101 - EAY - David Martay
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mps: [00:00:00] Hey, law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast we're your hosts. I'm MPS
Richard James: And I'm
Richard James: Richard James, MPS.
Richard James: I know we've talked about this in the episode before about this entrepreneurial attorney of the year contest that we've got going on.
Richard James: Super excited about that Today we get to talk to yet another finalist.
Richard James: David. Martay what an interesting story. He literally has gone from not having a clue who we were or what we did in a period of nine months, shortest time ever to be EAY finalist, has taken massive action, and has really changed the trajectory of his firm for
Richard James: For everybody who wonders. What do I need to do first? Should I do anything? ~Why ~why does any of this matter to me? I never had to do this before when a law firm.
Richard James: So David, anyway, congratulations to being the fastest, to EAY finalist in history as well as that you've had and welcome to the show today.
Attorney David Martay: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Richard James: Absolutely.
Richard James: You obviously joined Partners Club.
Richard James: You weren't a hundred percent sure [00:01:00] exactly what you were joining or getting into, but what was that first strategy or lesson you took from Partners Club that changed how you ran your firm?
Attorney David Martay: I was working a lot and I was the absolute quintessential do it all keep it all guy.
Attorney David Martay: I did everything from, wrote every check. I literally filled every envelope. I signed up, every client I followed up in every lead I did. Pretty much everything. I have an works for me who does I still dictate letters constantly. So she was the for They to clients. I was doing everything. Soup to nuts you
Attorney David Martay: kind
Attorney David Martay: hit a point where you're like, I can't keep doing this. I just can't keep And I think I mentioned you guys before, so I'm a golfer. I know Richard's a golfer.
Attorney David Martay: I actually went back and looked at my golf rounds one year when I was playing during the week I averaged 86.1. I or averaged 81.4, and I swear the only reason was on the weekends my phone was in my locker.
Attorney David Martay: [00:02:00] On the weekdays, my phone was in, my back pocket because any lead that came in, if I wasn't looking at it and following up almost right away, it might be gone.
Attorney David Martay: ~It might,~ I was just. A man of two minds. I'm on the golf course trying to play golf, but also worrying about the office. so I was like, all right what am I gonna do fix this?
Richard James: ~You are, ~you were in a classic position right? Where you learned to be great at your craft, your particular chosen practice area, which is a contingency firm? with a focus on workers' comp. Up with some PI in social security work. ~That's~
Richard James: That's
Richard James: Yeah,
Richard James: of your firm?
Attorney David Martay: ~I mean we, in-house ~I mean we in-house I handle 98% workers' comp,
Attorney David Martay: case med, mal case, nursing home case, whatever it's attached
So we really just focus on just workers' compensation here. We used to be just in Chicago, pandemic hits, things go remote. We're now over the whole state.
Attorney David Martay: So that's really changed for us. And actually in a good way.
Richard James: And if you're speaking to that other attorney who's listening to this, who's doing the same thing you are doing what's your advice to them now?
Attorney David Martay: I office with my father, who is now 80 years old.
Attorney David Martay: He does workers' comp ~I office ~with my [00:03:00] brother, who's 13 years younger than me who does workers' comp.
Attorney David Martay: We don't pool our money. We each have our own practices, we share expenses.
Attorney David Martay: But my dad's done it one way now for 55 years, and by the way, he got four boys through college, two boys through law school, and he did well and he was a. Just do it all, keep it all guy, And
Attorney David Martay: that's just how it was done. And I was like, all right, it worked for him. It's gonna work for me. I'm just gonna do it this way. And it did, it does work.
Attorney David Martay: It was just like, I don't to keep doing it that way at a certain point.
Attorney David Martay: I'm 53 and I don't want to keep up anymore. I don't wanna lose money. don't wanna make less money, but I can't keep up this pace anymore. What am I gonna do?
mps: So what did you do? What was the first thing you decided to do?
Attorney David Martay: Up until four years ago, my marketing budget was zero.
Attorney David Martay: ~I mean~ I didn't spend money on marketing period. ~All my refer, ~I had great referring attorneys. ~Lemme say this again. ~I love my referring attorneys. I never wanna lose a referring attorney.
Attorney David Martay: I think they like me 'cause we're so responsive and we keep them in the loop and their clients are not calling them complaining that, Hey, I can't get of Mr.
Attorney David Martay: Martay Once to me, [00:04:00] it's generally hands off. They don't hear from 'em again.
But I'd gotten to a point where I was like, why am I only taking cases from referring attorneys?
Attorney David Martay: It was probably 85, 90% were referring attorney cases, and the other 10% were probably, clients or friends or whatever referring US cases.
Attorney David Martay: Why am I not spending anything on marketing? That doesn't make a lot of sense. I found a marketing agency in Chicago, and by the way, I won't tell you his name.
Attorney David Martay: He's a great guy, and he probably is really good at what it does. With certain clients, it just didn't work for me.
Attorney David Martay: We were doing pay-per-click and SEO and I was meeting with him quarterly and I'd be like, he'd sit me down and be like, look, you ranked number one, two, and three. Look, the words are catching, people are going to your site.
Attorney David Martay: And I was going, this is not his name. I was going, Tim, that's great. not getting cases. He's no This is gonna work. Just gotta give it time. We gotta put in the back links.
Attorney David Martay: And I'm like, three months later, Tim, I just, spent another $30,000. What's going on? He goes no you're, we're now number one and number two, it's gonna start happening.
Attorney David Martay: And that kept going and going, the same page. Nothing was really changing.
Attorney David Martay: I wasn't a marketing [00:05:00] guy. I was a lawyer who was doing some marketing.
Attorney David Martay: What he was doing might have worked for some guys. That just didn't work for me. And I was not tracking anything. I wasn't. at my ROI, I wasn't looking at, KPIs. I didn't even know what that stuff was.
Attorney David Martay: When you guys first said KPI, I was like, I have no idea what they're talking about.
Attorney David Martay: So it was time to make a change.
Attorney David Martay: My impetus contact you guys was to get some help figuring out marketing
Attorney David Martay: I didn't even fire the guy right away. Until I was in a pit meeting and I kept talking about it, and I think LD Holt was like, you need to fire him. I'm like how do you do that? And he literally almost dictated a letter for me.
Attorney David Martay: This is how you do it. I literally wrote down what LD said, put in a letter and sent it to my guy who immediately called me. I'm like, Hey, man, ~I, this is three years, ~This is three years, almost four years. I'm getting like one case a month, two cases a month.
Attorney David Martay: This is not working. And, that was it.
Attorney David Martay: Talked to the people in my PIP group, met some of your vendors. And I went from getting 10 or 15 leads a month. I say leads, organic leads, stuff that wasn't coming from referring attorneys,
Attorney David Martay: now probably getting 15 to 20 a week. We went from signing one or two organic leads a month to ~now I'm doing. And I've only been with ~probably doing about eight to 10 a month. At [00:06:00] $6,000 a case, that's a pretty significant increase. ~So
~
Richard James: You bring up an interest. So to be clear, like Partners Club is not a lead generation company. We don't generate leads for
Richard James: for you. Correct. We do help
Richard James: with the mindset, right? You're starting to understand what to look for, what questions to ask, and how to identify what results really mean.
Richard James: ~Is that accurate?~
Attorney David Martay: A hundred percent. I was just like, cases were coming in, cases were going out. I wasn't looking at what was generating those cases. How do I make. referring attorneys happier.
Attorney David Martay: How do I make my clients happier?
Attorney David Martay: In 10 months, implemented a lot of new stuff that I never would've thought about doing before.
I just didn't think about it. It just wasn't part of. My DNA to think about it that way, just 'cause I was just handling cases and things were going good.
Attorney David Martay: Richard, as I told you this before, I must have sent you four emails. There's no way a non-attorney sales person is gonna work in a contingency fee practice. It can't work.
Attorney David Martay: They gotta talk to me. So I wanna hire somebody to help me, but that's not gonna work, David. It's gonna work. There's no way it's gonna work. I think it's gonna work. I'm telling you, I'm a contingency guys. That might work for the criminal [00:07:00] guy, the divorce guy, the estate planning guy, where there's a barrier to entry, and that might work for the, it's not gonna work for me.
Attorney David Martay: I It's been awesome. I'm like so glad I finally decided to do it, to take that 10, to 15 hours a week off my plate and have somebody else do it. It's been great.
Richard James: We see this so often
Richard James: this mental willingness to get outside the box he was in.
Richard James: Could we give that gift to, so many other attorneys? How much better would their life be? MPS? Yes.
mps: And ~it's, ~it's amazing David to see you take it and run with it so quickly. ~And that's the thing ~that's usually one of the biggest bottlenecks for so many firms. It's also one of the things that they're least likely. Let go of quickly
mps: so the fact that you took that, ran with it and as a result, it's put you in a great position now to free up some of your time.
Attorney David Martay: It's been super fun to watch. I'm curious, was the non-attorney salesperson last year, was that quote unquote, the scariest decision you had to make [00:08:00] to grow your firm? ~Was, ~or was there something else last year and what pushed you it?
That was Letting go of that because you guys know if cases aren't coming in, you're not making money. the guy I way, I've known him for 10 years
Attorney David Martay: he actually owns the CrossFit gym that I belong to. And he doesn't have an MBA or anything like that. He runs his gym the way I wish I could run my law firm. He's got six coaches that work for him. He goes to the gym, he checks on people, but he's not coaching classes anymore.
Attorney David Martay: He actually removed himself from the business and focused on other stuff, I've been there for 10 and a half years with him. so I was like that makes a lot of sense. Why can't I do I I'm as smart as him. This has gotta work. So it's a little harder with the law practice, I can't just step away I'm trying to, my big like delegating of cases. I'm not there yet. I'm getting close.
Attorney David Martay: I hired a personal assistant as well to start, I think it was some, one of you guys said, handing away the. $30 an I can focus on the 3000 hour tasks or whatever. Something like that.
Attorney David Martay: What can I unload? I just started picking tasks ~like almost ~like once a month that I was doing forever that I don't do anymore.
Attorney David Martay: I don't file [00:09:00] cases at the commission anymore. I don't prepare settlement contracts anymore. I don't stuff envelopes anymore. I just was like, all right, like finding things, quickly that I could unload to give myself more time to do some other stuff.
Richard James: ~So~ So
Richard James: be the
Richard James: the question,
Richard James: the other attorneys are gonna ask. ~ can already hear it, but David. ~can you trust that they're gonna do the job right?
Attorney David Martay: I love the avatar thing that Michael sent out about finding a sales guy, and ~I, ~I found a guy who ~A, ~wanted ~to do it, b. you ~to sign up people to sign up for his gym. He is in sales. I don't think he knew it, but he is in sales. A, different kind of sales job. So I've been at CrossFit for 10 and a half years. you have to be so sympathetic and empathetic. 'cause it's ~a ~really hard, you're going there every day. It's hard.
Attorney David Martay: I tell him this all the time I could never do your job. So he was like a great fit. He will sit there and talk to the clients for 28 minutes on a signup and I'm like, I couldn't do eight minutes. And so he's been great.
Richard James: And how about the other roles that you're giving out? Not sales roles, but the other work, even though it's administrative work, you used to do it made sure are you trusting that somebody else. doing, it, is [00:10:00] because you added in this flow mechanism where you're meeting and you're it or what is it that's allowed you to have the confidence that somebody else is gonna do the job?
Richard James: Because I think that's a big concern for other law firm owners as well, when they used to do the job, giving it to they're gonna do it as well as they are. In part because attorneys see themselves as perfectionists, highly proficient, highly intelligent, hardworking, and they don't necessarily trust that everybody else is gonna do that.
Attorney David Martay: You definitely have to be a little patient, and showing them how to do stuff and saying, Hey look, it's gotta be right and this is why. It's gotta be right in explaining to them. And look, Richard, I told you this about, until I joined your group, I had been with my father for 21 years.
Attorney David Martay: We had never had an office meeting in 21 years. We just didn't, never met with my staff. It was just if I needed something, I'd go out there and say, all, let's just get this done. And that was, it. And there was, so now we, every, especially with my non-attorney sales guy, he's all remote.
Attorney David Martay: He's up at his gym typically. And that's where he does all his calls from. if you go into, it is literally
Attorney David Martay: great.
Attorney David Martay: dumbbells and the kettlebells are and he's calling clients. That's what [00:11:00]
Attorney David Martay: I,
Attorney David Martay: to like,
Attorney David Martay: on the phone. I'm like, I hope that for me. Is. Don't worry.
mps: Yeah.
mps: got another
mps: deal.
mps: ~Got another, yeah, ~got another deal close and then that motivation during the workout just kicks in. You go a little harder.
mps: You alluded to a few things within Partners Club and I appreciate the kudos for that and taking everything ~and ~seriously, the massive action you've taken. In this last year is fantastic. It's super fun to watch. But Partners Club at its core, it's a community of entrepreneurial attorneys.
mps: So I'm curious for you, David, what's been the biggest benefit of having the support system of the community? ~I.
~
Attorney David Martay: Certainly it forces me every morning I'm in on Thursdays. I pretty much am always here on? Thursdays. Certainly the check-in where it's like, all right, I'm gonna sit down this morning and go through the numbers. What's going on? Are we still on track? Are we having a better month this month and year? over year? I looked at, January for instance. I looked at the numbers, in of. 22, I think we filed, like my numbers are a little off here, like 19 ~cases in filed 23 ~cases. January of 24, we filed ~like ~21 cases, and then January of 25 we filed 34 cases.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: [00:12:00] Wow,
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: that's nice.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: So ~10, ~10 more cases is, ~on average ~for our case, I think it's
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: it's.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: 6,000. ~So it's a nice little.
~
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: a year.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: Now, unfortunately, unlike the divorce guys and the criminal guys and the estate plan, money's not in my pocket today.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: ~It's~
mps: Yep.
Attorney David Martay: months to two years out, but it's that's been great. And then PIP thing for have somebody to, hold you accountable and be like, Hey, what do you guys think about this? I'm just, think about doing this and having you say, yeah, it's a great idea, or, yeah, I wouldn't is why.
Richard James: Yeah, the power of the peer group, David, to be able to either just get an idea or bounce something off people or watch how somebody took something that we taught and then made it better is for me, the real power of this. I think, tell me if I'm wrong, but being able to see how somebody takes the idea, makes it their Gives you additional, motivation to be make it Is that correct?
Attorney David Martay: Absolutely. And it's also just seeing how other models of how people do it. Like, I'm in Joel Silverman's group. I think I'd ever heard of a CFO or a COO, whatever you wanna call him,
Obviously [00:13:00] the firms have that right where they have a thousand lawyers. All right, that's a I'm talking about firms with maybe 10 or 12 where you have A CFO. I'm like, I had never heard of that, but I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Of course there's somebody that should be doing that, Just seeing that model set up and how they do it, I was like, all I'm definitely not there yet, but years maybe I will be, and I could be like, all right, I ~I want to hand some of this stuff off. This is how you do it. ~Just seeing what the model is and how you get there is interesting to me.
mps: That's the beauty. You could build it however you want it, and then you've always got someone at a different level to be able to look at and say, oh, that's what I wanna do. And the beautiful thing about Partners Club is you can go ask them how they did it and what they would recommend to help get there.
mps: And so david, I'm curious, you're an EAY finalist. I know at the start of this pre-show, you said, ~I, I, ~quite frankly, I was surprised. ~But how does it feel, ~how does it feel to be in the a y finalist.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: Honestly, I'm really nervous about it. I never get just don't, I don't know. I court I can go tee off on the first, first box with a hundred people don't get nervous. This actually scares me. I just don't typically [00:14:00] talk about my business that much. And, so putting this and out how I'm gonna put this together and try and get, mostly the non-con contingency firms to actually listen to me and see if I can offer them anything ~actually me.
~
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: The non-con contingency and contingency firms will listen to you because I promise you that your business isn't different from theirs.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: You did make a statement to me earlier, like you said, I know I was getting myself into when I joined this world.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: What did that mean?
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: April of last year I knew, I was like, I've gotta make a marketing change, and I saw your guys' thing and I signed up and I met with Michael, I think second week of April, and I met with you, Richard, maybe a week later, and you're like, don't you come down to Charlotte? For whatever reason, I was really busy at work and I was like, I don't travel for work. I just don't get on planes. I told my wife, Hey, I'm gonna Charlotte for this work thing.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: She's you're going. So I went there and I'm sitting the back row and I'm looking at Richard who's got the vest in the jacket on. And the first time he went, yes. And yes.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: I was like, what is going on? Everybody clapped. I'm [00:15:00] like, have, had no idea what I was getting into. And then you guys started ~talking~ about business And, then Michael did his pitch on Facebook. I went home. I listened to probably 10 of Richard's podcasts, ~and then the at for about get I am listening to. A podcast. ~I think I've every one of your guys podcasts at this point, Richard.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: our
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: Condolences on that.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: some of 'em are some
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: of em are great.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: The other, folks that are on the calls
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: like yourself.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: make them great.
mps: We sure do. ~And ~if the law firm owners weren't listening before that are listening to this podcast, they will be now. Attorney David Marta left his comfort zone, took massive action and realized a massive total owner's benefit of 62. Percent.
Richard James: Yeah, so David, the whole, owner's benefit is in and of itself, a testament to you, keeping it small, keeping it all right, or as you said, doing it all, keeping it all. ~And so ~that was in. ~A ~large part why you're able to accomplish that goal, despite the fact that you're starting to reach into the world of systematizing and delegating ~your ~ we just identified that your new case [00:16:00] flow for January was up 70%. Over the previous January, which means,
Richard James: if we continue on that path and all ~to ~be, pointing towards green, ~that we are going to be, that ~there's an additional, $700,000 in top side revenue that's gonna come into a whole bunch of that's gonna boil down to the bottom line.
Richard James: So it doesn't sound to me like ~you, ~you're gonna have to sacrifice owner's benefit as you've been able to build out these systems and start to delegate that. Is that a fair assessment?
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: Yeah. ~And then yes, it's a fair assessment. ~It's just, with the new assistant, new non-attorney salesperson, at some point here I'm gonna start hiring at least two associates and just go down so I can start rid of files off my desk and focus more on the business stuff. Thing. It's leads up now. So I've got a nice cushion when I can start hiring somebody down the road to start out on the golf course more often. Hopefully.
Richard James: Yeah. And your practice isn't different, but the way that it works is a little different, as you said, from a cash based business, like a family law firm, right? Where they recoup their cash ~and, ~within a, 30 to 60 to six months, whatever it is, for you. You're not gonna see money [00:17:00] for, roughly 18 months, which means, as you grow this, amount of cases, you are gonna have to likely dip into some of your owner's benefit ~to be able ~to support, some of the folks that are coming in to help you manage these cases.
Richard James: ~But ~that'll be short-lived. We're looking at about an 18 month window that you'll have to bite the bullet a little bit and
Richard James: right.
Richard James: investment, but I suspect it's an investment. You can see the fact that there's a strong ROI to right.
Attorney David Martay: A hundred percent. ~I, ~it's out there. I just gotta get to that point, through the waters here for the next year, and then it'd be like, all right, here we go.
Attorney David Martay: And then. ~out what's next, which is hopefully ~hire ~some people, ~more people and ~then just ~keep going out that way and then slowly remove myself from handling files and cases ~and whatnot.~
Attorney David Martay: ~Slowly. ~I still wanna do it. I actually like it, but I just don't want to handle as many as I'm handling now.
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: Yeah. You want to be
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: Yeah,
riverside_audio_input_raw-audio_your_practice maste_0434: do it in between golf.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: nice.
mps: David, congratulations on a well-deserved spot for EAY finalists. I'm excited to see you in Charlotte again this year. So looking forward to that. And, once again, like I said, congratulations.
riverside_david_w. martay_raw-synced-video-cfr_your_practice maste_0436: Thanks guys. I appreciate it, forward to Charlotte.[00:18:00]