bill for it. And you have to stay on top of your whip. So that way you can make sure you’re not reducing or going below your your retainer. That would be the number one way. But then I have some attorneys who are like, No, this is not going to work, that’s not gonna work for my firm or whatever. Yeah, that type of law that practice, we have to bill after the fact, then I’d say that the number one thing is to just consistently and timely, send out your invoices, you would be surprised at how many people put invoices off for months before sending them out. When you’re not sending out the invoices every month on time, like you said, you’re going to the client thinks that it’s not important to you. So they don’t think that it’s important for them to pay the money, and they will wait months and months to pay you. And then the other thing is that you can do is get a some sort of payment method on file for that client. So you have their credit card or their ACH information, you send out the invoice, then you charge that. So you’re not you’re reducing your AR that way, because you have the payment method already on file.
Steve Fretzin [11:07]
Yeah, I mean, for me, and for other lawyers, I mean, that’s been sort of a game changer as it relates to our time, because I’ve got, I mean, let’s say 60 clients at any given time, and almost every single one of them is on ACH or credit card or something. And I’m getting the 3% you know upsell, whatever it is for if they want to use a credit card. So I’m not paying the fee is, you know, changing around. So I’m not, you know, having to take less as a fee, because I’m paying credit card fees. So between those two, I’m not, you know, going into the bank, I’m not having to deposit checks all the time. I’m not dealing with that. And so if people are open to it, right? I mean, it’s not like people were used to be where now I like to send a check. I mean, tell them this is the way it is right. This is how we do things. In most cases, they’ll go along. Yes,
Brandy Derrick [11:55]
exactly. And I mean, me personally, I’d love to put everything on my credit card. And I understand that some people don’t want to pay for their credit card processing fees. But please don’t ask me to send you a check. Like that is yeah, if we’re gonna go into mail,
Steve Fretzin [12:08]
right, right, like, oh, yeah, I’ve got to fill out. I mean, there are people still, I think my wife still pays all of it. She doesn’t pay pay most of that. But I’m giving away secrets here about my family. But I pay my I mean, she pays for like the things that she’s involved in, but she’s still writing checks for things. And I’m like, What are you doing? Like? Why? Ach number two? Like, aren’t you just using online bill pay like every other person. But anyway, there are people that just that I don’t know, they like to write checks? I don’t know. That’s not That’s not for me.
Brandy Derrick [12:33]
Yeah, not for me, either. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [12:35]
I’m with you. And the other thing lawyers may not realize is that if you’re doing your own books, you should really track how much time it’s taking you imagine, and then realize how that relates back to the billable hour? Because if you’re, if you’re spending, let’s say 10 hours a month, and I don’t know if that’s a realistic number. I mean, is that brainy? Am I on target with that number my way off?
Brandy Derrick [12:55]
I would say it depends on your law firm. But I would say probably between five and 10 hours.
Steve Fretzin [13:01]
Yeah. And your billable at 400? An hour mean you do the math on it. And then you look at what does it cost for a bookkeeper or someone to handle it. I mean, like, just give an example. I’m paying, let’s say, 600 a month. For my bookkeeper, I’m getting reports, I’m getting all the money in I have no ar like, all these things are happening. My taxes are set up, like my accountant can charge less, because everything is well organized. Like there’s all these benefits. And my time in the lawyer’s time is so valuable. I mean, it seems a little crazy to still be doing it yourself.
Brandy Derrick [13:30]
Yeah. And then the other thing is, is when you do it yourself, you I don’t want to say this, but like you’re personally involved in every invoice. And so you sit there and you think about the client, and you’re like, Oh, well, that guy’s just really nice, you know, discount him a little bit or you start to get anxious, like, no, that person doesn’t have money, but you’re still providing a service and you need to be paid for it. So So then that both makes you discount your invoices and put off your doing your invoices. Whereas if you have a third party person doing it, they don’t have any personal connection with that client. They’re just sending out the invoice. It’s not an emotional thing to send that out.
Steve Fretzin [14:09]
Yeah. So you’re taking you’re taking the personal and emotional taste of that client and that situation out of it, handing it over, like, I love that about my bookkeeper that I just, you know, look, we’ve got to collect from someone that’s you know, hasn’t you know, the ACH didn’t go through or whatever. And I don’t have to get involved like i just i She knows to be nice. She knows to say it’s probably not you. It’s me. She’s got all the techniques for being as soft as possible. So no one’s getting mad at Steve. Okay, yeah. And it comes back and I end up getting you know, all the things that I need to get in if there’s some out there that that gets in really good. So let’s cut to the chase. What are the three best tips for lawyers to understand their numbers and make more money, reduce costs make more money?
Brandy Derrick [14:57]
Oh, man. Okay, so the three best tips Reduce costs or make more money. I think it’s a
Steve Fretzin [15:04]
that you see, I mean, you’re you said you got 100 plus. So you’re seeing their p&l you’re seeing, you know, a lot of the stuff that’s going on, where are you seeing, you know, room for improvement and making recommendations or just things you typically recommend?
Brandy Derrick [15:20]
Yeah, well, one thing is that sometimes attorneys will pay for a very large, beautiful office, and it’s a very expensive rent payment. And they don’t necessarily need that a lot of them can be working out of their home. And I worked at a co working spot. And there’s several attorneys that work at this co working spot. So when they did meet with a client, they have an office they can go into, they have somewhere they can go to they don’t have to pay all that 1000s of dollars a month in rent, maybe if it’s a larger law firm. And then if they do, but I don’t really think that they do. And with COVID, we see like, you can have zoom calls, you can do all of this stuff, and reduce your costs where you don’t need all of that. And then as far as with the increasing revenues, I think a lot of attorneys don’t pay attention to their marketing that well, they don’t have a good handle on what clients are the most profitable clients and how they’re getting those clients. So once you have your bookkeeping done correctly, you can see where you’re getting clients from. And then you can make a determination like, Oh, this one I spent 10 hours on this one I spent two hours on and I made the same amount of money. So I want more of these that I spend two hours on how do I get more of those clients. And then the third way I think would be to free up your time by not doing your bookkeeping and hiring an outside bookkeeper. You don’t need to be doing that and wasting your time and stressing about it worrying about it at night like is your IOLTA account up to date like don’t stress about it, have somebody do it that’s a professional at it and knows what they’re doing. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [17:02]
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Jordan Ostroff [17:39]
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Steve Fretzin [18:01]
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Stephanie Vaughn Jones [18:05]
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Steve Fretzin [18:19]
I did not know that. That’s a lot of business going away right there. Let’s cut to the chase. What are you prepared to do for my listeners?
Stephanie Vaughn Jones [18:25]
We’re offering an exclusive two week free trial. If you’re interested in hearing more, you can call me directly on 470-534-8846 and mentioned that you’ve heard this ad on Steve’s podcast.
Steve Fretzin [18:39]
Very cool, thanks. Well, let’s go back and hit each of those one by one. So number one is, is I think if COVID has taught us anything, it’s reduced cost reduce overhead. So, you know, while there might be a big ego involved in having the most beautiful, most expensive space, you know, look at that as it relates to your overhead compared to other things and how much you’re making. And if you can make an extra 100 grand a year by having a space that maybe is CO shared or maybe that is maybe not as prestigious, but still gets the job done. Because most people are working from home. That’s, that’s kind of like you can see that in the books that you’re overspending on something that isn’t as valuable as it was, you know, five years ago as it relates to space, right? Okay. The second one was increased revenue. And this is something that most that I do my bookkeeper sends me a p&l a balance sheet, all that stuff every single month. And I just roll down and I look at what my marketing is. I’m looking at my client breakdowns how much is coming in this year, how much is gonna leak in the next year as it relates to AR? I’m looking at, you know, what everything is costing and what everything is generating. And I don’t think lawyers are really looking at that data. Is that a fair assessment?
Brandy Derrick [19:49]
Yeah, I don’t think that they are. The larger firms I think do but definitely solo practitioners and small law firms. They don’t really look at it to see where they’re getting them getting leads from Um, yeah, and then seeing how much money they’re actually making off of those leads.
Steve Fretzin [20:04]
So let’s say for example, you’re you’re doing some LinkedIn marketing, you’re getting 10 clients from it, and you’re making 100,000. But you’re paying, you know, 5000, well, that’s $95,000 in profit, based on, you know, what you’re investing and then what you’re actually producing and making might want to double down on LinkedIn, you might want to consider you know that that type of marketing is really working for your business. Just in general, though, you’ve got to look at the data, and it’s saying people have heard me say for years is if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And I think you’re right on target with that, that we need to spend some time looking at the data. You mentioned. One other point, though, wasn’t just about it was about marketing. And then what was the other one that was about looking at the p&l?
Brandy Derrick [20:45]
Well, and seeing where, like, how much expenses you have for it? Or which leads are you spending the most amount of time
Steve Fretzin [20:53]
is right time? Right, right. And so there might be there might be a targeted client that you want to replicate. That’s what it was. And so, you know, you could you know, just treat everyone equally and spend all your time equally. But if you can identify patterns through the numbers, you can decide to change up your marketing change up, you know, the client profile, if you will, that’s going to be more profitable. That’s really brilliant. I love that. The last point you mentioned was, you know, just freeing up your time. And this has been a huge part of what I’ve been working on with clients. And I’m sure you have too, is what can we do that as delegate double, and the Quinby lawyers are busy and they’re they’re getting crushed with billable hours and all this other stuff. And their that’s their biggest challenge time management, how do I get to do more with less delegate?
Brandy Derrick [21:39]
Exactly, exactly. Your their time is valuable. They’re, they have so much knowledge inside their brains, and they can get it out and help so many people. But you can’t do that if you’re sort of wasting your time doing these other tasks that someone else could do. And one of the classes that I’ve taken before they’re like, go down your task list, make a task list of every single thing that you do every single day, and then put $1 sign next to it. If it’s a low level dollar, like you could pay somebody 1015 bucks an hour to do put a $1 Buy, if it’s a $10,000 task, put $3 signs, and then you know if it’s kind of in the middle to what tasks are you doing that are $1 sign, get rid of those tasks, you don’t need to be doing those somebody else can be doing them, you should only be doing the $1,000 an hour tests working on your business, working on the big clients and growing it.
Steve Fretzin [22:30]
Yeah, a few weeks ago, I interviewed Davina Frederick, who, you know, works with lawyers, of women lawyers on you know, building their law practices. And that was one of her key points was, you know, we just need to let go, and a delegate, delegate delegate anything. And whether you’re at a big firm, or whether you’re a solo, I don’t really care, you’d need to figure out all the things you’re doing in a typical day and maybe even track your day or track a week and say, Look, this is all the stuff I’m doing that must go to an associate, that must go to a paralegal that must go to bookkeeper, whatever it might be it because it’s that 10 or 20% of time that you get back that goes directly to your family. It goes directly to your marketing and business development efforts and things that are going to ultimately make you happier as a lawyer running a practice.
Brandy Derrick [23:17]
Yeah, that’s sort of easier said than done. Right? It’s
Steve Fretzin [23:21]
just snap your fingers. It’s no problem. Yeah, letting go of things is really hard. Especially I think lawyers, typically as I read, you know, want it done, right. And they’re like, it’s on their way. And so you know, there might be some pain or some pain and changing to delegate to a bookkeeper, right? I mean, if all I’ve done is my numbers, and I know them intimately, and or whatever, I’m just the one doing it to say, Hey, I’m going to trust someone and hand that off. Why don’t people get sick? That’s a good question. How do people get over the idea that they have to trust you that they have to trust that you’re going to take care of them in their numbers?
Brandy Derrick [23:57]
I think for some people, it’s very gradual. And it can take several months for them to truly trust and let go. And so we have some clients who they basically do all the work themselves still, and we just oversee them. And we double check them and they ask us questions and things like that. But then what happens is they’ll get behind on things and on then I’ll start encouraging them like, hey, well, you know, we could take over doing this one little piece for you. And let’s just try doing this. And we do that and they see that we did it successful, there’s no issues and we can keep doing it. And then Alright, well, what if we freed up some more of your time? What if we did this other pieces and we can gradually kind of take pieces away from them? And that’s worked well for some of our clients who are very not wanting to release the reins of their bookkeeping.
Steve Fretzin [24:47]
How often are they asking you for in speaking with your references, like people that are currently working with you to better understand your value or better understand that they can trust you? Is that happening all the time? Rarely, no. On the road,
Brandy Derrick [25:01]
I don’t really get that many requests to talk to my references I do have on my LinkedIn profile and on my Google search, whatever, I don’t know what you call it, my Google Maps page. There’s reviews on there from attorneys on there. And I guess, not that I’m opposed to giving out my references, but I just know that all of my clients time is so valuable that I kind of like really hate to ask them, Hey, can you spend five minutes to just talk to this person? I will do it if there’s somebody that’s coming out and it’s like, can I talk to your references? I’ll be like, Okay, fine, let me go find three of them that no one will talk to you.
Steve Fretzin [25:37]
I mean, just as a thought, I mean, I have two options for people that are looking to work with me to better understand my value, more importantly, the ROI on investing in working with me, one of them is to audit my class. And obviously, you don’t have a class dog people to audit, but I let people come in and be a fly on a wall and sit through a 90 minute class and meet my other clients and kind of hear from them what’s going on. The one that’s even more impactful is I do have a bunch of, you know, what I would call raving fans or clients that have just crushed it. And the last thing they say, to me, we kind of wrap up is, hey, if anybody ever wants to talk to one of your clients, about your services, about what we did together, how much far far I’ve come, you know, please don’t be shy about giving them my information, I’d be happy to take 10 minutes. I don’t know if you have clients like that. But think about how powerful that is, with someone that’s having a hard time letting go to say I’ve got a couple of clients that have made that kind of comment about, you know, being open to just share their experiences they’ve had with you. And that may be a way to help convert some of the people that are maybe the more challenged with, you know, this decision because it’s it is hard to let go, especially with something where there’s books and I mean, I had someone embezzle for me like a bookkeeper or office manager, embezzle for me, and she did a year at Cook County Jail, in that, you know, I don’t know, 15 years ago or something like that I learned a valuable lesson, she clearly learned a valuable lesson. I don’t know how good of a lesson, she put me down as a reference for a job once. And I was like, oh, no, you know, sneak it. She tried to sneak it through the radar. And they called me up. And I was like, Yeah, I don’t think I’m a good reference for her. You know, she stole from me. But anyway, I think, ultimately, you know, the more that they can get a feeling and a flavor for what it’s like to work with you before they make that decision or to help them make that decision. Oh, that might be something there.
Brandy Derrick [27:22]
Yeah, yeah, for sure. That’s a really good idea. And I don’t know, I don’t know why I am so fearful of asking people, it’s sort of like, I’m afraid that they’re going to tell me that they I don’t know, I guess I think that I’m afraid that they’re gonna tell me that they don’t like me or whatever,
Steve Fretzin [27:39]
well, but you said you’ve got all these reviews. So leverage the people that have said nice things. And again, you’re saving them money, saving them time saving the day collecting money, whatever it is, like they care about you and like you and appreciate you. Those are the ones you just have to say, you know, look, I appreciate all the kind words and everything. I just wonder if I ever had someone who’s on the fence about working with me and giving up you know, their books to me? Would you ever be able to open to speaking with them about what I’ve done for you and kind of sharing your personal story? Would you be Oh, my God, Brandi Yes. Anyone that you want to talk to me, they’ll send them you know, 10 people a day, but a couple of months, they might be very open to that. So I’m just putting it out there. That’s a another way to kind of lock things up.
Brandy Derrick [28:20]
Yeah, and I love the way that you phrase that that was very good. But I’m gonna have to go back and listen. Like while we’re recording
Steve Fretzin [28:25]
this, so you’ll have to wait to listen. But let me ask you this kind of in wrapping things up. Someone is coming to you and you’re sort of evaluating their situation, and they hire you. And then things turn around, you have like kind of another rags to riches story. But like an example of of that, where someone came to you and things were really messed up. They don’t even realize how badly and then you kind of turned it around.
Brandy Derrick [28:49]
Yeah, I mean, just in the last week, I had someone come to me who they got where they accidentally took money out of the wrong bank account to pay for an item and it made their IOLTA account go negative. And then most states that’s an automatic bar audit, or at least is an automatic notice to the Bar Association. And they did get a bar audit and their books are disaster, and they need to get it cleaned up. And I had one week to do it. So today was my deadline to get them their books cleaned up, and at least in regards to their IOLTA account. And we were able to get them where we know how much each person has in their IOLTA account and able to get for the Bar Association, the paperwork that they need in order to perform the audit that they’re going to do on the books and and that feels so good to be able to help this person out. You know, they made a mistake and they shouldn’t have done it but they did
Steve Fretzin [29:49]
make a mistake sounds like a built in built in LinkedIn recommendation or Google recommendation to validate that you got them out of a tough a tough bind, and now they’re in a better place. So yeah, Ah, Brandy, thank you so much. Let’s move to Game Changing books. And you’ve got one that I’ve actually read. I don’t read a ton of self help books, I’d rather listen to podcasts. And I take in content other way, in other ways. But this is one that was recommended to me. And I really enjoyed it, the gap in the game by Dan Sullivan. So talk briefly about that, why is that your game changing book,
Brandy Derrick [30:22]
you know, it talks about how there’s two different ways that you can sort of think about your life and you can think about all the ways that you’re not good enough, and how you could have done something better, and that sort of the gap. Or you can think about how far you’ve come along, and how much further that you are, and think about it in a positive light. And that’s the gain. And I’m pretty, I would say I’m pretty negative on myself, you know, like, I’m always thinking, Oh, I’m not good enough, or I’m disappointing everyone, and blah, blah, blah, like I have all these thoughts, which I think both makes me really good at my job, because I’m always trying to make sure that I’m great. Yeah. But then also that it’s not really a good way to live your life. And so it’s thinking about where I am now, compared to where I was six years ago, when I started my business, my confidence level is so much higher, but like, I also know so much more. And I’ve helped so many people, and I have to think those things, as opposed to being like, Oh, I’m still not as good as this other person.
Steve Fretzin [31:25]
Comparing to others, right? I mean, that’s a, you know, breaks your soul. We’re doing that. I mean, I’m ahead of people, and I’m behind people, but you know what, I’m just gonna be me. And I think the gap in the game, from my perspective was right on with what you said, it’s, you know, all we can do is focus on the gaps and focus on the negatives and focus on those things, and bring ourselves down or we can realize, look, we’ve actually accomplished a lot. And we need to focus on that and where we’re headed in the future. And that’s going to keep us in a more positive place. So really good recommendation. It’s a quick read the gap in the game. So Brian, if people want to reach out to legalese bookkeeper and check out what you do, and maybe even, you know, have a consultation with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?
Brandy Derrick [32:07]
Well, they can email me at brandy with a Y at legal ease E A, S e bookkeeping.com. They can check out my website, lemons bookkeeping.com. Or they can give us a call at 469-751-2150.
Steve Fretzin [32:22]
Yeah, we’ll throw that all in the show notes too. So you guys can just look at the bottom of your Apple phone or whatever and see what brand he’s got going on or go to my website fretzin.com. And of course, we’ve got a podcast page with all that content there. If you’re interested, thank you so much for you know, coming on the show sharing your wisdom, helping lawyers get their mind straight about their money, and most importantly about the importance of delegating and outsourcing this type of thing because it really is. And I hate to say this below their paygrade. But you know, look, they’re charging four to 600 an hour or more or less to spend 10 hours a week a month bookkeeping, probably, you know, isn’t the best use of anyone’s time. Right. So So just really terrific. Keep doing what you’re doing. All right, thank you. Okay, thank you everybody for spending some time with brandy United today. Hopefully you got a couple of good ideas and takeaways and again, if you’re doing some of the things that you shouldn’t be doing and that could be your maybe it’s your own marketing your own bookkeeping, your own it, whatever it is, consider you know how much time you’re spending on that and how much more time you could spend either billing hours putting into BD, or quite frankly, you know, spending time with your kids spend time with your wife, you know, and having some good times are very important stuff. So be that lawyer everybody competent, organized in a skilled Rainmaker. We’ll talk again real soon be well.
Narrator [33:37]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes