August 12, 2025 • 51 mins
Ever wonder what keeps your friendly neighborhood business attorney up at night? Hint: it's watching entrepreneurs shake hands on partnerships without proper documentation, then having to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.
Brandon Woodward, founder of Woodward, Kelly, Fulton and Kaplan, cuts through the legal mystique to deliver straight talk about protecting your small business. With 25 years of experience guiding entrepreneurs through the legal landscape, Brandon shares why waiting until there's a problem to seek legal help is like trying to buy insurance while your house is already on fire.
The conversation tackles those awkward but essential discussions business partners need to have while everyone's still smiling and optimistic. Brandon explains why documenting agreements upfront prevents costly disputes when unexpected circumstances arise. "Silent partners are never silent," he warns, highlighting how proper documentation protects everyone involved when reality inevitably differs from rosy projections.
Cash flow challenges get special attention as Brandon reveals why collections issues can sink even profitable businesses. "A business can run in the red for decades, but you can only run out of cash one time," he notes, offering practical advice for maintaining healthy receivables without alienating clients.
Perhaps most valuable is Brandon's guidance on building business cultures that retain talent. He shares a philosophy that resonates deeply: "Train employees so well they could work anywhere. Treat them so well they won't want to." Through profit-sharing and meaningful inclusion, Brandon demonstrates how legal structures can support rather than hinder positive workplace dynamics.
For business owners contemplating an exit, Brandon's insights on preparing years in advance for a sale prove invaluable. His free white paper (available at wkfklaw.com) outlines steps to maximize value and ensure smooth transitions.
Ready to protect what you've built? This episode delivers the legal wisdom every entrepreneur needs without the intimidating billable hours. Your business deserves more than a handshake and good intentions—give it the legal foundation to thrive.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What about employees?
How do you help smallbusinesses there?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
They always say you know, I've heard around here
that the customer is king or thecustomer is always right.
Human capital is incrediblyimportant.
I think Victoria might havegone through some of your folks
to set this up today.
Invest in people, show themtraining, give them a stake in
the outcome, in the growth somany business owners try to get.
(00:30):
That I'm the boss.
It was done to me this way.
You know I learned you know atFezziwig's shop from A Christmas
Carol.
You know I learned you know thehard way.
I was an intern, an apprentice.
I trucked concrete up the hillfor a horrible boss.
Okay, it's 2025.
You can't do that.
Give your employees real stake,real ownership in the company.
(00:55):
We have a profit share here atWoodward, kelly, fulton and
Kaplan, we set a number, we hitthe target number and everybody
shares in the upside of that.
Partners have our stuff, butthe employees are certainly
invested in the success of thefirm and it works.
It's some famous thinker it'snot my, it's not my line, henry
(01:15):
Ford, maybe it was.
Train them so well that theycould work anywhere.
Treat them so well that theywon't want to.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh God, that's good, that is so good, Good tagline.
Welcome to the oh God that'sgood, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh good tagline Welcome to the Small Business
Safari, where I help guide youto avoid those traps, pitfalls
and dangers that lurk whennavigating the wild world of
small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
(01:47):
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop Go you ready?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Are you telling me we're live right now?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're live right now.
Everybody, let's get rockingand rolling.
And you know what?
That's what happens.
We wait for the lady to sayrecording has started.
It didn't happen this time,alan, because we are
authentically flawed.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We are authentically flawed.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I just got done saying to everybody I'm training
some more sales guys.
You got to be authentic in thesales process, especially in the
home, because it's verypersonal for a lot of people.
It's residential sales,residential home construction
that we do.
And I said you got to beauthentic.
I said, but that doesn't meanyou got to show your ass.
So don't show your ass, but beauthentic.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's another book chapter.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I think I'm working on book number two.
That's right, burger.
The pod has been filling it upwith all kinds of great ideas
and today we've got anothergreat guest on a field that
actually I, I, um, I should sayI like it, I just don't, um, you
can, as my best friend is alawyer and now a judge and my
son is in law school, I shouldlike law, um, but I just bristle
(03:05):
at the fact that I have to dealwith lawyers in anything.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So that's bad right.
Well, for a lot of ourlisteners and I was one of them
you had a small business and youthink, oh God, if an attorney
sets foot in my store, I'm goingto get sued for absolutely
everything.
And I've since he's just abouteverything.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And I've I've said he's just about everything, and
but I've since made some goodfriends and I also had a stint
in the franchise world where wehad our in-house counsel and I
gotta say, having your ownlawyer is fun, all right, yeah
well, if you spend any time withlawyers, that I do make a lot
of fun of them and I can because, like I said, it's a little too
(03:46):
close to me but they definitelythink differently than a lot of
people and they understand alot of the stuff.
That goes on and, as we've hadsome lawyers on over the years,
you realize not all lawyers areequal and there's definitely
experience that you need to havewhen you talk to people about
it.
So today we've got a great oneman, brandon Woodward's, coming
(04:12):
on to talk to us and as soon asAlan said they'll sue you for
everything All.
I looked out and saw Brandon goand he goes.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
yes, everything Including that, you know so.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Brandon, how did you get into law?
I'm interested to know if thiswas something that was always a
life passion.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
To a point.
I actually started college as achemistry major and was
disabused of that early on by mychemistry professor, put his
arm around my shoulder and goesyou're not going to make it as a
chemistry guy, maybe somethingelse out there?
So after that I knew that Icould always write well.
I knew that I was at leastsomewhat persuasive or I could
always be counted on.
I certainly wasn't shy and Icertainly wasn't an introvert.
(04:53):
So that kind of led me to myundergraduate degree and led me
to law school after college.
After college I went through acouple of different areas of law
until I got into business andcorporate, which is the complete
opposite of the suinglitigation lawyers that you've
(05:15):
mentioned.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So go ahead.
I was just going to say it'skind of an interesting thought
to think of the similaritiesbetween chemistry and law.
I mean, you're, you're, you'reworking on a puzzle, I think.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, but he also hit on the thing and this is I'm
going to go back now, I'm goingto play my son's story back and
so I have my master's inmechanical engineering and
obviously I've taken a lot ofmath classes, I've taken a lot
of engineering classes, and he'sin, he's in college, going to
undergrad, and in his sophomoreyear he said Dad, I have taken
(05:47):
my last math class.
I said, son, you're talking toan engineer, so I'm not sure how
to take that, but this kid canwrite, and that's the one thing.
And he definitely thinksdifferently than I do.
As engineers they think one wayand very logical and kind of
moving this way, and lawyers arelooking at the holistic and
then coming in and trying tosolve problems in a different
(06:08):
method and methodology, and Ithink that diversity of thought
has got to be something that youprobably noticed as well.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Absolutely, and it should go.
I don't know whether you sawLinkedIn or not.
My first corporate counsel jobwas with a massive engineering
company called Black VeatchEngineering.
They're headquartered in KansasCity, Missouri.
They build nuclear power plantsand also nuclear weapons too.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So they don't need legal help at all.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
They need a lot of legal and they had a fantastic
legal team.
They were all in-house.
You mentioned how nice it iswhen you have your lawyer down
the hall to ask questions too.
Learned a lot at that job.
Engineers do tend to kind of goin a very linear sort of thought
process.
They try to solve problems whenand if there was ever an issue
(06:54):
or something with any of ourcivil projects we also built
hydroelectric dams and thingslike that.
It's a big, big civilengineering firm, black Veatch.
Let's say there was a claim,something didn't work quite
right, the engineers wouldimmediately start writing emails
to each other, copying theinternal legal guys on it, and I
would immediately say guys,let's all stop emailing each
(07:17):
other real quick and just stepoutside your offices.
They were all in a row.
Let's all step outside.
Let's go down to the conferenceroom and let's start talking
about what went right, whatmight not have gone so right and
things like that.
But it is a very engineeringtrait to go in to solve problems
, fix things and make it work.
Curiously, that's also a lawyertrait as well.
(07:39):
We absolutely absorb otherpeople's problems and you know,
if you happen to be married to alawyer or an engineer, it's sad
because we're always trying tofix whatever's wrong instead of
listen.
Yeah, you might've heard thatonce or twice before.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I've been through counseling for that one.
That's right.
I just want to be heard.
Got it?
Heard that not solving theproblem, nope, don't fix, nope.
Okay, yeah, I, I you actuallyhit on.
I think that is the thing thatI've instilled with my son is
that you solve problems in adifferent way than I do, but
it's still he didn't flash tires.
Well, there's a little bitdifferent Now I'm a contractor.
(08:12):
So, brandon, I need other legalhelp.
But it's interesting when youbring that diversity of thought
in.
It helps you make betterdecisions.
And one of the things we'vetalked about a lot on the
podcast and the reason we didthis and I just reinforced this
last night in a networking eventthey go why are you doing this?
I said because you know, when Istarted my business, I didn't
(08:33):
have all these resources.
I wish somebody would have toldme how stupid of an idea this
was to start a business and howhard it was going to be.
In that it's not all golfing onFriday and then maybe working a
day or two or getting yourfour-hour work weekend like Tim
Ferriss.
It's just not happening.
So I think having thatdiversity of thought.
So, brandon, you've left thecorporate world.
(08:53):
That's what we've done, leavingthe corporate world.
So how are you helping smallbusinesses today?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Sure.
Once I went from Black andBeach Engineering to a very,
very large energy producercalled NextEra Energy.
They are down here in Florida.
After a couple of years doingthat, I opened my own law firm
and I went from representing aFortune 200 publicly traded
company that is NextEra torepresenting a pet sitter.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I can see a natural progression there.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You can see that, yes , I can see a natural
progression there.
You can see that, yes, theamount of capital in the pet
sitting business is not quite asgrand as a publicly traded
actually the largest energycompany in the United States
right now.
Long and short of it isbusiness, is business, and a lot
of you hit it right on the head.
Most folks get into it.
They're good at what they doand that's great, but at some
(09:46):
point you do need to go outsideyour you know your DIY mindset.
Or I can fix it or I can takecare of this and reach out to
get those advisors you need.
Now that pet sitter, I met herat a coffee shop.
She's still in business today,but by gosh, she has the best
corporate books imaginable and,by the way, she has a contract
that she now shows her.
This is obviously 14, 15 yearsago.
(10:07):
She had a one page agreementthat was her agreement with the
pet owners that she was workingfor.
It was very clear what she did.
It was clear how she got paid,how the job starts, how the job
ends and what the rights, dutiesand responsibilities are.
Along the way it was, it wasclean, it was easy to understand
and she really, really likedworking with me for it, and
she's again still in businesstoday.
(10:28):
I don't know that she stilluses that same contract, that
same agreement, but I'd like tothink she does.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know what, as a small business owner, I'm pretty
sure she does, because the lastthing I want to do is go back
and revisit that, spend money onthat, just update it for yet
another tagline or another linein there, but so is it safe to
say as a start you know you're awannabe entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The wise thing to do would be to develop a
relationship with somebody inyour profession before they need
it.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Absolutely.
A lot of times people hire myfirm to actually start their
business.
Now, if they're in businesswith, if an entrepreneur is in
business with somebody else orsomebody else's money, those
need to be documented anddocumented.
Well, if it's two people thatare in business, even if they're
family, let's get the agreementbetween the owners set down in
writing right now, at the outset, while everybody's smiling and
(11:21):
optimistic.
Let's not wait for a downturnor maybe some unfortunate
incidents, some hard times.
That's not the time you want tostart looking at.
Well, what is my deal with mybrother, my family member or my
business partner?
I can tell you for certain thata silent partner, someone that
just provides capital to thecompany, silent partners, are
(11:43):
never silent.
There are strings attached tothat money, regardless of what
they say.
So get those kind of dealsdocumented in writing early on.
If you're dealing with someoneelse or someone else's money, be
sure you have a very clearunderstanding of how that works.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
That is a great point .
I'm in a CEO mastermind groupand one of the ladies is
thinking of exiting her companyand somebody is interested in
acquiring her.
And we group and one of theladies is thinking of exiting
her company and somebody'sinterested in acquiring her.
And we said you know, the firstthing you got to do is get the
divorce agreement put together.
I said you're all happy now,but let's get that divorce
agreement now.
So, brandon, you hit on that.
It's hard to do becauseeverybody wants to be happy and
(12:20):
say, oh no, don't worry, alan'sgoing to be really quiet.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It has that stench of we need a prenup.
Yeah, you know you've got thishappy partnership going, but to
your point you have to do itbefore you need it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I agree.
And you know, if we think abouta prenup or we can think about,
you know, like a will, nobodyreally likes to think about what
happens if someone, one of uswhere's my stuff going to go
when I die?
You know, let's say it's just.
You know a couple of guys thatare in business with a service
industry or something like that.
They're down here in Floridabut mom and dad get sick back in
Ohio and somebody has to leavethe business.
(12:54):
Well, they didn't choose to.
But how are we going tonegotiate one partner and I'm
not talking about any sort ofcorporate formality partner but
you know one person that notonly is an owner but also a
worker, an employee, there.
How do we negotiate their exit?
Will it kill the company on theway out?
It very well could, if youdidn't really kind of think
about this.
Maybe on the front side, death,disability and divorce happen
(13:18):
in the real world.
And you know a good set of anoperating agreement for an LLC,
a shareholder agreement for acorporation.
Those are absolutely invaluableand they don't have to be long,
they don't have to becomplicated and they don't have
to be expensive to write.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
No, that's a great one.
I take us through a little bitof how you get people because
you know, potentially there'sthis guy here next to me that I
couriered into this totally freegig calling a free podcast that
we're doing.
So there's really nopartnership, but there's a
partnership and there's no moneyto split up, but there's it.
But you know, we're alloptimistic.
(13:53):
We were like, oh my God, we'regoing to go over and take over
Joe Rogan, we're going to go dothis and, by the way, we're
almost there, guys, we're almostthere.
I'm kidding.
So.
So how do you get people whoare optimistic and thinking
about, oh, we're going to goblow this thing up and be great,
because that's what we are,we're entrepreneurs.
We're thinking great.
You were thinking great as youwent and worked with the pet
sitter.
I've got those stories too.
So how do you get us to talkabout that stuff?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Sure, how are decisions going to get made in
good times and in bad times?
That's a great opening sort oficebreaker.
Let's, that's a great openingsort of icebreaker.
Um, let's say, your podcast isdoing fantastic, you're doing
really well together, uh, andall of a sudden, spotify comes
to you and said hey guys, wewant to have all your rights,
we're going to own you, you'regoing to wear our t-shirts,
we're going to put you on andall the channels.
(14:36):
Um, what about would you take?
Uh, two and a half milliondollars.
And one of you says great,let's go, let's get this done.
The other of you doesn't.
Now, spotify is not going tosit around and negotiate with
each of you individually.
Your deal has about 48 hours.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I'm selling it two and a half million.
You better, I don't have apartner anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
First of all, you don't have anything between you
that says you are, in fact,partners at all.
So who's going to get the twoand a half?
Now, if we do have, if we canat least agree that we are, you
guys are in this thing together,50, 50, or some two.
You are in it together.
Where we want you both.
Spotify Is 2.5 enough and oneof you might say, well, let's
(15:24):
see if we can, let's see ifthey'll give us three.
No, let's take 2.5.
And tick, tick, tick.
48 hours later you guys aresquabbling and the deal expires
and Spotify says you know what?
I don't want to deal with youat all.
That does happen in the realworld.
So when I ask about when thingsgo really well, your business,
your podcast or whateverindustry or service company
(15:45):
you're putting together, couldbe acquired, could attract
attention from a competitor tobe acquired.
Great things could happen foryou A big contract.
It could take 80% of yourcapacity.
Do you want that?
One of you says yes and one ofyou says no.
How are you going to resolvethat kind of internal dispute
before it drives you apart?
(16:05):
The bad side is the bad side.
The downside is well, we didn'tsell as much product, as we
thought we did last month.
We're out of cash.
We need to feed the beast, weneed to pump some money into it.
Well, how much?
Well, we need another $10,000.
Well, I don't have it.
What happens then?
(16:27):
Those are all great.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Those are great.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's a capital call and we need to say well, we
agree that we're going to put atmaximum X amount of money and
if I hit my limit of what I'mgoing to spend into it, I've got
it written right there.
I don't have to give youanother dime to feed the beast.
If it's not, if I don't have it, or I don't want to, if it's
(16:49):
voluntary, sure, keep feeding ituntil it.
Um, guys get into this troublewhen they purchase, uh, classic
cars or fractional shareaircraft, boats, uh, flipping
houses, anything that has anunseen sort of.
Oh, we had no idea that thatfuel pump cost $11,000,.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You know, on the classic Stearman, you know I
have seen that you actuallybring up a great one.
I've got a friend who is in afractional ownership.
It's not a timeshare, they owna house with 12 other couples
and the HVAC went out andsomebody had to make the call.
They have an operatingagreement, had to make the call
(17:31):
to use this service, had to makethe call on good, better, best,
picked best, and two of thepeople got absolutely roast and
pissed about this and leftbecause they're like we didn't
agree to best and the guy's likebut we need a best because this
is a vacation place and this iswhere you got to have air
conditioning and it's, you know,florida.
It was in South Carolina.
(17:51):
I get that.
I get that now.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
With 12 folks in it, that's a very difficult way to
make decisions.
It's 12 people are never goingto agree to anything ever.
You know 12 or six couples, orhowever you've split it apart.
At that point you may want toat least nominate somebody for
manager, and that's an unpaid,unthanked, crappy position.
But somebody gets to make thecall on those day-to-day sorts
(18:15):
of things and everybody needs toagree to trust that person.
Great example a rental or avacation house and they're using
it themselves.
They're renting it but airconditioning is expensive.
You know, if it was abeachfront and the beach needed
nourishment?
Or there's a local assessmentfor beaches, what if there's
(18:36):
mold somewhere?
I mean, you really got to takethese things into consideration.
That's the well.
If things don't go so well, howdo we pass the hat?
That should be fairly welldocumented.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know, if we're talking about an LLC, an
operating agreement, I think alot of the reasons that we don't
do this as small businessowners, that you're thinking
about starting one, or you're init right now and you're like,
oh my God, I've already rung thebell, I've already started this
business.
Brandon's making great points.
I think one of the biggestreasons we don't do it is the
almighty dollar.
So so how expensive orinexpensive is it?
(19:07):
And I think you know we talkabout that.
You know how expensive it is toblow up your company.
You have to ask that question.
But I think a lot of us are,and they're afraid of this too,
and we're afraid of how toapproach you.
So how do we approach you andwhat should we expect?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
OK, well, obviously it's.
It's very market sensitive,whether it's my firm or any
other business law firm.
We are kind of a specialtyniche and I've been at it for 25
years.
So you can expect my hourlyrate is going to be kind of up
there amongst attorneys you knowacross the country.
You're not going to get myhourly rate on a podcast.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I wasn't asking that, but in fact everybody's less
tactful than me.
I know I was like, well, youcan go out there and chat GPT,
you guys will find it out.
I mean, you can't expectsomebody with this kind of
experience to do this for free,just like in our business.
Don't come to me and say, chris, you're too expensive to build
my deck because I built anincredible deck for somebody who
is looking really good.
(20:04):
No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
If I wanted to sue this guy for this, I wouldn't
there you go Well, so I'massuming you can probably do a
retainer or you can probably doa la carte.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I do different things for different kinds of work.
My mergers and acquisitions aregenerally done on a flat fee
schedule because hourly doesn'tmake a lot of sense for that.
We can spend eight hoursworking on one schedule of an
acquisition and you certainlydon't want to pay $600 plus an
hour for that kind.
You know to work on one part ofone part of the deal.
(20:37):
But getting back to let's justtalk about an agreement between
business owners.
Certainly that's going to be anhourly rate sort of engagement,
depending on how complex anddetailed you need it to be.
The basics are generally outthere.
I know what a good operatingagreement should have.
We could talk about the death,disability and divorce and how,
(20:58):
the different things that couldhappen to the life of the
business.
We talked about capital calls.
All those would be in a 20,30-page document written by me
or one of my associates.
And uh, and you're charged forit.
Is it 3,000, 5,000, $8,000?
It might be any number of thosenumbers but here.
But if you decide to squabbleabout it and you don't like each
other, guess what Litigatorsare more expensive than I am?
(21:21):
First of all, your company'sgoing under, so everything you
built is flushed.
And two, now you're going tosue each other.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Here we go.
You know who makes money inlitigation.
You do lawyers, you do damn it.
All right, guys, brandonwoodward, go get to it because,
listen, it's just not asexpensive as you think.
Uh, I did the same thing.
I was fearful of it and Irealized I had to have somebody
look at some contracts.
It wasn't that bad and it'sjust like anything.
When you hire a professional,they're not going to take 40
hours to look at something thatthey have the experience on.
(21:50):
So you can't take 40 times $800an hour or whatever it's going
to be, but you can't also expectthese guys to work for 25 bucks
an hour either.
So get real with it and do itright.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well, I also assume that if you're trying to avoid
legal fees and you let a problemcompound, then it's going to
end up being much more expensivethan if you just talked to your
attorney up front.
And so I wanted to ask you youknow, outside of the operating
agreement, what are some thingsthat you see that small business
people should be picking up thephone and calling you
(22:21):
proactively?
For that they're not.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Collections.
Every day your accountreceivable goes over 30, 60, or
90, or whatever your pain pointis, is a day further away from
you getting paid.
It happens in the constructionand services industry,
especially if there's a set ofdraws or it's a stream of
payments.
Shockingly, all my contractorstend to get stiffed on that last
(22:45):
final draw payment.
And you guys both know that'swhere the profit is, because you
paid for materials and you paidyour labor.
The profit's on the lastpayment.
So collections for smallbusinesses is critical.
There's an old expression abusiness can run in the red for
decades, but you can only runout of cash one time.
(23:05):
That's true.
And if your cashflow is gonebecause you're not billing,
you're not collecting and you'renot on top of your AR, the
long-term prospects for yourbusiness are not great.
So having a relationship with alaw firm, particularly one that
gets the job done, we send oneletter and then we're off.
(23:26):
We will actually file acollections lawsuit.
That generally gets the jobdone.
But it's not easy, it's notcheap.
That is hourly rate kind ofstuff, um.
But you know, you get areputation for not letting your
AR go and and that's what youwant in business.
You want to be paid, not havestories told to you.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
to be paid, not have stories told to you.
Does that make sense?
A hundred percent, man, you'resinging my song.
I love that idea because yousaid something that's so big.
We have an intern working withus this summer and I said here's
things that you're probably notgoing to hear in school.
I said in a small business orrunning any business, cash is
king.
If I don't have no cash, Ican't pay people.
If I can't pay people, guesswhat they don't do?
They don't work for me.
You got to have the cash, bro,I said.
(24:09):
Second thing is you got to havesales, man.
I got to be bringing in thatrevenue.
I got to be ringing that bellbringing in that revenue so I
can get that cash.
I said but there's twodifferent reports for that and
can only run out of cash once,man, and I would tell you 17
(24:30):
years at least three differenttimes.
I should have shut it downbecause I was out of cash and I
was dipping into personal fundsjust to make it keep going.
What about?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
employees.
How do you help smallbusinesses there?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
um, they always say you know, I've heard around here
that the, the, the customer isking or the customer is always
right.
Human capital is incrediblyimportant.
I think Victoria might havegone through some of your folks
to set this up today.
Invest in people, show themtraining, give them a stake in
(25:03):
the outcome, in the growth somany business owners try to get
that I'm the boss.
It was done to me this way.
You know I learned you know atFezziwig's shop from A Christmas
Carol.
You know I learned you know thehard way.
I was an intern, an apprentice.
I worked, I trucked concrete upthe hill for a, you know,
horrible boss.
(25:24):
Okay, it's 2025.
You can't do that.
Give your employees real stake,real ownership in the company.
We have a profit share here.
At Woodward Kelly, fulton andKaplan we set a number, we hit
the target number and everybodyshares in the upside of that.
Partners have our stuff, butthe employees are certainly
(25:44):
invested in the success of thefirm and it works.
The employees are certainlyinvested in the success of the
firm and it works.
It's some famous thinker it'snot my line Henry Ford, maybe it
was train them so well thatthey could work anywhere.
Treat them so well that theywon't want to oh.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
God, that's good, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Oh, good tagline.
Oh my God, yeah, great, yeah,we'll find out who.
It's not a me thing great.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, we'll find out who.
It's not a me thing, but it'sreally important.
Find activities outside of theoffice that actually does
benefit your business.
It is subtle.
Get them involved withcharities.
Victoria networks constantly.
She's in young professionals ofour county.
(26:27):
She goes to that, has coffeewith all the other young
professionals and gee you knowwhat.
Not only does it build her upof the employee, the status you
(26:49):
can always give some person sometraining.
Side note there cross-training.
What happens when yourbookkeeper leaves?
What happens when your billerof your medical practice, your
best biller, just says, hey, Idon't do this anymore or I'm out
on maternity leave?
Well, you better have somebodythat can cover the base for a
couple of days until somethingelse happens.
(27:09):
So cross-training is huge andcertainly certainly be
transparent and cut youremployees in on the successes.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
So now let's talk about business and get away from
the law stuff a little bit.
So you did, you started yourlaw business.
You started on your own.
You didn't go in with a partner, you did it yourself.
You've grown to that maturitylevel that you just said.
There Did you feel like?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
you had that same maturity level and culture
building mindset when you werefirst starting?
Absolutely not.
I was arrogant, like all younglawyers were.
I thought I could just bebusiness lawyer and everybody
would just show up and fawn overall the jewels that were
falling out out of pearls ofwisdom, falling out of my mouth
hey, that's not just a lawyerthing, that is all of us.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
No, it's an allen thing.
Yeah, it's an entrepreneurthing right?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
yeah, it is, I mean when you started your biz you
were like hey, I havebulletproof.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I said I remember actually saying this is going to
be a turkey shoot I know.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
So I think that's the thing.
Again, when you talk to peoplewho've been around it enough, I
mean, you're dropping greatnuggets.
Everything you've said so far.
You know, the culture is keyfor me too, but in the beginning
, though, that wasn't my cultureyeah, it was.
I was kind of hey, I'm reallysmart.
You ought to listen to what I'msaying, which, by the way,
somebody might have heard like aweek ago.
(28:25):
Which, by the way, somebodymight have heard like a week ago
yeah, that isn't true, with alot of F-bombs, but yeah.
So I love how you've evolved inthat, and actually you've
mentioned your firm too, and nowyou have partners.
So are they younger, same age?
How did you do that as youevolved your culture?
Tell us a little bit about thatgrowth.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well, I was working, still solo.
It was the law office ofBrandon Woodward for 10 plus
years or so, built a nicefollowing, had a nice base, had
a good group of companies andclients that followed me.
But one thing that I didn'treally have access to was
litigation.
I mentioned collections.
I mentioned when things gobadly between partners and
things like that.
I'm not a litigator.
I've never seen the inside of aFlorida courtroom and I'm not
starting at 51 years old.
I'm not a litigator.
I've never seen the inside of aFlorida courtroom and I'm not
starting at 51 years old.
(29:10):
I'm not starting now, so it'snot a skill I have.
So the bottom line is I neededlitigators and I needed some
other attorneys in the just tokind of hey, this is more than I
want to chew.
I need litigation or I need thecredible threat of litigation.
There was another firm that didlitigation and a healthy amount
of bankruptcy practice, as wellas foreclosure and real estate.
(29:30):
We actually ended up me and mypartner, craig Kelly, ended up
butting heads.
We were on the opposite side oftransactions for two or three
different times.
We bloodied each other.
It was not even close, we justenjoyed kicking each other's ass
over and over again.
Sometimes he won, sometimes Iwon.
But about a year on I needed hislevel of just bulldog
(29:56):
ruthlessness.
I had a client that neededsomebody just torn apart, and
I'd go hey, craig, I can't dothis, this.
You need to take this, thiscase, off my hands.
He goes, happy to do it.
Here we go, same time, same batchannel.
He goes I have no idea how towork a three-party waterfall
distribution for a shareholdersthat have disparate
contributions.
(30:16):
I go that's easy, brandon,would you handle this for me?
So we became really goodfriends and, out of that warfare
that we engaged with for acouple of years, we became
buddies.
We started trusting each other.
We stitched the firms togetherin 2018, 2019 to become Woodward
, kelly, fulton and Kaplan.
(30:37):
Mr Fulton retired two years agofor health reasons.
Dana Kaplan is my other partner.
She's she's an incredibleattorney, smart as heck, an
absolute worker bee.
She comes into the office, putsher headphones on and a pile of
files goes from this side tothat side.
Billable hours go out the doorbut meet a client for a cocktail
(31:01):
, go out on a golf trip, for youknow, to see if I can bag.
You know a bigger client Won'tdo it, doesn't like it, just
doesn't.
It's not, it's not her strengthand you know the three of us.
And now we have associates.
We have another partner, we'vegot other folks around and we
(31:21):
were doing just fine.
I have one associate that worksfor me exclusively.
She happens to be in India.
She graduated the University ofOhio School of Law and went
back to India and she's overthere and does quite a bit of my
drafting for me.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I just love so much of what he said and I got to
think if I were an attorney andthere was somebody on the other
side of the table who waskicking my ass, I'd be so pissed
.
And yet he's sitting theregoing.
Well played, nice.
You know, maybe we can do somebusiness together.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So, again, something you can learn from lawyers is
that they I've seen that happento Troy Again.
My best friend, who's now ajudge, has done the same thing
and I'm like, dude, there's noway.
I said I'll be lucky if thatdude walks in that thing.
I said I don't even own a gun,I'll find a gun, and if I can't
find a gun, I'm going to beatthe shit out of him.
If I get the shit kicked out ofme, I said I'll find his car
and I'll beat them, I'll beathis kids, I'll beat everybody.
(32:12):
I said, no, this Sicilian isnot going, not doing it, he goes
.
Chris, sometimes you have tolook at the greater good.
I'm like, well, that's no fun,right?
So, brandon, how were you ableto reconcile that and become
this partnership and build thisculture?
I mean, that's, I think,another great question that
people want to hear.
Did you just give yourself agreat question.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I did that sucks.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That does not count on the scoreboard.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Thank you, brandon, not on the scoreboard.
Thank you, brandon.
No, denied.
What do they say?
It's not sustained, it's deniedtonight.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
How did we get to a point where we got to be a good
partnership?
I think it's how you get to bea good business owner in general
, and Craig is an amazingbusiness partner.
You have to set your ego asideand that is key to being
successful in business is youdon't know everything all the
time.
Like I said, getting punchedout a few times will teach you
very quickly that, oh, I'm nevergoing to learn this guy's skill
(33:12):
.
And, more importantly, whydon't I just hire this guy to do
this for me?
Let's do it that way.
I am the rainmaker of the firm.
I go out, I will work a room, Iwill come back with three to
four contacts and just say hey,we spoke the other day at a
chamber of commerce event.
You said you had a business andyou were worried about
(33:33):
retaining your employees oremployee retention, or you're
worried about tariffs, you wereworried about X.
Would you like to come by myoffice and have a coffee?
Now our office is in a very,very fancy building.
You come in it's kind ofimpressive and you sit down in
one of our conference rooms, oreven my office right here, you
know, and you get the fulleffect Like, hey, this is.
We do business all day long andit's all we do.
(33:54):
I won't help you with yourdivorce, your personal injury,
your will, or if your kid getscaught in a pot with pot in her
locker.
I'm terrible at all of thosethings.
But if it's business, ask methe questions, I'll give you the
answers.
If you want to hire us, great.
If you don't, that's great too.
That's putting the ego asideand just being yourself and
(34:14):
being natural.
But yeah, my partners and I allgot chilled our egos a long
time ago and realized that wecan go again the.
African proverb go farthertogether.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That kind of thing, Right, yeah, no great point, and
I think obviously that'ssomething you have to just work
on with the egos.
So how do you guys, what's youroperational model now?
Do you guys get together once aweek, talk about business?
Is it once a month?
Look at the books, look ateverything.
Is it just organic becauseyou're in the same building
together?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We're not in the same building.
We have two different offices.
We are 26 miles apart.
We talk very infrequently, it'sjust.
I know Craig and Dana are whatthey do and how they work.
We are fairly siloed.
Our business economic model isstill eat what you kill.
We have shared expenses.
We have shared certain thingswe share amongst each other.
(35:04):
But I'm not a bankruptcyattorney and I don't want to be
a bankruptcy attorney and I'mnot sharing in their bankruptcy
practice.
Similarly, they're not mergersand acquisition attorneys and so
when I bring home, when I domergers and acquisitions, that's
, that's my, my part of the firm.
So the Eat what you Kill modelis still out there.
It's certainly popular withother professional you know
(35:26):
organizations model is still outthere.
It's certainly popular withother professional organizations
doctors, financial planners,accountants, podcasters.
Thank you, hey.
A lot of eating, a lot ofkilling.
But that is our business modeland I think we email each other
once a week or so, get togetheronce or twice a year but, like a
lot of business things, youdon't need to see each other
(35:47):
every single day and sometimeswe even get on each other's
nerves, believe it or not, likeevery family does.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, let's talk about the business side of this,
because I just had somebody sayyou know, chris, I'm thinking
about getting into consulting.
I said so when you want to getinto consulting.
Why is that?
Oh, I just think I have somereally good ideas to help people
.
I said you realize, to actuallymake a business and make this
actually work, you're probablygoing to be anywhere between 60
(36:13):
and 98% business development and2% and 40% of coaching.
I said, but you'll never be ahundred percent coaching because
you're always going to have tobe out there feeding the beast,
feeding the funnel if you wantto keep rolling.
And when I said this to this oneguy, he was looked at me like
you know, but people don't knowhow, you don't know how smart I
am.
I looked at him.
I'm like, yeah, I've been therebefore buddy.
So obviously, brandon, you guyshave figured that out too.
(36:34):
Tell us a little bit about howyou have been marketing your
firm, because a lawyer again,it's a very personal
relationship.
It's not a transaction.
This is not personal injury law.
This is not some stupidbillboard that you're going to
see 55 times in the city ofAtlanta between 25 different
personal injury lawyers.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
So how do they find it?
I think he just answered it.
He's involved in the community,he works the room, he actually
listens and he hears him mentionsomething that he might
actually be able to help withand invites him over for a cup
of coffee to the big ass, youknow the war room.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's it's, you know, when a lawyer takes interest in
you and invites you to theiroffice, why wouldn't you take
that?
Why wouldn't you accept that?
Now I work in a smaller town, Imean my.
My town is, you know, our wholeCounty is only like a hundred
thousand people, um, but thebottom line is it's, you know.
(37:29):
It's like I got nothing to lose.
You know my Froyo, you knowbusiness is just taking off and
this attorney, who dresses welland everybody seems to know who
he is and he's got a decentpresence online, I think I'll go
.
Yeah, he wants to go get a car,and I am genuinely interested
in them.
I want to learn from them, justlike you know they want to
learn from me.
I give them the same.
Hey, are you in business withsomebody or somebody else?
(37:51):
What does your agreement looklike with your suppliers?
Do you want me to look at thatfor you?
Or here's two things you coulddo tomorrow to hundreds, if not
thousands, of other businesses.
What challenges do you face?
Oh, if I only had a readysupply of X.
Do you know that there's asupplier of X on the other side?
(38:12):
You know, one town over.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I think that's another part that, alan, one of
the reasons we're doing thispodcast is because Alan's
exceptionally good at this isgreat connecting.
In that I'm not here for me,I'm here to find out about you,
find out about what I can do tohelp you and connect, and I
think that's part of the thingthat really grows.
That's why you're here, buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, I was just thinking about the connection
that you just told me about lastnight that we did.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
So, brandon, we've been doing this podcast for
three and a half years and a lotof business has been done
because of our podcast.
But what we didn't know is thatwe're also a dating service and
we actually were able to make amatch because a lady saw
somebody on our podcast on theYouTube channel don't forget to
check it out, small BusinessSafari and said, hey, I'm pretty
(39:04):
interested in this guy, andfound and sought him out and
they ended up going on a dateand I actually met him last
night.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I'm like holy crap.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
I'm good, married 21 years so I think I've got so
Brandon's off the market.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Everybody, do not look him up that part of the
equation may be working in myfavor, but However, let's talk a
little bit about who is yourideal client.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
So, guys, listen to this thing.
They may not be in StewartFlorida, but they, uh, they may
be in the U?
S, they not, may not be in oneof the other.
Who is a good client for you?
Who's calling you?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Uh, a business owner.
That really is the.
You know that's who I speakmost directly to.
You know who I also talk to thebusiness owner spouse, because
that's the one that listens tothe complaints every single day
and is tired of doing the booksfor the business.
Business owners that are inbusiness with other other
business.
You know a small group of guys,again with your, with the, the,
(40:00):
the rental property.
Those are my kinds operationalbusinesses, manufacturers,
things like that, that put outproducts, service providers,
certainly the professional sidesof things.
I represent lots and lots ofphysician groups, accountant
groups, financial planninggroups, accounting groups,
actuary you name the group evenlaw firms.
We do it all because businesslaw is wide ranging.
(40:25):
It's also rather fluid.
It's not a dry and dustypractice area.
It does change from time totime, changes with the news, it
changes with the market, itchanges with laws, do change we
were having a change in thestate of Florida how
non-competes are going to behandled in the near future.
So, like I said, a good clientfor me is a business owner that
(40:48):
has had some reasonable successor they're a little past startup
, a little past the crying intothe pillow and worrying about
payroll.
And, trust me I've been therethat just wants some questions.
That has some questions abouthow business works or what maybe
their next step should be myfavorite clients in the world
(41:09):
and I can do this in the stateof Florida, I can somewhat help
and advise on a national scale,and those are business owners
that are selling theirbusinesses.
I've got a white paper on mywebsite that talks about how
that process actually works.
It's free, just go download it.
The idea of selling a businessshould start two, if not three
years ahead of time.
(41:29):
If you don't have that luxuryagain, people get sick.
Markets change forces, thestranger things happen.
But the bottom line is you wantto be thinking about how do I
get out of my business down theroad when that offer comes, or
how do I find an offer?
How do I send it off to get itto someone else?
(41:50):
Or a second generation?
And I'm here to tell you secondgeneration, they don't want
your business, they don't wantyour shoe company, they don't.
What happens?
You just close it.
No, I genuinely love mergersand acquisitions work.
It's the buying and selling ofbusinesses and I think I've got
a nice touch on dealing withthose clients.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
So how can everybody find you let's find that white
paper how can everybody findBrandon?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Certainly.
I have a website.
We actually just had it redone.
It's wkfklawcom.
That's whiskey, kilo foxtrot,kilo lawcom.
You click any button on therefor contact.
It's going to go to me or myassistant.
We generally return calls andemails within a day or so.
It's a very Midwest thing, veryKansas City.
(42:36):
We do talk to people.
A lot of Floridas get a bad rapfor kind of not being
communicative.
I actually chaired my owndisciplinary committee for my
county.
Number one complaint wascommunication.
You know, people just drop offthe face of the earth with a
case involved.
That doesn't happen at my firmand, like I said, we do talk to
(42:56):
our clients.
Prospective clients get back toeverybody and give them some
time.
Sometimes it's not a lot, butwe will help as much as we can.
So the website is clearly thebest.
We are heavily in on LinkedIn.
I get those messages.
I see them.
You can certainly read about me, my bio, where I've been.
I've done some things over mycareer that are kind of not that
(43:18):
interesting.
We're on Instagram and that,according to our social media,
has been quite popular for us.
Little smaller things.
Our social media has been quitepopular for us.
Little smaller things.
Little bite-sized legal.
What is this.
How does this work?
What's the difference betweenan LLC and an S-corp?
They are different.
Can an S-corp be an LLC?
The answer is yes.
(43:39):
Little things like that as well, as it's got some humor to it
too.
So we are approachable, and youmentioned that earlier.
We're afraid of lawyers.
When does the bill start?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Trust me, you'll know when the bill starts.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
It's not a secret when you get a bill, because we
actually work on retainers.
But other than that, we're veryapproachable.
There's no stupid questionsplease.
I've heard them all and I wouldmuch rather you ask me the
question than think oh, I didn'task that because I didn't want
to sound stupid.
Trust me, that's ego speaking.
Sound stupid.
Ask the question If you don'tknow what it is ask.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Love it.
All right, guys, go check itout.
You got it.
We'll put it in the show notes.
You can go figure it out.
I know you're probably driving,so let's not do that, but let's
get to those final fourquestions, shall we All right?
What's a book you wouldrecommend to all of our audience
trying to either start or growa small business?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Profit First by Michael Makowski.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Nice, I like it.
Yeah, I actually.
I have that one and Fix this.
Next is the other one.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, I know that one .
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, it was a quick read.
I mean I like it.
Michalowicz does a good job.
I don't think Brandon likes itas much as you do.
I know I could tell he gave mea very lawyer response.
All right, let's go to the nextone, shall we?
What's a favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
This is South Florida .
I do have a pool.
It gets so hot Our pools downhere actually get too hot to
swim in.
My pool actually has what'scalled a heat pump chiller on it
so I can actually cool the pool.
Oh my god spent an absolutefortune to have that feature put
on my pool.
But I chill it down and I getin it, uh, with my fruity drink
and my floaties oh, love that.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Everybody's got to have a fruity drink and a floaty
in their pool.
Three and a half years wehaven't gotten that in.
We have not gotten that answer.
But alan, just look left.
It's not chilled, no, but it'sit should be this week I know,
come on, big daddy, step up.
I know I need a chiller damn it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I didn't I have a pool.
They're fickle too, man, it itworks, but it is uh.
It just runs and it's expensiveand it's I love it, worth it,
though.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Favorite feature that's way cool.
All right, one of the things wehave not talked about much here
but we have about, and that'sproviding great customer service
, because one of the things thatAl and I pride ourselves on is
we're kind of customer servicefreaks.
Oh my gosh, you did not justsay that.
Yes, what's the customerservice pet peeve of yours when
you're out there and you're theclient?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Oh, leave a message.
The first thing I did when Istarted my firm 12, 13 years ago
is I hired an answering service.
Um it my phone's here answered24 hours a day.
I didn't say they're answeredby me, but in any, any facet of
law, criminal, particularlycriminal people get arrested,
oddly enough at night, um, but Inever wanted to have.
(46:22):
Uh, a potential client call myoffice and like hi, this is
Brandon.
Leave a message.
All that says is you're notimportant and they're going down
a list.
They're going to go to one ofyour competitors.
So leave a message.
I hang up.
It's like look, there are otherveterinarians, there are other,
unless I'm referred to to thistile guy or this, you know, this
(46:43):
cabinet worker.
I'm going down a list to find,you know, my next service
provider.
So answer the phone, get onyour referrals, get on your
leads and follow up immediately.
That's a pet peeve.
When that doesn't happen,that's my pet peeve.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Well, in the home service industry, that puts you
95 percentile, because that'swhat happens.
So it's an easy thing to do andit's a hard thing to do.
So go figure it out, make thathappen.
That's a hard thing to do, sogo figure it out, make that
happen.
That's a great customer servicepet peeve that everybody should
understand.
All right, let's get to it.
I love construction, I loveworking on the home.
That's the reason I got into mybusiness.
The Trusted Toolbox Give us aDIY nightmare story of yours,
(47:20):
and we love fire, dismemberment,floods, pestilence, pests,
flying ants.
How, pestilence, pests, flyingants?
How about that one?
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I forgot to talk about that.
One Florida could be snakesAlligator.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I am trying to think If I've hit any underground
lines.
I didn't do it, a contractordid it, so that really wasn't
mine, any manner Of officeequipment that I have tried to
solve.
You know, document is due thenext day and the printer just
pukes, and so I get in there andI start tapering and break it
(47:56):
beyond recognition.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Are fax machines not like the death of me?
I mean, I could not work thosethings back in the corporate
world?
I can't tell you how manyfreaking fax machines I blew up
or did wrong or I never got itright.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Printers in general, it's just, you know, any sort of
office equipment.
I'm decently handy around thehouse.
I can't think of any times I'vehad to throw in the towel and
bring a pro in that's a who, nothow book, by the way.
And there are times to bring apro like me, like you, like you
know, an accountant.
But the bottom line is my DIYsfails are.
(48:38):
I have definitely screwedsomething up on one of my
vehicles and, yeah, I was justtrying to repair a small part on
it and it's behind the trimpiece of the tailgate and I
couldn't get the tailgate to goback up in it.
So it just looked janky andstupid and I had to actually go
up to my mechanic and, of course, the other right tool.
They just put it right back infor me.
But when?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
you drove up, though, was it was a bungee corded no,
it was like it was closed youknow I could get the door closed
I've driven with a bungeecorded uh bumper.
We come on in the Midwest backin the 70s.
Come on, man.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Oh, that's how you drive home, with a mattress on
your roof and a ratchet strap.
I did it.
I've been there.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Love this.
Brandon Woodward, not youraverage lawyer Go out there and
figure out how to get thatbusiness going.
Don't be afraid to talk tolawyers.
That's what we learned today.
And don't be afraid of it.
It's not as much as you thinkit is, and I'll tell you what.
(49:33):
It will save you a lot ofheadaches down the road.
We know that Guys keep bakingto the great week.
We're going to be back nextweek.
Tell your friends, tell yourfamily, tell your kids oh my god
, we're thinking about doingtrue crime podcasts because
we're just that big right now.
So we got to keep going.
Make it a great day.
We got to get out of here.
Cheers, everybody.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the small business
safari.
(49:53):
Remember, your positiveattitude will help you achieve
that higher altitude you'relooking for in the wild world
small business ownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
What about employees?
How do you help smallbusinesses there?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
They always say you know, I've heard around here
that the customer is king or thecustomer is always right.
Human capital is incrediblyimportant.
I think Victoria might havegone through some of your folks
to set this up today.
Invest in people, show themtraining, give them a stake in
the outcome, in the growth somany business owners try to get.
(00:30):
That I'm the boss.
It was done to me this way.
You know I learned you know atFezziwig's shop from A Christmas
Carol.
You know I learned you know thehard way.
I was an intern, an apprentice.
I trucked concrete up the hillfor a horrible boss.
Okay, it's 2025.
You can't do that.
Give your employees real stake,real ownership in the company.
(00:55):
We have a profit share here atWoodward, kelly, fulton and
Kaplan, we set a number, we hitthe target number and everybody
shares in the upside of that.
Partners have our stuff, butthe employees are certainly
invested in the success of thefirm and it works.
It's some famous thinker it'snot my, it's not my line, henry
(01:15):
Ford, maybe it was.
Train them so well that theycould work anywhere.
Treat them so well that theywon't want to.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh God, that's good, that is so good, Good tagline.
Welcome to the oh God that'sgood, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh good tagline Welcome to the Small Business
Safari, where I help guide youto avoid those traps, pitfalls
and dangers that lurk whennavigating the wild world of
small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
(01:47):
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop Go you ready?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Are you telling me we're live right now?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're live right now.
Everybody, let's get rockingand rolling.
And you know what?
That's what happens.
We wait for the lady to sayrecording has started.
It didn't happen this time,alan, because we are
authentically flawed.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We are authentically flawed.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I just got done saying to everybody I'm training
some more sales guys.
You got to be authentic in thesales process, especially in the
home, because it's verypersonal for a lot of people.
It's residential sales,residential home construction
that we do.
And I said you got to beauthentic.
I said, but that doesn't meanyou got to show your ass.
So don't show your ass, but beauthentic.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's another book chapter.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I think I'm working on book number two.
That's right, burger.
The pod has been filling it upwith all kinds of great ideas
and today we've got anothergreat guest on a field that
actually I, I, um, I should sayI like it, I just don't, um, you
can, as my best friend is alawyer and now a judge and my
son is in law school, I shouldlike law, um, but I just bristle
(03:05):
at the fact that I have to dealwith lawyers in anything.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So that's bad right.
Well, for a lot of ourlisteners and I was one of them
you had a small business and youthink, oh God, if an attorney
sets foot in my store, I'm goingto get sued for absolutely
everything.
And I've since he's just abouteverything.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And I've I've said he's just about everything, and
but I've since made some goodfriends and I also had a stint
in the franchise world where wehad our in-house counsel and I
gotta say, having your ownlawyer is fun, all right, yeah
well, if you spend any time withlawyers, that I do make a lot
of fun of them and I can because, like I said, it's a little too
(03:46):
close to me but they definitelythink differently than a lot of
people and they understand alot of the stuff.
That goes on and, as we've hadsome lawyers on over the years,
you realize not all lawyers areequal and there's definitely
experience that you need to havewhen you talk to people about
it.
So today we've got a great oneman, brandon Woodward's, coming
(04:12):
on to talk to us and as soon asAlan said they'll sue you for
everything All.
I looked out and saw Brandon goand he goes.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
yes, everything Including that, you know so.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Brandon, how did you get into law?
I'm interested to know if thiswas something that was always a
life passion.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
To a point.
I actually started college as achemistry major and was
disabused of that early on by mychemistry professor, put his
arm around my shoulder and goesyou're not going to make it as a
chemistry guy, maybe somethingelse out there?
So after that I knew that Icould always write well.
I knew that I was at leastsomewhat persuasive or I could
always be counted on.
I certainly wasn't shy and Icertainly wasn't an introvert.
(04:53):
So that kind of led me to myundergraduate degree and led me
to law school after college.
After college I went through acouple of different areas of law
until I got into business andcorporate, which is the complete
opposite of the suinglitigation lawyers that you've
(05:15):
mentioned.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So go ahead.
I was just going to say it'skind of an interesting thought
to think of the similaritiesbetween chemistry and law.
I mean, you're, you're, you'reworking on a puzzle, I think.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, but he also hit on the thing and this is I'm
going to go back now, I'm goingto play my son's story back and
so I have my master's inmechanical engineering and
obviously I've taken a lot ofmath classes, I've taken a lot
of engineering classes, and he'sin, he's in college, going to
undergrad, and in his sophomoreyear he said Dad, I have taken
(05:47):
my last math class.
I said, son, you're talking toan engineer, so I'm not sure how
to take that, but this kid canwrite, and that's the one thing.
And he definitely thinksdifferently than I do.
As engineers they think one wayand very logical and kind of
moving this way, and lawyers arelooking at the holistic and
then coming in and trying tosolve problems in a different
(06:08):
method and methodology, and Ithink that diversity of thought
has got to be something that youprobably noticed as well.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Absolutely, and it should go.
I don't know whether you sawLinkedIn or not.
My first corporate counsel jobwas with a massive engineering
company called Black VeatchEngineering.
They're headquartered in KansasCity, Missouri.
They build nuclear power plantsand also nuclear weapons too.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So they don't need legal help at all.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
They need a lot of legal and they had a fantastic
legal team.
They were all in-house.
You mentioned how nice it iswhen you have your lawyer down
the hall to ask questions too.
Learned a lot at that job.
Engineers do tend to kind of goin a very linear sort of thought
process.
They try to solve problems whenand if there was ever an issue
(06:54):
or something with any of ourcivil projects we also built
hydroelectric dams and thingslike that.
It's a big, big civilengineering firm, black Veatch.
Let's say there was a claim,something didn't work quite
right, the engineers wouldimmediately start writing emails
to each other, copying theinternal legal guys on it, and I
would immediately say guys,let's all stop emailing each
(07:17):
other real quick and just stepoutside your offices.
They were all in a row.
Let's all step outside.
Let's go down to the conferenceroom and let's start talking
about what went right, whatmight not have gone so right and
things like that.
But it is a very engineeringtrait to go in to solve problems
, fix things and make it work.
Curiously, that's also a lawyertrait as well.
(07:39):
We absolutely absorb otherpeople's problems and you know,
if you happen to be married to alawyer or an engineer, it's sad
because we're always trying tofix whatever's wrong instead of
listen.
Yeah, you might've heard thatonce or twice before.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I've been through counseling for that one.
That's right.
I just want to be heard.
Got it?
Heard that not solving theproblem, nope, don't fix, nope.
Okay, yeah, I, I you actuallyhit on.
I think that is the thing thatI've instilled with my son is
that you solve problems in adifferent way than I do, but
it's still he didn't flash tires.
Well, there's a little bitdifferent Now I'm a contractor.
(08:12):
So, brandon, I need other legalhelp.
But it's interesting when youbring that diversity of thought
in.
It helps you make betterdecisions.
And one of the things we'vetalked about a lot on the
podcast and the reason we didthis and I just reinforced this
last night in a networking eventthey go why are you doing this?
I said because you know, when Istarted my business, I didn't
(08:33):
have all these resources.
I wish somebody would have toldme how stupid of an idea this
was to start a business and howhard it was going to be.
In that it's not all golfing onFriday and then maybe working a
day or two or getting yourfour-hour work weekend like Tim
Ferriss.
It's just not happening.
So I think having thatdiversity of thought.
So, brandon, you've left thecorporate world.
(08:53):
That's what we've done, leavingthe corporate world.
So how are you helping smallbusinesses today?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Sure.
Once I went from Black andBeach Engineering to a very,
very large energy producercalled NextEra Energy.
They are down here in Florida.
After a couple of years doingthat, I opened my own law firm
and I went from representing aFortune 200 publicly traded
company that is NextEra torepresenting a pet sitter.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I can see a natural progression there.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You can see that, yes , I can see a natural
progression there.
You can see that, yes, theamount of capital in the pet
sitting business is not quite asgrand as a publicly traded
actually the largest energycompany in the United States
right now.
Long and short of it isbusiness, is business, and a lot
of you hit it right on the head.
Most folks get into it.
They're good at what they doand that's great, but at some
(09:46):
point you do need to go outsideyour you know your DIY mindset.
Or I can fix it or I can takecare of this and reach out to
get those advisors you need.
Now that pet sitter, I met herat a coffee shop.
She's still in business today,but by gosh, she has the best
corporate books imaginable and,by the way, she has a contract
that she now shows her.
This is obviously 14, 15 yearsago.
(10:07):
She had a one page agreementthat was her agreement with the
pet owners that she was workingfor.
It was very clear what she did.
It was clear how she got paid,how the job starts, how the job
ends and what the rights, dutiesand responsibilities are.
Along the way it was, it wasclean, it was easy to understand
and she really, really likedworking with me for it, and
she's again still in businesstoday.
(10:28):
I don't know that she stilluses that same contract, that
same agreement, but I'd like tothink she does.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know what, as a small business owner, I'm pretty
sure she does, because the lastthing I want to do is go back
and revisit that, spend money onthat, just update it for yet
another tagline or another linein there, but so is it safe to
say as a start you know you're awannabe entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The wise thing to do would be to develop a
relationship with somebody inyour profession before they need
it.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Absolutely.
A lot of times people hire myfirm to actually start their
business.
Now, if they're in businesswith, if an entrepreneur is in
business with somebody else orsomebody else's money, those
need to be documented anddocumented.
Well, if it's two people thatare in business, even if they're
family, let's get the agreementbetween the owners set down in
writing right now, at the outset, while everybody's smiling and
(11:21):
optimistic.
Let's not wait for a downturnor maybe some unfortunate
incidents, some hard times.
That's not the time you want tostart looking at.
Well, what is my deal with mybrother, my family member or my
business partner?
I can tell you for certain thata silent partner, someone that
just provides capital to thecompany, silent partners, are
(11:43):
never silent.
There are strings attached tothat money, regardless of what
they say.
So get those kind of dealsdocumented in writing early on.
If you're dealing with someoneelse or someone else's money, be
sure you have a very clearunderstanding of how that works.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
That is a great point .
I'm in a CEO mastermind groupand one of the ladies is
thinking of exiting her companyand somebody is interested in
acquiring her.
And we group and one of theladies is thinking of exiting
her company and somebody'sinterested in acquiring her.
And we said you know, the firstthing you got to do is get the
divorce agreement put together.
I said you're all happy now,but let's get that divorce
agreement now.
So, brandon, you hit on that.
It's hard to do becauseeverybody wants to be happy and
(12:20):
say, oh no, don't worry, alan'sgoing to be really quiet.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It has that stench of we need a prenup.
Yeah, you know you've got thishappy partnership going, but to
your point you have to do itbefore you need it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I agree.
And you know, if we think abouta prenup or we can think about,
you know, like a will, nobodyreally likes to think about what
happens if someone, one of uswhere's my stuff going to go
when I die?
You know, let's say it's just.
You know a couple of guys thatare in business with a service
industry or something like that.
They're down here in Floridabut mom and dad get sick back in
Ohio and somebody has to leavethe business.
(12:54):
Well, they didn't choose to.
But how are we going tonegotiate one partner and I'm
not talking about any sort ofcorporate formality partner but
you know one person that notonly is an owner but also a
worker, an employee, there.
How do we negotiate their exit?
Will it kill the company on theway out?
It very well could, if youdidn't really kind of think
about this.
Maybe on the front side, death,disability and divorce happen
(13:18):
in the real world.
And you know a good set of anoperating agreement for an LLC,
a shareholder agreement for acorporation.
Those are absolutely invaluableand they don't have to be long,
they don't have to becomplicated and they don't have
to be expensive to write.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
No, that's a great one.
I take us through a little bitof how you get people because
you know, potentially there'sthis guy here next to me that I
couriered into this totally freegig calling a free podcast that
we're doing.
So there's really nopartnership, but there's a
partnership and there's no moneyto split up, but there's it.
But you know, we're alloptimistic.
(13:53):
We were like, oh my God, we'regoing to go over and take over
Joe Rogan, we're going to go dothis and, by the way, we're
almost there, guys, we're almostthere.
I'm kidding.
So.
So how do you get people whoare optimistic and thinking
about, oh, we're going to goblow this thing up and be great,
because that's what we are,we're entrepreneurs.
We're thinking great.
You were thinking great as youwent and worked with the pet
sitter.
I've got those stories too.
So how do you get us to talkabout that stuff?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Sure, how are decisions going to get made in
good times and in bad times?
That's a great opening sort oficebreaker.
Let's, that's a great openingsort of icebreaker.
Um, let's say, your podcast isdoing fantastic, you're doing
really well together, uh, andall of a sudden, spotify comes
to you and said hey guys, wewant to have all your rights,
we're going to own you, you'regoing to wear our t-shirts,
we're going to put you on andall the channels.
(14:36):
Um, what about would you take?
Uh, two and a half milliondollars.
And one of you says great,let's go, let's get this done.
The other of you doesn't.
Now, spotify is not going tosit around and negotiate with
each of you individually.
Your deal has about 48 hours.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I'm selling it two and a half million.
You better, I don't have apartner anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
First of all, you don't have anything between you
that says you are, in fact,partners at all.
So who's going to get the twoand a half?
Now, if we do have, if we canat least agree that we are, you
guys are in this thing together,50, 50, or some two.
You are in it together.
Where we want you both.
Spotify Is 2.5 enough and oneof you might say, well, let's
(15:24):
see if we can, let's see ifthey'll give us three.
No, let's take 2.5.
And tick, tick, tick.
48 hours later you guys aresquabbling and the deal expires
and Spotify says you know what?
I don't want to deal with youat all.
That does happen in the realworld.
So when I ask about when thingsgo really well, your business,
your podcast or whateverindustry or service company
(15:45):
you're putting together, couldbe acquired, could attract
attention from a competitor tobe acquired.
Great things could happen foryou A big contract.
It could take 80% of yourcapacity.
Do you want that?
One of you says yes and one ofyou says no.
How are you going to resolvethat kind of internal dispute
before it drives you apart?
(16:05):
The bad side is the bad side.
The downside is well, we didn'tsell as much product, as we
thought we did last month.
We're out of cash.
We need to feed the beast, weneed to pump some money into it.
Well, how much?
Well, we need another $10,000.
Well, I don't have it.
What happens then?
(16:27):
Those are all great.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Those are great.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's a capital call and we need to say well, we
agree that we're going to put atmaximum X amount of money and
if I hit my limit of what I'mgoing to spend into it, I've got
it written right there.
I don't have to give youanother dime to feed the beast.
If it's not, if I don't have it, or I don't want to, if it's
(16:49):
voluntary, sure, keep feeding ituntil it.
Um, guys get into this troublewhen they purchase, uh, classic
cars or fractional shareaircraft, boats, uh, flipping
houses, anything that has anunseen sort of.
Oh, we had no idea that thatfuel pump cost $11,000,.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You know, on the classic Stearman, you know I
have seen that you actuallybring up a great one.
I've got a friend who is in afractional ownership.
It's not a timeshare, they owna house with 12 other couples
and the HVAC went out andsomebody had to make the call.
They have an operatingagreement, had to make the call
(17:31):
to use this service, had to makethe call on good, better, best,
picked best, and two of thepeople got absolutely roast and
pissed about this and leftbecause they're like we didn't
agree to best and the guy's likebut we need a best because this
is a vacation place and this iswhere you got to have air
conditioning and it's, you know,florida.
It was in South Carolina.
(17:51):
I get that.
I get that now.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
With 12 folks in it, that's a very difficult way to
make decisions.
It's 12 people are never goingto agree to anything ever.
You know 12 or six couples, orhowever you've split it apart.
At that point you may want toat least nominate somebody for
manager, and that's an unpaid,unthanked, crappy position.
But somebody gets to make thecall on those day-to-day sorts
(18:15):
of things and everybody needs toagree to trust that person.
Great example a rental or avacation house and they're using
it themselves.
They're renting it but airconditioning is expensive.
You know, if it was abeachfront and the beach needed
nourishment?
Or there's a local assessmentfor beaches, what if there's
(18:36):
mold somewhere?
I mean, you really got to takethese things into consideration.
That's the well.
If things don't go so well, howdo we pass the hat?
That should be fairly welldocumented.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know, if we're talking about an LLC, an
operating agreement, I think alot of the reasons that we don't
do this as small businessowners, that you're thinking
about starting one, or you're init right now and you're like,
oh my God, I've already rung thebell, I've already started this
business.
Brandon's making great points.
I think one of the biggestreasons we don't do it is the
almighty dollar.
So so how expensive orinexpensive is it?
(19:07):
And I think you know we talkabout that.
You know how expensive it is toblow up your company.
You have to ask that question.
But I think a lot of us are,and they're afraid of this too,
and we're afraid of how toapproach you.
So how do we approach you andwhat should we expect?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
OK, well, obviously it's.
It's very market sensitive,whether it's my firm or any
other business law firm.
We are kind of a specialtyniche and I've been at it for 25
years.
So you can expect my hourlyrate is going to be kind of up
there amongst attorneys you knowacross the country.
You're not going to get myhourly rate on a podcast.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I wasn't asking that, but in fact everybody's less
tactful than me.
I know I was like, well, youcan go out there and chat GPT,
you guys will find it out.
I mean, you can't expectsomebody with this kind of
experience to do this for free,just like in our business.
Don't come to me and say, chris, you're too expensive to build
my deck because I built anincredible deck for somebody who
is looking really good.
(20:04):
No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
If I wanted to sue this guy for this, I wouldn't
there you go Well, so I'massuming you can probably do a
retainer or you can probably doa la carte.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I do different things for different kinds of work.
My mergers and acquisitions aregenerally done on a flat fee
schedule because hourly doesn'tmake a lot of sense for that.
We can spend eight hoursworking on one schedule of an
acquisition and you certainlydon't want to pay $600 plus an
hour for that kind.
You know to work on one part ofone part of the deal.
(20:37):
But getting back to let's justtalk about an agreement between
business owners.
Certainly that's going to be anhourly rate sort of engagement,
depending on how complex anddetailed you need it to be.
The basics are generally outthere.
I know what a good operatingagreement should have.
We could talk about the death,disability and divorce and how,
(20:58):
the different things that couldhappen to the life of the
business.
We talked about capital calls.
All those would be in a 20,30-page document written by me
or one of my associates.
And uh, and you're charged forit.
Is it 3,000, 5,000, $8,000?
It might be any number of thosenumbers but here.
But if you decide to squabbleabout it and you don't like each
other, guess what Litigatorsare more expensive than I am?
(21:21):
First of all, your company'sgoing under, so everything you
built is flushed.
And two, now you're going tosue each other.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Here we go.
You know who makes money inlitigation.
You do lawyers, you do damn it.
All right, guys, brandonwoodward, go get to it because,
listen, it's just not asexpensive as you think.
Uh, I did the same thing.
I was fearful of it and Irealized I had to have somebody
look at some contracts.
It wasn't that bad and it'sjust like anything.
When you hire a professional,they're not going to take 40
hours to look at something thatthey have the experience on.
(21:50):
So you can't take 40 times $800an hour or whatever it's going
to be, but you can't also expectthese guys to work for 25 bucks
an hour either.
So get real with it and do itright.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well, I also assume that if you're trying to avoid
legal fees and you let a problemcompound, then it's going to
end up being much more expensivethan if you just talked to your
attorney up front.
And so I wanted to ask you youknow, outside of the operating
agreement, what are some thingsthat you see that small business
people should be picking up thephone and calling you
(22:21):
proactively?
For that they're not.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Collections.
Every day your accountreceivable goes over 30, 60, or
90, or whatever your pain pointis, is a day further away from
you getting paid.
It happens in the constructionand services industry,
especially if there's a set ofdraws or it's a stream of
payments.
Shockingly, all my contractorstend to get stiffed on that last
(22:45):
final draw payment.
And you guys both know that'swhere the profit is, because you
paid for materials and you paidyour labor.
The profit's on the lastpayment.
So collections for smallbusinesses is critical.
There's an old expression abusiness can run in the red for
decades, but you can only runout of cash one time.
(23:05):
That's true.
And if your cashflow is gonebecause you're not billing,
you're not collecting and you'renot on top of your AR, the
long-term prospects for yourbusiness are not great.
So having a relationship with alaw firm, particularly one that
gets the job done, we send oneletter and then we're off.
(23:26):
We will actually file acollections lawsuit.
That generally gets the jobdone.
But it's not easy, it's notcheap.
That is hourly rate kind ofstuff, um.
But you know, you get areputation for not letting your
AR go and and that's what youwant in business.
You want to be paid, not havestories told to you.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
to be paid, not have stories told to you.
Does that make sense?
A hundred percent, man, you'resinging my song.
I love that idea because yousaid something that's so big.
We have an intern working withus this summer and I said here's
things that you're probably notgoing to hear in school.
I said in a small business orrunning any business, cash is
king.
If I don't have no cash, Ican't pay people.
If I can't pay people, guesswhat they don't do?
They don't work for me.
You got to have the cash, bro,I said.
(24:09):
Second thing is you got to havesales, man.
I got to be bringing in thatrevenue.
I got to be ringing that bellbringing in that revenue so I
can get that cash.
I said but there's twodifferent reports for that and
can only run out of cash once,man, and I would tell you 17
(24:30):
years at least three differenttimes.
I should have shut it downbecause I was out of cash and I
was dipping into personal fundsjust to make it keep going.
What about?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
employees.
How do you help smallbusinesses there?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
um, they always say you know, I've heard around here
that the, the, the customer isking or the customer is always
right.
Human capital is incrediblyimportant.
I think Victoria might havegone through some of your folks
to set this up today.
Invest in people, show themtraining, give them a stake in
(25:03):
the outcome, in the growth somany business owners try to get
that I'm the boss.
It was done to me this way.
You know I learned you know atFezziwig's shop from A Christmas
Carol.
You know I learned you know thehard way.
I was an intern, an apprentice.
I worked, I trucked concrete upthe hill for a, you know,
horrible boss.
(25:24):
Okay, it's 2025.
You can't do that.
Give your employees real stake,real ownership in the company.
We have a profit share here.
At Woodward Kelly, fulton andKaplan we set a number, we hit
the target number and everybodyshares in the upside of that.
Partners have our stuff, butthe employees are certainly
(25:44):
invested in the success of thefirm and it works.
The employees are certainlyinvested in the success of the
firm and it works.
It's some famous thinker it'snot my line Henry Ford, maybe it
was train them so well thatthey could work anywhere.
Treat them so well that theywon't want to oh.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
God, that's good, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Oh, good tagline.
Oh my God, yeah, great, yeah,we'll find out who.
It's not a me thing great.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, we'll find out who.
It's not a me thing, but it'sreally important.
Find activities outside of theoffice that actually does
benefit your business.
It is subtle.
Get them involved withcharities.
Victoria networks constantly.
She's in young professionals ofour county.
(26:27):
She goes to that, has coffeewith all the other young
professionals and gee you knowwhat.
Not only does it build her upof the employee, the status you
(26:49):
can always give some person sometraining.
Side note there cross-training.
What happens when yourbookkeeper leaves?
What happens when your billerof your medical practice, your
best biller, just says, hey, Idon't do this anymore or I'm out
on maternity leave?
Well, you better have somebodythat can cover the base for a
couple of days until somethingelse happens.
(27:09):
So cross-training is huge andcertainly certainly be
transparent and cut youremployees in on the successes.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
So now let's talk about business and get away from
the law stuff a little bit.
So you did, you started yourlaw business.
You started on your own.
You didn't go in with a partner, you did it yourself.
You've grown to that maturitylevel that you just said.
There Did you feel like?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
you had that same maturity level and culture
building mindset when you werefirst starting?
Absolutely not.
I was arrogant, like all younglawyers were.
I thought I could just bebusiness lawyer and everybody
would just show up and fawn overall the jewels that were
falling out out of pearls ofwisdom, falling out of my mouth
hey, that's not just a lawyerthing, that is all of us.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
No, it's an allen thing.
Yeah, it's an entrepreneurthing right?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
yeah, it is, I mean when you started your biz you
were like hey, I havebulletproof.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I said I remember actually saying this is going to
be a turkey shoot I know.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
So I think that's the thing.
Again, when you talk to peoplewho've been around it enough, I
mean, you're dropping greatnuggets.
Everything you've said so far.
You know, the culture is keyfor me too, but in the beginning
, though, that wasn't my cultureyeah, it was.
I was kind of hey, I'm reallysmart.
You ought to listen to what I'msaying, which, by the way,
somebody might have heard like aweek ago.
(28:25):
Which, by the way, somebodymight have heard like a week ago
yeah, that isn't true, with alot of F-bombs, but yeah.
So I love how you've evolved inthat, and actually you've
mentioned your firm too, and nowyou have partners.
So are they younger, same age?
How did you do that as youevolved your culture?
Tell us a little bit about thatgrowth.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well, I was working, still solo.
It was the law office ofBrandon Woodward for 10 plus
years or so, built a nicefollowing, had a nice base, had
a good group of companies andclients that followed me.
But one thing that I didn'treally have access to was
litigation.
I mentioned collections.
I mentioned when things gobadly between partners and
things like that.
I'm not a litigator.
I've never seen the inside of aFlorida courtroom and I'm not
starting at 51 years old.
I'm not a litigator.
I've never seen the inside of aFlorida courtroom and I'm not
starting at 51 years old.
(29:10):
I'm not starting now, so it'snot a skill I have.
So the bottom line is I neededlitigators and I needed some
other attorneys in the just tokind of hey, this is more than I
want to chew.
I need litigation or I need thecredible threat of litigation.
There was another firm that didlitigation and a healthy amount
of bankruptcy practice, as wellas foreclosure and real estate.
(29:30):
We actually ended up me and mypartner, craig Kelly, ended up
butting heads.
We were on the opposite side oftransactions for two or three
different times.
We bloodied each other.
It was not even close, we justenjoyed kicking each other's ass
over and over again.
Sometimes he won, sometimes Iwon.
But about a year on I needed hislevel of just bulldog
(29:56):
ruthlessness.
I had a client that neededsomebody just torn apart, and
I'd go hey, craig, I can't dothis, this.
You need to take this, thiscase, off my hands.
He goes, happy to do it.
Here we go, same time, same batchannel.
He goes I have no idea how towork a three-party waterfall
distribution for a shareholdersthat have disparate
contributions.
(30:16):
I go that's easy, brandon,would you handle this for me?
So we became really goodfriends and, out of that warfare
that we engaged with for acouple of years, we became
buddies.
We started trusting each other.
We stitched the firms togetherin 2018, 2019 to become Woodward
, kelly, fulton and Kaplan.
(30:37):
Mr Fulton retired two years agofor health reasons.
Dana Kaplan is my other partner.
She's she's an incredibleattorney, smart as heck, an
absolute worker bee.
She comes into the office, putsher headphones on and a pile of
files goes from this side tothat side.
Billable hours go out the doorbut meet a client for a cocktail
(31:01):
, go out on a golf trip, for youknow, to see if I can bag.
You know a bigger client Won'tdo it, doesn't like it, just
doesn't.
It's not, it's not her strengthand you know the three of us.
And now we have associates.
We have another partner, we'vegot other folks around and we
(31:21):
were doing just fine.
I have one associate that worksfor me exclusively.
She happens to be in India.
She graduated the University ofOhio School of Law and went
back to India and she's overthere and does quite a bit of my
drafting for me.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I just love so much of what he said and I got to
think if I were an attorney andthere was somebody on the other
side of the table who waskicking my ass, I'd be so pissed
.
And yet he's sitting theregoing.
Well played, nice.
You know, maybe we can do somebusiness together.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So, again, something you can learn from lawyers is
that they I've seen that happento Troy Again.
My best friend, who's now ajudge, has done the same thing
and I'm like, dude, there's noway.
I said I'll be lucky if thatdude walks in that thing.
I said I don't even own a gun,I'll find a gun, and if I can't
find a gun, I'm going to beatthe shit out of him.
If I get the shit kicked out ofme, I said I'll find his car
and I'll beat them, I'll beathis kids, I'll beat everybody.
(32:12):
I said, no, this Sicilian isnot going, not doing it, he goes
.
Chris, sometimes you have tolook at the greater good.
I'm like, well, that's no fun,right?
So, brandon, how were you ableto reconcile that and become
this partnership and build thisculture?
I mean, that's, I think,another great question that
people want to hear.
Did you just give yourself agreat question.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I did that sucks.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
That does not count on the scoreboard.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Thank you, brandon, not on the scoreboard.
Thank you, brandon.
No, denied.
What do they say?
It's not sustained, it's deniedtonight.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
How did we get to a point where we got to be a good
partnership?
I think it's how you get to bea good business owner in general
, and Craig is an amazingbusiness partner.
You have to set your ego asideand that is key to being
successful in business is youdon't know everything all the
time.
Like I said, getting punchedout a few times will teach you
very quickly that, oh, I'm nevergoing to learn this guy's skill
(33:12):
.
And, more importantly, whydon't I just hire this guy to do
this for me?
Let's do it that way.
I am the rainmaker of the firm.
I go out, I will work a room, Iwill come back with three to
four contacts and just say hey,we spoke the other day at a
chamber of commerce event.
You said you had a business andyou were worried about
(33:33):
retaining your employees oremployee retention, or you're
worried about tariffs, you wereworried about X.
Would you like to come by myoffice and have a coffee?
Now our office is in a very,very fancy building.
You come in it's kind ofimpressive and you sit down in
one of our conference rooms, oreven my office right here, you
know, and you get the fulleffect Like, hey, this is.
We do business all day long andit's all we do.
(33:54):
I won't help you with yourdivorce, your personal injury,
your will, or if your kid getscaught in a pot with pot in her
locker.
I'm terrible at all of thosethings.
But if it's business, ask methe questions, I'll give you the
answers.
If you want to hire us, great.
If you don't, that's great too.
That's putting the ego asideand just being yourself and
(34:14):
being natural.
But yeah, my partners and I allgot chilled our egos a long
time ago and realized that wecan go again the.
African proverb go farthertogether.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That kind of thing, Right, yeah, no great point, and
I think obviously that'ssomething you have to just work
on with the egos.
So how do you guys, what's youroperational model now?
Do you guys get together once aweek, talk about business?
Is it once a month?
Look at the books, look ateverything.
Is it just organic becauseyou're in the same building
together?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We're not in the same building.
We have two different offices.
We are 26 miles apart.
We talk very infrequently, it'sjust.
I know Craig and Dana are whatthey do and how they work.
We are fairly siloed.
Our business economic model isstill eat what you kill.
We have shared expenses.
We have shared certain thingswe share amongst each other.
(35:04):
But I'm not a bankruptcyattorney and I don't want to be
a bankruptcy attorney and I'mnot sharing in their bankruptcy
practice.
Similarly, they're not mergersand acquisition attorneys and so
when I bring home, when I domergers and acquisitions, that's
, that's my, my part of the firm.
So the Eat what you Kill modelis still out there.
It's certainly popular withother professional you know
(35:26):
organizations model is still outthere.
It's certainly popular withother professional organizations
doctors, financial planners,accountants, podcasters.
Thank you, hey.
A lot of eating, a lot ofkilling.
But that is our business modeland I think we email each other
once a week or so, get togetheronce or twice a year but, like a
lot of business things, youdon't need to see each other
(35:47):
every single day and sometimeswe even get on each other's
nerves, believe it or not, likeevery family does.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, let's talk about the business side of this,
because I just had somebody sayyou know, chris, I'm thinking
about getting into consulting.
I said so when you want to getinto consulting.
Why is that?
Oh, I just think I have somereally good ideas to help people
.
I said you realize, to actuallymake a business and make this
actually work, you're probablygoing to be anywhere between 60
(36:13):
and 98% business development and2% and 40% of coaching.
I said, but you'll never be ahundred percent coaching because
you're always going to have tobe out there feeding the beast,
feeding the funnel if you wantto keep rolling.
And when I said this to this oneguy, he was looked at me like
you know, but people don't knowhow, you don't know how smart I
am.
I looked at him.
I'm like, yeah, I've been therebefore buddy.
So obviously, brandon, you guyshave figured that out too.
(36:34):
Tell us a little bit about howyou have been marketing your
firm, because a lawyer again,it's a very personal
relationship.
It's not a transaction.
This is not personal injury law.
This is not some stupidbillboard that you're going to
see 55 times in the city ofAtlanta between 25 different
personal injury lawyers.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
So how do they find it?
I think he just answered it.
He's involved in the community,he works the room, he actually
listens and he hears him mentionsomething that he might
actually be able to help withand invites him over for a cup
of coffee to the big ass, youknow the war room.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's it's, you know, when a lawyer takes interest in
you and invites you to theiroffice, why wouldn't you take
that?
Why wouldn't you accept that?
Now I work in a smaller town, Imean my.
My town is, you know, our wholeCounty is only like a hundred
thousand people, um, but thebottom line is it's, you know.
(37:29):
It's like I got nothing to lose.
You know my Froyo, you knowbusiness is just taking off and
this attorney, who dresses welland everybody seems to know who
he is and he's got a decentpresence online, I think I'll go
.
Yeah, he wants to go get a car,and I am genuinely interested
in them.
I want to learn from them, justlike you know they want to
learn from me.
I give them the same.
Hey, are you in business withsomebody or somebody else?
(37:51):
What does your agreement looklike with your suppliers?
Do you want me to look at thatfor you?
Or here's two things you coulddo tomorrow to hundreds, if not
thousands, of other businesses.
What challenges do you face?
Oh, if I only had a readysupply of X.
Do you know that there's asupplier of X on the other side?
(38:12):
You know, one town over.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I think that's another part that, alan, one of
the reasons we're doing thispodcast is because Alan's
exceptionally good at this isgreat connecting.
In that I'm not here for me,I'm here to find out about you,
find out about what I can do tohelp you and connect, and I
think that's part of the thingthat really grows.
That's why you're here, buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, I was just thinking about the connection
that you just told me about lastnight that we did.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
So, brandon, we've been doing this podcast for
three and a half years and a lotof business has been done
because of our podcast.
But what we didn't know is thatwe're also a dating service and
we actually were able to make amatch because a lady saw
somebody on our podcast on theYouTube channel don't forget to
check it out, small BusinessSafari and said, hey, I'm pretty
(39:04):
interested in this guy, andfound and sought him out and
they ended up going on a dateand I actually met him last
night.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I'm like holy crap.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
I'm good, married 21 years so I think I've got so
Brandon's off the market.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Everybody, do not look him up that part of the
equation may be working in myfavor, but However, let's talk a
little bit about who is yourideal client.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
So, guys, listen to this thing.
They may not be in StewartFlorida, but they, uh, they may
be in the U?
S, they not, may not be in oneof the other.
Who is a good client for you?
Who's calling you?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Uh, a business owner.
That really is the.
You know that's who I speakmost directly to.
You know who I also talk to thebusiness owner spouse, because
that's the one that listens tothe complaints every single day
and is tired of doing the booksfor the business.
Business owners that are inbusiness with other other
business.
You know a small group of guys,again with your, with the, the,
(40:00):
the rental property.
Those are my kinds operationalbusinesses, manufacturers,
things like that, that put outproducts, service providers,
certainly the professional sidesof things.
I represent lots and lots ofphysician groups, accountant
groups, financial planninggroups, accounting groups,
actuary you name the group evenlaw firms.
We do it all because businesslaw is wide ranging.
(40:25):
It's also rather fluid.
It's not a dry and dustypractice area.
It does change from time totime, changes with the news, it
changes with the market, itchanges with laws, do change we
were having a change in thestate of Florida how
non-competes are going to behandled in the near future.
So, like I said, a good clientfor me is a business owner that
(40:48):
has had some reasonable successor they're a little past startup
, a little past the crying intothe pillow and worrying about
payroll.
And, trust me I've been therethat just wants some questions.
That has some questions abouthow business works or what maybe
their next step should be myfavorite clients in the world
(41:09):
and I can do this in the stateof Florida, I can somewhat help
and advise on a national scale,and those are business owners
that are selling theirbusinesses.
I've got a white paper on mywebsite that talks about how
that process actually works.
It's free, just go download it.
The idea of selling a businessshould start two, if not three
years ahead of time.
(41:29):
If you don't have that luxuryagain, people get sick.
Markets change forces, thestranger things happen.
But the bottom line is you wantto be thinking about how do I
get out of my business down theroad when that offer comes, or
how do I find an offer?
How do I send it off to get itto someone else?
(41:50):
Or a second generation?
And I'm here to tell you secondgeneration, they don't want
your business, they don't wantyour shoe company, they don't.
What happens?
You just close it.
No, I genuinely love mergersand acquisitions work.
It's the buying and selling ofbusinesses and I think I've got
a nice touch on dealing withthose clients.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
So how can everybody find you let's find that white
paper how can everybody findBrandon?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Certainly.
I have a website.
We actually just had it redone.
It's wkfklawcom.
That's whiskey, kilo foxtrot,kilo lawcom.
You click any button on therefor contact.
It's going to go to me or myassistant.
We generally return calls andemails within a day or so.
It's a very Midwest thing, veryKansas City.
(42:36):
We do talk to people.
A lot of Floridas get a bad rapfor kind of not being
communicative.
I actually chaired my owndisciplinary committee for my
county.
Number one complaint wascommunication.
You know, people just drop offthe face of the earth with a
case involved.
That doesn't happen at my firmand, like I said, we do talk to
(42:56):
our clients.
Prospective clients get back toeverybody and give them some
time.
Sometimes it's not a lot, butwe will help as much as we can.
So the website is clearly thebest.
We are heavily in on LinkedIn.
I get those messages.
I see them.
You can certainly read about me, my bio, where I've been.
I've done some things over mycareer that are kind of not that
(43:18):
interesting.
We're on Instagram and that,according to our social media,
has been quite popular for us.
Little smaller things.
Our social media has been quitepopular for us.
Little smaller things.
Little bite-sized legal.
What is this.
How does this work?
What's the difference betweenan LLC and an S-corp?
They are different.
Can an S-corp be an LLC?
The answer is yes.
(43:39):
Little things like that as well, as it's got some humor to it
too.
So we are approachable, and youmentioned that earlier.
We're afraid of lawyers.
When does the bill start?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Trust me, you'll know when the bill starts.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
It's not a secret when you get a bill, because we
actually work on retainers.
But other than that, we're veryapproachable.
There's no stupid questionsplease.
I've heard them all and I wouldmuch rather you ask me the
question than think oh, I didn'task that because I didn't want
to sound stupid.
Trust me, that's ego speaking.
Sound stupid.
Ask the question If you don'tknow what it is ask.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Love it.
All right, guys, go check itout.
You got it.
We'll put it in the show notes.
You can go figure it out.
I know you're probably driving,so let's not do that, but let's
get to those final fourquestions, shall we All right?
What's a book you wouldrecommend to all of our audience
trying to either start or growa small business?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Profit First by Michael Makowski.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Nice, I like it.
Yeah, I actually.
I have that one and Fix this.
Next is the other one.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, I know that one .
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, it was a quick read.
I mean I like it.
Michalowicz does a good job.
I don't think Brandon likes itas much as you do.
I know I could tell he gave mea very lawyer response.
All right, let's go to the nextone, shall we?
What's a favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
This is South Florida .
I do have a pool.
It gets so hot Our pools downhere actually get too hot to
swim in.
My pool actually has what'scalled a heat pump chiller on it
so I can actually cool the pool.
Oh my god spent an absolutefortune to have that feature put
on my pool.
But I chill it down and I getin it, uh, with my fruity drink
and my floaties oh, love that.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Everybody's got to have a fruity drink and a floaty
in their pool.
Three and a half years wehaven't gotten that in.
We have not gotten that answer.
But alan, just look left.
It's not chilled, no, but it'sit should be this week I know,
come on, big daddy, step up.
I know I need a chiller damn it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I didn't I have a pool.
They're fickle too, man, it itworks, but it is uh.
It just runs and it's expensiveand it's I love it, worth it,
though.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Favorite feature that's way cool.
All right, one of the things wehave not talked about much here
but we have about, and that'sproviding great customer service
, because one of the things thatAl and I pride ourselves on is
we're kind of customer servicefreaks.
Oh my gosh, you did not justsay that.
Yes, what's the customerservice pet peeve of yours when
you're out there and you're theclient?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Oh, leave a message.
The first thing I did when Istarted my firm 12, 13 years ago
is I hired an answering service.
Um it my phone's here answered24 hours a day.
I didn't say they're answeredby me, but in any, any facet of
law, criminal, particularlycriminal people get arrested,
oddly enough at night, um, but Inever wanted to have.
(46:22):
Uh, a potential client call myoffice and like hi, this is
Brandon.
Leave a message.
All that says is you're notimportant and they're going down
a list.
They're going to go to one ofyour competitors.
So leave a message.
I hang up.
It's like look, there are otherveterinarians, there are other,
unless I'm referred to to thistile guy or this, you know, this
(46:43):
cabinet worker.
I'm going down a list to find,you know, my next service
provider.
So answer the phone, get onyour referrals, get on your
leads and follow up immediately.
That's a pet peeve.
When that doesn't happen,that's my pet peeve.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Well, in the home service industry, that puts you
95 percentile, because that'swhat happens.
So it's an easy thing to do andit's a hard thing to do.
So go figure it out, make thathappen.
That's a hard thing to do, sogo figure it out, make that
happen.
That's a great customer servicepet peeve that everybody should
understand.
All right, let's get to it.
I love construction, I loveworking on the home.
That's the reason I got into mybusiness.
The Trusted Toolbox Give us aDIY nightmare story of yours,
(47:20):
and we love fire, dismemberment,floods, pestilence, pests,
flying ants.
How, pestilence, pests, flyingants?
How about that one?
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I forgot to talk about that.
One Florida could be snakesAlligator.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I am trying to think If I've hit any underground
lines.
I didn't do it, a contractordid it, so that really wasn't
mine, any manner Of officeequipment that I have tried to
solve.
You know, document is due thenext day and the printer just
pukes, and so I get in there andI start tapering and break it
(47:56):
beyond recognition.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Are fax machines not like the death of me?
I mean, I could not work thosethings back in the corporate
world?
I can't tell you how manyfreaking fax machines I blew up
or did wrong or I never got itright.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Printers in general, it's just, you know, any sort of
office equipment.
I'm decently handy around thehouse.
I can't think of any times I'vehad to throw in the towel and
bring a pro in that's a who, nothow book, by the way.
And there are times to bring apro like me, like you, like you
know, an accountant.
But the bottom line is my DIYsfails are.
(48:38):
I have definitely screwedsomething up on one of my
vehicles and, yeah, I was justtrying to repair a small part on
it and it's behind the trimpiece of the tailgate and I
couldn't get the tailgate to goback up in it.
So it just looked janky andstupid and I had to actually go
up to my mechanic and, of course, the other right tool.
They just put it right back infor me.
But when?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
you drove up, though, was it was a bungee corded no,
it was like it was closed youknow I could get the door closed
I've driven with a bungeecorded uh bumper.
We come on in the Midwest backin the 70s.
Come on, man.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Oh, that's how you drive home, with a mattress on
your roof and a ratchet strap.
I did it.
I've been there.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Love this.
Brandon Woodward, not youraverage lawyer Go out there and
figure out how to get thatbusiness going.
Don't be afraid to talk tolawyers.
That's what we learned today.
And don't be afraid of it.
It's not as much as you thinkit is, and I'll tell you what.
(49:33):
It will save you a lot ofheadaches down the road.
We know that Guys keep bakingto the great week.
We're going to be back nextweek.
Tell your friends, tell yourfamily, tell your kids oh my god
, we're thinking about doingtrue crime podcasts because
we're just that big right now.
So we got to keep going.
Make it a great day.
We got to get out of here.
Cheers, everybody.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the small business
safari.
(49:53):
Remember, your positiveattitude will help you achieve
that higher altitude you'relooking for in the wild world
small business ownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.