Leadership In Law Podcast

42 Growing from 3 Employees to 20 in 4 Years with Jonathan Breeden

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 42

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Unlock the secrets to launching a successful law firm with Jonathan Breeden, a family law attorney who has transformed his practice into a thriving business. Inspired by his father's entrepreneurial spirit and armed with a practical education from Campbell University, Jonathan shares his journey from law school to leading a team of twenty. Learn how he navigated the complexities of legal practice, from managing market saturation in urban areas to tapping into the demand in suburban "legal deserts," all while maintaining the importance of face-to-face client interactions.

Discover the transformational strategies Jonathan employed to scale his law firm, including the pivotal role of offshoring team members to El Salvador for enhanced lead management and customer service. Explore how this decision, coupled with effective use of Local Service Ads and maintaining a 24/7 business presence, propelled Breeden Law Office's growth without skyrocketing costs. Jonathan opens up about overcoming initial challenges with rapid lead influx, finding the right coaching during the pandemic, and implementing systems like CRMs to streamline operations and fuel sustainable expansion.

As we wrap up this insightful episode, we underscore the importance of community among law firm owners, encouraging listeners to stay connected through the Leadership in Law Podcast and our online resources. Jonathan's story is a compelling reminder of the balance between paid advertising and SEO, the quest for exceptional client service, and the vital role of mentorship. Join us as we continue to bring you the wisdom and experiences of industry leaders, helping you lead with vision and grow your firm to new heights.

Reach Jonathan here:
https://www.breedenfirm.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-breeden-75852ba/

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. Just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, jonathan Braden, to the show today. Jonathan is a family law attorney in the suburbs of Raleigh, north Carolina. He became an attorney in 2000 and started his law firm right out of law school. Braden Law Office currently has eight other attorneys working for the company and 11 support staff. Jonathan is from a small town on the North Carolina-South Carolina border called Laurenburg. He went to NC State for undergrad, then the Campbell University for law school. He started his practice doing criminal and family and pretty much switched over to all family in 2007. The law office has experienced exponential growth in the past few years. The company has grown from three employees in 2020 to 20 employees. He's worked diligently to build momentum, while also dealing with the pandemic. He prides himself on developing effective systems that allow the law firm to scale. I'm excited to have you here, jonathan. Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having me, Marilyn.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, I'm excited. So you knew right out of law school that you wanted to work for yourself.

Speaker 3:

I did, I did, and I actually knew that before I went to law school, which is why I chose to go to Campbell University's law school. At that time. It was in Buies Creek, north Carolina, about 45 minutes south of.

Speaker 3:

Raleigh. It is now in downtown Raleigh, literally a block from the state capitol, raleigh, literally a block from the state Capitol. And I knew my father was a CPA and started his own firm when I was a child and I watched him grow that firm. It never got very big, but I watched the joy that he had in working for himself. And he didn't always make a ton of money and you know there were ups and downs, like any other small business. But no matter how many hours he had to work, particularly during taxis representing small businesses he never complained about going to work. He loved going to work and he's 78 years old today and still goes to work every day because he enjoys working for himself and I.

Speaker 3:

So I got to see like you know, I didn't get to see a parent goes. I don't want to work whatever. My mom was a nurse. She enjoyed being a nurse and helping people. So so I was like you know I think I want to start my own firm and my parents had told me they're like, you're enough, like your father, you have enough opinions about how stuff should be done. You probably should work for yourself. And so they said we don't care what you do, but more than likely you should probably work for yourself. So I actually knew I wanted to start my own law firm before I went to law school and I went to Campbell specifically because it had a start your own law firm program and had a very practical trial and in the dirt kind of education, not conflict of laws and the theory of stuff that they teach for it, say, in the University of North Carolina or Duke or even Wake Forest you know some of the more traditional law schools- out there.

Speaker 3:

It was really a trial and practical based a lot of North Carolina law school and that served me really well.

Speaker 2:

Now, when you say the practical, did they actually teach you to do business and finance and those types of things?

Speaker 3:

They taught a lot more of it than most law schools. So one of the things that made Campbell unique and I don't know how much they do this now, but they had a bunch of required classes. So you know it took 90 hours to get it to graduate and when I came through, 70 of them were mandatory.

Speaker 4:

So you only had 20.

Speaker 3:

you got to pick. I think it's a lot more lenient now, 25 years later. I came out in 2000,. But they wanted you to take these classes and one of the classes you had to take was called Lawyers in the Law Firm, which is where they explain to you the structure of law firms and what your role would be in the different types of law firms, and they would bring in speakers from in-house corporate law firms. They brought in people from Womble Bond. At that time it was Womble Carlisle, the biggest firm, one of the biggest firms in the country. Now they've merged with the ones out of London and maybe even Spain too.

Speaker 3:

So you know and they, they had solos come in, they had, you know, and they talked about sort of the different structures and and this was a 1L class and I didn't quite understand it at the time, but I sure as heck paid attention and you know I took an exam on it. They also required you to take a class called Loom law office management where they made you look at what the softwares were at the time and you had to track your time with little green cards, you know, with all the little lines on them and stuff. I forget what you call them, you know and they made you track your time for like two weeks, like just whatever you did. And of course by the time I took that class I was a 3L. Oh boy, it was not a good thing as far as how much studying I was doing. So I mean, they, they did do a good job of that.

Speaker 3:

The search on law firm class at that time was a, was a, was an unaccredited class and you could take it if you wanted to. You know it was in the afternoons, it didn't have a lot of reading, it was largely just how to build a business plan Again, the structures of different firms. You know, ways to get business as a small firm, starting out on your own, where to push your office. They were really big, and this is still valid. Then, out of the cities, right Like North Carolina has a has a shortage of lawyers outside of that of the eight counties that have the eight cities, though.

Speaker 1:

You know what I?

Speaker 3:

mean. And so you know the big thing now. You know your listeners are out there. You know legal deserts is a huge thing right now, and North Carolina is no different than any other where we got too many lawyers in Raleigh and Durham and Chapel Hill and Charlotte and Asheville, which is recovering from the hurricane, and Greensboro and High Point, like all these great cities, they've got too many lawyers. If you get out of those cities there's not enough, and so we have the deserts, and illegal desert is defined, I think, by the ABA, is less than one lawyer for every 1,000 citizens, and I think maybe 80 of the 100 counties in North Carolina would be considered illegal deserts right now, including two of the three.

Speaker 3:

Because I'm in the way where Raleigh is, but my primary offices are in the suburbs and you would think, golly the suburbs, but these areas are growing so fast. The lawyers that live here all work in Raleigh, right, so we don't even have enough. You know sort of native attorneys in Johnston, horry County, which is just southeast of Raleigh, and then directly south of Raleigh In my primary county of Johnston is where I-95 and I-40 meet, two of the biggest interstates in the United States. So if you've been down I-95 or been down I-40, you've been right by my office. My office is about 10 miles from where those two interstates cross. So it's, it's an interesting thing.

Speaker 3:

But but one of the things I did learn in that class was don't go to Raleigh, like, like you know, I was a big NC state fan, love, love, nc state, acc basketball. Absolutely. I could tour Smith Carolina people, nc state, jim Balvano. They went to the final four last year for the first time. So I was like I mean so.

Speaker 3:

So you know, I go to NC State, which is in Aramtown, raleigh, and I was like you know, they're like, just don't go back there. Like, like, if you just go to the suburbs there's going to be more work than you can shake a stick. But if you go into Raleigh it's going to be difficult, and that is true today. I would tell anybody out there firm, stay out of the cities. If you just go into the suburbs you're going to be fine, because there's not enough lawyers in the suburbs. And I travel around the country talking to other lawyers and meeting with lawyers and stuff, and I hear that constantly wherever I go, that the cities have too many and the suburbs don't have enough. And then, of course, the rural areas have almost none, and that's a whole other problem that we have to solve at some point.

Speaker 3:

And that's a whole nother problem that we have to solve at some point.

Speaker 2:

Well, I've spoken to attorneys in Houston and Atlanta and the same thing they are outside of like the rings roads, that sort of thing. And one another reason is traffic. You know no one wants to spend, you know, 45 minutes getting into town and then having to find parking and then you know, it's just it spends more time on the transit than they are actually in the attorney's office. So, but it's interesting, the legal desert. I love that. That comment, and you're right, you need to be further out of town so that people can actually get to you. And do you do any or a significant amount of work virtually for people that maybe cannot get to you?

Speaker 3:

I mean because we do family law and we're advocates and we're in court. We do because we have the military in Hornet County Fort Bragg, fort Liberty now they've changed the name of it, I think it's the largest army base in the United States. It's right next to Hornet County in Fayetteville, north Carolina, which is one of our counties where we practice in. We do have a fair number of military clients and so we do sort of try to represent them while they're, you know, serving wherever they are. But we don't do virtual hearings per se. You know what I mean. I know all of the bankruptcy hearings now are virtual all over the country. I believe Most of the immigration hearings are as well. You know we do family law, so we're still having to go to court. We're on our feet, we're, you know, sort of animal tested, that kind of stuff. So we probably do the least amount of virtual law of anybody you'll talk to on your podcast.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, I do know that there's a couple of counties in California that the family law is almost exclusively virtual.

Speaker 3:

And you know more virtual hearings in Raleigh. You know where the judges maybe are more technologically savvy and the courthouse has a little bit better technology than they would in some of the other counties, but it's still I mean it's still frowned upon Judges would prefer not to do it right. When you're doing a virtual hearing, they don't know who's in the room. They don't know if somebody's giving notes or cards or passing things to these witnesses. You know they struggle to see their body language, that's what I was going to say.

Speaker 2:

Body language is one.

Speaker 3:

They make more decisions about whether you're telling the truth and what you're saying by just observing you than what you're actually saying, because I think they don't really believe a lot of what you're saying. You know, particularly in family law. I'm just going to be honest and so you know they can study how people interact with each other. You know they're very, very observant. It's been my experience.

Speaker 2:

So let's jump to. I love the fact that you started your own firm and being influenced by your father as an entrepreneur and seeing the happiness of that. Clearly you're. You're happy with what you're doing. You've grown from three to 20. What was your? You hired a coach. What was your mindset? How do you feel that, coming in just four years, going from three to 20 people? How did you do that and how could our listeners kind of get in that direction.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean I'm still a little stunned. You know what I mean. I mean I'm still. I mean I wanted to do it. I think I'm a little stunned at how fast it's been the success we've had that people like you would ask me to be on their podcast.

Speaker 3:

I mean I'm a little bit of an imposter, but no, I mean I mean it started with me when I got with a company called Postale out of Columbus, ohio, in 2016. I had a website that was not working and I was not getting the leads that I needed to get, and we hired them and I quickly ended up within a year or two with arguably the number one family law website in all of North Carolina. But I had no earthly idea what to do with the leads or the calls. I had no system. I didn't know what a CRM was, a client relationship manager I didn't know. I didn't know how to structure a law firm that was growing. I didn't know any of my numbers. So all I knew was at that time I think I needed to make $40,000 a month to break even.

Speaker 3:

You know, what I mean. Every, every, every. On the first of the month I got it up. How can I bring in $40,000 to pay the two, the two employees, the website, the power bill, you know that kind of stuff. I had no earthly idea. I didn't know how many people were sending appointments, I mean people showing for appointments we're hiring. I didn't know any numbers that would let me know that it was repeatable. So, but what happened was I had all this debt, you know, like everybody else business debt, personal debt, student loans, all of this stuff.

Speaker 3:

But I ended up getting enough business because I had this website of me doing it, working seven days a week, that I was able to get out of it, you know, within a couple of years. I mean, I was making all kinds of money, but I was working all the time. My family wasn't me. I was literally here seven days a week and I was like I had handsome associates and I basically used as paralegals between 2009 and 2015. I was going to the law school. I was hiring people straight out. Back then you could get a lawyer for $40,000 because there were too many lawyers and all of that. The people listening that came out during that time. They know how bad it was for a attorney.

Speaker 3:

That is not the case now, but I'd never really used them as associates. I'd never really given them their own cases. Let them be independent, provided any training. They would stay a year and then they would move on and go do something else.

Speaker 3:

But in 2019, I began to realize that I had enough that I could support somebody else, and that I had enough that I could support somebody else and I was able to hire my first true associate that knew what they were doing, a very good attorney out of Raleigh, and I almost doubled the business overnight just because I could do more consults and I had somebody that could do that many more cases. And so this was before I found a coach or anything like that. I just started to say, okay, employ even a CRM. I didn't know what a CRM was at that point, and so that's kind of how it got going. And then, with COVID, I began to right going into COVID. I was growing so fast I didn't have any idea what I was doing. I was still working a ton, but I was making a lot of money. I was like I need a coach, I need somebody to help me structure this place.

Speaker 1:

I need grips for the people answering the phone.

Speaker 3:

That was the number one thing I was after finding a coach. I mean so menial now when I think about all the things I've learned, but I knew I needed scripts. I needed to be able to answer the phone in a consistent manner, right. And so during COVID right before COVID I had found Ernie the attorney. He's still out there. He's out in New Orleans. He's great for solos and small people. He's still out there. He's out in New Orleans. He's great for solos and small people, and his whole thing is offshoring everything, technology, that kind of stuff. He's a great podcast, a great program. Decided to go to his conference in New Orleans in May of 2020. They ended up being canceled, but he did it virtually on this thing called Zoom that I'd never heard of, but I got to hear some really great speakers, you know, in this space during that conference on Zoom, but I realized that I was too big for what he was trying to do. So, as you go, look for a coach, find a coach that is focusing on the size that you are.

Speaker 1:

Some like.

Speaker 3:

Ernie the attorney are focusing on people from $50,000 to about $250,000, $300,000. It's really the keep it small, keep it all thing is kind of where he's at. And then I was already more than that. Right At that point I'm probably doing $500,000 or $600,000. You know what I mean. And so I was like, okay, I need something more than that.

Speaker 3:

And so I found a coach named Richard James, your practice master out of Phoenix, arizona, and the good thing was, during COVID I had time to. All these coaches started doing free days like just sort of teaching for free to promote their products. They had time, they were at their house and I got to watch him one day talk about the perfect client life cycle. And the perfect client life cycle is how many leads do you have? How many sets did you get, how many people showed up, how many people hired you, how many people paid in full, how many referrals? It's going all over again. You will know those six numbers. I don't care who's listening to this podcast. You will learn those six numbers, track those six numbers. You will then know whether you can repeat the work you're doing and whether you can grow or not.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, wow, that is interesting. And my thought is always about when you hire an attorney or hire a coach is look at someone who's at least two steps ahead of you. So it sounds like, because he knew his numbers and helped you put those things in place, that was the step that you needed.

Speaker 3:

Right, because I mean. And then the other thing I learned you know being in, you know that world and you know he does quarterly conferences around the country. You go to these conferences and you meet all these other people that are doing the same thing you're doing, right, you don't want to be the smartest person in the room. So by going to these conferences, I meet people like Bert Diener or Diener Law, which is now an immigration firm that I think's in four or five states. I get to meet Scott David Stewart out of Phoenix, arizona, arizona Law Group. I get to meet Scott Brown out of South Houston, texas right, these are extremely successful family lawyers. Jeff Hughes, Starling Warriors, out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in the Chicago suburbs, and so these people were already well in front of me.

Speaker 3:

So not only was I getting coaching, I was getting to become friends with and get mentoring by some people that were way more successful than I ever thought I would be, and we all got the same problems. The numbers just figures. I got the same problems. Right, the numbers should be bigger. I got the same problem as I. I have the same problems that 20 employees that had three, it's just bigger numbers. And so you know. It really was a fascinating thing to be able to go through that and learn from Richard James and his program and all the great attorneys that are in it. And then you also begin to learn. When you have a coach, you get to learn about other resources, right? I didn't know what a CRM was. I'm doing this fucking look at grips cause I need the answer to the phone better. But then I quickly learned that you need a client relationship manager so that you can manage your leads. So we ended up we had Clio grow there initially. We ended up switching to a company called Four.

Speaker 3:

Eyes, which is owned by Bird Diener and Richard Jaynes, which is a version of Salesforce. It's Four Eyes, I think it's Two Eyes. It's been pretty good, you know. But there's a lot of other CRMs out there too, like HubSpot, and you know Clio Grow has gotten a lot better. Manix, I think, good job now as well. So I mean, you know, if you don't have a client relationship manager where you can manage the leads and follow up with them and put them in an email drip campaign, you know it can be hard to grow there as well, because I would bet that most people listening have enough leads. They're just not managing them properly. That's correct. This group from three to 20 employees the leads really haven't changed, marilyn, I'm telling you the truth. Employees, the leads really haven't changed. Marilyn, I'm telling you the truth. The first time caller and the leads are about the same, but the business is sextuple.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, it's getting to, it's the speed to lead and we we talk about that with our clients. We provide a CRM that has a text, email and phone call automations built into it so we're keeping those leads for our clients engaged while they get them on the phone. But you're right, I mean it's if you're it's speed delete. It's getting making people feel acknowledged and that you are going to call them back in the morning If the lead comes in at 2 AM. I agree, everyone needs a CRM, you need that automation in place, but you also need someone that's answering the phone, like you said before, uniformly. You know the Better Business Bureau said most small businesses miss 67% of their in-bail calls. No-transcript.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and we answer the phone 24-7. Here I had rooming receptionists for a long time. They got too expensive for me and so I switched to Lex Reception and so Lex Reception answers my phones. We don't get them during the day, they get them, and they get them at night and on the weekends and all that. So you never get a voicemail when you call the Breeden Law Office, and that's important because 75, 80% of people aren't going to leave a voicemail Right, and so you know having somebody answer the phone tell them that you're going to get back to them and it's infamil for a crisis you know what I mean Professionally and get their information and stuff has been very good.

Speaker 3:

There's other answering service out there. Ruby's still there. Smith AI is out there. I think they do a nice job answering legal I was, although their podcast a few weeks ago. I think they're doing a nice job from what I understand. So there's no reason for your phones not to get answered 24 7 now with all of these off-site services that will answer them for you if you miss them.

Speaker 2:

I agree now? And two the other thing about that is if people are in crisis, they're going to go to google and find somebody else, right? So if you've got an answering service, do you have on your Google business profile? You probably have four work-based office. Do you have it set that your hours are 24 seven?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

I do.

Speaker 3:

And and Google constantly is checking that. Yes, they and they check it. And every time I pass because every time they call me at 2 AM, somebody answers the phone- Well, that makes a big a difference if you're not joining, google will check and and they do and and you know, and, like I said, do you get a ton of sats and shows off of the calls at 2 or 3 am.

Speaker 2:

No, but you don't have to get many to pay for the service that's right, and you never know where those leads are going to go, right, you know, just because you were available, someone answered the phone and talked to them at 2 am. If they didn't move forward with whatever they needed, they may know someone who doesn't say look, you know, reading was open at 2 am when I had questions. You should call them, you know.

Speaker 3:

That's true, that's true and, like I said, I think that's the thing, and you know, getting a script, getting the phone answer the same way every time where you're trying to build a relationship with the people in the call. You know what I mean. Richard James, your pride is mastered, you know, has the 11 steps to a phone call. That was the very first thing I did when I joined this program was I figured out how to. I wrote my own script for when he said, you know, he gave me an outline and then so that we could start to build relationships with people.

Speaker 3:

The other thing that we learned to do is offshore employees. I didn't know anything about offshore employees. I now have four employees in El Salvador. So I, you know, within a year of joining the program, I hired my first employee in Mexico and to help me answer the phones and stuff like that. You know the phones don't ring at my office at all. All the calls go to El Salvador and they're all processed through there, so you don't have the distraction of the people here. You know, trying to get work done and the phone ringing all the time.

Speaker 3:

And then by hiring these people. I use BBL Communications out of California. They have a call center in San Salvador, el Salvador, where my four employees are, and those employees take inbound calls, but those employees make outbound calls. We're making 700 or 800 outbound calls a week and that's crucial. Remember, I went from three employees to 20 with the same number of leads.

Speaker 3:

All I'm doing is a better job of managing the leads I have. This is not magic. I'm not spending a lot more money on advertising. The only thing other than I have this great website is I now do LSAs local service ads and we've had some success with those. Not everybody around the country I've talked to has had success with those, but I have had a fair amount of success with them and I think, partly because we do a good job in taking, we build these relationships, we get people scheduled, we get them in, we meet with them, that kind of stuff. So I think if they don't hire, we'll follow up with them, meet with them. You know that kind of stuff. So I think, and if they don't hire, we'll follow up with them and so you know we're you know if they all people may not be ready to go right. This is a very difficult decision, so we'll keep calling you for six months.

Speaker 2:

You know I'm going to call you till you either die, buy or look well that, knowing that you run lsas through all of your different offices, that makes sense that Google is checking that you are actually open 24-7. Because when you're doing LSAs, you can put certain hours of the day that you want your LSAs showing and I do know some attorneys that do that and they'll only run it for not lunchtime, not when they're out of the office, and that makes it more less effective. Being available, having someone on the phones 24 7, is definitely going to make your lsa's much more cost effective and make them and you'll end up getting better leads that way. Have you noticed with your lsa? Are you seeing any of the changes, or any changes as they use ai to interrupt or reject some of the fake leads? Have you seen any of that? I mean?

Speaker 3:

I was. I couldn't get them to accept any of the rejections before they weren't doing it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

I spent the first six months of the year not rejecting anything because I didn't want them to put me in some sort of black box. And I started objecting to the ones where people were calling, for they were looking for eyes or something I don't know like, but then you would get them where they would call and it was clearly out of the area or not a subject matter, and then they would just deny because they were judging when you were challenging them. They were using area to disturb whether they were going to give it to you or not. So when they said you really couldn't challenge them anymore, they were going to make them.

Speaker 3:

I don't even pay attention to it now. You know what I mean. It is what it is. You know I've got a budget. I'm willing to spend whatever it is and I don't want to get into nitpicking over. They charged me $75 and somebody called about a case in California. It does happen, you know. Are they giving me the credits? I don't want to even pay attention. Maybe I should, but it's not worth arguing with them. You know I don't have the bandwidth really to focus on. I've got some friends who you know they're a lot bigger than I am. They're really focused on all this. They've got some people in the Philippines who are really studying it, but I am not. I just accept whatever the bill is and I'm happy to have it because I'm making six, seven, eight, the one on initial retainers, most plots on LSAs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, that makes sense. I mean, like you said earlier, know your numbers and you'll know whether you're ROI positive or not on that.

Speaker 3:

Right, right, and I wouldn't even go back and look at total value, right, I'm just looking at what are the initial values, you know what I mean. And then I could probably extrapolate out over my average case value and all that how much I'm actually making. But I'm just focusing on every month. Okay, how many hires did we get? What was the initial retainers that we received off of the LSA calls? And you know the thing is, we have a lot of them, we that we were seeing off of the LSA calls, and you know the thing is, we have a lot of them. We still have a lot of them in LSA and a lot of them the vast majority of them are not good. They're people with no money, they're looking for free work, but that's the majority of the calls I get anyway.

Speaker 2:

Right, so I'm paying for them, but like I'm still shifting down, that you have a more logical view of that. You know that not all leads are going to be good. That was one of the little things that I struggle with with new clients. We do paid ads for our clients, as well as SEO. We have full service digital marketing and when an attorney comes in and we start generating leads for them, they're like well, you know, 70% of these are not good. Well, that's typical, you know. Plus, the timing might be wrong, but I had a client in October close $89,000 worth of cases, 23 cases in one month. When they came to us they were doing four. So it's, you know, but that was only 25% of the leads. So there's 75% that weren't qualified and it's just the way it's going to be. You know that's. But you do your best with that script and you talk to them and qualify them and move on.

Speaker 3:

I mean we probably set less than 20% of first-time callers. We're going to be charged for consults and you know that's $250.

Speaker 1:

You know people say, they don't have it.

Speaker 3:

They do, but they don't want to give it to us over the fall.

Speaker 1:

You know what I?

Speaker 3:

mean so I mean I'd love to see it get higher than that. If I went to free consoles I probably could sell a lot more, but you know I'm not in a position to do that right now because I don't have the bandwidth to all those consoles. So but but yeah, so I mean where they have to pay for you to actually do the work. You know it's not injury, that's its own separate thing. I don't know anything about marketing injury. But family law, you know, with. You know focusing on the maps, focusing on putting out a video content.

Speaker 3:

I have a podcast now called best of Johnson county, which is largely me interviewing community members. You know, leaders, small business owners, stuff like that. But every fourth or fifth episode I'll answer family law questions. You know we have that out there. So we're we're constantly putting stuff on YouTube, making YouTube videos. Youtube's all about Google. Google likes to see stuff on YouTube. You know that content, that kind of stuff. So you know I mean we hired a SEO company, seo, just the YouTube videos out of San Francisco, california. That's been fascinating.

Speaker 3:

So you know there's a lot of different things you could do, but you got to be doing stuff constantly, right, you have to be studying your numbers. You have to get this CRM. You've got to have a way to communicate with these leads. I mean, I would tell you to make outbound phone calls, but if you don't want to make outbound phone calls, at least answer the inbound phone calls correctly. Be available. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

Like you know, joey Coleman wrote the book in 2018, you know, never Lose a Customer Again and you know that's still out there. It's a great book. He just wrote Never Lose an Employee Again in 2023. I've gotten to meet him twice. He's a fascinating guy. He's a recovery lawyer, but what he says is absolutely true. The bar for customer service, for lawyers is laying on the ground To raise that bar. You're going to stand out in your community and you're going to be successful if you just try. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

Like, I spend a lot of time trying to mastermind my customer experience. 80 to 85% of the cases, the outcome is decided before they were walking the door. Or do they drink too much? Do they use drugs? Do they cheat on their wife? Do they beat their wife? You know whatever happened right? Are they a good parent? Are they a bad parent? Do they have a place to live all of these things. Largely it's done before they get here.

Speaker 3:

So I I can have a little bit of an effect on the outcome, but I have a 100 percent effect on whether they got value for the money they spent and whether they had a good experience with this office. And that's where I try to focus is so they had a good experience, so I can get the five-star reviews, so they can tell other people, so that more people will call. And you know, as you get bigger and you charge more money, you're going to get some one stars, largely because of fees. That's the ones we get, and sometimes the outcome doesn't go the people's way because of their behavior and they blame that on you because they can't be individually responsible for how they got to where they were. But you know you get more five stars than one stars, and we do. You know. You know what I mean. That thing too is it's telling the community and we answer every review.

Speaker 2:

I don't know what it's good about.

Speaker 3:

I was going to ask and I answer every single review. You know and I don't, and I can't defend myself under the ethics rules the way I want to defend myself. But when you're writing those responses to a review that might not be positive, you're writing it for the next customer, not for the person who wrote the review.

Speaker 3:

So I like to focus on saying stuff like especially if they didn't go their way. Judges focus on all actions of the parties and all communications, positive and negative, between the parties and making a custody decision. Now I think, if you're reading that as your future customer, that this client led bad review might have been a little bit of a butthole which it was, which is why he didn't want you know what I mean. You know that kind of stuff, but but that's the thing. You want to answer the reviews, the bad ones and the good ones, and you want to answer the reviews, the bad ones and the good ones, and you want to be here to the review with focus on the next person reading it and you could try to learn too if you truly messed up. Right, you know not perfect here. You know sometimes we do mess up, but a lot of times it's people that are upset about the ultimately, even though we won the case, you know, or they don't like the outcome because the outcome was because of their bank.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and then replying to them again, replying to each review, for that next customer gives that engagement that Google wants. They want to see that you care about the future customer, the user experience. So this has been an enlightening conversation. I really enjoyed your energy and your story of where you come from and how you're handling and customer. First, thinking about the people that are listening to this episode, what would you like the biggest takeaway that you would hope the listeners would take from this?

Speaker 3:

I think that they probably have enough leads that they're just not managing them correctly. That would be the number one thing. I would think they need to figure out how to get the phones answered consistently. Make sure they have a Google my Business profile. If they don't have that, make sure you've got a website. Make sure that everything is consistent, the branding is consistent, the phone numbers are consistent across all of the different sites, your name is the same across all the different sites.

Speaker 3:

These are the basics that anybody can do. Doesn't cost anything. Doesn't cost anything to get the phone answered right. You know, get some scripts, get some coaching. You know what I mean. Reach out to Richard James, your practice master, or any of the other mini coaches that are out there that help people. There are a lot of great coaches out there. Everybody's got a coach. Michael Jordan, you got a coach. So here we have has a coach, tyler Green has a coach. I mean, you know, like, like you know, do those things and and, like I said, you don't spend a ton of money. But I think you've got to. You were yesterday and doing the same thing over and over is not going to get you better, and making the decision not to approve is a decision, whether you realize it or not.

Speaker 2:

Well said, very well said. I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you and reach out to you. Where can they reach you? Where would be the best place for them to connect with you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, my email address is Jonathan J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N. Breedenlawcom B-R-E-E-D-E-N-L-A-Wcom. My website is Breedenfirmcom. Why I had to switch? That's a whole nother podcast, but anyway, my website is Breedenfirmcom. You can reach out to me there. I'm on LinkedIn at Jonathan Breeden. I'm on Twitter at Breeden Law NC, so I can be found anywhere. Reach out through my podcast. Best of Johnson County. It's got lots more social medias than I do, but yeah, I'd be glad to talk to anybody about how I've done it and answer any questions they have. It's been a fascinating journey. It's a journey that's not over and every day is a new day and we're just trying to provide a better customer service to people and if you will focus on your employees and providing a customer service, the rest of it will take care of itself.

Speaker 2:

Well said. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I appreciate your time and thank you for being with us today. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law Podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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