Leadership In Law Podcast
Are you a Law Firm Owner who wants to grow, scale, and find the success you know is possible?
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 law firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom.
So, whether you're a seasoned leader or 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.
Your host, Marilyn Jenkins, is a Digital Marketing Strategist who helps Law Firms Grow and Scale using personalized digital marketing programs. She has helped law firms grow to multiple 7 figures in revenue using Law Marketing Zone® programs.
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Leadership In Law Podcast
S03E123 Law Firm Business Development with Adam Brown
We sit down with Adam Brown, business development and marketing lead at FMJ, to unpack how lawyers can stop guessing and start building growth with intention. Adam’s career spans practice, public service, courts, and teaching, giving him a rare, practical view of what actually works in law firm marketing.
We break down common time-wasters like networking with peers instead of buyers, then show how to shift into rooms where real decisions happen. Adam shares a simple, high-ROI conference playbook: pre-book meetings, prioritize hallway conversations, post smart updates with speaker tags, and follow up quickly. We also cover the cost math of time away from billables and the daily habits that compound results, six-month check-ins, brief sincere emails, post-closing site visits, and sharing relevant insights with a small circle of contacts who actually care.
Targeting is central to FMJ’s strategy. Rather than sending generic blasts, they segment audiences so the right updates reach the right people, driving higher open rates and better conversations. We also cover responsiveness as a brand: clear reply windows, aligned channels, and upfront expectations that build trust without burnout. Finally, we look at practical systems—from intake that tracks lead sources to simple CRM or spreadsheet notes and front-desk routing that connects callers to the right attorney fast.
Reach Adam here:
https://www.fmjlaw.com/professional/adam-j-brown/
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Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
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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_02:Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Adam Brown, to the show today. Adam is the business development and marketing manager at FMJ. Adam oversees the firm's marketing, business development, and strategic communications, working closely with attorneys across all practice areas to strengthen client service and build lasting relationships. He's been involved in nearly every corner of the legal industry, practicing attorney, public and private sector work, clerkship at the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and even Regal Education, where he continues to teach as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Adam brings a rare, well-rounded perspective on how firms can serve clients effectively and grow with intention. I'm excited to have you here, Adam. Welcome.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. This is great. I appreciate the invitation.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. This is going to be a great conversation. Tell us a bit about your leadership journey, how you got to where you are.
SPEAKER_03:When I talk to students, I say I have not really applied for jobs that I've had. I've had people invite me to come over and try new things, and I've been willing to say yes when they've sounded interesting. So it's been great. One of my strengths is cultivating strong professional relationships. And that has served me well over the course of my career, and especially in terms of business development and marketing type strategies. For me, it's been following good relationships, following good people, working with clients that I find interesting and going from there. Leadership journey, I have always been interested in the business of being an attorney, whether that's on the public side or the private side. I do in my class, we do half an hour or so on business development and marketing. It's probably the only thing law students see in that space during their time in school. And but even thinking about it in a public sector type position, you have to do some fundraising. You have to make sure your budgets are in line. You have to convince the legislature that they want to keep your program going. These are skills that every attorney, judge, any kind of legal professional needs to be aware of business development and marketing and what that looks like for them and for their particular target audience. For me, it's been fun to be involved with the business side of being an attorney and helping people learn how to do that for themselves and how to do that as an organization.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. I'm glad you're teaching that. It's something that definitely is it needs to be taught. So you've worked around all corners of the legal industry. So basically, based on your experience, what do you think lawyers consistently misunderstand when it comes to business development?
SPEAKER_03:So one thing I see is just I see people putting in a ton of time in places that just aren't going to provide a return for them. I think a prime example is getting in. So if I did workers' comp and insurance defense for years, right? And my first group that I joined was the Workers' Compensation Defense Lawyers Association or something like that. And so I was there working, I was doing a lot of the work to keep the group moving. I was ordering lunches and things like that. And I was, but I was with other defense attorneys from other firms who were not going to send me any business. And that didn't occur to me for a few years. It was great. I learned a ton and I met some other people that became informal mentors and things like that for me, but it was definitely not a business development opportunity. You know, what I think I see people doing, I guess if it's a mistake, I don't know if it's a mistake because you're still building relationships. But if you're trying to get started and jumpstart your business development, find a target audience that's likely to send you some work as early as you can. I ended up playing golf in a couple of insurance adjuster golf outings. And then I started to go to some of those events, and all of a sudden I was building relationships with those folks, and they were the ones that were sending me business. And that happened pretty quickly once I got into the right group with the right people and target audience.
SPEAKER_02:Good point. And like chambers of commerce and stuff like that, do you find that that's valuable? Because I found in my career that the chambers and types of things were also helpful, but you're really targeting in on what you do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And we have a few chambers that we work with here in the Twin Cities area, and they've been great for us. But we also are very careful about which events we're going to, right? There are certain events that are catering to small businesses, and then there are certain events that will cater to mid-sized companies or large businesses, right? So if we go to a legislative, if a legislator is coming to do a luncheon, that tends to be some of the larger businesses will be there because they're more interested in the policy side of things. Just the business at breakfast networking event might be more small business owners because they're interested in doing more networking than some of the bigger companies are. So it it depends on the event and which target audience you're hoping to connect with. But again, being purposeful and thinking about those things ahead of time and being critical when you're there, right? If you go to a couple of events and you really aren't getting what you need out of it, don't go back. That's one thing that I think if we're thinking about mistakes that people make, it's sometimes being too loyal. And I don't want to sound jaded or things like that. But if you go to a couple of meetings and this group really isn't gonna be for you, or if you're connecting with people and you're enjoying the people, great, do that if you want to spend your time that way. But if you're going to try and build business and you're in a place that you realize isn't gonna fill that need for you, it's time to move out, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, I agree about the loyalty. And but if you've got friends, that's one thing, but you have to put it, put your business hat on. And if it's not working for you, then find something else.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. We've found too just mentioning that to different places. Hey, I we really like being a part of this. We enjoy if we're sponsoring something in particular. We like being involved, we like partnering with you, but we're not getting much out of this in terms of return on our investment. And it that has worked well for us in terms of groups being, oh, you know what, why don't you we need to help you connect with this person or that person? Or what would help? Do you want to have a speaker on a certain topic, or what would that look like? So just being aware of that return and whether or not you're getting it, sometimes being willing to push a little bit on the groups that you're working with or the different things you're doing has helped us a ton.
SPEAKER_02:I think the looking at the ROI is very important because your time is worth a certain amount of money. So you gotta decide that. Would it be more helpful to have an associate or a paralegal go and represent the firm? But if it's not your ideal client, now I agree, then make any decision of how you're spending your time.
SPEAKER_03:And for people that are working in the marketing space in particular, right? So as the marketing director, for me, if I recommend that one of our attorneys says, Hey, you should go to this event, I'm asking them to take at least a couple hours off of the clock. So literally costing us money. So if I'm not careful about where I'm sending people or recommending that they go, it can be it's a cost. And so that's something that you know, for my fellow marketing professionals out there, I'm sure they feel that. Where if we're having a potential client come over for lunch and we've got five of our attorneys in that room, that's five plus hours of time that we're missing out on for that day. You have to be purposeful and careful with what you're doing, but it always it's always worth it on some levels, but it's always something to consider.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And yeah, I agree. And there's also volunteer work or sponsoring events, but yeah, looking at the ROI from the end of it and evaluating each time. But I love that you do that for the firm. And if your marketing person says you should be there, then obviously there should be a expect an ROI of some sort. Go and be your best self and business developer.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's fair. And we just spent some time putting together a detailed checklist of what to do when you're making an appearance somewhere, particularly, let's say someone's going to a conference, right? So it's if we're gonna spend whatever it costs to go to the conference, if there's travel involved, that's an initial upfront dollar amount. Sometimes that can get into the tens of thousands for some of these, and depending on where it is in the world. And so we have a pretty significant checklist now. If you're gonna go to this, I want two or three social media posts leading up to it. Let's schedule some time with you with some other key people that are gonna be there. Let's make sure that you're I think the worst thing people can do is go to a conference, go to a couple of the sessions, and then go back to your hotel room and bill time, right? Why did we send you to this thing? Then you can do a webinar on these topics and bill your time at home, right? So that's one thing that drives me crazy is if people are gonna be on site somewhere, if they're sitting and doing emails or writing a brief or something like that in their downtime and not taking advantage of the marketing and business development opportunities when they do show up somewhere.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, because in most of those conferences, those big qu conversations take place in the hallway.
SPEAKER_03:100%. Yeah. I actually tell people don't go to all the sessions, go walk around the the trade floor or whatever the common gathering place is and meet as many people as you can. If if we have clients or potential clients that are gonna be there, let's make sure you schedule some time with them to have a coffee or an adult beverage or whatever that looks like. But let's make sure you're getting some FaceTime with key people if you're gonna be there anyway.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah, be intentional. I love that you did a checklist. That's so perfect that you just follow that and then you can that'll definitely make your time more valuable.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we had one of our one of our really bright guys always willing to work with me on some of the crazy ideas I have. But I told him, hey, when you go to this next conference, I want you to try to be an influencer there. We were laughing about that. But he did a great job of doing a few LinkedIn posts during the conference and tagging the people that were speaking. And he ended up having some great interactions online, and that when you hashtag the event that's there, other people that are there are looking at the at it, they're trying to figure out where am I supposed to be, what's my schedule look like, and your face pops up a couple times. It's a cool thing. And he's had a few a few people follow up with him after that. So it's been neat to push, push what you're doing a little bit and try to really take advantage of showing up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think people appreciate that effort because instead of, like you said, going back to your room or sitting on a couch and working on something instead of being present in the moment and take advantage of that. You get to see, we're so remote these days to be able to see people face to face at a conference in the hallway and have a real conversation, like you said, over a drink or a coffee. Just people do business with people they know and trust.
SPEAKER_03:That's cool. Yeah, you're exactly right. And there are ways to yeah, I think about it in terms of the financials, right? When if you're going to a conference, you're asking your partners to sponsor your attendance at this thing, right? So let's make it count. It's a team effort.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. And of course, choosing the right conferences, that's hugely important as well, making sure and going with intention. I love it. It's almost like you've created a little business plan for a conference so that you can your firm gets the most out of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That is such a smart move.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, some people are better at it than others, and some people really buy it into the checklist and some don't, but that's okay as long as I feel like I've done my job if I put that out there as a an option and a best case type of plan to go and do these events. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You've got different personality types. People really get into that, meaning you people, some people don't, but think the checklist probably also solidifies what their expectations are, and that's massive for you. And again, like you said, the ROI, you've got to figure out where you're paying and what's going to come from that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So looking at the simplest head, what are the simplest habits that lawyers can build in their week that can make the biggest impact on client relationships and referrals? Looking at what you're talking about, how can what is the simplest thing they can do to get started doing that if they're not doing anything there?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's just an email check-in once in a while. I think we're seeing a trend. I think clients now want sincerity. They want real interactions with people because they're getting so many AI, AI generated automated emails. I think just scheduling a check-in. This doesn't have to be every client, but if you pick some of your key ones or referral sources or people you want to build more of a relationship with, throw a 15-minute appointment on your calendar for six months down the road, and that'll pop up when you say email this person. We are working right now on putting in a CRM system. So we don't have a specific system right now, so client management. But the whole goal of that is to paying attorneys occasionally to, hey, you haven't checked in with this really good client for a while, just send an email to say hi. And if that turns into a coffee, great. I tell people not to do lunches because it's such a it's such an interruption in the middle of the day. But if you can do a coffee before work or maybe a happy hour at the end of the day or something like that. And if people say, Hey, I just don't have time this month, that's fine. Just know that you care and you care enough to check in and do it in a sincere fashion, that's huge. Or if our firm puts out an article, I ask attorneys to grab that link and send it to five key people that this might be relevant to them, right? Just little things like that go such a long way. It doesn't have to be a huge grand gesture, it doesn't have to be I'm taking you to a twins game or a wild game. Yeah, those are our teams up here. We do have some of those tickets, but that's so expensive, right? I all clients, all things you think about it like you partner at home or your kids or whoever, people just want to know that you care and you're thinking about them. And so it really doesn't have to be anything major, just some occasional communications to let people know you're thinking about them is huge. And so we have some attorneys that are really good at that, and we've really worked on being more purposeful with that type of thing, and the returns that we've seen have been huge.
SPEAKER_02:In your view, what separates effective law firm marketing from noise?
SPEAKER_03:I think it has to be targeted. You have to select the audience for your messaging. I'm gonna brag a little bit. We've got a 64% open rate on constant contact right now. I was just in there this morning. Oh no. Yeah, and that's largely because we don't send general messaging almost ever. So we do have one a firm-wide newsletter, but even that is carefully cultivated to go to people that we know want to hear information about our firm in general. So most of our outgoing communication is articles that are targeted and cultivated specifically to an audience. And so right now, Minnesota has a ton of changes in the HR and employment space. So we have a list that's only HR and employment profession professionals or business owners that are really we know are really interested in those types of things. So they're seeing the paid family medical leave changes and updates on that kind of thing that that we are working on here. But someone that's if we sent that to our estate planning clients, some of them would care, but some of them couldn't delete that messaging fast enough. So for us, it's been really trying to be purposeful about who we are pushing messaging out to.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. I love it. I did want to jump back to the outreach that you were talking about every six months or whatever. I feel like you are separating yourself from the competition of that because most people, once they have a client, they never think to reach out to them again. And one thing that we like to do is we like to do small client gifts along the way, not a Christmas card, because everybody's doing a Christmas card, but maybe a Thanksgiving card. But whenever you invite someone for coffee, if they just can't get it on their calendar, maybe email them a Starbucks gift card. Have a coffee on me. These are little things that solidify that you care about your client. And it's gonna be harder for another firm to take them away from you because they haven't proved that they care. So I love that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's cool. I just talked to one of our real estate attorneys yesterday, and we so we're doing our kind of strategic planning for the next year, right? And so each attorney here does a business development plan that our CEO and I sit down with them and we work through their goals and their budgets and what that looks like. But one of the things I was talking about with him, he's he's been doing this long, he's really smart, he's gonna be an incredible attorney. He's been doing this for, I don't know, five, seven years, somewhere in that range, right? It's really getting ready to take the next step. And so we what we talked about is after he helps close on the purchase or sale of real estate, whatever that looks like, going to do a site visit in a month or two and seeing how things are going, right? Just some donuts over in the morning, just visit and say hello because he also has a lot of business come in. He does such a good job with the initial transaction, but we do other things here, right? So people call him up and say, hey, it's been a couple months, we've got issues with our HR, we need help with our employment manuals or whatever's going on. And so just making sure that he's top of mind. And now that they've been there for a couple months, how are things settling in? What other issues do you possibly need help with? And so he also just likes he likes to feel like he's been involved with a tangible item changing hands, and he wants to see what the build-out looks like and all that stuff. So let's build that into your plan for the next year. Maybe you do six of those or 12 once a month, you do 12 of those total, or see what that looks like. So just thinking about and for each attorney, that looks different, right? Some of them love getting on a Zoom call for half an hour, and they'll do a virtual coffee kind of thing. So, what does that look like for each person? It's going to be different, and that's where that I think sincerity or authenticity or whatever buzzword you want to insert here, but it matters. People, especially with AI and all of the automated messaging that happens, people really want to see something that's direct and authentic and tailored to them.
SPEAKER_02:Agreed. I interviewed a woman a few months ago, and her the way she grew her firm was a lot of volunteering. And she encouraged encourages attorneys to to volunteer. And and her, and she said, anytime someone asks me advice for that, she said, I say do what's organic. She loves playing golf. So she got involved in charities for golf. And some people are tennis, some people, I mean, just different things, but it I agree, it needs to be authentic. And if it's something you enjoy, you're gonna come across much more authentic than if it's something you're stilted going into.
SPEAKER_03:You can put your logo on pickleballs. Now, I don't know if you knew that or not, but we shouldn't be able to do it. Really?
SPEAKER_02:I don't, I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_03:Order some custom FMJ pickleballs because she plays pickleball with people all the time. It's go play and here, keep this, keep the ball. This was fun. Keep the ball. We'll see you next time, kind of thing. So why not, right?
SPEAKER_02:Why not, Meggy? Yeah, because you're you need to be involved. But people again, if they just they get to know you and they'll do business with you or refer business to you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So thinking about now you guys are a bigger firm, but thinking about smaller and mid-sized firms, how do they stand out against bigger competitors without trying to be everything to everyone?
SPEAKER_03:Number one in this space, and this is so we are for Minnesota, we're I'd say top twenty-five-ish, but we have about 40 attorneys at a given time. So overall, I think most parts of the country we would be considered mid-sized level. But I think number one is responsiveness. How can you be responsive to clients? And that's hard, it's getting harder. I think sometimes it's unfair. Some clients will hold you to some unfair standards. But that for us has been a brand that has really worked well. Is you know, sophisticated legal service. We charge a fraction of some of the bigger firms downtown for our rates. So the value is there. We're also accessible. And our attorneys, if you're working with a partner, the partner's gonna get back to you. You'll know who's on your team right away. Our teams are small, so there's maybe a partner and an associate, is typically the team, and you're gonna know both of those attorneys really well. They're both gonna be accessible, they're both gonna be able to help you when you need it. So responsiveness has been good. It's a challenge. Our attorneys do a great job with that, though. And even if it's just to respond and say, see this, it's a complicated question. We're gonna need a couple days to make sure we get the right answer for you here or something like that. But instead of waiting two days to get the yeah, so just making sure that response is there is key. And I think if you have an attorney give you an answer right away, that's a problem because everybody has to work through these things. But yeah, it's just making sure you're responding within a set amount of time and then managing that expectation too. So when I was in practice, I always told my clients, I'll get back to you within 24 hours, or you'll see an automatic reply. And if you do see an automatic reply, you'll have other resources you can work with. And I held myself to that and I did it most of the time. Weekends were a little iffier sometimes. I told people they most of my clients knew I had kids, they knew we had hockey games all weekend, and so I'll get back to you at some point soon. But I tried to stick to that, and if I couldn't, I would let them know why. And but we were all on board. I worked with my I had the same clients come back over and over, so we knew each other's work habits, and I didn't text. I don't, I never texted with clients, they were okay with it. There were certain clients that said, Oh, I need to text, and I'd say, let me introduce you to my partner who does text. That just was something that I never did. I wasn't good at it. Our firm here now, we do have it it goes to the desktop, so that phone system has integrated texting, and so I know that many of our attorneys do that now. I didn't feel comfortable having text messages with somebody on an iPhone. So it was really defining the parameters of that relationship with the client, and I think that adds to the relationship, right? When you're defining your own communication patterns and styles together and finding something that works for you, and again, customizing, making it more authentic and more tailored to that particular person, what that relationship looks like. Yeah, but I think for us, for our brand here, responsiveness and accessibility, agility, right? We're able to adapt and do different things for different clients as opposed to a larger organization that has the mechanics in place and you have to go through their systems, and we're more flexible and able to adapt to what each client needs. So that's been good for us. That's been a good brand for us.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm sure cut setting customer expectations as well. Like you you said it with your original clients that I don't text. And that can be a crutch, and that can happen at any hour of the day, and you don't want that when you're doing business and you have children and extracurricular activities.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, the other the other part of that too is for them hey, if you have to sit down and craft an email to me, that's gonna be more probably more worth your time what I eat, right? If you're sending me three random texts during the day, I'm gonna bill you for that time because that's how I that's how I exist and survive. Put your thoughts into one thing that's gonna be a shorter response time for me and easier to organize my thoughts and get it back to you. If you're firing one random text a day, you're gonna get 0.1s on those back for me. And that was that was how I did it. And so helping establish that part of it too, that was good. Amazing.
SPEAKER_02:So let's talk a little bit about your you work with students and you're helping them. What patterns do you see in lawyers who quickly advance as opposed to those who stall?
SPEAKER_03:So the ones that quickly advance, I think understand that being an attorney means being your own individual business entity as early as possible. And that means I didn't understand this for it, took me a few years to figure this out, right? And this is something that I share now because it's something I wish I would have known when I was starting. I was a first generation attorney. I had no idea what I was getting into. And so that's why I've been so interested in helping on the management side of things and continuing to teach classes and talk to groups when I can. But yeah, I think I do a lot of work in the diversity and inclusion space too, and people getting involved with affinity groups and all these other things off campus that are awesome and very necessary. But at the same time, if you're taking away from your billable time and if you're taking away from building your own practice, that's a challenge. And I think that falls to women to do a lot of the leadership type things in firms in particular, and that's okay, but you also have to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and meeting the expectations that the firm has for you so you can advance as quickly as you want to. The best way to do that is build a lot of time and build a book of business as early as you can. You have to be copy.
SPEAKER_02:As I said, you have to go back to ROL when you make that. You have to think, is it worth your exactly?
SPEAKER_03:You have to be competent, you have to be able to do the work. But even here, there are incentives for associates that bring in work to the firm, even if they never touch the file. If they bring in the work, there are incentives involved with that. So thinking about those types of things, what in the diversity and inclusion space, what communities might you have access to that people that are running the firm might not, right? What other business areas are out there that you could tap into that other people don't know are there or don't have access to? So thinking about those things early, thinking about what is your brand, what target audience do you want to connect with, and having a plan for that early is great. Take the first six months as a brand new attorney to learn how to do the job. Meet as many people as you can internally because your first target audience is internal. You're going to get your work from your the partners you're working with. But thinking early, who could I connect with and build and tap into as a resource for business as early as possible is key.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. I love that. And do you are you guys using some sort of tracking mechanism that because we're saying this, and people are thinking, yeah, I can have a couple of coffees next week. How do you keep track of what you've done and you're pulling at CRM? But what do you what do you attorneys use for tracking that?
SPEAKER_03:So that's all over the place right now. And it's something that we have, if we have 40 attorneys, there are 35 different styles for doing that. And I don't have access to a lot of it as the marketing director. I don't have access to help where I can behind the scenes. So maybe just a reminder hey, you haven't talked to these three key clients for a while or something like that. So what we're looking at is ways to particularly start with the intake process and make sure we know how people are finding us, because sometimes we don't. And so it's terrible. Seeing what are the channels that we need to make sure we're tapping into. I have one of our attorneys who does a great job in this space, has a gigantic Excel file and keeps notes. I used to use a Rolodex. I remember those. So I would literally write down kids' names or dogs' names, or if we talked and mom was sick, hey, how's your mom doing this time around? Hopefully everything's okay. Just keeping track of your conversations. And I don't want that to sound jaded or disingenuous, or this is because it I really do care, and I want to I want to spend time getting to know people and just making sure you're keeping some notes, or so that's what we're working on is ways to make sure that we are building a profile for the people that we're working with, even if it's a prospect or somebody, just so we know who they are, and some people you don't want to work with, and we want to know that too. So if one attorney had a that goes in the nose, yeah. If one attorney had a really bad experience with someone or a really a bad conversation, and someone else looks and sees, oh, we know this person. Oh, we don't love this person, that's good to note too. That's something we're working on. I think it's gonna it looks a little different for each firm and even for each attorney. But just thinking about what is our system for this is so important, and it takes time off the clock to build that, but uh, that's what we're working on right now. It's hard. I think it's hard to get right, but if you can make small steps and move forward one step at a time, I think it helps a ton.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think you training your team to keep the notes up to date. Anytime you speak with a client or you send them a small gift or anything like that, or something goes wrong, or something goes really well, those need to go in the notes that way because you're never going to remember all of this if you're checking in every three months.
SPEAKER_03:I will I'm gonna I'm gonna put in a plug for you too. This is where a small to mid-sized firm that doesn't have a professional, full-time marketing person in particular, they need someone like you, right? Because you're thinking about all these things, you're working in these spaces, you know, picking a way to build an ROI system, so you're actually paying attention to some of these things, finding the things we're talking about right now. How are you tracking your leads? What does that look like? Most attorneys haven't thought about that kind of thing, and no, and not purposeful about it, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's where you could yeah, and we do provide a CRE with all of our clients, and that's no extra charge, it's included in all of our custom plans, and it makes this make sense. We have a uh sales pipeline for all the leads with automations for nurturing them, but yeah, you need you need a place to keep track of this information because especially if you've got more than one team member that's gonna be interacting with these leads, yeah. So see what happened last time. What did they say on that call?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, it's daunting for law firm managers in general to to build things like this for us here. This is uh it's a process and it's gonna take a while. And yeah, attorneys are generally resistant to change, but there are people like you, there are all kinds of resources out there, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel to to start tracking some of these things that that we all need to be better at our jobs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a brand new thing that you're only gonna use a third or 20% of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Wherever you're at, if you have a consultant or someone like you, Marilyn, or someone that they can tap into as a resource to work on some of these things together and not have to build it from scratch, great. It's worth the money. That's where you're thinking about ROI. So if you're spending some money up front to build a system, that's gonna pay for its all tenfold.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Just from a late jubers tracker.
SPEAKER_03:It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:How much traffic Better Business Group says small businesses miss 67% of their phone calls? You how much more business can you do if you answered your phone?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's a staggering statistic, but that's not for me.
SPEAKER_03:That's from the Even thinking through your calling tree, right? So if somebody gets the receptionist at the front desk, who answers who does that person get transferred to and why? So does the person at the front desk know enough to spot issues and send it to the right team members? Those kinds of things are so important to think about. And if you're spending all your time billing, which is what attorneys do, right? You're it's an active disincentive to come off the clock and build the right system that you need to continue to grow with us. Sure. So it's yeah, it's a hard, it's the hard the hardest part, I think, of our industry is coming off the clock to to build your actual business.
SPEAKER_02:To be, yeah, to think, but you're thinking long term, it's it will pay off. Like agreed, agree. This has been a great conversation. I think it people are gonna take a lot of value away from this. What's what aspect or what real thing would you hope that the listeners would take from this conversation?
SPEAKER_03:Marketing, business development, doing it right is tough. Start small, one step at a time, and try to be purposeful with what you're doing. So have a plan. What target audience do you want to try to connect with? And then what do you want to get out of what you're doing, right? So I think if you're writing a ton of articles that could build a great, that could build brand awareness for you, right? But that's going to be up at the top. If you think of it as a funnel, so the top, you've got brand awareness, then people have to go through that funnel and make a decision and they actually have to sign up and retain you as an attorney. And as you get through that funnel, you're into thinking about referral sources and repeat business and things like that. Where are you at with each action that you're taking? Are you at the top and the brand awareness? Because you need some of that. But are you getting people to actually sign up with the firm as a client or with you as their attorney? And how do you get there? So just thinking about those things a little bit ahead of time. You can do that driving to work or sitting on the bus or whatever that looks like. But just trying to be purposeful about what you're doing and then be critical. If something isn't working, cut it and try something else. I love it. Just yeah, one step at a time. Don't overwhelm yourself. You don't have to, you don't have to bring in a million dollars worth of business with every article you write. Yeah. Congratulate yourself when you're having some successes. Be willing to try something new, but uh just start. You got to start somewhere, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that. I love that. I know my my listeners are gonna want to reach out to you or connect with you. Where would be the best place to do?
SPEAKER_03:Fofinsky Mark and Johnson, that's our firm. I'm on the webpage there. You can find me on LinkedIn as well, Adam Brown. Adam Brown, attorney Minnesota usually works. You can find me. So yeah, Fofinsky, Mark and Johnson, we're a full service commercial law firm. If you need help in Minnesota, we're always happy to connect and we can do almost anything a business needs here. But yeah, Adam.brown at fmjlaw.com is my email address. People want to reach out. Otherwise, they can find me on the website and LinkedIn as well.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. We'll have your website link in the show notes so people can reach out to you.
SPEAKER_03:Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02:And this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_01: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 LawmarketingZone.com 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.
SPEAKER_00: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 things to find.
