Ben Glass: [00:00:00] So we do EOS, Ontario Operating System, and we've got great coaches, right?

So you have to have a good leader, I believe, a good leader from outside the firm to come in to facilitate these discussions. And what does it mean? Like, sometimes you have change, right? You do. Like, Brian and I were doing a thing earlier today, and we were recording something for our members, like, you know, turnover is not bad.

Like turnover is life. Like it is just life. So look, nobody said that running a law firm was easy. We know it's not easy. What we try to do is take it to a level that goes a little bit beyond just office procedure manuals and stuff. I mean, literally we have this chance to build a community, a tribe in the firm, right?

Who just likes each other, likes working. A players want to work with A players. They do not want to work with C plus players. They don't. So you as owner, keeping people around who aren't a culture fit, who aren't A players, like you're just, you're [00:01:00] actually saying to your other A players, I don't really care about you that much. It's weird. a You can do this in a day. Like it takes a lifetime of being in groups and reading books and having mentors.

Richard James: Yeah. Yeah. Like you told, Like you told those young soccer referees, it's going to take years, right? It's not going to happen. You're not going to learn this in three Law firm owner is not going to learn all this in three months

MPS: 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 and today I've got the real pleasure of talking with a good friend and somebody that I met, oh my gosh, in my, our own mastermind. long time ago, like 2011, 12 ish, something like that. And he gave me my first break when I was launching your practice masters. He let me come to his very first, well, my very first event for him now, 20 years deep at great legal marketing, where I, where I debuted your practice mastered back [00:02:00] 2011, 2012 ish, and, and we were just, I was so honored.

He gave me that chance. As a matter of fact, I got my first ever client. From your event. So Ben, welcome today. And of course, thanks for giving me my leverage in my start all those years ago.

Ben Glass: Or our common mentor, Dan Kennedy, just wrote in his most recent newsletter that he was shocked, shocked at how old his lifers looked when he saw us in the summer. And he's talking about you and me and, and others of our who were, who were hanging out over a decade ago. At high end masterminds we were the only lawyers or selling to lawyers, any of that stuff.

Learning from people in all walks of life. Most of them doing things bigger, better, and faster than I was doing for sure. And probably you would say the same. So the

Richard James: I was, I was the smallest fish in the pond. No question

Ben Glass: Our bee in the room.

Richard James: Yeah.

Ben Glass: yeah, Dan's talking about us. Everybody's looking older.

Richard James: Yeah. But, but I'm, I'm excited about today's conversation, Michael.

MPS: I, I am too. I am too. And Ben, to kick things off, I, [00:03:00] I know plenty of attorneys in the legal world know who, who you are or of you, but why don't you get us started with a little bit of an icebreaker? What's something that maybe not everybody knows about

you

Ben Glass: Well you

know this is the second time I've been on your

program and the first time I said Yeah Well you know I was the shyest guy in high school and college and in law school says, well, I can't say that again, but here's something I say I've shared from stage that. That most people don't know is that, you know, three times in my career, 40 years now I've been named as a defendant in the legal malpractice claims.

And there's learning in all of that. Two of them were legitimate claims process errors in the firm I worked with. My name was on the file. One was a BS claim. But here's, here's the learning. It was fascinating for those of us who do litigation is in the first case, I was very young. And I just did whatever the insurance company said.

And, and they're like, Oh, we're going to defend this case. And it was a disaster because it was on, it was not TV trial, but it got publicity in the area. And our insurance company took an untenable, stupid position. The second [00:04:00] time it was my firm, again, we owned it process error, whatever. And I told my defense lawyer, I said, you cannot say that we were not negligent because we, we were at fault.

It was clearly ours. And, and I, what I learned in that, and for anyone who ever like it,

says

You can actually. Direct your insurance company. Like you do not have to do what they say. And that case turned out a lot better because the client, even though we had made an error, she appreciated the fact that we owned it.

And we weren't going to BS her. Like the first case. We BS them and, and we, and Ben paid for it. Right. Ben, like a lot of bad publicity, mostly with pre internet. And then the third case was just a knucklehead. And the lesson of the third case was taking a case to try to help somebody who didn't really have a good case.

And then like, I swear to God, like seven years later, you think there's a statute of limitations, but. In lawyer world, it can be weird. Seven years later, he's coming back out of the pipe with a knucklehead lawyer. All three were really stressful. So you can say, here's a lesson is you two, Richard and Michael, you teach processes, procedures, great [00:05:00] people in firms I worked at.

And in my early years, we, we were not, you know, often sometimes perfect on that and it costs, but there's lessons there's learning in all of that. And especially, you know, if you're litigating, you're taking depositions and suing people like. Sitting in that other seat. I don't wish that on anybody.

It's a horrible, it's a horrible life experience. But here, here we are still, still rocking.

Richard James: You know, it's interesting, Ben. It, it, this bridges into interesting conversation that we were, now we're having off camera which is this idea of professional service provider, right? And what you recognized when you were in control of the direction of that litigation or defense of that litigation was that you weren't going to BS your, your client.

You were going to stand up. Nobody doesn't Make mistakes. It's impossible to not make a mistake when you're in business. You're gonna screw up somewhere along the line It's likely gonna happen. We all try to avoid it But one of these key things is when you [00:06:00] make a mistake you you admitted it you fixed it and you moved on right?

And if that moved on meant you had to write a check There were the insurance company had to write a check then so be it But you know, I don't know about you, but I am, I'm getting kind of sick and tired of the level of quality of service and the BS people try to hide behind anymore, instead of just owning their issues and dealing with, and quite frankly, providing good quality level of service As they said they were going to do in their contract or just in a handshake deal and it, it, it now unfortunately doesn't surprise me how often I'm let down.

Right?

Ben Glass: Here's, here's the philosophical thing. Here's the thing I tell a vendor. So, Hey, you're going to work with me. I want to make you famous. I want to make you your next million dollars. Okay. So let's work together. Sure. I'm paying you. I want you to be great, but if you're really good, I will tell the world about you because I'm relatively famous as you are in this lawyer niche, right?

People want to know like, what does Ben use? What does Richard use? What does Michael use? However,[00:07:00] the contra is true too. Like if you screw me up, we're going to tell people about it. And there, there, there have been, there are vendors out there who have lost lots and lots of business. And it's not, it's not, if you screw up like one time, Richard, it's like, here, you did this.

Here's the process. Let's fix it. Let's Oh, screw up again. Oh, screw up again. We fired. We had a virtual telephone answering service for a while that we fired. They screw up two times, big time in like six days and we fired him and then they wouldn't give us our money back. Like, Oh, well, you're signed a three month contract.

Great. I'm going to keep playing the tape. Keep playing the tape. Keep playing the tape. Sorry. So, so yes. We, you and I are both sort of disappointed because we tried to deliver a great service to teach law firms, how to deliver great service. But I, but I think if we can have these discussions with, you know, whether it's a print vendor for lawyers, print web, pay per click vendor, someone who's helping you recruit and hire, like have this discussion, I will make you famous [00:08:00] if you do just what you said you would do.

Richard James: Yeah. And, and if, and by the way, if you're not capable of doing what you said you were going to do, don't sign up with me. Cause with the other side of this coin is true.

Ben Glass: just don't over promise either. Like we had one, like there was a huge over promise and I don't think that, I think when he went back and told the team what he just sold, they're like, I'm not sure we can do that. And then every step of the way it was a disaster. Yeah, and I'm told that story too.

Richard James: you know, we talk, I talk about to bridge this gap for the law firm or the owners that are listening, like this is you're in the, they're in the service business, right? And so, so really make sure that you can execute on the promises that you deliver and, and, and you shouldn't be making promises in the legal realm on outcomes, obviously but you can make promises on how you communicate and how well you'll, how well you'll hold their hand and you'll be there for them and you'll handle situations when they come up.

But you know, I, it's funny, I had a vendor in our world similar and they were they were bad, they were really bad at what they did. And in our world [00:09:00] is in your world, the members talk to one another, right?

Ben Glass: yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

Richard James: and we had, I had a visual recognition of this cause we, they have a dashboard in the background that they could literally talk to one another.

Right. So on the. Chat, they were saying bad mouthing this particular vendor. And so I went to the vendor and I said, Hey, here's, you just gotta know, this is what's being said. Could you please fix it? And all they cared about was it's so unfair of you to not let me be in your chat so that I could address these things.

These are false accusations. I go, dude, stop.

Ben Glass: Yeah.

Richard James: 12 firms saying the same crap. Like one guy might be false, but there's some, there's some truth here somewhere. Stop worrying about you defending your good name and just go fix the problem. Well, they left, right? They left because everybody quit. And then I brought the next guy into your point.

And I said, listen, you're going to come in. If you're good at this at all, you're going to [00:10:00] get a lot of business. I need you to make me a promise. I need you to throttle how much business you accept so that you put a cap on it in the beginning to make sure that you don't over promise and deliver. Cause what, what I think happens, and I think this happens with law firm owners too.

Is they, we teach them how to sell. We teach them how to market. We teach them how to generate clients. And sometimes they say yes to so many new clients and they don't have the capacity on the backend to service the client and they don't know how to figure that problem out and they speed up the pace at which everybody figures out they're not very good at what they do.

Right. And so my part of my advice is yes, I want you to grow. And I, and I, yes, I want to market first and I want to sell first for sure, but we got to figure out simultaneously how to fix our workflow pipeline so that we can manage the workflow that's coming through. I mean, do you guys experience that in your firm as well?

Or how do you guys manage that when you're growing?

Ben Glass: 100 percent so yeah, so that's getting out of your skis, right? And so the one of the things [00:11:00] we talked about a lot at Ben Glass law is examining the the experience for the Potential client all the way through the client from the eyes of the client everything from you know The web and how it reacts and how the phones are answered and every step of the way because the trap that lawyers fall into As you know is well, we've always done it this way.

Okay, but that way it kind of sucks you know, so so for example in the last couple years i've hired like tax consultants And estate planning consultants these kind of advisors and what do they do? They do the same thing that doctors do they send you 14,000 pages of forms to fill out and and then you get a recall them and you find out, well, really, they didn't need all of that.

Right? But, but that's the way we've always done it. And that's the form that everybody gets, even though my situation obviously is different from the next person's situation. And that's irritating. You know, I've got doctors and, and. You know, just because something can be [00:12:00] automated doesn't mean we have to.

So I have an appointment coming up. I must get 10 emails and 10 texts reminding me of the appointment. I will be there. I honor time. I will be there. But when I get there at two o'clock for my two o'clock appointment, why am I not being seen until

3:15

I fired Dennis for doing this BS. Oh my gosh.

Like you don't honor anything. You want me, you tell me, send me all these texts, be here on time, be here, be here earlier. So my point though, for lawyers is every so often you have to pause and ask yourself, how does this look like? And survey your clients, ask them, what did you like about working with us?

What did you find challenging people who hired you or who didn't hire you? I try to get as much information as you can. And try to fix it. And here's the cool thing. Owner doesn't need to know all the answers. Owner does not need to know all the answers. Owner's team goes first. How do we make this better?

Owner gets out of the way. That's really, I mean, our job is to hire great people and get the heck out of the [00:13:00] way. That's the secret. It's

MPS: Well put, very well put. Well, I, this was, I liked the little tangent there because I think this tangent was helpful and I think this idea of service and honoring what we say we're going to do is. Just important. And it's not very hard to do. You just gotta, you just gotta do

and

Ben Glass: threshold, no threshold lawyers.

MPS: Sure yes yes

But that being said, Ben, why don't you take us at least from the high points?

Cause I think you're celebrating 40 years in practice.

Ben Glass: just, yeah.

MPS: 40 years of practice. So why don't you take us through, through the high points of your entrepreneurial journey?

Ben Glass: so I worked, I got at a law school,

The other thing people don't know is that I really liked tax law in in law school, and I could have been a tax lawyer, just that, and I got a, a law clerk job with one of the top lawyers, litigators, trial lawyers in Northern Virginia, and so I worked for other people for 12 years [00:14:00] really there was a long, here's a, here's the deal, here's my entrepreneurial seizure.

So, It was a long commute. I was coaching three soccer teams. I was like, this kind of sucks. I need to be closer to my family. We were doing some work. I, I didn't, I didn't like, like the direction or the non direction of the firm. So let's just go start a law firm. How hard could this be? Next day, I'm at office depot, like buying, what am I doing here?

Good Lord. What did I just done? And so, and so that was hard. So I took cases with me and so I had money, right? But then the money ran out and I didn't really know anything. I didn't know anything about business. Of course, like most lawyers who come to your practice, mastered, come to GLM. Like we are good at lawyering and we're great at identifying issues and taking tests.

But the business stuff we lack and I lack every aspect of the business. And it got, you know, so fortunate. I was on a bunch of success literature mailing lists and I got Dan Kennedy's magnetic marketing letter and almost returned the product after I bought it. I'm like, Oh, this actually makes some sense.

Like. Uh, [00:15:00] like just look around what everyone else is doing and don't do that. Well, I could do that, right? And so that was the beginning of being able to lead gen better. And as we've talked, you know, before we went live, like this is yellow pages, right? This is yellow page directories. I, you know, started writing books, widgets lead generation information that was successful for us.

And so the practice started to grow. The next sort of growth thing that I didn't know anything about was hiring people and getting my ego out of the way and hiring the right people. And so that was a, just, you know, I have one just, my life is one disaster after another. As you move through these stages of growth, it's just always hard.

Like doing new stuff is always hard. And I want people to hear that and to know that a coach, young, teenage referees, like you, you can't be good in three years. It's just going to be hard. We got to get you through it. So not knowing how to hire, and then, you know, once we had more cases, they have more people like, all right, systems door, the light out, the door is getting like, oh my God, like, this is horrible.

And it's not that we have everything perfect now, but [00:16:00] my son, Brian joined me. I know it's also going to be a guest of the podcast. Five years ago or so now, and he brought a certain type of he's more like you, Richard, like he's a good numbers guy, good spreadsheet guy. He can do math in his head.

And, and he's a good systems guy. And so he fulfilled that. He brought over a little bit of a different type of practice. And I'm a visionary. I'm the guy that gets 4 million ideas by 10 o'clock in the morning, text everybody, drives them crazy. And now I have to get my ego out of the way. Cause they're telling me like, that's not a good idea.

That's not a good idea. We're not going to do that. But I'm good with it because we're, we're actually. We make more money. We have fun. We really like the people that we work with. And as a result of that, when your marketing works and your people work, your systems work, then you say no to all the bad clients. And that is because when you're young and the money is tight and the ego, Oh, somebody wants me to represent, Oh, Michael's called me. He wants me to represent him, but I get on the phone with Michael. I go, this guy's a jerk. Like, but, but, but I kind of need the money, right? That just makes life miserable.

And so there's different [00:17:00] stages of growth. I think what, what I'm really good at is helping lawyers see beyond that hard stage. And saying, yes, it is going to, it is going to be hard. Like, okay, going to, if you haven't been in the gym in five years, it's going to be harder, but there's something on the other side and that's what I'm going to helping them vision, giving them permission to eliminate people and things out of their lives and, and feeling secure about that.

And then, and also giving them permission to live their own lives for their own selves. Like I ran like this is a one way journey. The purpose of living is to be happy. That is the purpose of living on earth, to be happy. So let's do that. And that's really what I bring to the, to the world. I think a little bit, not just lawyers, but everybody I talk to.

That's a long answer to the question,

Richard James: no, no, no. It's great. That was great. So one thing I want to highlight is you've been a lawyer for 40 years, but GLM has been around 20 years. Is that right?

Ben Glass: Yeah. So Kennedy, you know, again, once this started to work. For, for [00:18:00] us there were very few people at that time. Teaching lawyers how to, how to build a better business. And so Dan and our friend Bill Glazer, you know, I said, is my stuff good enough? They go, yeah, it's good enough. And so we just started doing it, which is another life lesson.

We just started, I didn't, I didn't really have a plan or I didn't have. You know, I had some blueprints we started like, on the, every other month was a print newsletter. And then the next month it was a CD. I just record stuff. Now it's really robust. We write tons of articles and as you do, like you've got this whole, you have this library of accumulated material, which anybody who comes into your world.

And legitimately accesses and studies the IP that you have created. Like that is a MBA in running a law firm. The difficulty is that we were not, most of us are not born entrepreneurs and we don't get the entrepreneurial

[00:19:00] seizure.

Richard James: You said it like on your, and I wrote that down by the way. I'm like, that is genius. You need to trademark that. That's perfect.

Ben Glass: everything that's, that's straight out of Gerber's original work, the e myth. Yeah.

Richard James: The

E E-myth right? Yeah. I mean, at Gerber, you're right. Gerber did say that back in the E-Myth or the E myth revisited one or the other, but, but that, that entrepreneur, see, that is so common in the life of the law firm owner, because. And I think I've talked to you about this before. I, I've never, I never, I'm not a lawyer.

I didn't teach at a law school, but I was invited to be a guest lecturer at a law school at a particular, you know, class. And so I was virtual and I did it and it was great. And there was, I don't know, 18 ish young students in the room. and I asked all of them, you know, after I kind of, or to start off my presentation, like, tell me how many of you consider yourselves entrepreneurs and expect that you're going to specifically open up a law firm on your own.

And and like nobody's hand went up. I mean, [00:20:00] no, not a single hand. And I go, okay. I go, so how many of you plan on working for big laws? I mean, how many of you plan on working for family or small law firm? You know, some other lanes. I got, let me ask you a question. How many of you assume at some point in your career, you may have to hang your own shingle interesting.

Everybody's hand went up. So none of them saw themselves as entrepreneurs, like by definition, right? But they all somehow recognize that if they want to get to where they ultimately want to get to, they may have to hang their own shingle in their own language. It's like, they don't see it as being a business owner.

They see it as being a. Practitioner, but you had an entrepreneurial seizure where like, no, no, there's more to this. And so talk about that a little bit. Like, why do you think this is? Cause I, I, you know, I've been in this industry now for a number of years, as you well know, and, and I'm not a lawyer and I had to learn through this process of wait.

Oh, they, they do think a little different than everybody else. And they do act a little different than everybody else. [00:21:00] And why is that? And I think you could speak to that better than I could. I

Ben Glass: Well, I think, so first of all, like my, you know, I, I, I've had other ventures, right? And so in high school, I was dealing out of my locker and people go, Oh my God, dealing out of his locker. Well, I was selling soccer uniforms and shoes and shin guards because it was, this is again, pre internet, pre soccer stores.

So I get this stuff and just sell it to my friends. But the reason is, the reason is, I think is that the way the whole industry is set up is. Is you have to, it's set up to test well in certain subjects, in certain, very linear, logical thinking identifying issues and fixing issues. So there's very little in law school about creativity coming up with a new design.

So most of the law school is about what's the precedent say? What do the old cases say? Again, let's just do it the old way. Cause that's the way we've always done it. And there's, you know, when you're looking at how we live in a civil society, so there is. There's a good argument for, yeah, if we did it this way before, [00:22:00] this way we keep doing, but that's so that it tracks that kind of brain.

Then when you get in law school, so I am a hundred percent convinced that law schools exist to feed big law. They're very expensive. They in debt you, and then they feed you off to you know, in some cases, a 185, 000 a year job, but they don't tell you, Richard, it's really two 80 hour a week jobs because you don't get any time off.

You're expected to be there seven days a week. Holy crap. And then the shame is. Lawyers get five, six, seven years out and they quit the profession as a whole, even though they're really smart, good people, because they've never seen what you have, they've never seen what I have. They don't even know this world.

They're like, Oh, I could never like, how do you make 185, 000? Well. Actually, like you run a small shop. It's not that hard. It doesn't require that many hours. So I think that's why we get there. The profession is all screwed up. The elites in the profession, they, I look straight in the camera when I say this stuff, like the elites of the profession are screwed up because all they want to [00:23:00] do is.

Is a feed They also want to feed big law. They want to make sure that, that you don't do anything out of the ordinary. Right. They actually want to make sure that you're not successful. And they wonder why lawyers are so depressed. Right. So they've always advertising regulations. The only lawyers ever get in trouble with the ethics bar are the small firm lawyers.

They don't go after the big firm lawyers. And so I'm that little voice in the wilderness that says, No, actually, you're supposed to be happy and I can help you design. You have to decide what happiness is for you in life first life, then what business supports that happiness, what client supports that business.

Now, what's the marketing that brings that client into the business. And that's a, you know, that's a, that's thinking, but nobody else in the profession, in the elite, the pressure to you now, there's a lot of. Entrepreneurs, you and I have, there's a lot of rooms now of people, good people teaching lawyers how to be business people, but I still think that to you, me, Mike Mogul, Ken Hardison, all of our friends, like it's still [00:24:00] just a tiny bit of the lawyer market.

And so it's a, it's a big blue ocean, I think. And all, all I'm trying to do is get lawyers to, to, oh, oh, they're happy. In all different practice areas, because like I could never do family law, but there are lawyers who absolutely thrive in family law. Other lawyers could not do like every dollar I make is a contingent fee.

I only win. I only get paid if I win every dollar. And other lawyers could not stomach that, right? They want to have it in the trust account and draw from it. So there's a place for everybody. And the shame is that some lawyers just don't get to see the breadth of the opportunities that are out there for us.

Richard James: Yeah. By the way, you talked about this idea that you had this entrepreneurial spirit. Michael, if you remember our interview with Brian he said that there might be a disagreement, you remember what that conversation was?

MPS: do because we were [00:25:00] talking about, do you believe that entrepreneurial spirit and that entrepreneurial bug is nurture versus nature? And Ben, I'll, I'll get your take first. Okay, go ahead.

Ben Glass: Oh, I know. He says, he says, I say, look, we listen to Dan Kennedy. If you talk to us all the time, he goes, no, that's not true. Mom says it's true. So, so mom, so God bless Brian, right? He's got a great podcast, Time Freedom for Lawyers. Mom listens to that. You know what mom says? He's channeling you and I can't believe he got it from me or Richard James or Michael or whoever, right?

The point is that we, so the point for people to think about is Brian and I are aligned on what we're doing here. And he probably, if you ask them the question, what are we doing here? We were built a place where people will thrive. Bottom line. That's why we're here. Us, we thrive, owners thrive, the team thrives.

If you solve for one and two, then the client will thrive. Hey, that all works. Amazing. Right. And so every decision that we make here is really. Designed to say, is it going to [00:26:00] bring energy to us? Is it going to bring money to us? Of course. Yes. And for our team, like, like, you know, a law firm could be a boring, sucky place to go to work.

If you've got bad ownership and you're, and you're never, you don't see a way to advance. And so how can we make this place? A place that brings energy to people so they're not crying on Sunday night because they had to come into work on Monday. Right? And so we try. Are we perfect? No, we're not perfect, but we always ask ourselves and we ask the human question, Richard, if you work for me, how can I make this perfect for you?

Because if you don't know the answer to that question and you can't communicate to me, then what are we here for? Like, and so that's, and you have to be prepared for the answer too when you're bold enough to ask that question, ask of your spouse, like. Like, how can I be better? Like, how can I make this perfect for you?

And then you have to have be able to listen, not argue, listen, and then try to, try to figure out how to do it. So, I think, you know, the worst thing is we're having fun. Like, we tell people when they come to work here, like, the worst part is that this will be the best place you ever work. [00:27:00] Right? It just is.

And not because we have ping pong tables, it's because we don't. But we actually like each other. We do interesting work. We 100 percent defend our clients, defend our people against bad clients. It's rare, but it happens. I'm pointing to the phone. Like it's rare, but it happens. And we value our team very, very, very, very highly.

And we mean it when we say that

MPS: I love the, what would make this perfect for you question. I think that's, that's such a valuable question. And to your point, you got to be willing to accept whatever answer that is, depending on who you're delivering that message or that question to.

Ben Glass: it's a starting point for a conversation. Yeah, you too. Like you, you and your dad got to be asking that question of each other as you do your check ins. Like, is this Brian and I, is this still good for you? Are you happy, right? What would you like me to change? One of the exercises we do at our annual retreat is with our leadership team is, like if you're a leadership team, we go around the room and each of us tells you the one thing you can't see about [00:28:00] yourself that we would like to see you change or at least think about.

Now, think about that. You have to have a high trust in leadership to be able to have it. It's really easy to go, Michael, here's the five things I really like about you, okay? Michael, here's the thing that I want you and I wish that you knew about yourself and you could change. Those are interesting, deep leadership conversations that make our, our two day annual offsite retreats just really intense, fun.

But when we come out of those meetings, we are, we are aligned and we would, we would literally do anything for each other.

Richard James: I tell you what, that's I think about putting myself in that situation. And as much as I want to admit. Suggest or think that I would I would take it with a grain of salt. I'd let it roll off my back when somebody would tell me what they didn't love about me. I have to admit that I, as a human, I'm sure that would feel a little icky at first and I would ha

Ben Glass: That's

Richard James: I I'd have to have a whole [00:29:00] bunch of trust in the people that I allowed to answer that question.

Ben Glass: as the giver of the advice. That is a deep thing as the receiver of it, because again, what's typically, oh, we're going to go to him and tell her how much they appreciate it. That's easy. Right. And so you have to, here's what I think you have to have. So we do EOS, Ontario Operating System, and we've got great coaches, right?

Who just likes each other, likes working. A players want to work with A players. They do not want to work with C plus players. They don't. So you as owner, keeping people around who aren't a culture fit, who aren't A players, like you're just, you're actually saying to your other A players, I don't really care about you that much.

It's weird. goT a

You can do this in a day. Like it takes a lifetime of being in groups and reading books and having mentors.

Richard James: Yeah. Yeah. Like you told, like you told those young soccer referees, it's going to take years, right? It's not going to happen. You're not going to learn this in three months. You're a lawyer. Law firm owner is not going to learn all this in three months either. We just met with an attorney just before this, for another podcast recording, by the way, you'd be proud of him.

62 years old. He's, he's doing a hundred burpees a day, man. A hundred burpees a

Ben Glass: that's, I'm, I'm, I'm proud of amaze because well, I got the heart. I was telling my coach today, like, it's just hard. It's hard work just to keep even now.[00:31:00]

Richard James: right. Exactly. It's hard work just to keep you. And he did 100. He wants to do 119 minutes or something. I'm like, Oh, my goodness. Anyway, yeah, very aggressive. But, but, but he's talking about how he feels like he now has a doctorate in this small business management stuff, but it's been 10 years, took 10 years, right?

To know what everybody thinks he got so lucky to learn all of a sudden. Yeah. But I have a question regarding the talent because, because you're a big leader, you know, team guy, management guy. And so you talk about a level talent. And so, a lot of the questions I get and, and I know you've created an amazing culture.

I guess the question is very specifically because of the amazing culture, does it alleviate the need for you to have to pay or overpay at the top level for this a level talent?

Ben Glass: I think that you, we do not overpay. So we're not in the overpay. That being said, nobody's working after five o'clock. [00:32:00] Nobody's working on weekends. There are no fires or explosions or tantrums or any of that. When we, because we are a contingent fee firm and a personal injury firm, that every once in a while, You know, the big ones, the big ones that we are very, we believe very generous when those big ones come for spot bonuses for everybody.

And, and, you know, I'll send my paralegals out to paralegal meetings and they're like always recruiting

Richard James: Hmm. Right.

Ben Glass: again, going back to the conversation we had earlier on this podcast is the barrier is not high. Most people are miserable in their jobs. So, so we don't overpay. And what we try to do for our non like leadership lawyers in particular is I'll say, Richard, like, what's your vision?

How much do you want to make in five? How much do you want to be making in five years? Whatever that number is. I don't care. Great, Richard, you're going to figure out how we make that [00:33:00] right. And so it's putting the onus back on you and. Giving you the liberty to help grow the firm. We're very generous for our non legal staff.

Like you got an event you want to go to great. Here's the, here's the. No limit, no limit, but the obligation is you come back, you do lunch and learn. Like, what did you learn at this event? Right? I have so many firms like, Oh, I'm going to give you like 200 a year to go to this thing. No, I want my team to be great.

So, and I guess the last thing I'll say just on that on talent acquisition is we're really clear on. As we do with marketing. So the key to marketing is identifying who you want to see walk into the door with a case. The key to talent acquisition is identifying and then putting in writing and then telling the whole world, this is who I need.

This is what I'm looking for. And rather than running these BS typical. Looking for multitasking, paralegal, you know, with five years experience. That tells you nothing, right? We write the long form. Hey, you'd be good for this. If this is your talent set, [00:34:00] this won't be a good place for you. If you need someone to look over your shoulder, are we perfect now?

We have turnover. But we don't over, we don't overpay, but I think we're generous in, in many regards.

Richard James: We feel the same way about us. We don't, I don't feel anybody would accuse us of overpaying at our firm, but we are very generous with unlimited time off policies and go learn and educate and travel and live wherever you want. And we're a remote company, so we aren't in the office. So people, we have, we have one team member who we.

Don't ever know what state she's going to be in, quite frankly, when she calls in for the meeting on Mondays. And

first What's that

MPS: If in the

Richard James: when I first, what's that?

MPS: if in the

States

Richard James: Yeah. If in the States, that's right. And, and I think that's, and I think, I think Michael, I don't know you as a younger generation, you appreciate the remoteness of our world a little bit.

Is that right?

MPS: yeah, I appreciate the remoteness, but more importantly, I appreciate the, the freedom and flexibility. I think that's important. And I think it leads to people that value where they [00:35:00] work. And I think it leads them to actually want to do better work because now they've got the time and freedom to think right.

And so when you're just, you know, Staple and stuff all day and you got the same routine in the same office, not that there's anything wrong with being in an office, especially if it's a good culture, it can lead to this small mindedness a little bit and then frustration out of that. So I, I do really enjoy the freedom and flexibility and from my knowledge, the team does too.

Ben Glass: Everybody has to be clear in what is expected of them in terms of what is being produced, not in what manner or how long it takes or any of that stuff. So if you produce, I don't care where you are when you're

MPS: right. I

love that

Ben Glass: There are certain things like we believe you need to like the best way for a young lawyer to learn how to negotiate is to be in the room and be, you know, listening on the wall or in the same room and listening to discussions with insurance adjusters and stuff.

One of the things we do, and this would be great for your listeners is when we're training somebody, I [00:36:00] don't do a ton of client calls anymore. But there is a certain type of consult that I do. It's like, I'm like, Hey, it was going to be on speakerphone. Anybody wants, you can come in and you sit in my office.

You can listen every once in a while, like maybe twice a year, there'll be a bad client that's perking up through the pipeline. And he's got some argument or he or she like mad at us. I'm like, great. I'm going to put them on the phone speakerphone. Everybody come in and listen. That's how you teach. That's the most efficient way to teach.

And so I would, I would encourage everyone who's listening to this, who's in a law firm is if I open up your calls and your meetings to your team, who you want to become better subject matter experts so that you can, again, you can get out of the way most of the stuff that paralegals do, like there's this line and, you know, we're giving legal advice or not, but there's a ton of stuff that paralegals can do, legal assistants can do.

That's correct. Absolutely. Correct. The right answer. It gets you. More free time. What are we paid for lawyers are paid to find the creative solution to the client's problem, right? We're not paid for the number of hours we work. We shouldn't be right Like how do I get you the result that [00:37:00] you would like to get in the most efficient way?

That's what people want. I think And you do that by training up your team and you train your team by inviting them in Just to listen. How does Ben talk? How does he how does he ask questions? And then I never answered. The other thing is I never answer a client email. So I forward all the emails to the team.

The team answers them. The team doesn't know they come to me. They ask but that way the team now knows like, what's the answer to this particular question that trains a client to not. To not expect a response from me and eventually they're not emailing me. I'm just getting reports of what's happened in the case.

If they need to report. A lot of our cases are self running cases because I've just developed a great, great team using some of these strategies to teach them without over paying.

MPS: love

Richard James: what a great concept that that's, that is a, that's a win. We could ring the bell and I, I just looked at the clock, Ben. I cannot believe we've been talking for 37

MPS: Well, that's what happens when you have good conversation. But, but, [00:38:00] Ben, I do, I do want to hear what's got you excited, what's got you fired up today. Could be personal, could be business, doesn't matter. Hmm.

Ben Glass: Christmas. So that's a big family time for us. Number one, number two, in the springtime, I'll start my 50th year since I was licensed as a referee. And so I'll be doing high school and youth games. I'm thinking of getting an art band that says 50, just to promote conversation.

It doesn't mean I'm good or I get everything right, but I do have a ton of experience there. You know, you'll notice none of this is like the legal stuff. I love being in the gym in the off season, the off season, like the non referee season, I'm in the CrossFit gym. Five and six days a week. I love the tribe there.

I'm the oldest one. And I think in our gym is doing CrossFit. So all of that is what makes me excited. Talking to you guys makes me excited. Cause I know you're smart. You're going to ask good questions. And most importantly, like the three of us, I think are changing lives for sure. We're not the only ones for sure.

So many lawyers who come in contact with you [00:39:00] too. Or come in contact with me or Brian, like, I think they just start to see the world differently. And then we introduce them to other lawyers who are along this path. That's my job in the world, in the universe right now. It's one of my jobs, but to do that, to, to get lawyers, to have fun and have happiness.

In the profession. We're going to make some people upset from time to time. That's fine. I don't really care. And I'm a referee and I make a lot of people upset. That's fine. I don't really care. Because I'm relatively good at, at what I do. And I like hanging with you guys.

Richard James: Yeah. We love hanging with you as well. And so we just saw LD came in. ld say hi to Ben there. LD is coming in for the, for the next recording on the podcast,

Ben Glass: Yeah, you guys are busy. Yeah.

Richard James: Hey

Ben, tell me as we wrap this up I, I I just want to mention 50 years in refereeing, man. Congratulations. I just, you've got so many amazing [00:40:00] streaks going on.

You've got, you've got the 50 years of the refereeing. You got the 40 years of being in practice. You got the 20 years of, of having GLM. And you, you, you said something such, you know, your whole world, I can see it now. Is really revolved around you being a connector of, of great people. And, and I I'm just, anyway, I'm, I'm just so honored that you joined us today.

And I, and I appreciate you for being here and for sharing this wisdom with everybody. I know there were those who were listening that got nuggets all the way through. And, and I appreciate you connecting us many, many years ago. So thanks for being here.

Ben Glass: A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. You folks can, you know, just go find us. We're Brian and I are pretty popular and we have a lot to say on LinkedIn. So that's the place to go. And just, you know, if you like the vibe, you know, check us out. By and large the three of us, the four of us are serving a very similar market, but there is differences and, you know, hats off to you all.

I've been at your events. Thank you for inviting me to speak earlier this year. I used to do a tremendous job. So you're [00:41:00] moving the world. And at the end of the day, like we have this one life. This is, I think what we're called to do is like move the world wherever our, wherever our talents are. I don't build stuff.

I don't like hammer stuff. I don't like that, but this stuff I really enjoy doing. So it's great. It's great to hang with you guys. Absolutely.

MPS: I appreciate it, Ben.

The pleasure is ours. And to the law firm owners listening to this, thank you for taking the time to listen today. Hopefully you were able to take a nugget because there was plenty of them to take. And if this is not your first time listening or watching, we have the gentleman's agreement around here.

So if you got some value today, we just kindly ask that you hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on where you're listening or watching and show Ben some love in the comments. And we appreciate it. But again, Ben, thank you very much.

Ben Glass: Absolutely

you guys be good

I'll see you at the other side of the new year.

Richard James: Sounds

good.

MPS: Rich, do you want to cut?

Richard James: yeah. Well, for everybody listening real quick, just so you know, I don't know exactly whether this is landing before or after, but we just launched our justice for joy event where we're partnering with [00:42:00] St. Jude. So if that hasn't happened yet, we're having it on the 10th of January.

Go ahead and click on the link below where we're doing a charity event where we're going to be able to do a training for you and you just have to donate to St. Jude to get access to the training. Looking forward to that event. It's going to be not only great for you to launch into 2024 season, but it's going to be great for the charity and those kids that benefit from St.

Jude. So that's the pod

Ben Glass: Move the world.