From Law Firm Startup to Success

Law Firm Growth Podcast Episode 15: Six Steps to a Multimillion Dollar Practice with RJon Robins

Last week we met with the cofounder of Juvo Leads, Ted DeBettencourt

Narrator: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Law Firm Growth Podcast, where we share the latest tips, tactics, and strategies for scaling your practice from the top experts in the world of growing law firms. Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Let's get started.

Jan Roos: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Law Firm Growth Podcast.

Jan Roos: I'm your host, Jan Roos, and I am here today with RJ Robbins, who is the CEO and founder of How to Manage a Small Law Firm. Thanks for being here, Arjan.

RJon Robins: Thank you for inviting me.

Jan Roos: And thank you for doing this for the legal community at large. I do what I can. So I heard about Arjon from a couple different places, most notably for long time listeners of the podcast when we were interviewing some of the fastest growing law firms in the country.

Jan Roos: So, his name kept coming up, and the program of how to manage a small law firm, and I just decided that I had to reach out and find out what this whole thing was about because the only thing that we kept seeing from this was success. So now that I got you on the podcast, our [00:01:00] John, it'd be awesome to learn.

Jan Roos: I'm really, really excited for this, but before we get started, would you mind telling us about how it is that you got to where you are today? Sort of the the origin story, if you will. The origin story,

RJon Robins: a fellow comic book fan. I see. So yeah, I grew up in a. Business family and my whole life sitting around the kitchen table, you know, some families talk business, some families talk politics on their family, talk sports or whatever my family talk business.

RJon Robins: So. I was always kind of around it and I was told that I should never take business advice from an accountant and I should never take business advice from a lawyer because they're good technicians, but they don't know how to run a business. And this is what I was hearing as a little kid. I graduated from college with an interdisciplinary degree, which is another way of saying I bounced around from major to major so much that my parents finally said, it's time to get out.

RJon Robins: So I graduated with an interdisciplinary degree [00:02:00] in communications law, economics, and government from the American university up in DC. And I realized that that was something that was not going to get me a job. And plus I was like, really not ready to go out into the world. I was a pretty not together, 23 year old.

RJon Robins: And so I went to law school. And then when I got out of law school, I clerked for a bankruptcy judge and graduated clerk for a bankruptcy judge. Then I opened my own law firm and it was a disaster. I mean, I just fell on my face. I didn't know anything about the business of running a law firm because I learned the same things in law school that most lawyers learned in law school, which is essentially don't worry about the business of running a law firm.

RJon Robins: Just be a good lawyer and everything will just magically take care of itself. And so I focused on being the best lawyer that I could be. My law firm was terrible. The magic law firm management elves did not come and reward me for being a great lawyer. My marketing wasn't working. My sales wasn't working.

RJon Robins: I didn't know anything about [00:03:00] sales. I didn't know anything about how to create workflow processes, systems, or procedures. I didn't know anything about when, why, how to hire, train, manage, make a profit with staff. I didn't know anything about how to anticipate the physical plant needs for a business. I did not know anything about Financial control, budgeting, cashflow projections, understanding the difference between gross revenue versus gross profit, net income, total owner benefits, normalized.

RJon Robins: I mean, none of that stuff. I didn't know about cashflow projections. I didn't know about pricing strategies. I know nothing about the business of running a law firm. And so it was a disaster. I discovered that the Florida bar had a department called the law office management assistance service. And I called for help so much that they eventually recruited me and I became the first lawyer and still today I believe the only lawyer in the history of the state of Florida to be a full time small law practice management advisor with the Florida Bar's Law Office Management Assistance Service.

RJon Robins: That was a really [00:04:00] great opportunity because I got to go into hundreds of law firms. Well, every week I was on the phone with anywhere from three to five attorneys a day on every aspect of starting marketing, managing, buying, selling, growing, or dealing with the challenges of not knowing how to run their law firm.

RJon Robins: And when I wasn't in the office, I was out in the field fixing broken law firms because 54 percent of the bar grievances that are filed nationally. Are the result of law firm management problems because lawyers don't know how to run the business and that causes a bar grievance, not to mention cashflow problems and stresses at home and all that kind of other stuff.

RJon Robins: So that's where I really learned about the business of running a law firm and how I ended up creating how to manage a small law firm. That is a long, long, long story, but the original business plan was actually developed while I was at the Florida bar between 1999 and 2001. Okay. That's my origin story.

Jan Roos: Well, it's also kind of interesting. This reminds me of this [00:05:00] old story about Einstein working in the patent office. And it's, you know, people think about the creativity that he had, but the reality is, you know, he was processing all these different things, all these different innovations, which kind of primed him to have his brain sort of wired in that way.

Jan Roos: So kind of really had this trial by fire you were working towards.

RJon Robins: That's such a great point. I work with lawyers. And I'm a pretty smart guy, but I'm definitely not the smartest person in most rooms. I've just seen so many, when you see the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, when you've seen the same thing with 500 bankruptcy lawyers and 500 immigration lawyers and 500 family law attorneys and 500 personal injury attorneys and 500 criminal defense law firms, you don't have to be a genius to figure out what comes next.

RJon Robins: You have to be kind of stupid not to remember.

Jan Roos: Right. So the pattern sort of emerged. And then from that point, you've got all this, this sort of reference experience coming in. Do you you know, at this point, were you looking for kind of supplementary ways to solve these problems? Or was this all kind of coming [00:06:00] in from trial and error and seeing what ended up working?

RJon Robins: The way how to manage a small law firm works today is very much figure it out as you go. The best businesses, if you really talk to the owners of most very successful businesses, It didn't start off the way it ended up. You start off with an idea, but you start off with a purpose. You start out with a mission.

RJon Robins: You start off with some problem you're trying to solve or some debt you're trying to make in the universe or some point you're trying to make, and you find a way to create some value for people who have that problem. And in the process of figuring out how to sell that solution, the world influences and the world impacts and the world shapes your ideas and your ways of doing business.

RJon Robins: I would say that how to manage a small law firm today has got to be on its 8th or 9th iteration. You know, if you had version 1, version 2, you know, version 2, 1. 3, and then you go to version 2. [00:07:00] 1, 2. 2. We've got to be on version 8 by now. It keeps evolving. It keeps growing.

Jan Roos: Yeah. So basically it not really being a prescriptive sort of situation.

Jan Roos: This isn't something you can, you know, pick up a textbook. It's a process that people have to go ahead and kind of encounter for themselves. And, you know, the pattern matching is obviously a huge part of that, but it wasn't like you were going to the, you know, the business law library, I started a business library and figuring out, you know, what's the solution for when your personal injury you know, firm isn't getting any car accidents.

Jan Roos: some cases. All right. Super interesting. I actually recently was going to an old storage locker and I found

RJon Robins: my original, original, original business plan that I developed while I was at the Florida bar. And this was like circa 2000, 2001 now. And you can see the Genesis. You can see the DNA of the business we have today in that original business plan.

RJon Robins: But the person I was back then was thinking so small. And the person I was back then understood so little relative to who I [00:08:00] am today, just about life. I wasn't married. I didn't have a kid. I was 27 years old, 20 years ago. I was a completely different person than I am today. But the genesis of it was there.

RJon Robins: And that is usually when you see a lawyer, who's got a really successful law firm, be it bankruptcy or any other practice area, you see a person who's got a three, four, 5 million law firm of their own, usually the genesis of why they did it. The seed is still there. It's just evolved and grown over time.

Jan Roos: So no one's really going out with the same plan that they set out. No, I found this really interesting. I was looking on your site, Arjan, and you've kind of got these distinct stages you have in terms of, you know, law firms, starting from somebody who just hung a shingle yesterday, all the way up to, you The million dollar club.

Jan Roos: So as far as people that are kind of starting out, what do you think are sort of the common sticking points and for the time being, let's kind of focus on the person. Maybe they've got a solo practice. They've been running it for a couple of [00:09:00] years. Kind of shocked to find himself not on the ink 5000 just yet.

Jan Roos: But what are sort of the common sticking points that you guys see with people when they're kind of getting started?

RJon Robins: There are six stages that law firms go through as they grow, and these are not prescriptive. These are observed. I'm not prescribing these six stages and saying you should go through these six stages.

RJon Robins: I'm observing 20 years, everyone goes through these six stages. It's kind of like you're going to go through puberty. Let me tell you what to expect when it happens. I'm not forcing you to go through puberty or suggesting it as a good idea. It's just how life is. If your business is going to go from nothing to two, three, 4 million, your firm is going to go through.

RJon Robins: The six stages. The first stage is zero to 250, 000 zero to two 50. It's all about hustle market, sell, hustle, market, sell, hustle, market, sell. Don't worry about getting things perfect. Don't worry about getting everything right. Just get it done and get through that phase as fast [00:10:00] as you can, because once you get to 250, 000, Most of what you did, you're going to throw away and start over again and do it better between zero and 250, 000.

RJon Robins: The biggest challenge they're going to have is they don't have any leverage. They don't have any help just because the economics of the firm, there's no money. To hire an associate. There's no money to hire a paralegal. There's no money to hire an executive assistant. There's no money to hire a director of marketing.

RJon Robins: There's no money. If there's only 250, 000 in gross revenue, there's no money. There's no resources to buy leverage. And so what you've got to do is you've got to be fast and you've got to make decisions quick. And you've got to grow yourself out of the two 50 range into you get over two 50, and now you start to have some money to hire some staff.

RJon Robins: The second stage of growth, which is roughly 250, 000. And these are about it's around two 50 for most people. Around 250, 000 for most practice areas, around 250, 000 for most markets, around 250, [00:11:00] 000 in gross revenue, the firm starts to evolve into its next version of itself, and that's when you start hiring staff.

RJon Robins: And the biggest mistake that people make in this second stage of growth is they hire assistants when they should be hiring replacements for themselves. So the attorney will hire a replacement. A junior associate don't hire a junior associate, hire someone who's as good or even a better lawyer than you to take all the legal stuff off of your plate.

RJon Robins: So you can focus on running the business. You can still do legal work when you want to. You can still jump in to the really juicy, fun, exciting cases. But you don't have to get worn down day after day after day after day, doing all of the legal work as well as the marketing, as well as the sales, as well as to creating the workflow processes and systems and procedures, as well as training the staff, as well as financing, managing the finances, you know, running the whole [00:12:00] business.

RJon Robins: It takes time to run the business profitably. You want to run the business unprofitably. Well, that has a different price you pay. But the second stage of growth, it's all about learning how to hire and train and manage and make a profit with the staff, the third stage of growth, which happens around 500, 000.

RJon Robins: And again, I'm emphasizing, it's not exactly at 500, but around 500, 000. Things start to shift. You're not going to get a law firm. To around 500, 000 if you're not pretty decent at marketing, if you're not already pretty good at sales, if you're not already pretty good at creating workflow processes and systems and procedures, you don't have some kind of infrastructure in place, you probably wouldn't have gotten to 500, 000 in the first place.

RJon Robins: The big name in the game at that point in the third stage of growth is you've got to learn to run the business by the numbers. You've got to start having a data driven law firm and not just running it based on your gut or your feelings or your emotion or your nerves. You've got to [00:13:00] start making better decisions.

RJon Robins: More mature, more rational, more objective decisions based on data that you can depend on. You got to start really understanding how to read a set of financials. Budget, budgetary support, cash flow projections start becoming tools that empower you. Then you learn to love and you will learn to love them if you're trained how to use them properly.

RJon Robins: The fourth stage of growth goes to about a million five at about a million five. You're starting to make a transition From you being the most knowledgeable person in the firm to bringing on Other people who know as much or more than you do about how the business runs, typically around a million five, you're going to bring in your first full time professional legal administrator and life gets so much more interesting and life becomes so much easier because that person is going to take a ton off of your plate and do it better than you [00:14:00] do it and they're going to like doing it more than you like doing it and they're going to do it better than you do it.

RJon Robins: And because this is a trained professional legal administrator who actually likes the business side of running a law firm. That person is going to get you up to probably around 3 million dollars, at which point you bring in a professional CFO or a controller. And that person is going to get you up to about 5 million dollars, and then it's a whole different conversation.

RJon Robins: And then it starts to get really, really fun. Easier to run a 5 million law firm than a 2 million law firm. And it's easier to run a 2 million law firm than a 1 million law firm. And if anyone's listening to this and you're already running a 1 million law firm, you know, it's a lot easier to run a 1 million law firm than a 500, 000 law firm.

RJon Robins: It's a lot easier to run a 500, 000 law firm than a 250, 000 law firm. And it's exactly the opposite of what people think. When they were in the first stage of growth and they're working as hard as they can work and they [00:15:00] can't work any harder and you say you're at around 250, 000. Let's grow it to 500, 000 in the next 18 months.

RJon Robins: And they say, are you crazy? I can't work twice as hard. Not about working twice as hard. It's about shifting gears from first year to second year and you can go twice as fast and work less to get there.

Jan Roos: So you bring up something that comes up a lot on, you know, various stuff that we encounter with either people that we're interviewing.

Jan Roos: Or, you know, prospects are potentially working with us, but it's this kind of a belief. And one of the things that we used to try to do a really good job of, of trying to determine before we ended up wanting to work with somebody, the case fuel was whether they really had it in them that they wanted to grow.

Jan Roos: And I feel like there's kind of this false idea out there of basically just kind of the lifestyle attorney where, you know, maybe, you know, you're just going to have one person, maybe you got your paralegal in there, you make a healthy couple hundred thousand dollars, and you just do that and right off into the sunset.

Jan Roos: But this paradigm you just described, Roger, and kind of flips it all on its head, because what you're saying is basically, you know, you actually have [00:16:00] more bandwidth as you go higher up into the The different stages, right? Absolutely. Yes. And then another thing that I found really interesting was sometimes we kind of saw this, and this is something I kept noticing when I was actually interviewing some people that you've worked with, is that some of the ones that were the most successful had a super good grasp on the numbers.

Jan Roos: And this is something, you know, obviously, you know, we're in the direct response digital advertising space, so the numbers are always super obvious to us. But we noticed that a lot of the successful firms had a good handle on that. But it turns out that there's actually a distinct order of operations where you have to get a handle of that.

Jan Roos: As far as kind of the, the progression of how people are doing things, like what kind of problems do you see with people focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong stage?

RJon Robins: Well, I want to say something about the numbers, if you don't mind, before I get to that question. I know the names of a few of our members who you interviewed, but I don't know everyone who you interviewed.

RJon Robins: And I don't think that they would mind if I said [00:17:00] that they certainly didn't come to us knowing the numbers. We taught them the numbers. I have an undergraduate in Communications, Law, Economics, and Government, which means I can't do math to save my life. I'm not a math guy. I'm not a numbers guy. I went to law school because, like a lot of us went to law school because we can't do numbers.

RJon Robins: But I've learned about how to use the financials of a business to empower myself. And what I've discovered is that lawyers are actually much better at analyzing and interpreting and making better business decisions with the financials Once they've been taught how to interpret them, how to understand what they're really saying.

RJon Robins: And so I just say this to all the lawyers who will be listening to this, because you're absolutely right. Your business, one of the things that's really cool about your business is you don't hide from the number. You show off the numbers to your clients. You are like, let us show [00:18:00] you how profitable we're helping you be.

RJon Robins: Let us show you the positive ROI. We're getting and I imagine it must be really frustrating for you when you're trying to show one of your clients that you're helping them get more cases at a lower cost per acquisition than they were getting before and they say to you, I don't want to look at the numbers or they're afraid of the numbers or they can't appreciate what the numbers are

Jan Roos: telling them.

Jan Roos: Am I right? Yeah, absolutely. And if it's not that it's, it's, they have no context for it. It's like, you know, well, okay, let's say that I can get so everyone else will be too self serving, you know, let's just say, you know, somebody is doing a 10, 000 retainer. We say, okay, cool. We can get you that for 2, 000.

Jan Roos: And they're like, well, you know, is that a lot? Is that a little, they have no context, but you know, if you, you know, boiling it down for somebody who's even taken a little bit of looking into the definition of Return on investment, it usually gets pretty attractive from there, but it's kind of, I would say a combination of fear and not really having a frame of reference.

RJon Robins: Well, look, I mean, they don't teach us [00:19:00] anything in law school about the business of running a law firm. They certainly didn't sit us down in law school and explain to us that there's this concept called the cost of goods sold, and you've got to understand what your costs of goods sold are in order to determine if you're actually making a profit on each case or not.

RJon Robins: So many lawyers, they really are not running profitable businesses. They just have positive cashflow. And they mistake positive cashflow for profits as if they're the same thing. And they're most certainly not. We don't have time to get into that here on this podcast, but it's gotta be really frustrating for you when you're showing someone that you're actually helping them make a profit.

RJon Robins: And all they're looking at is cash flow, not realizing that they're sacrificing real profit for short term cash flow. But, you wanted me to answer something else, and I wouldn't go off of that subject, because it's just a pet peeve of mine. What was the question you wanted

Jan Roos: me to answer specifically? I guess the question was, is there any sort of potential perils of focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong stage?

Jan Roos: Like, would you [00:20:00] be that bad off if you had a Extremely good command of your numbers, but your gross profit last month was 1, 500.

RJon Robins: Well, yeah, that's why in the first stage of growth, it's all about hustle market sell. Just get the revenues up to 250. Just get the revenues up to 20, 000 a month. It's sort of like what you're steering a boat.

RJon Robins: If the boat's going very, very slow, it's hard to change directions. If you can speed up just a little bit, you can actually get much more control over the business because If the revenues are under 250, 000, you've got no money for anything. I mean, you don't have money to buy help. You don't have money to buy freedom.

RJon Robins: You're basically just own your own job. And I hope it's fun because you're going to be doing it for a long time. If you don't make some changes to the way your law firm is running. And I'm not saying that to be a jerk. It's just the truth. And people need to hear this truth. The biggest mistake people make, I would say when the revenues are in that first [00:21:00] stage of growth, zero to 250, 000.

RJon Robins: Is talking to other people whose revenues are zero to 250, 000. If I was running my own law firm today, if my best friend was listening to this, if my brother or my sister ran their own law firm and they were revenues under 250, 000, my advice to them would be. Don't talk to anyone whose revenues are under 500, 000.

RJon Robins: Don't talk to anyone whose law firm revenues are under 500, 000 because what's going to end up happening is you're going to end up talking to people who are essentially trying to enroll you in their stories and their excuses. And their rationalizations for why their law firm is under 250, 000. Instead, go talk to people whose revenues are 500, 000.

RJon Robins: Go talk to people whose law firm is already over a million dollars because they're not going to believe your bullshit. They're not going to accept your stories and your excuses. They're actually going to hold you accountable and call you out, which is good. That's exactly what you need [00:22:00] when your revenues are under 250, 000 because there's no reason for anyone to be sitting there with a law firm with revenues under 250, 000 for more than 18 to 24 months beyond 18 to 24 months, unless this is a intentional lifestyle decision, there's no.

RJon Robins: Legitimate reason why other than the obvious, which is no one ever taught you the business of how to run a law firm. It's not your fault. But now you can learn about the business of running a law firm, learn how to write a business plan, learn how to create a marketing plan, learn how to actually meet with prospective new clients and convert them into paying clients, learn sales, learn how to create workflow processes and systems and procedures, learn how to hire, train, manage, and make a profit with staff, learn how to run your business by the numbers you can interpret financials so you can become empowered by the numbers in your business, learn how to run your law firm like an actual business, And stop running it like a hobby.

RJon Robins: That's what you do when your revenues are under [00:23:00] 250, 000. That's the big peril is they hang around with too many people who have too many excuses and stories and justifications.

Jan Roos: You're bringing something else into context. It's, it's kind of funny. I feel like I'm seeing the matrix in parts during this conversation or John, because one of the ways when I was especially starting out case fuel was you know, I was doing a lot of local networking stuff, which is a really, really common thing for, I know a lot of lawyers starting out, you join your local BNI chapter, you go to your bar happy hours.

Jan Roos: Yeah. That sort of thing. I'd probably guess from your experience, you wouldn't be seeing a lot of people in the 5 million plus category waking up at 7 a. m. to hang out business cards. So, you know, my question kind of from there is like, you know, there's some very obvious networking things for people to do that seem to kind of draw the people that have more time than money to spend.

Jan Roos: How would you recommend people go about up leveling the kind of conversations they're having with people?

RJon Robins: Well, for one thing, you got to establish some standards for yourself in life. A friend of mine who actually owns a multi million [00:24:00] dollar martial arts studio. And let me tell you, if you can build a multi million dollar martial arts studio, you can sure as hell build a multi million dollar law firm.

RJon Robins: He has this great way about him, and he told a group of people years ago, and I respected him, made me want to be friends with him. He said, you got to qualify to hang out with me. In other words, you have to qualify to be my friend because you have to be so protective of your mindset and you have to be so protective of what you believe is true and what people want to convince you is true if you want to grow your law firm.

RJon Robins: So you're asking me, where do you go if your revenues are under 250, 000, where do you go to network to avoid hanging around with the. excuse makers. Is that what you're asking me? Yeah. The crabs in the bucket, the crabs in the bucket. I love that analogy. Exactly. Where do you go? Well, I mean, at the risk of being too self serving, can I be a little self serving?

RJon Robins: Can you give us a plug? Yeah, that's fair. [00:25:00] Well, how to manage a small law firm. You know, we are the largest provider of outside fractional CEO, COO, and CFO services for solo and small law firms in the country. Think of it like a timeshare CEO for your law firm. We have live quarterly meetings that all of our members come to about a third of them bring their spouse or significant other to the meeting about 20 percent of our members actually bring their kids for our kids club or our teenage entrepreneurs program that we run these and we run these meetings once a quarter.

RJon Robins: There's no additional charge. Once you remember, we invite you to come to these. We encourage you to come to these, these meetings and you get to be around. Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurial law firm solo and small law firm owners, about 50 percent have revenues under 250, 000, about 50 percent have revenues over 250, 000, about 20 percent probably have revenues [00:26:00] of 700, 000 to a million.

RJon Robins: I don't have the exact statistics in front of me, but you get around a group like that, and it's going to be really hard to go home and say, you can't do it. You know, when person after person after person who you meet tall, short, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, left handed, right handed, this practice, that practice as some other practice, big market, small market, you name it.

RJon Robins: When they're all doing it, you can't go home and say, you can't do it. Short of that, the next best thing I would say is. Find the most successful law firm owner in your market. Find the person who's got the million dollar, the multi million dollar solo or small law firm. And what you will find is they are the nicest, most generous, most encouraging, most supportive people.

RJon Robins: It's the people who are broke who are fighting so viciously over the crumbs. People already have a multi million dollar law firm, [00:27:00] and they're comfortable, and they're not worried about where their mortgage payment is going to come from next month, and they're not worried about where their kid's college tuition or where the next private school tuition is going to come from next month.

RJon Robins: They're the people who aren't threatened by you. They're the people who are going to be the most encouraging for you. And as gutsy and ballsy as it may seem to do, I promise you, you know, maybe one or two of them are going to be assholes. But I'm telling you. You know, a much better chance of finding someone who's going to be encouraging and supportive and welcoming to someone who's really making a commitment to grow their business and have a better life amongst people who have already done it.

RJon Robins: So that would be my advice is literally just pick up the phone and call someone or write them a letter. Don't send them an email, write them a letter in the mail. Dear so and so, I think you have a really successful law firm. I'm really impressed with what you've done. My name is so and so I started my law firm.

RJon Robins: Whenever my law firm is grossing this much, my [00:28:00] goal is to be like you someday. I'd like to come over to your office and meet with you. And maybe even if you'll let me take you out for dinner and just pick your brain and learn about how you did what you did. I'm telling you, you're going to find a really welcome reception if you do that.

Jan Roos: So to tag along on that, Kind of idea of going out to somebody who's really successful. How can somebody who might be a little bit earlier on the path, offer some value to somebody in that position, or is there no need to offer value at all? It is

RJon Robins: so rare to find someone who has the courage and the humility to just reach out and ask for help.

RJon Robins: It's just a refreshing, wonderful gift. When we, I'll just speak for myself. When someone reaches out to me, In business and just says, I see what you've done. I'm trying to do something with my life. I'm trying to do something with my career. I'm trying to do something with my business. I would like to [00:29:00] just come and ask you some questions about business.

RJon Robins: It's just so refreshing. It's so unusual. It's so rare that that ever happens. I didn't get to where I'm at without a lot of people helping me along the way. A lot of people had to pay it forward to help me get to where I'm at right now. Friends, family, and so many total strangers that I can't even begin to know where to thank everyone.

RJon Robins: What kind of person am I, am I, if I don't try to do the same thing? That's the thing about working with someone and talking to someone and reaching out to someone who's already built something really successful. You know, Zig Ziglar had a saying and he said, the best part of becoming a millionaire is who you have to become in order to become a millionaire.

RJon Robins: I'm probably butchering the quote, but I think you get the idea. I didn't become the owner of the business that I have today without becoming the person I am today. And the person I am today [00:30:00] couldn't exist without a lot of people helping me along the way. And I think what you're going to find is that this is true of almost everyone who has built a successful law firm of their own too.

RJon Robins: Certainly true of all of our members. Tell you that for sure. I want to add one more thing that if you don't mind. Go ahead. Two more things. One, if you go there making a bunch of excuses, looking for them to buy into your stories, looking for validation for why they can do it, but you can't, you won't be invited back.

RJon Robins: That's number one. The worst thing to bring someone who's got a multimillion dollar business are your stories and your excuses because they just don't want to hear it. And number two, if I may be so bold on your podcast to make this offer, anyone's listening to this and you just can't find someone with a successful law firm who will agree to let you take them to lunch or dinner to pick their brain about [00:31:00] how they did it, contact us and we'll put you in touch with one of our members in your market.

RJon Robins: We've got members in like 38 different States. Chances are you can't be too far from one of them. That's super generous, Arjan. They have to mention case fuel, and then we'll extend that courtesy. If they don't mention case fuel, we're not going to extend that courtesy.

Jan Roos: All right, guys. And then we'll have the contact information for our john at the end of the show and in the show notes.

Jan Roos: So if you guys want to take advantage of that, he'll be available right there. Okay, so I'm bit of a twist. So I mean, we've been talking about places to get in front of some people that are pretty successful examples of success and how that can really to getting you inspired to do something on your own for your law firm.

Jan Roos: Wanted to switch the conversation a little bit to the law firm 500, which I know you guys are a sponsor of Dubai. Tell us a little bit more about that. I know there's an event coming up.

RJon Robins: Yeah, so this is all inspired by the Inc. 5000, which you mentioned earlier. The Inc. 5000 is a celebration of the 5000 fastest growing privately held companies in the [00:32:00] country.

RJon Robins: By the way, I'm proud to tell you that my firm, How to Manage a Small Law Firm, we made the Inc. 5000 for five years in a row for fast growth. Anyway, Law Firm 500 is a celebration of the fastest growing law firms in the country. We've got AmLaw 100 and AmLaw 200 that celebrate the largest law firms in the country, but there wasn't anyone out there really celebrating fast growing law firms.

RJon Robins: And as you've alluded to in our conversation, Most people have a very bad misconception about what causes a law firm to grow. The fact of the matter is that what causes a law firm to grow sustainably year after year after year, not talking about just the one hit wonders, but what causes a law firm to grow year after year after year is creating value for clients.

RJon Robins: If you're not creating value for clients, if you're not manufacturing happy clients year in and year out, your law firm cannot grow. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't [00:33:00] fool all the people all the time. If your law firm is not delivering and creating real authentic value for your clients, there's no way for it to grow.

RJon Robins: So when you see these law firms growing. Over a three year period, which is the measurement when you see them growing over three years, 15 percent in three years, 100 percent in three years, 500 percent in three years, 1000 percent in three years, 2000 percent growth in three years, how do you think they're doing it?

RJon Robins: It's not by magic. They're doing it because they're making lots and lots and lots of happy clients. They're doing a great job. They're adding value in the world. You know, there's just too many people who have too many stories and excuses about, oh, you know, the only way for law firms to grow fast is by hurting people or taking advantage of people.

RJon Robins: That's so stupid. I mean, if you think about that for five minutes, you realize how implausible that excuse or that story Is the only way to actually do it is to help people. So we're, we're really happy to help create the law [00:34:00] firm 500, which is open to everyone, any law firm. Any size law firm the rules for applying are on the website But you don't have to be a member of how to manage a small law firm You don't have to be a customer or a client of case fuel You don't have to do business with any of the sponsors of law firm 500 You just apply there's no fee to apply It's totally free to apply and it is a totally 100 merit based award wherever you are in the rankings, that's where your law firm is in the rankings And I'll tell you that putting law firm 500, one of the fastest growing law firms in the country on your website and in your marketing.

RJon Robins: And you can back me up on this. I think I've heard lots of stories from lots of winners. Who have said that the clients told them that it made the difference Between choosing law firm a versus law firm b. It's an added validation Yeah,

Jan Roos: yeah, that's definitely good. I was gonna say like, you know There's there's so many it's [00:35:00] kind of paper awards that you can see I want to name any names here But we all know the banners that you can pay a fee every single year for to get on your site And you know, it doesn't really once you know, even if if clients aren't directly aware of it if everyone is You Let's say superb lawyer.

Jan Roos: It doesn't really mean that anyone is at all, but that's, you know, getting an actual merit based thing is, you know, that that's gotta be pretty, pretty impressive. So

RJon Robins: I think it's a really valid thing to say to a client, a prospective client or a current client. And especially when you're recruiting staff, look, Our law firm grew 373 percent in the last three years.

RJon Robins: We did this by really doing a great job for our clients by really making people happy by really doing the right thing with our staff that has a lot of credibility.

Jan Roos: Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's the other thing too, it's, you know, for prospective people hiring as well, it's, you know, not that either of us are in the corporate world, but you know, I've got a lot of friends that are on the same track.

Jan Roos: I was you know, friends from, from, you know, just When it comes [00:36:00] to actually these people that are in a position that's very different than what any, you know, owner of a law firm is in terms of which wagon am I going to hitch myself to for the next year, years, decades, maybe if things work out, you're going to be a lot better if you're attaching it to a shooting star than something that's going to be in the same place five years from now.

RJon Robins: The average small law firm in this country is growing at 5 percent per year. You know that? That's it. 5 percent per year, which is better than the Amlaw 100, which is only growing at 2 percent per year. How am I going to attract the best and the brightest attorneys? How am I going to attract a kick ass paralegal?

RJon Robins: How am I going to attract an amazing executive assistant if I can't show them where there's career growth opportunities for them? On the other hand, if I can say, Hey, listen, our firm grew 750 percent in the last three years, there will be opportunities for you if you get in now and help us grow. You're going to attract better people.

Jan Roos: Yeah. Especially when we're talking about going through this later stages of growth, that's absolutely key. [00:37:00] I know that we had a certain amount of time booked and we are past it by quite a lot. I feel like we could talk about this all day. I certainly would be open to a followup podcast, maybe a couple months.

Jan Roos: What's the best way for people to to reach you guys? What other stuff should people know about any applications for the law from 500? What what should people know?

RJon Robins: Well, first off, you can go to our website, how to manage a small law firm. And I want to also say that there's an app, you can download the app that will allow you to essentially turn your smartphone into essentially a mobile classroom.

RJon Robins: And you'll be able to search for law firm management topics, marketing topics, sales topics, staffing topics. You can search by topic and listen to podcasts that are produced by me and my team. And some content that's shared by our members to help you with anything you've got going on in your law firm.

RJon Robins: And you can get that at howtomanageasmalllawfirm. com and it's totally free. [00:38:00] That's just our gift to the legal industry, our gift to the world. Second is, if you want to apply for Law Firm 500, or just buy a ticket to attend Law Firm 500, and keynote speakers in the past, Damon John from Shark Tank was a keynote speaker, Aaron Brockovich was a keynote speaker.

RJon Robins: This year, Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profits First, he'll be the keynote speaker. You can just go to lawfirm500. com, the number 500, and there's a button to click to apply. Like I said, there is no cost to apply. Anyone who tells you there's a fee to apply is mistaken is totally free. The data is all crunched by an accounting firm and it's all completely objective.

RJon Robins: And then I will, since I didn't know that I was going to make the offer to introduce your audience to successful lawyers in their local market, who would be happy to go have lunch or dinner and let them

Jan Roos: pick their brain. Yeah. We'll get that in the show notes. But yeah, that's a super generous offer our John and also like such awesome [00:39:00] information that you've provided.

Jan Roos: So for anyone listening, I know this has been like a pretty wide ranging conversation. If you kind of want to look at the high level of this, there's really no. Hard and fast rules for how to, to manage a small offer. And despite, you know, the simplicity of our John's business, it really is almost like levels of a video game.

Jan Roos: You have to focus on different things at different levels, but I'd say one thread that kind of runs through all of this. And if you guys are relistening to this, which I highly recommend The mindset's got to be there at every step. You don't want to be small in your thinking. You don't want to hang around small thinkers.

Jan Roos: And if you can kind of stay out of around that, maybe get some help from our John or people like, like our John, the sky's the limit of how you just want to apply yourself. So thanks again, our John super appreciate you taking the time to speak with us in the audience.

RJon Robins: Again, thank you for having me and I appreciate you reaching out to me.

RJon Robins: You met some of our members in prior podcasts, and I think the work you're doing is really impressive

Jan Roos: for your clients. All right. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. So stay tuned next week for another awesome episode of Law Firm Growth Podcast. [00:40:00] Until then, this is Jan Roos signing out.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Law Firm Growth Podcast.

Narrator: For show notes, free resources, and more, head on over to casefuel. com slash podcast. Looking forward to catching up on the next episode.