In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Marco Brown discuss:
- Figuring out the business of law for survival.
- Key systems for success at your firm.
- Marketing and sales for lawyers.
- Becoming a student of the sales game.
Key Takeaways:
- You have to want success. Wanting to be a good lawyer is the bottom of the barrel. You need to also want to have monetary success.
- When you make more money, you can help more people.
- Sales is important, not a dirty word. You can’t service those you could help if you don’t have any clients.
- Be you in your sales process. Your clients want to work with you because they think you can help serve them as you are.
“I do it the way I do it because I want to help my family and secure their wealth. I want to help my team and secure their wealth for them and their family, and so we can help can 10s of 1000s of people going through a divorce. That is my duty to people. That’s why I do things the way I do.” — Marco Brown
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
Practice Panther: https://www.practicepanther.com/
Episode References:
Book: The Closer’s Survival Guide by Grant Cardone: https://www.amazon.com/Closers-Survival-Guide-Third/dp/B00C7ISUZA
Book: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey: https://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277
Connect with Marco Brown:
Website: https://www.brownfamilylaw.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcocbrown/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrownLawLLC
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
SPEAKERS
Narrator, Steve Fretzin, Marco Brown, MoneyPenny, Jordan Ostroff, Practice Panther
Marco Brown [00:00]
You have to watch success. Like you have to want not only to be a good attorney, because that’s what all attorneys, right, that’s like the bottom of the barrel. Do you want to be a really good practitioner, you have to want monetary success. And that’s harder for attorneys because we’ve been taught by people like law professors and the bar, especially the bar, that the highest calling we have is to give away our time for free, right.
Narrator [00:31]
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 Ritson will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve, Brett said,
Steve Fretzin [00:53]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am the host, Steve frets. And as the announcer mentioned, hope you’re having a lovely day today. Listen, we we you know what the show is about I know what the show is about. And Marco is here with us. He I think knows what the show is about. Hey, Mark, how you doing?
Marco Brown [01:08]
I’m doing great.
Steve Fretzin [01:09]
Thanks so much, Steve. Yeah, thanks for being here. We’re going to come back to in a moment. It’s, you know, a show about how to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized and skilled Rainmaker. We want to talk about that we want to understand what does it take outside of being a great lawyer outside of being a great, you know, practitioner of the law, that there’s so much more to building a law practice to build a law firm, and I’ve got someone who’s at the tip of the spear today and Marco to help us out. Marco is the founder of Brown family law. And also he submitted a really interesting quote, one we’ve never had on the show a success is my duty, which is Grant Cardone, the famous Grant Cardone, if you’re not in sales, you don’t know who that is. But we’re going to find out about Grant today. So a welcome to the show and be Marco, talk to us about that success is my duty quote.
Marco Brown [02:00]
Yeah, so thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Success is my duty, I think it’s really really distinct way of kind of encapsulating what I have felt for a long time. When I was a kid, my grandmother was a professor and a PhD, when women didn’t do that sort of thing. My dad had master’s degrees. So I was always kind of expected to do well, you know, relatively intelligent kid. So I was expected to do well. And I expected myself to do and have pushed myself hard. Now, that hasn’t always meant that I’ve done well. I’ve been unsuccessful for long, long periods of time. But, you know, I’ve always wanted that. And when I heard that, quote, I just thought, Oh, my goodness, that says in just a few words, exactly what I felt ever since I was like, eight years old. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [02:47]
And I don’t think I really got it My father used, you know, when are you gonna do better at school? And then my father be like, when are you going to do better at sports, and you know, it’s just like, I was never kind of good enough. And I think part of that was just, I just, I just really wanted to have fun and just stay was kind of a light hearted kid. And I eventually hit me off it was being in a plane crash, or was other things that happen in my life with with family, sick family and stuff that I just started taking things more seriously. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t have fun. It just means that I truly care about success. I care about other success, right? My clients success and the people that I come in contact with that they’re happy and successful. So I think it is somewhat of a duty, whether it’s to ourselves or to others. That’s kind of what I’m what I’m feeling about that quote.
Marco Brown [03:30]
Yeah, that’s exactly correct. So I would say that if you don’t feel that success is your duty, you’re selfish, right? Because not only do you need to be successful, you need to then take that success, right, figure that out, and then teach it to other people so they can be successful. So I just not too long ago, at the end of the year, we do bonuses. And there’s just an example, the my first year when I started Brown family was 2010. I think I made maybe $32,000 yet, and you’re maybe and then when I was at net loss, actually, because I loaded myself all sorts of money. I think I made like $32,000. So the amount of this year, the amount of bonuses I paid out to my team was like, I want to submit four times or five times that amount. Yeah, he add, that, to me was absolutely insanely cool. That’s just bonus, if that’s not like overall revenue, and an offer or anything that’s just bonuses to my team. So my desire to be successful, really kind of propels me to help others be successful. And if you don’t have that, I think you’re selfish now and might be taught kind of harsh, but that’s the way to it it
Steve Fretzin [04:44]
doesn’t mean that we’re perfect or that we don’t make mistakes or that we struggle. I think that’s a part of what makes someone successful. If you haven’t had any troubles in your life. If you haven’t had any bad experiences, well then you’re not probably learning much and you’re also not getting to overcome anything which is what makes it Successful people the way they are. So talk about your background. And I know that you had some struggles because we had like a phenomenal conversation. The first time we spoke to get set up for today, and I’m totally jazzed about what we’re going to talk about today. But you you weren’t, it was not necessarily a perfect situation. And so lead that into, you know, your game changing tipping point today.
Marco Brown [05:21]
Sure. So I graduated from law school and I clerked and then my lash bad job. I was an insurance defense, horrible decision tree that was not good. It was like a 5060 Guys shop. I hated everything about it, Henry, the work I like people around me, they’re nice people, but we just, you know, I just don’t like structure like that. I’m a terrible employee and the whole bit so I made it about 18 months, I’ve been spoiled for the last three, super worried about me, I would get this thing in my in my stomach and pit in my stomach at about 730 Every night, if horrible feeling. And then I would have that until like, four o’clock in the afternoon to do it. Because I get to work in like seven or so I’d have that until like four o’clock in the afternoon. Would it would relieve itself. And then I realized I had to go back to work the next day. Yeah, I hate it. So I just left, I didn’t have any plan. Nothing, I just left a place. And my wife wanted to get a doctorate here in Utah. So we came back here she starts, this is 2010, middle of the Great Recession. I decide, Hey, be a really swell idea to start a law firm, hang a shingle out. And no one’s higher than the terrible employees. So I thought, okay, if I’m never gonna do this, I’m gonna do it now. And I just had to bust my hump. And I didn’t know anything about what I was doing what I just went out there who busted my arm and tried really hard for my clients. And I did well, by my clients. I didn’t do so well by me or my family. But they did well by my clients to the point where I was the 2015 Divorce Attorney of the year here in Utah, as voted on by my peers in the bar, which I thought was amazingly cool. Don’t put much stock in those sorts of things. But that was cool, because it was a vote. And I was the youngest person ever to win it. And it was great. It was euphoric, like a day. And then I realized I had all the same problems the day after the word bad the day before. Yeah, I got the suck. So it was leading up to kind of what changes right. So this is five years that I’m five years into this I have done well by my clients. I’ve done well professionally, but I I’m terrible at business. And I’m like stat, and my spiritual journey is not good at this point, and emotionally and not doing well. So you know, after this award, I’m in the shower. And I love showers. But I’m like five minutes into the shower. And I start experiencing something I’ve experienced before which is constricting in my chest because I started thinking about basements. So this constriction in my chest, my heart starts to palpitate I feel this thing in the back of my head that is going through by three o’clock in the afternoon envelop my entire head, stress headache. I’ve had this many times. This time was different though, because I was show my future. And my future was I was 60 to 65. couldn’t quite tell. But I was in a casket. I was literally at my own funeral. I was dead of a heart attack. And my family was there mourning. I had kids, they’re mourning me that I didn’t even have at that point, we went out and boy, yeah. And I came out of that. And I thought, well, that sucks. I don’t want that to happen. So I knew I needed to change. Literally every otherwise I was going to die, quite literally going to die. And at that point, I thought, Okay, I need to figure out the business of law, I need to hear the business of what I’m doing. Because if I have a lot more money than I can spend money to solve problems, if you can write a check to solve a problem, you don’t have a problem. So that was the beginning. That’s the great challenge 2015 at that point that I like, I started trying to figure these things out. I read tons of books, I do everything I possibly can for 1000s and 1000s. of dollars. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [09:09]
Well, and that’s really, you know, I think we all at some point or another have that we call it a be that lawyer tipping point. But everybody has their point where whatever it is they’re doing is it working whatever they’d be the whatever path they’re on, they’re unhappy. And there’s obviously widespread in not just in, you know, in entrepreneurs and in professional services, but in particular illegal. So people had a bad firm, bad culture, bad life unhappy having that kind of stress every day. And going out on their own isn’t easy. So that led you to really becoming a student of the game, a student of sales, a student of business, a student of how do I run this thing in a way that’s going to give me the life that I not only deserve, but that I really want and take away a lot of that pressure. So that’s going to be I mean a great segue into what We talk about today because I think a lot of lawyers are struggling with those same things that you had back in the great shower of 2015. So what are you seeing? Not necessarily your lawyers, but maybe other lawyers that you interact with in the divorce space or others, I
Marco Brown [10:16]
mean divorces like,
Steve Fretzin [10:17]
that’s the hardest of a wall, in my opinion. I mean, that that’s got to be, you know, that’s the that’s a tough one. So what kind of struggles? Are you seeing other people having that are maybe similar to what you used to have?
Marco Brown [10:29]
Yeah, I think the first thing is a little assets. But I think the first thing is, you have to want success. Like you have to want not only to be a good attorney, because that’s what all attorneys, right, that’s like the bottom of the barrel. And if you want to be a really good practitioner, you have to want monetary success. And that’s harder for attorneys, because we’ve been taught by people like law professors and the bar, especially the bar, that the highest calling we have is to give away our time for free, right. And we’re told this by, you know, these two groups or groups of bureaucrats, so they take our money. One in law schools that just didn’t get kids to the tune, I had graduated with $160,000. So the law professors got paid on my back, right, but they didn’t teach me anything about how to how to make money. And then they made it seem dirty, that lawyers made lots and lots of Right, yeah, so that basically the people that are teaching us early on how to think about success, but you have to want monetary pecuniary success. And then you have to figure out how to do that. Right. And that takes extra time. In addition to being a really good lawyer, I have spent 10s of 1000s of hours at this point, trying to figure this out. And I have, at this point, I would say phenomenal success, right?
Steve Fretzin [11:47]
Now that I think I think you’re being humble Marco, but that’s just my two cents.
Marco Brown [11:51]
Man, you have to want it and you have to be able to, you have to want it and put in the time, not being able to put in the time you have to make.
Steve Fretzin [11:59]
And you’re not going to make the time if you don’t want it. If you don’t, if you if you don’t a want to be successful, if you don’t see that, that path in front of you, you’re not going to put the time in and then it’s just a cycle of negative behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, that that doesn’t end it’s just it’s like a hamster wheel. So our goal with this show, and our goal with this conversation is to provide not only the motivation, but also tactical actionable things that lawyers can do to get out of the hole that they’re in, whether that’s a negative attitude hole, or that’s an actual financial hole, like you were in. So let’s talk about starting off with with just some basic stuff, like systems like there are things that you’ve implemented that have made a big difference in how you have been able to run your firm and your practice to make money and help more people. I mean, that’s the other thing, when you make more money, you can have more people because you can staff up and you can, you know, really, you know, integrate into systems that that allow you to be more robust in how you run your practice.
Marco Brown [12:59]
Yeah, that’s exactly right. So the two systems that I’ve implemented in the last five years that have been better than any others, and I, I tried to experiment a lot if there’s anything that I added as an experiment, okay, willing to just do something to see if the spaghetti sticks to the wall. And if it does, like, Oh, great. So the two that have been the most successful. The first is we call every client, every attorney calls every client every Friday. Okay, so we do we do divorce, people need this sort of contact, but no one gives a certain contact number one complaint people have with divorce attorneys and attorneys in general, it’s I call in a cat can call back or email and it can’t get back. So I just thought I would fix this problem. And I thought, Well, why don’t we just called, right? So every one of my attorneys calls every client every Friday, we have an admin day on Fridays. They do that we need as a team, we do things, you know, those sorts of things. We do no mediations we do no hearings on Friday. Like, that’s what we do,
Steve Fretzin [13:58]
like Friday in San Jose for it for that specific task.
Marco Brown [14:01]
It’s that, like, I
Steve Fretzin [14:03]
mean, they do other things. Right, right. But that’s it’s a part of the day.
Marco Brown [14:07]
And we only the way I facilitate this is i cap the number of clients, an attorney could have so many it’s between 25 and 30. Which also means that you’d have to chart a lot. So you can do that. Otherwise, you have to have 50 clients or 60 clients or something like that, and you can’t possibly call. So that that’s the first system. And then he’s been incredibly effective. Like that sets us apart from pretty much every other law firm in the United States. Yeah, agree. Oh, there’s that. And then the second is we have daily sales and closing meeting every morning at 830 for foibles. So anybody who wants to interact with potential clients, this is our intake team and the attorneys who are going to do consultations. They all have to sit in a mandatory meeting they have to sit in there. We go over a sales module and then we we roleplay a closing scenario. Okay. And for 10 minutes, so we do 10 and 10. And that right there has increased our closing percentage. Dramatic. I mean, we sweet, close, and about an 80 to 85% rate, and they’re about 20%. I figured they’re about 20% of people that we don’t ever want to actually serve, whether it’s a personality conflict or something like that. So we’re getting pretty close to 100% of the people that we want back. And, you know, I talked with lots and lots of other attorneys. You know, that’s like the top of the top sales and closing guy or gal in a law firm. That is the average for our law firm. All people now doing it all the attorneys do it. It is it that when it comes to revenue, by far the single best thing we’ve ever done, millions, millions of dollars.
Steve Fretzin [15:49]
Now, I want to congratulate you and that I want to question something number one is, you know, the fact that you use the word sales, all right, right off the bat, no one’s doing that. And you’re you’re you’ve got the key Hone is to do that and say use that terrible, terrible word called sales, which come on down the lines and snowflakes wake up, it’s not a big deal. It’s service to professionally servicing people doesn’t happen without getting clients. That’s what sales is. Okay. Number two is the fact that you’re actually holding your attorneys accountable to be a part of sales meetings where they talk about it and get instruction and roleplay and share best practices. That just isn’t happening, either. So that’s my, you know, the compliment. The question is, why, why aren’t other attorneys and law firms doing this? Where Where are you getting it where they’re not? And for Shane, to some degree, right, because something’s working like this at this level, and other attorneys and law firms aren’t doing it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. All right. This
Marco Brown [16:48]
is an absolute no brainer to me. Absolutely. No brainer, I think, I think, because I don’t know anybody else in the United States that does literally different. Maybe a big PR firm somewhere that does stuff like this, but I don’t even I you know, Glenn Lerner doesn’t do this like not I don’t think God, who are the guys from more and more Oregon, Oregon, whatever you can. Yeah, I just I think we’re the only ones. And I think what it is. Sales is the dirty word. And we’ve been taught that it’s a dirty word. So why would we make everybody engage in dirty words? Raya? I think that’s really, and I tell I tell other attorneys, this sort of thing, and they look at me like ours. Yeah. And, and they, they really do judge me for this sort of, you know, oh, man, Judge away, right. When I sit and I’m sitting in my villa in the hills, south of Bologna, can judge me anymore. Right, right. How’s that judgment worked out? Yeah. And when I helped 10s of 1000s of people through divorce, your judgment? Yeah.
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Steve Fretzin [19:18]
And so I think I think there’s a mindset and you know, like the name of my company, Marco just to share with you before before I started working with attorneys was called sales results Inc. And it had an arrow going up like that. Okay, I think I don’t know if I shared that with you last time we spoke but like, it couldn’t have been more targeted for entrepreneurs, like people that actually get that sales is the most important part of the whole thing. You can’t serve as anybody without a client. Okay. When I started working with attorneys, they were like, you know, very kind of like, sheepishly coming to me saying, you know, you’re sure about your name, he’s sure by now and I ended up folding and saying, Well, alright, I if I’m going to work in the space, and this is a dirty word for 98 point something percent of the attorneys, I’ll change it to just my name and whatever, and then I get to be that lawyer thing going on. Alright, fine. But it’s it’s sad. It’s sad that we have to hide from them and attorneys call it marketing. It’s absolutely not marketing. That’s a very different activity.
Marco Brown [20:13]
Yeah, exactly. Marketing is not the same thing. Now like marketing is marketing is leads marketing is these sorts of things. Branding is different. Now it’s well, like, yeah, you can call it you call it whatever you want. But it’s not marketing, like it’s selling people in Yeah, but here’s the thing. We’re attorneys, this is all we do is sell, right? We sell or we saw potential clients to become clients. Then we sell judges on our arguments. We sell other attorneys on our settlement negotiations, we sell mediators on ideas, and, you know, startup idea and settlement negotiations, we sell our clients. Every time we talk with them, we’re selling them to continue being clients, for the love of heaven. We sell our paralegals to continue being a paralegal, but the way we treat them, right. Like, it’s ridiculous that we think that we’re not salespeople. We are salespeople, we have an incredibly, but it is a job is incredibly fulfilling and fun, enjoyable if you do it the right way. But it’s a sales job. And I don’t understand why do we have this kind of, you know, this compunction against using the word?
Steve Fretzin [21:16]
Well, I think it has to do with, you know, something, a point you made earlier about, you know, that it’s a noble profession, you know, no one’s going to argue that, and the way that they set you up in law school is, you know, you’re up here, you know, you’re you’re at this level here, and everyone else is kind of down here. And sales is down even below that, right, because you’re not a career car salesman, or you’re, you know, door to door salesman banging on doors. And by the way, I will I will say there is a definite negative connotation around sales because we’ve all been sold to we’ve all been convinced and pitched and, and tucked into things that that were a bad decision. So we we there’s a reason why buyers and in general have Are we all in me, too, I have my guard up, right? Because we’ve all been pushed into things that weren’t a good fit, or was just the desire of the salesperson not in our best interest. So there are two sides to it. But But regardless, it is a very noble business to help solve problems, which is what sales is.
Marco Brown [22:18]
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Now, look, if you’re an attorney, you suck at being an attorney, or you’re an attorney and you sell people stuff. They don’t, then you should go straight to hell. Okay.
Steve Fretzin [22:30]
Yeah. And I’ll say that point, you’re just curious, is there anyway? Yeah, you’re a scumble. But you’d want to be that in any profession. I mean, it’s worse baby and legal. But now it’s like a doctor selling, you know, plastic surgery that’s unnecessary or unnecessary, you know, whenever just you know, but at the end of the day, Look, we all have to kind of come to grips with the fact that business business is the business of law. And we need to make sure that we’re doing the right things to service our people, but we need to have the people. So let’s transition that Marco into what you consider to be the three easiest ways for law firms to grow revenue. Maybe that doesn’t involve a big investment in pay per click, or a big investment in, you know, a video agency or something like that something they can do without spending
Marco Brown [23:16]
any more money. Yeah, exactly. This is it, I thought about this, this is $0.00 additional dollars. Okay, so let’s talk about this. First is raise your prices at almost every attorney I know, and raise his or her prices right now significantly, and lose zero clients, possibly 1% of your client. And here’s the logic. Okay, let’s say that you charge 200, I just make it up a number. And so you charge $225 An hour slow. But do I have $25 an hour, that data is such that if you raise your prices to $295, or $299 hour, you will lose essentially zero clients, because you haven’t switched from 200 to three, if you switch from 200 300, you’re probably going to lose maybe five to 10, which is still going to put you ahead. But if you increase your prices within that $100 range, you’re gonna lose essentially no one. So just look at where you are, and raise your price to whatever 99 or 95. I do 95 Because my headlights, things to disable Wi Fi. So, you know, do that. And you can do it tomorrow, and you’ll make a whole bunch more money. That’s literally the easiest one.
Steve Fretzin [24:28]
And let me add to that if you’re listening to this and going wait a second, I’m charging, you know, 550 an hour and if I raise it to 750 or 650 or something like that, or you know, whatever, 650 to 699. You can consider that with existing clients. You can raise it incrementally over time. Right? And if you’ve got a million $2 million book that’s going to add up. Okay, number one, number two is when you bring on new clients, so right now you’re at 425 you could charge you know 525 With a new client, they don’t know that you were for 25 You’re not talking to get that sound like something like and even if they do talk, so what? You know, that’s the value that you are now we weren’t your last last year. So there’s a number of different ways to skin that cat. Whatever the case you to your point, Marco, there’s absolutely no reason not to raise your rates, especially now with the with the inflation. Everyone’s expecting it in any case.
Marco Brown [25:19]
Yeah, they are expecting and here’s a tip. So you will be freaked out psychologically, because you were thinking to yourself, I can’t raise rates, I have to tell people that that I’m raising my rates right out that I have to tell people my hourly rate is, here’s a tip, don’t tell people what your hourly rate is. Okay, when you meet with people, because as lawyers do this, we tell people that because we find it important what our hourly rate is, because it’s a status symbol, like I haven’t, I haven’t build another because I, I run a business. I have an hourly rate, though. It’s in a retainer. And my hourly rate just happens to be higher than everybody else in the state. Because like, I’m just messing with my friends right now. But I don’t I don’t know. Yeah, so but but potential clients will almost never ask you what your hourly rate is, when you’re meeting with them. Now, they will figure out a new retainer when they see the retainer. But at that point, they don’t really care because they decided to, to hire you, and you’re, you’ve already closed them. So just don’t mention
Steve Fretzin [26:18]
them. That’s not that’s, that’s not a lot of people doing that, by the way. I even that even goes a little bit against what, what, you know, I kind of teach but but I get what you’re saying that, you know, if you but if I’m expecting it all lawyer to be 400. And then you hit me at 1000. And I get the and I get the agreement, I’m gonna freak out. So I think people have to at least be within you know, on Earth with their rates for for that to kind of system to
Marco Brown [26:42]
go over. Yeah, now we know what a what the number you will tell people is your retainer is that number that people we need to care about? Okay, so we go into retainer amount, every god. But when it comes to the hourly, one out of every 20 People ask very interesting. And but they read it all, like we’re not we’re not being deceptive with a slight in the retainer, but it just doesn’t come out like oh, okay, whatever. Yeah. Okay, so that’s, that’s the first one raise prices. Second is raise your collection rate. So I talk, I talk a lot about this, I have a CLE. On this, I give people you know, retainer sale facilitate this. But if you can increase your collections from say, 60% and 95%, or from where I was the beginning, which is like 50%, to 98%, which is where we kind of hang now, your life changes, like your life changes dramatically, right? Like your life is so much better. And your firm is so much higher quality, if you can do that. And it costs $0 to increase your collections and other rules I have I have the Cle presentation, I give seven rules for doing this. But none of them require any more money. With the with a possible possible exception of you need to make somebody head of collections, but almost everybody has that person in their locker room right now. You just need to tell that person this is what you’re doing. This is your number one job. But yeah, those costs any any more money you stepped, put the systems.
Steve Fretzin [28:09]
But let’s stop there for just a second. Is there one part of that system or one thing that you can share that? Because you’re making it sound like it’s it’s super easy, and anybody can do it? And that may be the case? But what’s what’s one part of that, that that makes it so easy to collect? Where right now someone sitting out there with 200,000 sitting out there, and then they just they can’t seem to get their hands on it.
Marco Brown [28:31]
I would think out of all of them, needs to have money and trust and always had money in trust. Okay. And there’s so I’ll kind of combine two rules. So always have money in trust and stop work when there’s not money in trust. correlate easing how fast that comes in when you stop the work. Yep, exactly, exactly. Usually, what we find is within 24 to 48 hours, they tell us what I can’t tell you. Well, you’re going to and we’re going to stop until then. And then they magically So yeah, those those are the two and I offer this to people and I’ll offer this here, when you do this chapter have what’s called an evergreen retainer, right. So it’s evergreen, like, you always have money at trust. Yeah. And if somebody wants a copy of that, they can contact me and I will send them our evergreen retainer.
Steve Fretzin [29:17]
Okay, wow, that’s very generous. And again, that’s for some people, that’s, that’s the promised land to be able to get their AR down. I found for me, it’s just having it built into my agreement that, you know, ACH and credit card is just, it’s just automatically debited. And so my collections are almost zero, because everything’s just automated at this point. And that’s, you know, from I mean, I’m not chasing after anybody, which I love. I like hate going after, like, Hey, where’s you know, your 90 days on this? Or you’re six months on that? Yep. Then Then what’s the third? The third piece of this of this kind of like ways to grow business without without investing? Yeah, so
Marco Brown [29:56]
the third is up your closing percentage. Okay. Hey, so one, you have to know your closing percentages, and I, maybe one out of 50 attorneys I ever talked to know that know what that number is. So you have to know what your closing percentage is and then you have to increase. Okay? Now, here’s the thing, you don’t want to go to 100% because 100% means you are not charging enough. Or you’re just taking recovery, Tom, Dick and Harry that comes in the door, and that’s not that suck lead, right? You probably want a closing percentage closer to like 80% 85%. Okay, if you’re really, really high end, like you’re the top of the top of the market, probably 50%. Right. But if you’re dealing with people like me, I like to do middle class people and upper middle class people, we average people too. But I’d like to deal with, you know, kind of normal people a lot of times, if that’s the case, probably 80 to 85%. Now, there’s a bit, you can certainly spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on sales trainings, and I’ve done that, you know, I’ve gone to Grant Cardone sales trainings, I’ve done these things. I’ve spent 1000s of hours doing this, but you can go to YouTube, you can get it on there and find very, very effective sales trainers. Grant Cardone has tons of free content on specifically sales, do it roleplay everything Alex or mosey as things on there, you know, a niroula whole bunch you know, I did sir hands near has these things on there as well. But you can get an amazing education on how to sell and close people specifically close people on YouTube for free. You just have to go and make the time and do the work.
Steve Fretzin [31:35]
Well, let me add that. One thing I’ve been doing on this show is these be that lawyer live events. If you go back the last week I did to where I’m bringing on the top lawyer sales coaches from around the country around the world to answer your toughest business development, marketing, branding, whatever questions. So it’s free, there’s no cost to this podcast, there’s no cost to to listening to there. I have a YouTube channel like Rand is probably better than Grant’s not just kidding. But you know, Fred’s, you know, if you go to Steve frets, and on YouTube, so lots of free stuff. And I think that’s a great starting point. And for many attorneys, that’s going to be the way to go. For others, I think they’re gonna need like you to actually work with someone where there’s accountability, where there’s structure where their systems, maybe even something specific to lawyers, hand 10 frets and.com, for more information about that, everybody, but I get what you’re saying, right? You’ve got to become a student of the game, whether that’s through a direct coach, a mentor a YouTube books, whatever that is, you just can’t let it sit. And just wing it and just figure it out through trial and error that that that sometimes works. But guess what, it also can lead to some some disastrous results.
Marco Brown [32:43]
Yeah, look, no one does. You want to go win a Super Bowl, no one does that by accident. No one just says, You know what I’m going to do to win the Super Bowl, I’m gonna play a whole bunch of games. No, they spend tremendous amounts of hours prepping for this. And that’s what you have to do if you want to be really, really good and close, how to figure this stuff out. And what I would say is what you’re saying is completely and totally correct. You want to get real high level, you’re going to spend cash and you’re gonna spend a lot of it and it’s going to be totally worth it. But if you start where you are, which is your you suck at closing, and you spend any amount of time figuring stuff out going to you to doing this stuff for free, you’re probably gonna go up 15 to 25% in your closing percentage, right? Like, just just by trying, right? And then you want to do want to get super high level spend the cash. Right on right on
Steve Fretzin [33:32]
I had a guy today I met for lunch, and he you know, after talking with me, he’s like, he’s like, are you six figures like to work with you? And I was like, Oh, that’s so beautiful. Thank you so much. What a great compliment. Six, and i wish i Yes, maybe someday but I’m not I’m not I’m an easy I’m an easy hire. But then I’m not cheap, but like I’m not six figures. So that’s a good thing. Um, grant or Marco, thank you so much. And I was actually gonna say grant so grant is like your guy. So Grant Cardone your game changing book is The closer Survival Guide and talk for you know, 30 seconds about why that book is has been special to you.
Marco Brown [34:07]
Yeah, so this more than any other business book has changed my life. Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey is the one to give out the most that’s changed crack personal, my personal finance life but my business life has been closer. So the first half of this is Grant Cardone talking about the theory of closing and quote and sales and closing your different sales is the idea you get somebody to want to hire you. And that’s an emotional process, okay. And a lot of attorneys are very good and bad. But closing is when you actually get people to give you money in exchange for what you’re going to do. And that is a logical process that you do, buy straight will have logic, okay? And that means that you’d have to drill and rehearse it and understand it and you have to come up with specific scenarios and specific objections and how to overcome those objections. So the first half of the book is talking about the theory of closing in The second half of the book is like 125. clauses. Okay? So they say why you need to think about it. There’s like seven ways to do that, right? Don’t have enough money, or like 15 ways to do Yeah, right, because we hear that one all the time. So it’s very specific. And what I did is I took that I’ve read it 24 times, I have talked about this with my team this morning for about 12 times I read it, I just did not get it didn’t click right. But I knew it was important. So I kept reading and reading it. And then it started to click. And what I did is I sat down, and I wrote out every objection I’ve ever heard as a divorce attorney. And I came up with the specific closes to be able to overcome those objections. And then I wrote a book, which is closes for divorce attorneys. And it’s an internal book that we use, when we when we roleplay, we’ve pulled play out of that book, right? So it’s, these are all the objections and overcome them. And you don’t stop, like if you’re convinced that this person needs to work with us, because we’re the best person to help them. You don’t stop and sell the clothes, right? Like this is our way to do it. Now. Well, it’s
Steve Fretzin [36:05]
obviously working, if you’ve got the super high close rate, I would say my philosophy just to kind of just kind of throw my two cents in his first book is called sales, free selling. And the reason that it’s called that is because what I’m trying to do is walk someone through a buying decision to see that there’s a fit, and then all that, in my whole philosophy is the less we talk, the less objections happen if I tell you that I’m 100,000, you got an objection, that’s too much money. All right. But if it never comes up, and I guess you kind of said that with you’re not talking about rates, right? If it never comes up, then where’s the objection? So if if I get a lawyer talking about his or her problems, talk about their commitment to change, talk, or motivation to change, and and learn more about them and about their reasoning by doing something makes the whole experience about them, not about me. And I find that I have almost no objections to handle. And I’m teaching lawyers to do this so that they can, yes, objections happen. But if they happen less, because someone’s talking themselves into it, first off emotionally. And second of all, logically what you hit both points, Marco, then I find that that it just feels better. And I think what most lawyers are one of the reasons lawyers are so unhappy about sales and selling is because they don’t want to deal with having objections. They don’t like the rejection that can occur, they don’t like a lot of the elements of it. So by giving them a softer, more nurturing version of that, that they can do and follow a system and a process. So that’s that’s kind of what I’ve been teaching lawyers. But I think there’s, there’s a fine line between what I’m teaching and what you’re teaching and, and and there’s, there’s a middle ground there, but I think you got to go with what works for you, whatever
Marco Brown [37:41]
that might be. Yeah, that’s exactly correct. So I’m a different I’m a different sort of guy, I have no problem being like, super direct about this. Yes, that’s kind of how I live out loud. I am okay, with these sorts of things. I tell people before I hire anybody, I tell them what my politics are, because I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings, that’s gonna go on. Cool. Like, that’s me. Right. And that’s off putting to some people but most what I found is that the more and more I do that in my life, better my life is and the more people tend to like me, and the more I tend to like people so I’m, I’m much more upfront about it. Totally cool. If that’s not you, then figure out something that works for you. And that’s all right. Like yeah,
Steve Fretzin [38:22]
every every you know, different, you know, way shape and size. You’ve just got to figure it out in and if you do and when you do, God, everything everything that you that you want out of your career out of your life out of your future and you know, where you want to, you know, have a summer home in Europe, you know, it all can come coming into form. Marco before we get to wrap things up, I just want to take a moment to thank our wonderful sponsors, we’ve got money, Penny, helping on the live reception and online reception. So you can you know, ditch your receptionist if you want to or get out of the phone trees. We’ve got legalese, helping you offload your marketing to a CMO service that can basically take it over, then of course, practice panther is helping you get organized and automated with how you run your actual firm. And get out those bills and make sure your collections are limited and track everything. So they’re the best. Marco thanks so much, man. I want to keep in touch with you I want to figure out ways to work together because you’re you’re a diamond in the rough my friend I mean you’re you’re you’re one of a kind. And I think people listening to this are hearing a very different conversation than maybe some of the other ones they’ve that they’ve heard on the show. So man just thank you so much.
Marco Brown [39:32]
Yeah, no, not a prop. And just for the I just want to speak to those people that are listening this thinking, oh my goodness, this guy this just all about that. One, yes. But no, honestly, look, I do what I do. Do it the way I do it, because I want to help my family and secure their wealth. And I want to help my team and secure their wealth for them and their family. And so we can help can 10s of 1000s of people going through the worst because if we aren’t skilled at what we do, we can’t sell, and we can’t provide exceptional service. We can’t help anybody at all. That is my duty to people. That’s why I do things the way I do says,
Steve Fretzin [40:16]
well guess what you found things that work and if they work to make money if they work to help more people, if they work to have you live a better life where you’re not in the shower, with some terrible, you know, headache and chest pains, well, guess what you found that, you know, you found the right direction. So most people would, you know, would die and not die would but would love to have, you know, that experience without you know, without the shower or a plane crash or whatever we’re talking about is like, a changing moment. But sometimes it takes that sometimes it takes some something you know, outside of ourselves to, to wake us up from the from the kind of the hub, you know, the humdrum that we’re in, but again, I just appreciate you so much man. So, we’re gonna we’re gonna wrap up the show and remember everybody This show is for you. This is to help you be that lawyer, someone who’s competent, organized and skilled Rainmaker, so be safe be well take care and take heed. We’ll talk soon.
Narrator [41:11]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fredson.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