Speaker 1: 0:00

One interesting thing I've noticed through the years is that whenever a new attorney starts with us, they have an initial high performance period in the consult room, usually last about six months. Then their confidence gains and they quit listening and they quit connecting and they just want to power over the client with great advice. So I encourage you, as your confidence grows, keep listening. Don't fall into the sophomore slump. And then it usually goes another six months to a year and they come out of that because they appreciate the value in just listening. Well, hello and welcome to the Jay Sterling Hughes Show, where we share how we have built our family law practice from zero to 25 plus attorneys and 15 million revenue, all in the past 10 years.

Speaker 1: 0:43

And today we're talking with Tom Hartnigan. We're following Tom as he is starting his law practice. So now we've been following Tom for about five or six months now. His practice opened three months ago and one of the promises that we made in the outset is that Tom would share the truth, the reality of what it's like starting a family law firm from scratch and you can go to social media and you can see gloss and headlines and polish all day, but sometimes you don't see the truth. So with this, we promised to do that and we're coming out of the month of November and it was a bummer month, tom, and so yeah, so let's start with the metrics and get into some of just the other challenges that happened in November.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Sure, yeah. So metrics I had eight leads in November. Six of those turns into consults and of those consults, three of them were hires. So I hired three clients. So, that being said, my three hires one of those was an uncontested divorce, which I'm doing for a pretty low fee at this point, and then the other two were decent hires. One of them is a divorce case I don't think it's going to be a big budget divorce case, but you know it's still still a good divorce case. I'm happy to have signed it and the other is a child custody case in front of family court where there is a lot going on. So that should be a good one. So the uncontested divorce was done on that was signed as a flat fee. The other two still signed as retainer with hourly fees.

Speaker 1: 2:13

OK, so let's kind of break that down a bit here. I'm looking out over the past three months, because we kind of finished your first active practice quarter right Three months, and we've got 27 leads that have come in. We've got 23 of those that actually turn into a console, which is a really high ratio, actually 23 out of 27.

Speaker 2: 2:33

So I'll temper that. Yeah, so we were talking before the call. I do need to get better at tracking all of my leads. Like you know, if someone calls and I don't know, you know sometimes you get calls. You know sometimes you get calls. You know I've been on and taken a while, but you get calls where people are just like let me ask you a quick question, and then you know it's like a one minute conversation and then you hang up like that I might not have tracked that, whereas I probably should, because that's still a. I don't know if that's an incoming call or maybe we need to break that into more categories. But yeah, I'm going to start doing a better job of tracking those numbers.

Speaker 1: 3:05

I've got some real practical experience to share with you on that, okay. So, first off, it is important to track all of those numbers. Second thing, it's also important to make them super simple and be rigid about your definition and stick with that. Don't change the definition for what counts as a lead, what counts as an opportunity. So when our firm does is we count all of our calls coming in, which is easy, right, we do that with our software, and then we scrub out those that are like in criminal law or some other area of law out of the state, whatever it is that we can't serve, and what's left over becomes a lead. Then, out of those leads, we look at those that we can actually help. There they totally qualify blah, blah, blah and they call that an opportunity, that, which is also a consult.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Okay, so that's kind of how we scrub them out. Okay, as long as you're consistent, right, that's the most important thing, because you need that data over time, or over time becomes more and more valuable to you, because then you make adjustments to your marketing based on what you've seen historically. After you've had one calendar revolution, it becomes really valuable because now you can look back at month over month, year over year, and see that. So, anyway, you had 23 consults so far in your first 90 days and 12 of those turned into paying clients.

Speaker 2: 4:19

Right Just over half.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Yeah, that's actually really really strong. 50 plus closing rate is really high, so you know if there's a challenge, it's not there for you. You're connecting with clients, obviously, so let me just point that out.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Okay, yeah, that's good. I think I'm good at connecting with people. I think you know, if you break the console process into like two stages which is kind of the I don't know just like discussion Tell me about what's going on. I think I'm a good, good, active listener, good at giving advice, and then at the end you get that I guess what I'll call like the closing phase. That's where I need to put in more work.

Speaker 2: 4:55

I'm not, I'm not good at I don't know. I've never had to work in sales or anything like that. You know. So most, most of my clients that sign, it's very it's pretty rare for me at this point for a client to sign on the spot. It's almost always like here's my retainer, you know, go home, you know, give me a call back, we'll, we'll walk through it, um, and stuff like that. And I apologize for the audience, I have a cold. That's why my voice sounds like this. I'm getting out of breath as I. But yeah, that's something I definitely need to improve on is that I don't know, just those last few minutes of closing.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Yeah, the most important aspect of your consults is just listening. That's way more important than what you say, by the way, when you get to that closing in, and that that comes from confidence, man, because they're evaluating at that point whether or not they can trust you with their big, massive problem yeah, and you just need more reps, that confidence will come. One interesting thing I've noticed through the years is that whenever a new attorney starts with us, they have an initial high performance period in the consult room Usually lasts about six months. Then their confidence gains and they quit listening and they quit connecting and they just want to power over the client with great advice. So I encourage you, as your confidence grows, keep listening. Don't fall into this sophomore slump. And then it usually goes another six months to a year and they come out of it because they appreciate the value in just listening.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Okay, yeah, that's awesome advice and I don't know, I guess I've always think that's a quality of mine. I've always kind of be like that. I like listening to other people, so hopefully that's something that sticks?

Speaker 1: 6:26

Yeah, my favorite question in the console room is what else that's it? That's like I think, got me more clients than any other any other single question, I think I pretty much always ask that you can string that together. Okay, so last month from a dollars and financial performance standpoint, yeah, and financial performance standpoint.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Yeah, yeah, this is truth, man. This is what happens in law firms. I get it. You brought in top line of $4325, so $4,325. And you had expenses in the marketing side which is always your biggest one of $2,500 a month so that's a standard. Then another $1,700 in other expenses, rent and so forth. That left $125 a month. Yep, okay, this is what happens, right. Then another 1700 and other expenses, rent and so forth. That left 125 bucks. Yep, okay, this is what happens, right. That's gotta be discouraging, so let's unpack that.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Extremely. Yeah. So, um, you know, chuck that up to two things. One is is getting more clients in, and or two phases. I'll say one is bringing more clients in and two is doing work that's on my plate and that that latter part is on me.

Speaker 2: 7:27

There's work I could have done in November, I could have built in November and I just didn't. I think a number of reasons. One, it was a holiday month. Two, I still am working at my patent job, which again feeds my family, thankfully not being required to live off of that $125 a month. But you know that was a little bit of a busy month there. Going back to the first portion of bringing in more leads and, you know, signing more clients, yeah, that was discouraging. I'd like to see, you know, only basically signed two like larger clients, and then a small uncontested divorce case. You know, definitely need to get those numbers up significantly. You know, when I started, I think my plan was to hope to hire somebody, whether that's a paralegal or an associate, maybe sometime in the spring. You know, looking at the month of November, I'm not even close to that point. So, yeah, it's certainly certainly discouraging.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So, from an emotional standpoint, how are you processing through that, like you personally, self-doubts like what's going on inside your head?

Speaker 2: 8:25

Yeah, I mean it kind of changes day by day. There definitely was a few days this month where I'm like, man, I could just go back to my patent job. Yeah, it's boring. I don't know what the future looks like with AI and everything, which, which is one of the reasons I'm kind of trying to shift away from that field, because AI in that field it's. I'm just thinking, man, I could go back to that field, work from home, make a few hundred thousand plus a year, not have any stress about owning a business, you know, spend more time with my kids, Like you know, what am I doing here?

Speaker 2: 8:59

I just worked 50 percent of my time this month at a family law firm and made one hundred and twenty five dollars. So, yeah, extremely, extremely discouraging. But yeah, you know, the other part of me trying to focus on. You know, stay and stay and focus on the bigger picture. What's going?

Speaker 1: 9:14

to happen long term Right.

Speaker 2: 9:15

If this point next year, my firm is still making one hundred and twenty five dollars, I probably would have a more difficult conversation with myself. But maybe, maybe this isn't working. But I just have to remind yourself that you're going to have good months and bad months, and this was my worst month and hopefully will be my first month, because I can tell you already it's december, we're talking december 13th. I I've already collected or billed whatever collected, more money this month than I have, and then I did in all of november. Yeah, I don't know, just trying to take it day by day, trying to and staying focused on the bigger picture. Yeah, in my mind, it will, it will happen. It's just not happening as fast as I wanted it to yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:55

What are the things that you can control this month to change the result?

Speaker 2: 10:00

I mean there's again there's working on that closing, so I don't want to jump too far ahead but, like December, so far I've had four consults and haven't signed one of them. And that's not to say they won't sign. I think at least like two of those I'm confident they will. But again, that's going back to I need to get better at closing in the room rather than following up with people a week or so later. Things that I can control. I keep saying I'm going to try to do more like just more marketing around town, like nothing crazy, but just getting to know more, know more firms in the area and go up to the criminal lawyers or estate planning lawyers and ask if you have any overflow work or even other family law firms. If you have any other overflow work, I'd love to take it.

Speaker 2: 10:43

I haven't done that and that's totally on me. I don't know Other stuff. That's in my control. I said this before. But just being more proactive, there's work I've been doing all this week that I I could have done. I had I signed a uncontested divorce in early november and I didn't really get started on it until last week. Yeah, was that an hourly one? An?

Speaker 1: 11:03

hourly. No, that's a fixed fee. Okay, and what was your fixed fee on that?

Speaker 2: 11:07

I think I did 32 50. I have to go back and check the number, um, but it's like really simple and I don't know if that's low or high. You give me your opinion. But they own a house. They're in complete agreement on how they're going to sell it and split it. They have no kids. It's like a really really straightforward. It's one of those things. Realistically, they probably could have gone to the court, got the paperwork and filled it out themselves.

Speaker 2: 11:28

So, you're not going to. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but you're not going to collect a you know $8,000 fee on that.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Right. The number one determinant of success in family law for our attorneys is proactivity, because you have to move the cases forward, which is so much different than hourly Hourly. You can afford to be passive. You can afford to have the judge posing party, posing client or whatever like, run the agenda, push the case forward and you just respond as things happen. That's the normal thing. That's interesting that you're kind of already discovering that early on, like this. Also, tom, this is December. You know we've got Christmas and all the holidays coming up here at the end of the month and it is very, very normal to have people meet, put the decision off until January and, even more so, put the decision off until tax return season starts about February 15th. We every single year see a spike starting about February 15th and going through basically April 30th. Okay, so there's some of that cyclicality there. That is going to be, you're going to feel. We talked last month a little bit about positioning your firm to focus on first responders. Have you given that any more thought?

Speaker 2: 12:31

Yeah, oh yeah. So my website, um. So there is like a sub page of my website. Now it's it's live, you can click it and uh, yeah, it's, it's a really cool page.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Um, I don't know Do you want me to share it real quick? Yeah, let's look at it, let's see so, as you're sharing.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Let me just go to my main page here. So there's supposed to be something here which there will be eventually, um, so this is my, this is my standard page. I know we talked about getting rid of these stock photos and putting in more photos of like myself and you know, stuff about my office and stuff which which I definitely do. But if you go down here and you go to first responders, so this is my first responder page, you know this is my marketing team. I think they did a great job. It's a typical landing page. You know. It has people fill out their first name, last name, phone number, email address, send a message. The tagline is family law support for first responders dedicated to serving those who serve.

Speaker 2: 13:29

I thought that was a nice tagline they came up with. And then you know, it's kind of some patriotic stuff, talks about people we serve and you know, importantly, I think down here you get to a lot of there's like a lot of blog posts about you know, specific issues that first responders face, like you know they got the two examples I've used. Like you know you that first responders face, like um, you know they got the two examples I've used. Like you know, you work 24-hour shifts, how do you handle child support? You know don't let people take advantage of you and and child support just because you happen to work overnights, like two nights a week, you're still entitled to your child support and you know how to how to protect your pension, the the importance of of prenups or even post-nups for people that are originally married, especially for people that have pensions and retirement, who a large portion of their salaries are based on their pensions and retirement benefits. Right, yeah, I thought they did a really good job on this page.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Have you had any reaction from the marketplace on this yet? Has anyone said, hey, I saw your page.

Speaker 2: 14:32

So it only launched about a week ago, a week, week and a half ago.

Speaker 2: 14:35

So I don't think, so I do have one client that's a police officer, but I don't know, I don't. I think he might've signed before this. He did sign in November, so I don't know, maybe. So when I talk about doing more marketing around town, that was that was kind of one of the thoughts I had when I was forming that page, because I think that that gives me more of like, a not like. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm a family lawyer. It's hey, I'm a family lawyer, specifically serving a specific market. You know, and serving everybody, but particular, with a focus on a particular market. Yeah, I don't know, makes the outreach a little bit easier, I think, and gives me targets of people to outreach too. Right, you can out, you know, do some local outreach to police benevolent association or, you know, veterans association and stuff like that, yeah. So, yeah, back when I said you asked what things could I do better, that's been a thought in my head for a while and I just haven't acted on it.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Yeah, what marketing do you have active in the marketplace? You've got your map listing. You've got page search right? Yes, and obviously any organic rankings. I don't know where you're, where you rank organically, but those three right now are your main three.

Speaker 2: 15:48

And my map. Yeah, my map ranking is is very good. Um, my ads, I think they're doing okay?

Speaker 1: 15:50

Yes, okay. Did you narrow that focus down to just your immediate geo? Yes, okay.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah, that was something we talked about like two episodes ago and, yeah, I did, I followed up on that.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Okay, do you have a sense for, of these three, which one's paying off the most for you? You're getting the most leads.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Definitely not organic. I don't think I'm getting anything off organic yet. In terms of the map and the PPC, my best guess is that well, I would say the map, but my guess is they kind of feed each other. Someone sees an ad. I think then, especially younger people tend to look past ads on google. Like I know when even I'm not that young, but even when I search for something on google, I typically scroll right past the sponsored section. And I don't know, I don't know about you, I don't and I don't.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Maybe that's not true of everyone, but I asked, I did ask my wife and a friend, like it was like hey, if you were picking a divorce lawyer, and I made them pick them, like look at my phone, and same thing. They don't give as much credit to the sponsored ads as maybe people used to because people realize anyone can buy that. But I think if you have a sponsored ad, if people see your name in the sponsored ad and then they see you in the map section, that matters, then that, yeah, that gives you some some credit, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 16:59

That's just my, that's my take Could be wrong. Well, I think the more impressions you have on that front page, the better right.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Yeah, right, if they're seeing your name twice.

Speaker 1: 17:06

Yeah, they're doing their due diligence, looking around reading websites. I mean, obviously you've got some really good reviews, so that helps.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Yeah, and I've been doing better about that lately. I think I went like probably three, four weeks without really getting any, so I got two in the last week trying to pick that back up.

Speaker 1: 17:23

Your budget, your actual spend on placement $1,500 a month. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 17:27

Yeah, so I pay $1,000 to the marketing company for general oversight management, and then, yeah, $1,500 towards the ads on top of that.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Okay, you're exhausting that budget every month, for sure, okay.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Yeah, my plan is to increase that in the new year, not by too much, I don't. I don't want to uh, you know, go bankrupt, but yeah, if I can throw another 500, you know, turn that 1500 into either 2000 or 2500, see if that has a big impact.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Do you know if that budget's evenly apportioned throughout the month, or is it more front loaded?

Speaker 2: 18:00

I think it is, Um, I think more front-loaded, but I do. I mean, I got, you know, I got a couple of calls in late November. I guess the better answer is, I don't know, I think. So I think it's pretty spread out, yeah, and that you know that's Google's job to do that. I mean, that's my job to make sure they're doing it. But that's how they're supposed to do it, right? You give them, give them a budget and they say, all right, your, if your budget's 2000,. You know, each week of the month we'll, you know, allocate 500 towards it. That's what they're supposed to do. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess I should track those numbers. I know Paul, my, my guy that does my marketing, is tracking that, so he would know that answer. But I don't.

Speaker 1: 18:41

That's been a strategy of ours for a long time. We'll slow it down in December and then we'll ramp things up in January February, because that's decision making time for a lot of folks.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Yeah, right, and so do you think that my budget is so low that it's like not really having an impact?

Speaker 1: 18:58

I don't know, tom, I don't have a strong opinion on that. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:01

There is there are two players in my market that just. There's not even a point in me getting involved in lsas, because they, no matter where you are on long island or in the city you type in divorce attorney, it's always boom, boom, one, two, these two people, same thing. Yeah, not even, not even worth a shot. They don't seem to be doing pay-per-click ads. So that's where I am. Yeah, I don't. I don't know they must. I don't know to be doing pay-per-click ads, so that's where I am, but yeah, I don't know they must. I don't know where they get their advertising budgets from, but I'm guessing they're spending like $100,000 a month, which I mean I don't know if they're covering New York City also. I mean, those ads are expensive.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Yeah, oh gosh so yeah, I don't know there's that's like I'm not trying to compete with them.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:42

And I've heard heard some bad things about those firms too, but I don't know. I guess when you have a advertising budget like that, it doesn't matter so much.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Yeah, phone's always ringing, so how do you feel like you're doing on the answer on the phone? Are you getting all the calls you?

Speaker 2: 19:54

think, yeah, I'm very good about answering the phone. Even like last night I got a form submission like 9 15. I was like I probably shouldn't call it's probably. I was like, nope, you know what they're up. They just submitted the form submission, called them um, and so I she'll. She'll be a consult next week oh wow, okay, oh, you're hustling.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Oh my goodness, yeah yeah, it's good, I don't. I don't mind answering the phone at all and again, it's not like when it gets so busy that it's interfering with my job. You know, maybe intake is one of my first hires, but it's not not that bad yet If it's. You know, like we said, the leads have not been flowing in like crazy, so I definitely don't mind.

Speaker 1: 20:27

Well, what can I do for you? How can I help you going into the new?

Speaker 2: 20:31

year, I don't know. I just you know November was a bad month, december, you know, looking at both ends it's so on the what do you call it the income front is is going to be a good month. It's going to be a very good month, just because I'm being more proactive, like we talked about before, and not being like I'll have this uncontested divorce case. They're not in a rush, I'll get to it when I can, or we filed our answer. Let's kind of wait around and see what happens. Like no, even if I am doing hourly, whether it's hourly or fixed fee, I'm going to be optimistic and just chalk that up to the holidays and, you know, hopefully, when January hits, you know, just combined with the fact that it's January and I'll have a little bit more money to throw towards my advertising budget, just pick up. And if they don't buy, I don't know, march, maybe I, maybe I need to recalibrate or something yeah, so how is your billing consistency for your hourly cases?

Speaker 1: 21:32

are you getting your bills out consistently?

Speaker 2: 21:34

yes, yeah, I'm yeah, I'm good about billing. I'm I mean my, my collection rates probably 100 or if not that you know, 98. I have not had anyone not pay a bill yet or dispute about. Okay, all you know. 98%. I have not had anyone not pay a bill yet or dispute about.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Okay, all right. Well, you're doing all the right stuff. You're executing the right stuff, tom, so it's a matter of time.

Speaker 2: 21:52

I hope so.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Yeah, I totally believe that.

Speaker 2: 21:55

Yeah, you know two things you know, I hope you know. On the negative side, I know like we've talked about this before. When we first started and I heard from you and a couple other family lawyers and I'll be honest, that had an impact on why I got into family law. When I first started, my first thought of getting out of corporate work was personal injury. I was like man, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 22:16

I liked it, I thought it was really interesting, but I liked family law also and the thing that helped me decide between the two was everyone kept saying it's easy to get clients in family law, but I have not found that to be the case yet. I'm sure I wouldn't have as many PI clients as I do family law clients now, but it's yeah, it's definitely not as easy as I was expecting. You know, I guess when I got to the first place on the maps and started doing some ads, I was like all right, right, my phone's gonna be ringing off the hook and that's just. That just hasn't hasn't been the case. So that was a little sobering, yeah, but yeah, I don't know, like I said, being optimistic and hoping it's just a holiday slump and things will pick up early next year yeah, well, we only had 18 working days that's how we count in the month of november.

Speaker 1: 23:01

So you're losing three, right? 21 is usually the number. So, and then December is more of the same. You're going to have about the same number when you add it all together, maybe even 17,. Because Christmas is on a Wednesday this year. So that whole week is basically shot and part of the next week. So it's a hard. You're starting the practice at the most difficult time to do that, so going into the holiday season is hard. Yeah, so I can tell you, having seen this in our firm and watching other firms, you're doing the right stuff and you're staying focused on what you can control and not worry about stuff you can't control. So that's, you're doing all the right stuff.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Right, yeah, and I feel like I say this every episode, but just worth repeating. You know I'm fortunate both fortunate and unfortunate to have the fallback income from my patent firm right, it's, I'm extremely fortunate because it feeds my family, pays my mortgage, gives me health benefits, um. But you know, it also prevents me, right? If? If this was, if my, if this family law firm was my only source of income and I made $125 in November, I would be out there, you know getting, I would get off this call and I would be knocking on every law firm around here Financial services firms, whatever.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Give me your work, but you know, I guess I just don't do that because I'm relying on digital. I do have the fallback income and I don't I don't love cold calling and knocking on doors and I don't know stuff which I don't know. I still, I want to do some of it because I feel like that's something I should do, but I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that. As you know, as as many other, many other people would, I think someone else that didn't have a fallback job, if they made $125 in November, I think they would consider, strongly, consider closing their firm, whereas I can be like you know what's whatever, my, you know, my family's okay, this is, you know, it'll pick up.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Yeah, I agree with you. Stay the course. Yeah, you've got a strategy. You're not in a position where you have to make you're desperate right to make any unwise long-term move, so just keep executing yep, I think for the first quarter.

Speaker 2: 25:05

yeah, exactly Like you said, stay the course. I think, if I'm still in the same position in, you know, April, which is supposed to be the busy season, I don't know, maybe I'll have a different, different conversation with myself.

Speaker 1: 25:15

but yeah, well, let's look at making some just some tweaks in January to your marketing and see what kind of return you get from that. You only spend $1,500 a month, right? So I mean really in paid search. So out of that you're getting. You had three last month, three clients last month, so you're spending about 500 bucks a client If you look at it just on your spend. Yeah, which is I mean still good you know, I mean you add it all together, it's 800 bucks a month when you add in your service fees.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Yeah, but still, I mean, out of you know those two clients, you know those might be five to $8,000 each at least, Right, so I'm getting a 10 times return on.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Yeah, so yeah, I don't know if you had more. You need more volume.

Speaker 2: 25:55

Yeah. So I mean, if, if I, I don't know if there was a guarantee like double your pay-per-click and you'll, you'll double your leads, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I just, I don't know, I don't have the confidence to set the case. I still think the majority of my leads are coming from that map. I agree with that.

Speaker 1: 26:09

I totally agree with that.

Speaker 2: 26:11

So, yeah, all right.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Bye, tom, good, good talking. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Speaker 2: 26:17

And yeah, hopefully our next call will be a little bit more upbeat Good numbers. Yeah, okay, all right, thanks, jeff, see ya. Bit more upbeat good numbers forward to it. Yeah, okay, all right, thanks, jeff, see ya bye.