December 4, 2024 • 39 mins
Discover how to revolutionize your small business operations by embracing a subscription-based model, as we chat with Scott Reib, America's Legal Coach. Scott reveals his transformative journey of shifting his law firm's business model towards a recurring revenue system, drawing inspiration from successful companies like Dollar Shave Club. This episode promises to equip you with actionable insights on building financial predictability and fostering client relationships that can prevent costly legal issues for your business.
Step into the world of subscription-based legal services and learn how they're reshaping the landscape for small businesses. Scott and I explore the intricacies of offering proactive legal support through a tiered access plan, tailored to businesses at different growth stages. We dissect challenges like client churn and staffing, and discuss how automation can help streamline operations. This conversation is a treasure trove of strategies for staying attuned to client needs and market trends, ensuring your business thrives and evolves.
Finally, we navigate the often turbulent waters of entrepreneurship, focusing on stress management and the art of building meaningful relationships with referral partners. Scott shares unique methods for handling stress, especially for those transitioning from high-pressure roles, and underscores the importance of maintaining strong health indicators. We also delve into the power of mindset and surrounding oneself with positive influences, highlighting the role of business coaches and communities in achieving both personal and professional growth. Join us to uncover strategies that can transform your business and empower your journey as an entrepreneur.
Scott Reib: CEO and Founder of Reib Law
Website: https://www.reiblaw.com/home
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescottreib/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thescottreib/
Podcast: https://www.reiblaw.com/the-shatterproof-entrepreneur-podcast
#SmallBusinessSuccess #SubscriptionModel #ScottReib #ReibLaw #RecurringRevenue #LegalSupport #BusinessAutomation #ClientRelationships #EntrepreneurMindset #StressManagement #BusinessCoaching #GrowthStrategies #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurJourney #SmallBusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #BusinessStrategy #BusinessSuccess #Entrepreneurship #BusinessPodcast #PodcastEpisode #SmallBusinessPivots #Success #BusinessOwners #ZigZiglar #MichaelDMorrison #OklahomaCity #BOSS #EntrepreneurAdvice #DollarShaveClub #AmericasLegalCoach
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Again, we have another specialguest from around the world, not
too far from where ourheadquarters are in Oklahoma
City.
But I know that business ownerscan say their name and their
business only like a businessowner.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your business and how
we're going to help ourlisteners today today, you bet,
(00:25):
michael.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks for having me on the show.
My pleasure.
I am Scott Reeb.
I'm America's Legal Coach.
I have a law firm called ReebLaw located in Denton, texas,
just north of Dallas, and acoaching and event company
called Shatterproof Solutions,and we help business owners grow
, scale their businesses in aprotected way, and that's been
my mission for the last decade.
I've had my firm 20 years, butwe made some pretty big shifts
(00:48):
around 2012 and the way wedeliver services, and so we, our
mission did kind of change fromgetting people out of trouble
to keeping them out of trouble.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wow, that that right there probably perked some ears.
I don't know of a businessowner that does not feel in
trouble somehow.
Yeah, so how do you thinkspecifically we're going to help
business owners today?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, we're going to talk today about one of my
favorite subjects, which isrecurring revenue.
I'm a huge proponent ofsubscription models for
businesses and I want to talk tothem about how I've made that
change with a law firm and howwe've seen other business owners
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Fantastic.
All right, we'll buckle up.
We've got some good informationcoming our way, but first we're
going to introduce the show.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast designed for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and
founder of Boss, where we makebusiness ownership simplified
(01:50):
for success, so that you can owna business that runs without
you.
To learn more, go tobusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
My friend, where would you liketo start today?
Welcome back to Small.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Business Pivots.
My friend, where would you liketo start today?
Well, let's start withrecurring revenue model.
Back in 2012, I had a problemin my business.
We were a litigation firm and Ihad a lot of repeat business
and they kept coming back withtheir house on fire wanting me
to fix it.
And I could, but it was reallyexpensive, and I was just
(02:27):
baffled that they would nevercall me before they made a
decision, before they signed adeal, and it was always after
when it went bad.
So I had to do a deep dive.
Is it me, is it my personality?
Am I propelling them away fromme?
And what I kind of figured outwas it was really the system and
the way lawyers worked.
We billed by the minute and noone liked it.
They felt like money was flyingout of their pockets, so they
just wouldn't call me.
They'd dial a friend, google it, flip a coin, anything but call
(02:50):
Scott.
And so I had to change my model, and so I looked out at what
was kind of happening in theworld back in 2011, 2012.
And you started seeing peopleselling things on subscriptions,
on monthly recurring payments.
One that caught my eye backthen was the Dollar Shave Club,
(03:10):
and I'm like you can sell razorson a subscription, and they did
it with humorous commercials,and that really got my attention
that if you can change thatwhole market, instead of making
people go every time to thedrugstore and buy new razors,
that you just ship them to themfor a monthly payment, maybe you
(03:30):
could do legal services thatway.
Then I started running intobusiness coaches that were
selling packages with monthlysubscriptions.
I'm like, okay, there is adifferent way to deliver this
service.
The other problem I had is thatwhen you're selling time, you
have to bill.
We would spend a couple days amonth billing our clients for
(03:51):
the time that we'd spent, andthen we had to collect it, and
so sometimes we'd have trustmoney that we could apply to the
cases, but a lot of it was.
Then we had to follow up andget them to write us checks or
give us credit cards, and sothen you spend time doing that,
and so you never really knew howmuch money we were going to
make every month.
So I'd walk in the first of themonth and wonder how we were
(04:12):
going to keep the lights on, andthen how was I going to pay my
bills at home?
I've had this firm since 2005.
And so I did that dance for 10years and we kept the lights on,
but it's pretty stressful.
Once I made a switch and startedcreating the recurring revenue,
my stress level went way down,because I would come in on the
(04:34):
first day of the month and knowwhat my minimum amount that was
going to come in was.
It was a guaranteed number, itwas going to happen every month
and within maybe maybe 5% theremight be someone whose credit
card didn't work, but it wasvery consistent, and so I knew I
could keep the lights on, paythe rent, make payroll very
quickly, and so it changedeverything about how I ran this
(04:56):
business, not just from adelivery of services but how I
was able to manage it, becausenow I had a cashflow system that
made a lot more sense and Ihave no more accounts receivable
, and not having accountsreceivable is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We switched to what you're talking about and it
really is more comforting, and Iknow for a lot of business
owners they don't know where tostart with the process.
So could you kind of explainhow you heard about it?
You saw other people doing it,but how did you come to the
realization?
Here's how I can do it in mybusiness.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah.
So it started with the visionright, I had this idea of how
could I create an on-demandsystem where small business
owners like me you know peoplethat are doing $250,000 a year
in sales just trying to figureout this business stuff, but
making legal decisions every dayand not having the access to
the information.
And so I started looking for acoach.
And so I hired a business coachand said here's my vision.
(05:53):
Can you give me a map for howto build this thing?
You don't have to go A to Z,but can you get me like A to G
maybe, so we can just getstarted, get something down this
road.
And I found one of my friendswas using a coach.
He introduced me and I went towork with Clay Clark out of
Tulsa, oklahoma, and Clay uh,totally bought into my vision,
(06:15):
said, yeah, I can help you do it.
And we built what is now theaccess plan that we've been
operating since 2012.
And you know, first you have toidentify what problem are you
going to solve with yoursubscription and figure out what
that problem is.
And then next, you have toidentify who has that problem.
And then, once you'veidentified those two things,
(06:39):
then you figure out how are wegoing to price it?
And I heard one of your showsactually where you were talking
about pricing models and youknow a lot of us going to price
it.
And I heard one of your showsactually where you were talking
about pricing models and a lotof us will just price it
whatever we think the value ofthe service is and there's some
legitimacy to that on the valueyou're giving, the
transformation that they'regetting.
But if they can't afford it, itdoesn't really matter.
And so you have to look at itfrom both sides.
(07:02):
What's the value you'redelivering?
What does it cost you todeliver that value?
And then can they afford it?
And you've got to createpackages that you think they can
afford.
And some of that is trial anderror.
And you have to create theoffers and put them out in the
marketplace and sell them.
And once you start selling them, then you figure out pretty
(07:23):
quickly OK, they can't affordthis, I'm not getting.
I stopped getting priceobjections if I drop it to this
price.
And then you kind of adjustyour packages until you get to
something that makes sense foryou as a business owner and for
your consumer.
And so once you do that, thenext step is how do I start to
(07:45):
automate and systematize thatsubscription business, whatever
it is?
Now?
We've got HVAC people that areoffering subscriptions for
taking care of HVAC systems.
We have plumbers that are doingthe same thing.
Home services is huge.
I've got doctors that arecreating subscription plans to
deliver services to theirpatients that go around
(08:06):
insurance so they don't have todeal with insurance anymore.
But that's kind of the processyou go through and once you've
done that, then you can youstart testing it and you
eventually will have somethingthat resonates with the
marketplace and if it doesn't goback to the drawing board and I
guess I'll kind of back up astep.
(08:26):
Once you have that vision, usethis wonderful thing called
social media and start talkingabout it on social media and see
if anyone's interested in whatyou're talking about.
Ask questions.
If you know who you want towork with, then start asking
those people questions about theservice you want to provide and
is there any interest and atwhat price point?
(08:46):
Do some research?
Use that social media to do itand then build something.
10 years ago I would have toldyou, build out your whole thing
before you ask those questions.
But you don't really have to dothat.
You just got to build enough ofit that you can explain what
you're trying to do and see ifanyone's interested enough of it
that you can explain whatyou're trying to do and see if
(09:07):
anyone's interested?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
How did you get the traction of getting people aware
of?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
your new product?
That's a great question.
The first thing I did is I wenton what I call a CPA tour.
One of the easiest ways tomarket a product or service is
find out who has your customersalready and market to them.
And so I bought a list of CPAsthat were within 30 miles of our
(09:34):
location and started callingthem and setting appointments,
and I went out and met with them, explained what we did,
explained the subscriptionservice we offered, got to know
them too and what they offer,and created some partnerships
with CPA firms where they wouldrefer us business and I would
have CPAs that could work withour business clients.
That's the first thing I did.
I will tell you that gettingthat traction was much more
(09:56):
difficult than I ever thought itwould be.
I had a grandiose vision ofhaving 100 people in my program
in the first year, and it took10 years to have consistently a
hundred people in the program,because I had to not only market
it, I had to create the market.
No one was Googlingsubscription lawyer in 2012.
(10:20):
Now they are.
Now people are calling us andsaying we're wanting to
establish a relationship with alawyer, but back then no one was
doing that, and so I had tofind people with problems like
they've got a contract issue,they've got a bad employment
employee issue, they're tryingto buy a business, trying to
sell a business, and then showthem how we can support them in
(10:41):
a better way with the accessplan.
But now we're able to justmarket to the pain point of.
You need this monthlyrelationship.
You need to be proactive with alot of parts of your business,
but especially the legal,because it's the one that can
really bite you if you aren'tpaying attention and being
proactive and building it inwhat we call your business, in
what I call a shatterproof way.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Can you give an example of your
subscription-based model so thatothers can get an idea of what
that looks?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
like yeah, so my access plan has four levels.
We start with launch mode,which is exactly what it sounds
like it's for people that arelaunching their business.
So it's zero to 250,000 insales and our pricing is on our
like.
We're transparent with ourpricing.
It's 425 a month and you getwe'll set up your corporate
structure.
Make sure you have the rightentity structure in place so
(11:32):
that you have separation betweenyou and everyone else, so you
have the legal liabilityprotection.
We then create the customeragreement that you're using with
your main product or service.
We then give you on-demandaccess to our team with
questions as they come up and domonthly check-in calls with you
, so that we're all staying onthe same page with how you're
growing your business.
(11:52):
Then you go up to momentum.
We start adding bells andwhistles to it.
So now we're reviewing yourcontracts as they come in,
because you're adding vendors,you're adding things that
require more legal supervision.
And then you go to expansion asyou start scaling, and then our
top level is called guardian,and at guardian we're talking
about succession and legacystuff.
(12:14):
Like we've got a businessthat's scaling, we have
employees we're now working onthe business, not in the
business, and we start talkingabout who takes over when we're
done.
Do we have an estate plan inplace?
Is there a buy-sell agreement?
Do we have the right insurancein place if something happens to
us?
And we start having those kindsof conversations at that
guardian level.
And that's how we've structuredit Now.
(12:37):
If you would go back and look12 years ago, we had five plans.
The pricing was very different,because it really has been an
experiment in trying to figureout what makes sense to small
business owners, not just to us.
Some of it is us like whatparts are the most profitable
for us, and we try to do it in away that's profitable, but it's
(12:58):
like which ones actuallyresonate and which ones don't.
And so every year in Decemberwe'll look at the plan and
figure out what do we want tochange for next year, and then
we go back to market.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
How automated is your subscription-based model?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It's not as automated as I would like it to be, but
it's fairly automated.
We use Asana to do our projectmanagement.
Right now I'm looking at someother solutions, but if you were
an access client and needed tohave a contract reviewed, then
you've got a portal that youwould go to and you click a link
.
You can then ask you questionswhere you can submit your
(13:37):
request, whether it's a legalquestion or a contract review.
That then goes into the systemand then is assigned by our
access coordinator to one of ourreblog preferred providers.
They then start reviewing theagreement, communicating with
the client, and then that'sdelivered to them, and so we use
a lot of technology to do that.
It's not all as automated as Iwould like it to be.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What about the cyclical part of the business?
So you have let's say you have200 subscribers today.
Does it fluctuate very muchmonth to month?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, um, not so much month to month, but year to
year.
It does, and that's that.
There's any subscriptionbusiness, there's churn the
go-to book on subscriptionbusinesses is the automatic
customer and churn it.
You have to keep track of yourchurn and there's certain
percentages that you want to tryto hit, but you're going to
(14:34):
always have people going in andout.
We've, we've.
Our philosophy is that we neverwant to hurt you, and so there's
sometimes business owners arein a cash crunch and so they'll
go.
They'll be on pause with us for60, 90 days.
We try to help them throughtheir cash crunch and then they
come back, and sometimes theydon't.
Sometimes people will go out,and so we're tracking on a
monthly basis how many peopleare coming into the program and
(14:56):
how many people are going out.
Why is that happening?
We're asking.
You know we're surveying them,asking questions and making sure
it's not something that we'vedone or that we could have done
better.
And so you just have to measurethose numbers, and there's a
few, there's a few differentnumbers that you look at.
You know that you wouldn'tnormally look at in a business.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Is it difficult to staff up or down?
Is it difficult to?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
staff up or down.
No, it's pretty easy.
I suppose it could get hard Ifwe were to start bringing on
huge volumes of new clients atone time.
It could get difficult to staff.
But we're usually bringing themon an average of four or five a
month, so it's not verydifficult to staff up.
You can see it coming.
(15:39):
We've got a lot of flexibility.
We use a lot of contractors inour world to do that so we can
add them pretty quickly.
They don't need full-time workand so we can add them, give
them a few projects and keep theclient's projects moving and
then.
So in that way it's fairly easy.
Then we can usually tell yearover year just you know kind of
(16:00):
what our just by our growthprogression over the last few
years, what we can expect nextyear.
And so we just do planning andadd, adding positions as we do
and and and.
We start.
We're.
We're now talking because ournumbers are getting to a point
now where we're going to starthaving teams that work with
different sets of clients, asopposed to just that my whole
team works with everybody.
(16:20):
We're going to have to startdividing it up and conquering it
.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Have you taken your blood pressure before and after
since you started thissubscription, Because it sounds
like this is a lot easier thanjust grinding, going to find new
clients and hope the phonerings and, yeah, my, my overall
health is is much better.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It's not.
And there's, I do I was on the,I did my.
I've got a health coach that Imeet with on about a quarterly
basis and all my numbers are.
I'm in a good spot.
But we were talking about Ithink you know they always ask
you what kind of how's yourstress level?
And I think it's a hardquestion for entrepreneurs to
answer.
(17:00):
If you're in crisis, it's easy,you know.
You're like, yeah, I'm stressedout, but there's a certain part
of our world that is juststressful, and I think that we
learn how to to operate understress in a way that normal
humans don't, and so it's hard.
It's like, yeah, yeah, I guessI'm under stress, but it doesn't
(17:22):
really bother me and as long asmy like you said, my blood
pressure is okay, uh, I'mmanaging the stress.
Uh, I think it's fine, but,yeah, knowing that I have that
income, um, the way it is.
The other part of of it for methat's helped is that when
you're in litigation and you'rebilling by the hour, there's a
formula to it and you're alwaysworking.
(17:42):
It's in the back of your mind.
I've got to bill this manyhours if I want to make this
much money, and so that's alwaysin the back of your head.
And litigation is really.
I mean, you're constantlybutting heads with people and
part of your job is kind of tomake other people mad, and so
you're constantly you'reattacking, defending, attacking,
defending, and and that's not.
(18:04):
It wasn't something that Iwanted to do any longer We'll we
jump in and out of a few smallcases.
Now most of what we do is sendthem out to litigation partners.
They litigated, I manage it,and that really lowers my blood
pressure.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You're listening to Small Business Pivots.
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(18:46):
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If you're enjoying the podcast,make sure to stay connected by
(19:06):
hitting that subscribe button,giving us a thumbs up or leaving
a positive review.
Your support keeps us going.
Now let's get back to ourincredible guest.
When you reached out to allthese accountants CPAs how
difficult was it to build arelationship?
Because I know I often refer tothose as referral partners.
(19:27):
But when you're a referralpartner, they also kind of
expect something in return.
So you can't really refereverybody to every CPA you have
a relationship with, and I'masked that often by business
owners.
How do I handle that?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, one of the things that I pluses that I had
was that my offer was so uniquethat there wasn't anyone else
they could refer to for that.
So they were.
I was kind of the only.
I was the go-to person.
If they want, if they hadsomeone that they wanted to have
with a lawyer for a few hundreda month I was the only show in
town that helped and I wouldrefer in setting up the
(20:01):
relationship.
I would talk more about synergyand less about referrals.
I wasn't really asking them forreferrals, I was just trying to
look for ways that we couldwork together.
I would send them once I madethe relationship.
I would send them questions.
So if I was on the call with aclient and the tax question came
up, I would run that questionby them and then see is that
(20:24):
something they'd be willing toanswer for the client?
And then they would have achance to get the business.
And I require all of my clientsto have a CPA.
And then if and out of that,out of the 45 I met with in 30
days, there were only abouteight that I really wanted to do
much business with.
The rest of there's a problem inthe accounting and CPA world
(20:44):
that most of them are in this,in the small business accounting
.
They are historians.
All they want to do is say thisis what you did last year, this
is how much money you owe theIRS.
They don't have any interest inreally building a relationship
with you, learning how your lifeand business work.
How can we create strategies towhere you can keep more of your
(21:05):
money?
Most of them had no interest inthat.
The eight that I found that did,have interest in that we've
been able to work with over theyears.
And then there's always a fewthat are kind of rise to the top
, and so there's always a fewthat are, you know, kind of rise
to the top.
And so there's two or threethat we do regular things with.
I've got a if someone, if, ifif someone comes on with us and
(21:26):
they don't have a person, wehave a sheet that has a list of
them that they can then chooseand interview who they want,
interview them and decide whothey want to work with.
I don't often refer directlyand I will introduce them if
they want, but I kind of letthem choose who they want to
work with and that's, it'sworked for us.
I'm not going to say that weget all our business from CPAs,
(21:50):
but they definitely have ourclients, financial planners, who
have been good sources, andbankers to some extent.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So you've talked about your path to success here.
You and I've talked about yourold past, and so I'm just
curious if you might share,because I know a lot of business
owners have challenges withmindset.
So were there any pivots orchallenges that you had?
How did you overcome them?
And the reason I ask for thosethat's not watching this podcast
(22:18):
behind you is Brian Tracy, zigZiglar some popular business and
personal coaches and how didyou?
Who do you go to for learning?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, and it, it.
It varies in times, but uh, theyou know Zig has been a big
deal for me.
I'm a Ziglar Legacy CertifiedTrainer.
I'm the official small businesslawyer for the Ziglar company
and I've had that privilege foralmost 10 years.
(22:52):
And Zig would say you are whoyou are and where you are
because of what you've put inyour mind.
And you can change who you areand where you are because of
what you've put in your mind.
And you can change who you areand where you are by changing
what goes into your mind.
And so when I get in a bad spotmentally and we all do, if
you're in business it justhappens.
And sometimes it's real, likethere's objective reasons for it
(23:13):
, and sometimes there's not.
But either way, your mindset'swrong, you're not happy, you
might even be depressed, and oneof the ways that you can fix
that is by listening to goodstuff.
No, I'm a Christ follower andso I try to spend as much time
as I can in God's word andapplying that to my life, and
(23:35):
that helps for sure.
And then I'm reading books,like the first book that started
me on my journey was the E-Myth, revisited by Michael Gerber.
Oh yeah, I go back to it timeand time again, and he's so
right about so many things and Isee it as I work with small
business owners on the legalside and in coaching.
(23:56):
And then another one that washuge for me and my first coach
made me read it was Chet Holmes'the Ultimate Sales Machine.
And there's just things thatyou pull out of those books that
you apply.
Some of them you applyimmediately, and then sometimes
I'll find myself going back tothose books and going I remember
(24:17):
seeing something in there andand it's and it will solve a
problem I'm having.
Now, like one of the one of thestrategies in Chet's book is
the his dream 100.
And we're, we have a retreatcoming up in Atlanta, uh, and
we're going to, so we're goingto, we're selling seats and I'm
going to be using his dream 100strategy to put the people in
(24:38):
the room that I want in the room, and so, um, there's just you.
I pull those things from.
All these different people, thepeople behind me have all
influenced me in one way oranother and, um, inspire me.
But you've got to surroundyourself with good people, and
so I'm always working with acoach on something in my
business.
I'm a part of communities ofbusiness owners so that I can,
(25:03):
we can have camaraderie andshared struggles, because being
on it's a business owner.
You're often on an island andyou.
There's two problems with that.
One you can start believingeverything you say is true,
which can be bad, and then, froma positive standpoint, you
think everything you're doing isgreat, or you can start
(25:23):
thinking everything's horribleand probably neither one are
true, and so you need otherpeople to bounce things off of
that, don't have any skin in thegame and can say, nah, you're,
you're, you're missing it, it'snot, that's not what's going on.
And so you gotta have coachesand people that you can, uh,
that are kind of where you areor where you want to be, and can
(25:45):
can help push you forward andgive you some correction when
you need to.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You've heard it here listeners, business coach.
We, even business coaches, havebusiness coaches, myself
included.
They're powerful.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
If your coach doesn't have a coach, I would question
it.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's.
I say that all the time, amen.
So what?
Take us through a day in thelife of yourself, or maybe your
week, kind of.
What percentage do you maybestudy, use a business coach,
work on your business, do sales?
Because I know a lot ofbusiness owners that are
listening.
They just don't feel like theyhave any more time to add one
more thing to their schedulebecause they're so working in
(26:25):
their business, as the EMS says,and not on it.
So what's a good percentage youyou find for yourself?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
yeah, and so I'm in a , I'm in a, I'm in a pretty good
season of life.
Right, we're empty, I'm emptynest, so my boys are out.
Um, so I have.
I have much more time than Iused to have, uh, and I've got a
business built that runs onsystems, uh, and I have a good
team around me.
(26:53):
So a typical day for me justkind of run through my schedule
is that I'm not a morning person.
I never have been.
I've tried.
It doesn't work.
It sets me up for failure if Itry to do things at 5 am or even
7 am.
So I'm at the gym at 8.
I have a trainer two days aweek and the other days I work
(27:14):
on my own and then I leave.
I leave the gym, I get a cup ofcoffee from Joe at Starbucks
and then I do my quiet time andthen I hit the office around 945
.
My first appointments areusually at 1015.
And I do all of the sales forthe firm.
Right now, one of the nextthings we'll be hiring is a
salesperson, but I do all thesales.
(27:36):
So I usually have two to threesales calls a day that last 20
to 30 minutes, and then I'mdoing client relationship calls
the rest of the time, and thenmy calendar from four to 5 is
blocked every day.
They cannot put anything after.
So my last appointment is 3,3.30.
(27:56):
They can't put anything on mycalendar after 4 unless I agree
to it.
And from 4 to 5.30 is when I'mdoing the work on whatever what
I would call my three projects,and I usually have three things
that I'm working on that I'vegot.
Those are.
I've got goals set around thosethree things.
They're the main events orprojects we're working on, and I
(28:16):
work on one of those projectsbetween in that timeframe and
then.
And then I, then I get out ofhere around five, 36 and then go
home, spend time with my wife.
We'll usually go for a walk atsome point in the night and then
it's not unusual for me to grabmy laptop again while we're
(28:37):
watching something stupid onNetflix and then I'll do some
communication at that point.
Social media is a tool.
I don't spend a ton of timejust scrolling through it, but
that's when I'll get on socialmedia and comment on posts and
interact with people.
Uh, I don't do that during thebusiness day.
(28:58):
I, I don't, I don't have, I, Idon't find time to do that, so
that's when I'll do that, or ormaybe I have some idea that I
want to work on.
That's not one of the three,and I'll play with it then,
because that's my time and I cando that.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I appreciate you sharing that because so many
business owners they you got toget up early, got to get up
early and they're just burnt out.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Well, yeah, but if you go, if you go back, if you
go back 15 years, uh.
So I started the firm in ohfive.
Um, when I started the law firm, I was coaching one soccer team
.
Two years later I was coachingthree soccer teams and so I
would hit the office at 8.
I would be out of the officearound 3.30 and grabbing all the
(29:41):
soccer stuff and getting out tothe soccer fields and then I'd
get home around 7.30 or 8.
Boys would go to bed and then Iwould often be back at the
office from nine till midnighttrying to crank out work.
So I've, I've done it that way.
That wasn't fun, but therethere's a.
There is a.
There's a part of doing thiswhere there is some grind to it.
(30:01):
Um, I know there's some peoplethat avoid it somehow they.
But I think the norm is thatyou're going to have to work
hard in your business at somepoint.
The harder you work in thebeginning often makes it where
you can.
It makes it easier later.
If you're working on the rightthings, if you're building, if
you're building the rightculture, the right systems,
(30:24):
you're learning how to automateand delegate things so that that
grinding makes sense for you inthe future, don't just grind
for the sake of grinding, but,ladies and gentlemen, you at
some point in business, you haveto work hard.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We talk about working on the business versus in the
business, and again, businessowners are putting out fires all
day, it seems like, and they'realways asking me like, what are
some things that I would workon as a business owner that is
working on the business?
Can you kind of explain thedifference?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, and there's kind of two parts of that for me
.
Is that working in the business?
For me is if I'm doing in thelaw firm, is if I'm doing legal
stuff, if I'm doing research, ifI'm reviewing a contract, if
I'm answering legal questions,that's working in the business.
If I'm looking at how can weuse this software better, how
(31:17):
can we maybe find a differentsoftware package that will
eliminate these three things?
We're already our tech stacksso that we can save money, save
time, be more efficient, that'sworking on the business.
And your goal should be to bespending more and more time
making those kinds of strategydecisions and less of the
(31:40):
technician things that Gerbertalks about.
Where you're, you've.
This is why we started ourbusiness, because we're really
good at something and think wecan do it better than our boss
could.
And then you have to learnthese other skills and how to
assemble a team.
And so when you're working onthose higher level things like
what kind of software to use,what are you know, reviewing
your core values, making sureyour mission statement's in line
(32:02):
, doing setting up systems forreviews, for you know your
employees, planning, planninglonger term things that's
working on the business.
But when you get into the nittygritty of delivering the product
or service that's working inthe business, and I still have
to do that some, but I'm out ofit more and more.
(32:26):
And that's when you can see it,and I'm a visual person and so
I'll very I'll draw out squares.
One of my mentors, howardPartridge, showed me this years
ago of all the boxes of thingsthat have to be done in the
business and write in them.
You know the names that aredoing them and my goal is to get
my name out of all those boxes,except for owner, in the next
(32:51):
five years.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That's a great description.
So when someone is consideringto work on their business
because most business ownersdon't know what, what balance
did you see was kind of a goodone for you?
Was it like maybe an hour aweek to start with, or maybe it
was half a day to start with,Was it?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
like maybe an hour a week to start with, or maybe it
was half a day to start with.
Yeah, I think that you shouldtry to block off, if you can,
most of a day per week thatyou're going to focus on bigger
picture things and I know that'shard, but there's some great
value.
There's value for you and thatit will lower your stress level
because you're thinking aboutmore positive things instead of
(33:33):
putting out fires.
There's value to your team and,like I wouldn't even pull away
and do that day somewhere elseLike, do it at home, do it at a
coffee shop when you're workingon the business, get away from
the business and make yourbusiness survive without you for
a day.
And there's some anecdotalevidence that if you do that,
your team will start to take onresponsibilities that they would
(33:54):
not normally do and yourbusiness will start growing in
ways that you can't imagine.
If you can get to two days aweek of being gone, it's
exponential on the progress youcan make.
It's hard to do it, but so Iwould start with maybe take
Friday afternoon and go, focuson the business and work to try
to get up to a full day.
(34:15):
But again, try to do it.
Don't do it at your desk, gosomewhere else and do it away
from your business.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I'm going to ask you a two-part question.
One is from your attorneyeducation experience.
What is a piece of advice thatyou would tell all business
owners?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, document everything If it's not written
down, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I love that.
I love that.
I see it.
I was just on a podcast, oh,probably a week ago or so, and
they said what is your biggestfailure?
And my biggest failure wasforming a partnership without
legal counsel because I didn'tknow better.
I just forming a partnershipwithout legal counsel because I
didn't know better.
I just it was kind of ahandshake deal, and so I
encourage everybody to heed youradvice and reach out to an
(34:57):
attorney.
I just can't say it enough.
Two areas of business Iencourage everybody to.
Even if you can't afford it,you've got to find the money to
afford it.
And that's an accountant, agood one, a cost accountant and
an attorney.
Like, don't, don't try to dothose things yourself, Would you
agree with that.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, I would add to that business coach.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Business coach.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
yeah, so those are the three that cost you money,
Then you need to have a bankingrelationship, not just a bank a
banker that you've got on thespeed dial and then an insurance
broker that can help cover thatrisk.
And if you have those keypeople, that board of advisors,
in place, it will make your lifemuch, much easier and your
business will grow.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Amen.
So the second part of thatquestion is coming from a
business coach perspective.
What would you offer businessowners?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Get out of your way.
You are the reason yourbusiness isn't growing.
So figure out what, what, whereare you stopping people from
doing what they need to be doingin your business?
Um, my guess is that you'remicromanaging something that you
shouldn't be, and take yourhands off of it.
Teach them what you want done,show them how you want it, what
(36:05):
your expectations are, and letthem do it.
But I, if you're the roadblockin the business, um, that's
fixable.
Uh, if someone else is, um, youknow that's, I guess you're
going to fire somebody.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I was going to say that's fixable too.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
That's fireable, but if, if it's something you can
control, that it's crazy not todo that.
And so look around and where,where are you causing the
problem?
Because I guarantee you it'syou.
You're causing the problem inyour business.
Everything rises and falls onleadership.
So even if you're not theproblem, you're the problem.
But look, be introspective andtry to figure out where are you
(36:43):
causing problems in the businessby to kind of tie it to what we
were talking about where maybeyou're doing something in the
business you shouldn't, Maybeit's something that you're not
even good at, but you won't letgo of it.
Let go of it and let yourbusiness grow.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And never forget the business you have today.
Business owners you createdthat or you allowed it.
You are the boss.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
It's nobody's problem , but yours yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Or you have a job with a crazy boss, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Right.
Well, you've been a blessing tomany and a wealth of knowledge.
How can someone find youinteract?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
with you Two places, uh.
On Instagram at the Scott Reebis a great place.
We release a lot of contentthere and it's easy to
communicate with me through amessenger.
A lot of content there and it'seasy to communicate with me
through Messenger.
And then, if you'll go toreblawcom forward slash small
business pivots we'll have apage set up just for you guys
and you can download a part ofmy book, the Shatterproof
(37:41):
Entrepreneur kind of get a sneakpeek at it before you buy it
and see if you want to buy it.
And then you can also press abutton and schedule a laser
legal coaching session with me.
You can tell me everythingyou're doing in the business and
I can tell you the things I seethat you're doing right and the
things you're doing wrong.
And then you can take that awayand go fix it or have us fix it
.
However you want to take careof it.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Fantastic Listeners.
I encourage you to take Scott'soffer.
He's a wealth of knowledge andcomes from both sides the legal
and the coaching.
So I know for a lot of usbusiness owners sometimes it's a
little frustrating when we goto an accountant, we ask a
question and they say, well, youneed to talk to your attorney
and vice versa, or you need togo, maybe, a business coach.
(38:24):
But you've kind of come fromboth angles so you have a better
perspective.
So again, scott, I appreciateyou Listeners.
Go reach out to Scott.
Have a great day.
Wish you much success.
Thanks, michael, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
Please don't forget tosubscribe and share this podcast
.
If your business is stuck, youneed help creating a business
(38:47):
that can run without you, or youneed a fast business loan or
line of credit.
Go to our website,businessownershipsimplifiedcom
and schedule a free consultationto learn why small business
success starts with Boss.
If you want to talk anythingsmall business related, email me
at michael atmichaeldmorrisoncom.
(39:07):
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, Welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Again, we have another specialguest from around the world, not
too far from where ourheadquarters are in Oklahoma
City.
But I know that business ownerscan say their name and their
business only like a businessowner.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your business and how
we're going to help ourlisteners today today, you bet,
(00:25):
michael.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks for having me on the show.
My pleasure.
I am Scott Reeb.
I'm America's Legal Coach.
I have a law firm called ReebLaw located in Denton, texas,
just north of Dallas, and acoaching and event company
called Shatterproof Solutions,and we help business owners grow
, scale their businesses in aprotected way, and that's been
my mission for the last decade.
I've had my firm 20 years, butwe made some pretty big shifts
(00:48):
around 2012 and the way wedeliver services, and so we, our
mission did kind of change fromgetting people out of trouble
to keeping them out of trouble.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wow, that that right there probably perked some ears.
I don't know of a businessowner that does not feel in
trouble somehow.
Yeah, so how do you thinkspecifically we're going to help
business owners today?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, we're going to talk today about one of my
favorite subjects, which isrecurring revenue.
I'm a huge proponent ofsubscription models for
businesses and I want to talk tothem about how I've made that
change with a law firm and howwe've seen other business owners
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Fantastic.
All right, we'll buckle up.
We've got some good informationcoming our way, but first we're
going to introduce the show.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast designed for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and
founder of Boss, where we makebusiness ownership simplified
(01:50):
for success, so that you can owna business that runs without
you.
To learn more, go tobusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
My friend, where would you liketo start today?
Welcome back to Small.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Business Pivots.
My friend, where would you liketo start today?
Well, let's start withrecurring revenue model.
Back in 2012, I had a problemin my business.
We were a litigation firm and Ihad a lot of repeat business
and they kept coming back withtheir house on fire wanting me
to fix it.
And I could, but it was reallyexpensive, and I was just
(02:27):
baffled that they would nevercall me before they made a
decision, before they signed adeal, and it was always after
when it went bad.
So I had to do a deep dive.
Is it me, is it my personality?
Am I propelling them away fromme?
And what I kind of figured outwas it was really the system and
the way lawyers worked.
We billed by the minute and noone liked it.
They felt like money was flyingout of their pockets, so they
just wouldn't call me.
They'd dial a friend, google it, flip a coin, anything but call
(02:50):
Scott.
And so I had to change my model, and so I looked out at what
was kind of happening in theworld back in 2011, 2012.
And you started seeing peopleselling things on subscriptions,
on monthly recurring payments.
One that caught my eye backthen was the Dollar Shave Club,
(03:10):
and I'm like you can sell razorson a subscription, and they did
it with humorous commercials,and that really got my attention
that if you can change thatwhole market, instead of making
people go every time to thedrugstore and buy new razors,
that you just ship them to themfor a monthly payment, maybe you
(03:30):
could do legal services thatway.
Then I started running intobusiness coaches that were
selling packages with monthlysubscriptions.
I'm like, okay, there is adifferent way to deliver this
service.
The other problem I had is thatwhen you're selling time, you
have to bill.
We would spend a couple days amonth billing our clients for
(03:51):
the time that we'd spent, andthen we had to collect it, and
so sometimes we'd have trustmoney that we could apply to the
cases, but a lot of it was.
Then we had to follow up andget them to write us checks or
give us credit cards, and sothen you spend time doing that,
and so you never really knew howmuch money we were going to
make every month.
So I'd walk in the first of themonth and wonder how we were
(04:12):
going to keep the lights on, andthen how was I going to pay my
bills at home?
I've had this firm since 2005.
And so I did that dance for 10years and we kept the lights on,
but it's pretty stressful.
Once I made a switch and startedcreating the recurring revenue,
my stress level went way down,because I would come in on the
(04:34):
first day of the month and knowwhat my minimum amount that was
going to come in was.
It was a guaranteed number, itwas going to happen every month
and within maybe maybe 5% theremight be someone whose credit
card didn't work, but it wasvery consistent, and so I knew I
could keep the lights on, paythe rent, make payroll very
quickly, and so it changedeverything about how I ran this
(04:56):
business, not just from adelivery of services but how I
was able to manage it, becausenow I had a cashflow system that
made a lot more sense and Ihave no more accounts receivable
, and not having accountsreceivable is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We switched to what you're talking about and it
really is more comforting, and Iknow for a lot of business
owners they don't know where tostart with the process.
So could you kind of explainhow you heard about it?
You saw other people doing it,but how did you come to the
realization?
Here's how I can do it in mybusiness.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah.
So it started with the visionright, I had this idea of how
could I create an on-demandsystem where small business
owners like me you know peoplethat are doing $250,000 a year
in sales just trying to figureout this business stuff, but
making legal decisions every dayand not having the access to
the information.
And so I started looking for acoach.
And so I hired a business coachand said here's my vision.
(05:53):
Can you give me a map for howto build this thing?
You don't have to go A to Z,but can you get me like A to G
maybe, so we can just getstarted, get something down this
road.
And I found one of my friendswas using a coach.
He introduced me and I went towork with Clay Clark out of
Tulsa, oklahoma, and Clay uh,totally bought into my vision,
(06:15):
said, yeah, I can help you do it.
And we built what is now theaccess plan that we've been
operating since 2012.
And you know, first you have toidentify what problem are you
going to solve with yoursubscription and figure out what
that problem is.
And then next, you have toidentify who has that problem.
And then, once you'veidentified those two things,
(06:39):
then you figure out how are wegoing to price it?
And I heard one of your showsactually where you were talking
about pricing models and youknow a lot of us going to price
it.
And I heard one of your showsactually where you were talking
about pricing models and a lotof us will just price it
whatever we think the value ofthe service is and there's some
legitimacy to that on the valueyou're giving, the
transformation that they'regetting.
But if they can't afford it, itdoesn't really matter.
And so you have to look at itfrom both sides.
(07:02):
What's the value you'redelivering?
What does it cost you todeliver that value?
And then can they afford it?
And you've got to createpackages that you think they can
afford.
And some of that is trial anderror.
And you have to create theoffers and put them out in the
marketplace and sell them.
And once you start selling them, then you figure out pretty
(07:23):
quickly OK, they can't affordthis, I'm not getting.
I stopped getting priceobjections if I drop it to this
price.
And then you kind of adjustyour packages until you get to
something that makes sense foryou as a business owner and for
your consumer.
And so once you do that, thenext step is how do I start to
(07:45):
automate and systematize thatsubscription business, whatever
it is?
Now?
We've got HVAC people that areoffering subscriptions for
taking care of HVAC systems.
We have plumbers that are doingthe same thing.
Home services is huge.
I've got doctors that arecreating subscription plans to
deliver services to theirpatients that go around
(08:06):
insurance so they don't have todeal with insurance anymore.
But that's kind of the processyou go through and once you've
done that, then you can youstart testing it and you
eventually will have somethingthat resonates with the
marketplace and if it doesn't goback to the drawing board and I
guess I'll kind of back up astep.
(08:26):
Once you have that vision, usethis wonderful thing called
social media and start talkingabout it on social media and see
if anyone's interested in whatyou're talking about.
Ask questions.
If you know who you want towork with, then start asking
those people questions about theservice you want to provide and
is there any interest and atwhat price point?
(08:46):
Do some research?
Use that social media to do itand then build something.
10 years ago I would have toldyou, build out your whole thing
before you ask those questions.
But you don't really have to dothat.
You just got to build enough ofit that you can explain what
you're trying to do and see ifanyone's interested enough of it
that you can explain whatyou're trying to do and see if
(09:07):
anyone's interested?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
How did you get the traction of getting people aware
of?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
your new product?
That's a great question.
The first thing I did is I wenton what I call a CPA tour.
One of the easiest ways tomarket a product or service is
find out who has your customersalready and market to them.
And so I bought a list of CPAsthat were within 30 miles of our
(09:34):
location and started callingthem and setting appointments,
and I went out and met with them, explained what we did,
explained the subscriptionservice we offered, got to know
them too and what they offer,and created some partnerships
with CPA firms where they wouldrefer us business and I would
have CPAs that could work withour business clients.
That's the first thing I did.
I will tell you that gettingthat traction was much more
(09:56):
difficult than I ever thought itwould be.
I had a grandiose vision ofhaving 100 people in my program
in the first year, and it took10 years to have consistently a
hundred people in the program,because I had to not only market
it, I had to create the market.
No one was Googlingsubscription lawyer in 2012.
(10:20):
Now they are.
Now people are calling us andsaying we're wanting to
establish a relationship with alawyer, but back then no one was
doing that, and so I had tofind people with problems like
they've got a contract issue,they've got a bad employment
employee issue, they're tryingto buy a business, trying to
sell a business, and then showthem how we can support them in
(10:41):
a better way with the accessplan.
But now we're able to justmarket to the pain point of.
You need this monthlyrelationship.
You need to be proactive with alot of parts of your business,
but especially the legal,because it's the one that can
really bite you if you aren'tpaying attention and being
proactive and building it inwhat we call your business, in
what I call a shatterproof way.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Can you give an example of your
subscription-based model so thatothers can get an idea of what
that looks?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
like yeah, so my access plan has four levels.
We start with launch mode,which is exactly what it sounds
like it's for people that arelaunching their business.
So it's zero to 250,000 insales and our pricing is on our
like.
We're transparent with ourpricing.
It's 425 a month and you getwe'll set up your corporate
structure.
Make sure you have the rightentity structure in place so
(11:32):
that you have separation betweenyou and everyone else, so you
have the legal liabilityprotection.
We then create the customeragreement that you're using with
your main product or service.
We then give you on-demandaccess to our team with
questions as they come up and domonthly check-in calls with you
, so that we're all staying onthe same page with how you're
growing your business.
(11:52):
Then you go up to momentum.
We start adding bells andwhistles to it.
So now we're reviewing yourcontracts as they come in,
because you're adding vendors,you're adding things that
require more legal supervision.
And then you go to expansion asyou start scaling, and then our
top level is called guardian,and at guardian we're talking
about succession and legacystuff.
(12:14):
Like we've got a businessthat's scaling, we have
employees we're now working onthe business, not in the
business, and we start talkingabout who takes over when we're
done.
Do we have an estate plan inplace?
Is there a buy-sell agreement?
Do we have the right insurancein place if something happens to
us?
And we start having those kindsof conversations at that
guardian level.
And that's how we've structuredit Now.
(12:37):
If you would go back and look12 years ago, we had five plans.
The pricing was very different,because it really has been an
experiment in trying to figureout what makes sense to small
business owners, not just to us.
Some of it is us like whatparts are the most profitable
for us, and we try to do it in away that's profitable, but it's
(12:58):
like which ones actuallyresonate and which ones don't.
And so every year in Decemberwe'll look at the plan and
figure out what do we want tochange for next year, and then
we go back to market.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
How automated is your subscription-based model?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It's not as automated as I would like it to be, but
it's fairly automated.
We use Asana to do our projectmanagement.
Right now I'm looking at someother solutions, but if you were
an access client and needed tohave a contract reviewed, then
you've got a portal that youwould go to and you click a link
.
You can then ask you questionswhere you can submit your
(13:37):
request, whether it's a legalquestion or a contract review.
That then goes into the systemand then is assigned by our
access coordinator to one of ourreblog preferred providers.
They then start reviewing theagreement, communicating with
the client, and then that'sdelivered to them, and so we use
a lot of technology to do that.
It's not all as automated as Iwould like it to be.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What about the cyclical part of the business?
So you have let's say you have200 subscribers today.
Does it fluctuate very muchmonth to month?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, um, not so much month to month, but year to
year.
It does, and that's that.
There's any subscriptionbusiness, there's churn the
go-to book on subscriptionbusinesses is the automatic
customer and churn it.
You have to keep track of yourchurn and there's certain
percentages that you want to tryto hit, but you're going to
(14:34):
always have people going in andout.
We've, we've.
Our philosophy is that we neverwant to hurt you, and so there's
sometimes business owners arein a cash crunch and so they'll
go.
They'll be on pause with us for60, 90 days.
We try to help them throughtheir cash crunch and then they
come back, and sometimes theydon't.
Sometimes people will go out,and so we're tracking on a
monthly basis how many peopleare coming into the program and
(14:56):
how many people are going out.
Why is that happening?
We're asking.
You know we're surveying them,asking questions and making sure
it's not something that we'vedone or that we could have done
better.
And so you just have to measurethose numbers, and there's a
few, there's a few differentnumbers that you look at.
You know that you wouldn'tnormally look at in a business.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Is it difficult to staff up or down?
Is it difficult to?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
staff up or down.
No, it's pretty easy.
I suppose it could get hard Ifwe were to start bringing on
huge volumes of new clients atone time.
It could get difficult to staff.
But we're usually bringing themon an average of four or five a
month, so it's not verydifficult to staff up.
You can see it coming.
(15:39):
We've got a lot of flexibility.
We use a lot of contractors inour world to do that so we can
add them pretty quickly.
They don't need full-time workand so we can add them, give
them a few projects and keep theclient's projects moving and
then.
So in that way it's fairly easy.
Then we can usually tell yearover year just you know kind of
(16:00):
what our just by our growthprogression over the last few
years, what we can expect nextyear.
And so we just do planning andadd, adding positions as we do
and and and.
We start.
We're.
We're now talking because ournumbers are getting to a point
now where we're going to starthaving teams that work with
different sets of clients, asopposed to just that my whole
team works with everybody.
(16:20):
We're going to have to startdividing it up and conquering it
.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Have you taken your blood pressure before and after
since you started thissubscription, Because it sounds
like this is a lot easier thanjust grinding, going to find new
clients and hope the phonerings and, yeah, my, my overall
health is is much better.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It's not.
And there's, I do I was on the,I did my.
I've got a health coach that Imeet with on about a quarterly
basis and all my numbers are.
I'm in a good spot.
But we were talking about Ithink you know they always ask
you what kind of how's yourstress level?
And I think it's a hardquestion for entrepreneurs to
answer.
(17:00):
If you're in crisis, it's easy,you know.
You're like, yeah, I'm stressedout, but there's a certain part
of our world that is juststressful, and I think that we
learn how to to operate understress in a way that normal
humans don't, and so it's hard.
It's like, yeah, yeah, I guessI'm under stress, but it doesn't
(17:22):
really bother me and as long asmy like you said, my blood
pressure is okay, uh, I'mmanaging the stress.
Uh, I think it's fine, but,yeah, knowing that I have that
income, um, the way it is.
The other part of of it for methat's helped is that when
you're in litigation and you'rebilling by the hour, there's a
formula to it and you're alwaysworking.
(17:42):
It's in the back of your mind.
I've got to bill this manyhours if I want to make this
much money, and so that's alwaysin the back of your head.
And litigation is really.
I mean, you're constantlybutting heads with people and
part of your job is kind of tomake other people mad, and so
you're constantly you'reattacking, defending, attacking,
defending, and and that's not.
(18:04):
It wasn't something that Iwanted to do any longer We'll we
jump in and out of a few smallcases.
Now most of what we do is sendthem out to litigation partners.
They litigated, I manage it,and that really lowers my blood
pressure.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You're listening to Small Business Pivots.
This episode is proudly broughtto you by BOSS, where business
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At BOSS, we help businessowners create their businesses
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Our seasoned business coacheswho have walked the path
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Discover how small businesssuccess begins with Boss at
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If you're enjoying the podcast,make sure to stay connected by
(19:06):
hitting that subscribe button,giving us a thumbs up or leaving
a positive review.
Your support keeps us going.
Now let's get back to ourincredible guest.
When you reached out to allthese accountants CPAs how
difficult was it to build arelationship?
Because I know I often refer tothose as referral partners.
(19:27):
But when you're a referralpartner, they also kind of
expect something in return.
So you can't really refereverybody to every CPA you have
a relationship with, and I'masked that often by business
owners.
How do I handle that?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, one of the things that I pluses that I had
was that my offer was so uniquethat there wasn't anyone else
they could refer to for that.
So they were.
I was kind of the only.
I was the go-to person.
If they want, if they hadsomeone that they wanted to have
with a lawyer for a few hundreda month I was the only show in
town that helped and I wouldrefer in setting up the
(20:01):
relationship.
I would talk more about synergyand less about referrals.
I wasn't really asking them forreferrals, I was just trying to
look for ways that we couldwork together.
I would send them once I madethe relationship.
I would send them questions.
So if I was on the call with aclient and the tax question came
up, I would run that questionby them and then see is that
(20:24):
something they'd be willing toanswer for the client?
And then they would have achance to get the business.
And I require all of my clientsto have a CPA.
And then if and out of that,out of the 45 I met with in 30
days, there were only abouteight that I really wanted to do
much business with.
The rest of there's a problem inthe accounting and CPA world
(20:44):
that most of them are in this,in the small business accounting
.
They are historians.
All they want to do is say thisis what you did last year, this
is how much money you owe theIRS.
They don't have any interest inreally building a relationship
with you, learning how your lifeand business work.
How can we create strategies towhere you can keep more of your
(21:05):
money?
Most of them had no interest inthat.
The eight that I found that did,have interest in that we've
been able to work with over theyears.
And then there's always a fewthat are kind of rise to the top
, and so there's always a fewthat are, you know, kind of rise
to the top.
And so there's two or threethat we do regular things with.
I've got a if someone, if, ifif someone comes on with us and
(21:26):
they don't have a person, wehave a sheet that has a list of
them that they can then chooseand interview who they want,
interview them and decide whothey want to work with.
I don't often refer directlyand I will introduce them if
they want, but I kind of letthem choose who they want to
work with and that's, it'sworked for us.
I'm not going to say that weget all our business from CPAs,
(21:50):
but they definitely have ourclients, financial planners, who
have been good sources, andbankers to some extent.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
So you've talked about your path to success here.
You and I've talked about yourold past, and so I'm just
curious if you might share,because I know a lot of business
owners have challenges withmindset.
So were there any pivots orchallenges that you had?
How did you overcome them?
And the reason I ask for thosethat's not watching this podcast
(22:18):
behind you is Brian Tracy, zigZiglar some popular business and
personal coaches and how didyou?
Who do you go to for learning?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, and it, it.
It varies in times, but uh, theyou know Zig has been a big
deal for me.
I'm a Ziglar Legacy CertifiedTrainer.
I'm the official small businesslawyer for the Ziglar company
and I've had that privilege foralmost 10 years.
(22:52):
And Zig would say you are whoyou are and where you are
because of what you've put inyour mind.
And you can change who you areand where you are because of
what you've put in your mind.
And you can change who you areand where you are by changing
what goes into your mind.
And so when I get in a bad spotmentally and we all do, if
you're in business it justhappens.
And sometimes it's real, likethere's objective reasons for it
(23:13):
, and sometimes there's not.
But either way, your mindset'swrong, you're not happy, you
might even be depressed, and oneof the ways that you can fix
that is by listening to goodstuff.
No, I'm a Christ follower andso I try to spend as much time
as I can in God's word andapplying that to my life, and
(23:35):
that helps for sure.
And then I'm reading books,like the first book that started
me on my journey was the E-Myth, revisited by Michael Gerber.
Oh yeah, I go back to it timeand time again, and he's so
right about so many things and Isee it as I work with small
business owners on the legalside and in coaching.
(23:56):
And then another one that washuge for me and my first coach
made me read it was Chet Holmes'the Ultimate Sales Machine.
And there's just things thatyou pull out of those books that
you apply.
Some of them you applyimmediately, and then sometimes
I'll find myself going back tothose books and going I remember
(24:17):
seeing something in there andand it's and it will solve a
problem I'm having.
Now, like one of the one of thestrategies in Chet's book is
the his dream 100.
And we're, we have a retreatcoming up in Atlanta, uh, and
we're going to, so we're goingto, we're selling seats and I'm
going to be using his dream 100strategy to put the people in
(24:38):
the room that I want in the room, and so, um, there's just you.
I pull those things from.
All these different people, thepeople behind me have all
influenced me in one way oranother and, um, inspire me.
But you've got to surroundyourself with good people, and
so I'm always working with acoach on something in my
business.
I'm a part of communities ofbusiness owners so that I can,
(25:03):
we can have camaraderie andshared struggles, because being
on it's a business owner.
You're often on an island andyou.
There's two problems with that.
One you can start believingeverything you say is true,
which can be bad, and then, froma positive standpoint, you
think everything you're doing isgreat, or you can start
(25:23):
thinking everything's horribleand probably neither one are
true, and so you need otherpeople to bounce things off of
that, don't have any skin in thegame and can say, nah, you're,
you're, you're missing it, it'snot, that's not what's going on.
And so you gotta have coachesand people that you can, uh,
that are kind of where you areor where you want to be, and can
(25:45):
can help push you forward andgive you some correction when
you need to.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You've heard it here listeners, business coach.
We, even business coaches, havebusiness coaches, myself
included.
They're powerful.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
If your coach doesn't have a coach, I would question
it.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's.
I say that all the time, amen.
So what?
Take us through a day in thelife of yourself, or maybe your
week, kind of.
What percentage do you maybestudy, use a business coach,
work on your business, do sales?
Because I know a lot ofbusiness owners that are
listening.
They just don't feel like theyhave any more time to add one
more thing to their schedulebecause they're so working in
(26:25):
their business, as the EMS says,and not on it.
So what's a good percentage youyou find for yourself?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
yeah, and so I'm in a , I'm in a, I'm in a pretty good
season of life.
Right, we're empty, I'm emptynest, so my boys are out.
Um, so I have.
I have much more time than Iused to have, uh, and I've got a
business built that runs onsystems, uh, and I have a good
team around me.
(26:53):
So a typical day for me justkind of run through my schedule
is that I'm not a morning person.
I never have been.
I've tried.
It doesn't work.
It sets me up for failure if Itry to do things at 5 am or even
7 am.
So I'm at the gym at 8.
I have a trainer two days aweek and the other days I work
(27:14):
on my own and then I leave.
I leave the gym, I get a cup ofcoffee from Joe at Starbucks
and then I do my quiet time andthen I hit the office around 945
.
My first appointments areusually at 1015.
And I do all of the sales forthe firm.
Right now, one of the nextthings we'll be hiring is a
salesperson, but I do all thesales.
(27:36):
So I usually have two to threesales calls a day that last 20
to 30 minutes, and then I'mdoing client relationship calls
the rest of the time, and thenmy calendar from four to 5 is
blocked every day.
They cannot put anything after.
So my last appointment is 3,3.30.
(27:56):
They can't put anything on mycalendar after 4 unless I agree
to it.
And from 4 to 5.30 is when I'mdoing the work on whatever what
I would call my three projects,and I usually have three things
that I'm working on that I'vegot.
Those are.
I've got goals set around thosethree things.
They're the main events orprojects we're working on, and I
(28:16):
work on one of those projectsbetween in that timeframe and
then.
And then I, then I get out ofhere around five, 36 and then go
home, spend time with my wife.
We'll usually go for a walk atsome point in the night and then
it's not unusual for me to grabmy laptop again while we're
(28:37):
watching something stupid onNetflix and then I'll do some
communication at that point.
Social media is a tool.
I don't spend a ton of timejust scrolling through it, but
that's when I'll get on socialmedia and comment on posts and
interact with people.
Uh, I don't do that during thebusiness day.
(28:58):
I, I don't, I don't have, I, Idon't find time to do that, so
that's when I'll do that, or ormaybe I have some idea that I
want to work on.
That's not one of the three,and I'll play with it then,
because that's my time and I cando that.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I appreciate you sharing that because so many
business owners they you got toget up early, got to get up
early and they're just burnt out.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Well, yeah, but if you go, if you go back, if you
go back 15 years, uh.
So I started the firm in ohfive.
Um, when I started the law firm, I was coaching one soccer team
.
Two years later I was coachingthree soccer teams and so I
would hit the office at 8.
I would be out of the officearound 3.30 and grabbing all the
(29:41):
soccer stuff and getting out tothe soccer fields and then I'd
get home around 7.30 or 8.
Boys would go to bed and then Iwould often be back at the
office from nine till midnighttrying to crank out work.
So I've, I've done it that way.
That wasn't fun, but therethere's a.
There is a.
There's a part of doing thiswhere there is some grind to it.
(30:01):
Um, I know there's some peoplethat avoid it somehow they.
But I think the norm is thatyou're going to have to work
hard in your business at somepoint.
The harder you work in thebeginning often makes it where
you can.
It makes it easier later.
If you're working on the rightthings, if you're building, if
you're building the rightculture, the right systems,
(30:24):
you're learning how to automateand delegate things so that that
grinding makes sense for you inthe future, don't just grind
for the sake of grinding, but,ladies and gentlemen, you at
some point in business, you haveto work hard.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We talk about working on the business versus in the
business, and again, businessowners are putting out fires all
day, it seems like, and they'realways asking me like, what are
some things that I would workon as a business owner that is
working on the business?
Can you kind of explain thedifference?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, and there's kind of two parts of that for me
.
Is that working in the business?
For me is if I'm doing in thelaw firm, is if I'm doing legal
stuff, if I'm doing research, ifI'm reviewing a contract, if
I'm answering legal questions,that's working in the business.
If I'm looking at how can weuse this software better, how
(31:17):
can we maybe find a differentsoftware package that will
eliminate these three things?
We're already our tech stacksso that we can save money, save
time, be more efficient, that'sworking on the business.
And your goal should be to bespending more and more time
making those kinds of strategydecisions and less of the
(31:40):
technician things that Gerbertalks about.
Where you're, you've.
This is why we started ourbusiness, because we're really
good at something and think wecan do it better than our boss
could.
And then you have to learnthese other skills and how to
assemble a team.
And so when you're working onthose higher level things like
what kind of software to use,what are you know, reviewing
your core values, making sureyour mission statement's in line
(32:02):
, doing setting up systems forreviews, for you know your
employees, planning, planninglonger term things that's
working on the business.
But when you get into the nittygritty of delivering the product
or service that's working inthe business, and I still have
to do that some, but I'm out ofit more and more.
(32:26):
And that's when you can see it,and I'm a visual person and so
I'll very I'll draw out squares.
One of my mentors, howardPartridge, showed me this years
ago of all the boxes of thingsthat have to be done in the
business and write in them.
You know the names that aredoing them and my goal is to get
my name out of all those boxes,except for owner, in the next
(32:51):
five years.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That's a great description.
So when someone is consideringto work on their business
because most business ownersdon't know what, what balance
did you see was kind of a goodone for you?
Was it like maybe an hour aweek to start with, or maybe it
was half a day to start with,Was it?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
like maybe an hour a week to start with, or maybe it
was half a day to start with.
Yeah, I think that you shouldtry to block off, if you can,
most of a day per week thatyou're going to focus on bigger
picture things and I know that'shard, but there's some great
value.
There's value for you and thatit will lower your stress level
because you're thinking aboutmore positive things instead of
(33:33):
putting out fires.
There's value to your team and,like I wouldn't even pull away
and do that day somewhere elseLike, do it at home, do it at a
coffee shop when you're workingon the business, get away from
the business and make yourbusiness survive without you for
a day.
And there's some anecdotalevidence that if you do that,
your team will start to take onresponsibilities that they would
(33:54):
not normally do and yourbusiness will start growing in
ways that you can't imagine.
If you can get to two days aweek of being gone, it's
exponential on the progress youcan make.
It's hard to do it, but so Iwould start with maybe take
Friday afternoon and go, focuson the business and work to try
to get up to a full day.
(34:15):
But again, try to do it.
Don't do it at your desk, gosomewhere else and do it away
from your business.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I'm going to ask you a two-part question.
One is from your attorneyeducation experience.
What is a piece of advice thatyou would tell all business
owners?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, document everything If it's not written
down, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I love that.
I love that.
I see it.
I was just on a podcast, oh,probably a week ago or so, and
they said what is your biggestfailure?
And my biggest failure wasforming a partnership without
legal counsel because I didn'tknow better.
I just forming a partnershipwithout legal counsel because I
didn't know better.
I just it was kind of ahandshake deal, and so I
encourage everybody to heed youradvice and reach out to an
(34:57):
attorney.
I just can't say it enough.
Two areas of business Iencourage everybody to.
Even if you can't afford it,you've got to find the money to
afford it.
And that's an accountant, agood one, a cost accountant and
an attorney.
Like, don't, don't try to dothose things yourself, Would you
agree with that.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, I would add to that business coach.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Business coach.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
yeah, so those are the three that cost you money,
Then you need to have a bankingrelationship, not just a bank a
banker that you've got on thespeed dial and then an insurance
broker that can help cover thatrisk.
And if you have those keypeople, that board of advisors,
in place, it will make your lifemuch, much easier and your
business will grow.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Amen.
So the second part of thatquestion is coming from a
business coach perspective.
What would you offer businessowners?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Get out of your way.
You are the reason yourbusiness isn't growing.
So figure out what, what, whereare you stopping people from
doing what they need to be doingin your business?
Um, my guess is that you'remicromanaging something that you
shouldn't be, and take yourhands off of it.
Teach them what you want done,show them how you want it, what
(36:05):
your expectations are, and letthem do it.
But I, if you're the roadblockin the business, um, that's
fixable.
Uh, if someone else is, um, youknow that's, I guess you're
going to fire somebody.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I was going to say that's fixable too.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
That's fireable, but if, if it's something you can
control, that it's crazy not todo that.
And so look around and where,where are you causing the
problem?
Because I guarantee you it'syou.
You're causing the problem inyour business.
Everything rises and falls onleadership.
So even if you're not theproblem, you're the problem.
But look, be introspective andtry to figure out where are you
(36:43):
causing problems in the businessby to kind of tie it to what we
were talking about where maybeyou're doing something in the
business you shouldn't, Maybeit's something that you're not
even good at, but you won't letgo of it.
Let go of it and let yourbusiness grow.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And never forget the business you have today.
Business owners you createdthat or you allowed it.
You are the boss.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
It's nobody's problem , but yours yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Or you have a job with a crazy boss, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Right.
Well, you've been a blessing tomany and a wealth of knowledge.
How can someone find youinteract?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
with you Two places, uh.
On Instagram at the Scott Reebis a great place.
We release a lot of contentthere and it's easy to
communicate with me through amessenger.
A lot of content there and it'seasy to communicate with me
through Messenger.
And then, if you'll go toreblawcom forward slash small
business pivots we'll have apage set up just for you guys
and you can download a part ofmy book, the Shatterproof
(37:41):
Entrepreneur kind of get a sneakpeek at it before you buy it
and see if you want to buy it.
And then you can also press abutton and schedule a laser
legal coaching session with me.
You can tell me everythingyou're doing in the business and
I can tell you the things I seethat you're doing right and the
things you're doing wrong.
And then you can take that awayand go fix it or have us fix it
.
However you want to take careof it.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Fantastic Listeners.
I encourage you to take Scott'soffer.
He's a wealth of knowledge andcomes from both sides the legal
and the coaching.
So I know for a lot of usbusiness owners sometimes it's a
little frustrating when we goto an accountant, we ask a
question and they say, well, youneed to talk to your attorney
and vice versa, or you need togo, maybe, a business coach.
(38:24):
But you've kind of come fromboth angles so you have a better
perspective.
So again, scott, I appreciateyou Listeners.
Go reach out to Scott.
Have a great day.
Wish you much success.
Thanks, michael, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
Please don't forget tosubscribe and share this podcast
.
If your business is stuck, youneed help creating a business
(38:47):
that can run without you, or youneed a fast business loan or
line of credit.
Go to our website,businessownershipsimplifiedcom
and schedule a free consultationto learn why small business
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If you want to talk anythingsmall business related, email me
at michael atmichaeldmorrisoncom.
(39:07):
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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