And the best approach is to treat it like a business where the product is law, the product or these legal solutions, the product. In fact, the product is the outcomes we provide for our clients, whether it be advice or specific outcomes, but think of it really start to understand the business. So what I you know, where I thrive and add the most value is when people are saying, You know what, we want to build a better business. We know how to be great lawyers, but we may need we would like some help in figuring out how to do the business better, including having a better experience for our people. And part of that is a better experience for our clients.

Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now, here's the founder and CEO of 10 golden rules, Jay Berkowitz.

That's a mouthful, Jay. I'm excited to be here. I'll try and make sure that none of my answers have that long of a name. And

I know I mean, to be honest. About 15 years ago, I started the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing podcast. But now that we only work with law firms, and interview experts like yourself, who deal with law firms, we added the law firms. So it's hard to get it out. So tell us a little bit about you and your journey.

Okay, yeah, cool. I'll do the relatively short version for some reason, people really find my journey fascinating. And I think it's a lesson that when we live our own life, we don't really see it as fascinating. So I'm, it's interesting journey, I started a traditional law firm, a lawyer career, my first job went to law school clear as a bell, I'm going to be a lawyer gonna get become a partner had a clear path, went out and did that, you know, join the large firm, became a partner, and then said, Now what? I was 33 years old, and it achieved my life's goal. That okay, you better do some new goals. But so what first thing I realized was that I'm a troublemaker. And I was told at the law firm that I asked too many questions. And I ship too many trees. And I said, Well, I guess I'm not going to have a leadership role here. So I have to create my own table, so to speak, I'm not going to be invited to that table, I'll start my own. So I started my own firm, had my own firm for seven years, and then actually realized that I hated practicing, I realized that what I really liked was the business side. And I frankly, couldn't figure out how to stay in the law, the law firm without practicing. And so I left and I went out and did over a period of six, eight years, I did a number of business development roles. So I really got good at building relationships and, and moving, moving the needle on opportunities and storytelling. And then after that, and I won't go into the longer story, but I pretty literally stumbled into coaching and speaking and consulting, which includes law firms and other businesses. And that all came about because I wrote a book on how to run law firms like a business called think, again, innovative approaches to the business of law that someone read at least one and sad. I think this is awesome. Can you help us in our firm and next thing you know, I've coached a coach, speaker consultant. And over the years, the last almost 20 years, probably 25% of my clients have been law firms, or lawyers in law firms, and then a wide range of other businesses, but most of those are also professional services, which is relevant because a lot of those industries are so similar. That that's kind of probably the Two minute version may be a little less of a much more winding path. Most

of the readers will appreciate that. But if any of your families listening, they'll be like, Jeff, you know, why did you cut in so short?

So why don't you tell them that story?

What year did you write the book?

hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, I should celebrate booking anniversaries. Yeah, get

ready, get ready, you know, and now you've got, you've got time. To be honest, we were a little late with the celebration, we celebrated in April this year with a nice party and everything. Nice. That's great. So next question is like, what is your why? What gets you up in the morning? What makes your heart beat faster?

I probably the best way to say that. I mean, I have my hands and a lot of things these days. I mean, I'm still actively working and all those things. But the biggest thing is, I think the way to simplify what I talked to people about is people have been doing business interacting with each other leading all the things related to business, in the same way for decades. And it doesn't need to be that way. We, the world has evolved and many of us have not. So what gets me out of bed is the idea of potential having the opportunity every day, to ask somebody a question, share a perspective, that will cause them to think differently. That's really Someone recently asked me to do like a 10 second elevator pitch. And I said, they said like, what are you? What's the essence of what you do? And I said, Well, I asked people, I ask people questions they've never been asked before. So they can know something they've never known see something they've never seen and do something different they've never thought of. That's exciting to me, means the world think about how the world would be better if everybody just did 10% More of that every day. Look,

let's try it out. Ask me, ask me one of your great questions.

See, though, that you're getting tricky here. I will do it. But here's why. Most of my questions aren't scripted. There in the moment, but here's one of my favorites. And it's a fundamental shift. We all know, even though we don't want to admit it, that one of the biggest obstacles in anything we're working on in our lives personally and professionally is fear. But typically, we don't want to acknowledge fear, because we're wanting to pretend that we're fearless. And that always makes me laugh when someone says they're fearless. I think, Oh, see, you're not human. Because fear is very natural. So here's the flip. I call it a flip. I used to ask myself when I was facing a challenge, I would say, Jeff, are you afraid of something? And the answer typically was no. Because if we ask ourselves that question, we want to say no, and we do say no. So now the question I asked myself is, I just assume I'm afraid. So I said, Jeff, what are you afraid of? And I don't trust the first answer. Because my first answer is usually an exaggerated version of the rift designed me to keep from moving forward. So I'll keep going. I'll sort of do the sowhat. And I'll do that with clients too. What are you afraid of? Well, I'm afraid I'll lose all my I lose my house. What are you really afraid of? I actually am afraid that it will be harder than I thought, I'm afraid I'll disappoint people close to me. And we start finding out that the fear is really different. And the more clear we are in the fear, the more conscious we can make a decision of the ways we're going to proceed. So that would be an example of just flipping a question to a different direction, more designed to us to kind of get away from the safety mechanism in our mind.

I think that a lot. I liked that a lot. So we got your why we got a little distracted. But I think hopefully, that message will resonate with two or three people. If they're living in fear or apprehension, you know, oh, my goodness, there's a great greatness on the other side of fear and apprehension. Right, crazy. You know, the next question, I think we answered and that's Are there any key pivots or changes you made in your career or your business and the lessons that a young attorney could apply to their life?

Yeah, well, that was one of them. I think that I think one or a couple other has been I've had And big pivot. That was a big one. Certainly when I quit practicing law, that was a huge pivot. And someone might say, well, how does that supposed to apply to someone who's, you know, practicing this? Well, the, the fact that it didn't fit me doesn't mean it doesn't fit someone else. But I think we have the opportunity to reframe our experience, we have an opportunity based upon how we choose to look at our situation, how we choose to look at our opportunities. And I would say, you know, one of the big lessons I learned early on, is just because I'm good at something, doesn't mean I'm supposed to do it. And a lot of people end up spending everything all their time doing thing, that they're not really stuff fulfilling, because they're good at it, because they assume that if they're good at it, it must be fulfilling. And it's not, that's not true, that's really not true. The other thing I would say is, and this is really especially true for lawyers, because I've been, you know, I've been around the profession now for God, 40 years, 40 years now, and it is really easy for lawyers, some others, but lawyers are at the top of the list, to get trapped in that their identity is what they do. And that's really, you know, doesn't have to be true for anyone, because I don't believe it's actually healthy, I think you can be at the top of your game, without having your identity defined by what you do, just be at the top of your game. Because if you define yourself, if your identity is defined by what you do, it can be really a trapped experience. And, you know, as you know, jbn around this profession, the legal profession is not known for quality of life for the people practicing. You know, lawyers are at the top of all the lists, you don't want to be at the top of in terms of mental health, and, you know, substance abuse and all these things. So it's a challenging profession, that I think it's important early in your career, to learn to look at what you do and your role in it differently. So you don't get stuck and tripped up by some of these realities of the so called realities of the profession. They're not reality, they're just how we choose to do it.

How do you prevent that, like, you know, when you're into that substance abuse, mental health service circle? What should a lawyer do? What should anyone do?

Well, first of all, one of the biggest challenges is the legal profession is historically been one, I should not say historically, in the last call it 70 years, because before that the profession was think different. But in the last 70 years, the legal profession B came one that was largely defined by people's effort, not their ability, and there's a difference. So it became a profession where people became successful by just working longer hours, not working better, not working differently. But by working hard. And I still believe that does not need to be the case and the practice, there's a, you know, the people that annoy us in the profession, if you're a lawyer, the ones that are not working as hard as you and seemingly more successful, because they're doing it differently. So number one is Don't, don't, don't assume that the way to success is just to work hard, because there's no end to it. Secondly, learn to prioritize yourself and the people that you care about, I would say the biggest trap that I fell into. And it's not limited to lawyers, I would call it the entrepreneurial trap. Especially when you have your own business, you or your entrepreneurial in it, because you're a partner at some level. You start making sacrifices, and you tell yourself that you're doing it for your family. And there is some truth in it, but it's not all true. And you end up missing out on a lot and sometimes losing relationships, losing families through whatever it is, you know, whether it's a divorce, or not having time with your kids. And you tell yourself yeah, but I was doing it for them. That's one of the biggest lies because the reality is most of us what's really driving us is our personal desire for success and to be recognized. And while money sometimes follows that that benefits our family, do not fall into that trap. So I think one of the things we need to constantly do always is challenge our assumptions about our own y and about what it takes to achieve our desired outcome. And most important, Get really clear what that outcome should be. Because if you own We pick a business outcome, you're gonna leave people in the wake. And I did it. I did it, you know, I, there's a lot of things I would have done differently. But you know, no learn was no better do better. And I've applied that now for 40 years.

Love it. Love it. So tell tell me about your current role in the current company and how you help folks and who's a great referral for you?

Well, yeah, I'm, I love working with lawyers and law firms, which are typically when I'm working with them, I'm doing things like helping with business development, relationship building, but a lot of times it's internal, in terms of culture, and how in leadership, you know, the reality is, most lawyers did not get into the business of law, because they love business. And they end up running the business, and may not have all the tools developed that would really help them especially the people tools. You know, I think that one of the things I think's important, and that's why my, my book, think, again, the subtitle was innovative approaches to the business of law, to constantly remind lawyers that it is a business. And the best approach is to treat it like a business, where the product is law, the product or these legal solutions, the product is, in fact, the product is the outcomes we provide for our clients, whether it be advice or specific outcomes, but think of it really start to understand the business. So what I you know, where I thrive and add the most value is when people are saying, you know, what, we want to build a better business. We know how to be great lawyers, but we may need, we would like some help in figuring out how to do the business better, including having a better experience for our people. And part of that is a better experience for our clients. Because the other reality is that our clients judge us as much, if not more for the experience they have. As for the outcome, they get, they want a good outcome, but the outcome is often variable. And if we're only going to have sad, you know, happy clients, when they have the great outcome, well, there's good amount of time, they're not going to be happy. But if we can give them a great experience, we have a better chance of building that relationship. And the key to that is now we get those word of mouth referrals. Because what you want is a bunch of raving fans and raving fans, as clients are the ones that are going to really accelerate your business.

How do you how do you boost it? If you do a great job for clients? Is there are there techniques to get more referrals? Yeah,

stay in touch with them. That's the biggest thing I see, especially in the personal injury law firms there because we too often look at our clients in that in that specific practice area. We look at our clients as a single event, we're working on their matter. And the odds are, they're not going to have another matter. Now, business focus law firms are different. They have legacy clients, you know, they they get a client, and they may do work for them for 50 years. So it's not, it's not really saying they're going to come back. But who are they going to tell and here's the here's the thing, people who have a good experience with you. If they have a bad experience, they're going to tell five, five people, if they have a good experience, they're going to tell one, if they have a great experience, they're going to tell 20. Because what you want to do is you want to stay top of mind. And the big thing is we believe, let's say it's me, you know, I have let's say you're the lawyer, Jay and I work with you and I have a great experience. But I don't hear from you for 10 years, I forget about you pretty quickly. And the more you can just stay in touch with me whatever it is, whether it's that that card or that note or that email, so that as I'm walking around, and I hear someone mentioned something that relates to you, if you need to talk to Jay and and what you want to say you want them to have say something like this. Oh my god, you need to talk to Jay. Not Well, yeah, I know this guy. Yeah, he helped me now that's not enough. Because that doesn't sell anything. You want people running around screaming your name, and you need to stay top of mind to them. And that's and that can be systematized and I know a lot of what you do is about helping law firms systematize their process. And that's the you know, that's the secret sauce is systemization.

Yeah, I mean, if you're a regular podcast listener, I apologize. You've heard the story before, but I was in a car accident about 10 years ago, and then I was in a car accident, but six years after that about four years ago. So 10 years ago, we weren't we worked with few lawyers but not like we do now. And I went to the chiropractor, and I said, Oh, my back's really stiff. But I was in a car accident. And the chiropractors eyes lit up. They're like car accident, because they knew they were going to introduce me to this attorney. And they started giving me free things like, like, I think even this, I still have a pillow here. The stuff in my desk that came from that tile cures, you get a backpack and these creams and potions. And they introduced me to the attorney who, you know, it turns out I had an ongoing issue. You know, I got we got rear ended, we got whacked pretty good. I was with a couple of my employees. And then six years later, I was in another rear end. I was actually going to see a client in Orlando. And I couldn't remember the name of the guy from six years before. So to reinforce what you said, gotta have a newsletter. Very basic table stakes, got to have some social media got to have the birthday card, the the Christmas Hanukkah card. You know, can we talked about Ken Hardison? Actually, I was just re listening to the rainmakers playbook webinar we did with Ken and Steve noodle burger now Margulis if you want to really learn how to become a rainmaker. You know, listen, listen to Jeff stuff and listen to that one. And Ken said, you know, I don't know if you agree with this number. He said, in personal injury, every client should give you four to five referrals. I've heard a lot of people say it's a one to one ratio. But in the very least, you know, Ken says he sends a Thanksgiving card, a Valentine's card, and he also has a VIP party. Every year anyone who's given one or more referrals invited to a big pizza party or a buffet at a Golden Corral. This is past tense, because he sold his firm's Ken Hardison runs tilma conference now, and a mastermind. And, you know, he really makes them part of his you said it before, part of his family, you know, treat them like family, like he buys them a dinner or a buffet every quarter, gives them his books gives him his merchandise. So we've tried to replicate, replicate that a little bit with the box we send out to replicate the inner circle, and ask people for reviews and ask them, so I asked him for referrals and Google reviews. So

an interesting about what you said, because you know, I know Ken as well. Notice, because you were really specific. One of those pieces is to do things different than everybody else. Because you you didn't say holiday cards, you said Thanksgiving card, which I'm a big fan of because everybody you know, we've stopped sending a lot of cards, frankly, we used to do a lot of Christmas season cards or those holiday. But everybody did that. But nobody did Thanksgiving. And people weren't doing Valentine's I talked to a firm A few years ago, they did the cards and they sent them a card and the anniversary of their matter getting resolved nice, because that was that they're gonna get that and there's no other distractions around that time. And it and look, you can you have the data, all you got to do is use it. It's not like they actually remembered the anniversary. But for the people getting it, it feels like it because it's personal. because not everybody's getting a card that day, the people getting your card are the people that have that anniversary. So the more you can personalize it, the better.

I got about, you know, 14 special discounts from restaurants and, and retailers who offered me like 5% off a pair of pants. But I think I only got three cards. I got a ton of cards from my immediate family here. My wife's great with that and everything. But I think I got three cards. I got a couple from family, and one from Jason Melton, shout out to Jason, great attorney and in West West Florida. And he you know, he does a great job with that ground game, getting me a birthday card. And he actually worked on that second car accident and talked about some credit to Jason. You know, part of your expertise is culture, team engagement. Talk to me about building those pillars in a law firm.

Well, they're not they're not particularly unique to law firms, but law firms often need them more than others. Because of that, when I said earlier, a lot of times One of the downfalls of law firms is they're not thinking like businesses. They're thinking like practices that have business operations. And those are two different things. And we tend to look at our people and we just don't We don't do that we don't do the basics. You know. You know what, let me just do my little soapbox about engagement. Most people talk about or at least acknowledge they would like to have more than engagement from their people. And in this country, the studies for the last 30 years, they're horrible, frankly, they'd say that the levels of engagement in most companies is the love that percentage of people who are actively engaged in work are somewhere between 25 and 30% of the people, and the percentage of people who are actively disengaged. That means these are the people who have quit, but stayed are about 25 to 30%. And then you've got this middle 40 to 50%. That are, well, we want more from our people, we want them to care, but we don't give them a reason to care. And too often we think about engagement initiatives, when what we really need to do is let's get back to the base, the basic building blocks, people in general want to and especially at work, want to feel seen, valued heard, and like they matter? Well, the way we do that is to personalize once again, and I will tell you a big area, I mean, I could talk about a lot, but one area to think about is feedback. People want to grow the best people the right people want to grow. But a lot of times we don't have a clear path for them, number one, and number two, we don't give them encouragement to grow. And let me just share this one little twist of awareness, the peace of awareness. Look, if someone makes a mistake, we need to let them know about it. That's how they learn and get better. Absolutely agree with it. The problem is we tend to only praise people when they do big things. And my my premise is, that's not fair. It's not fair to get tell someone every time they get something wrong. But only praise them when they get something great. So we don't praise people for getting their job done. And you know, the old thinking was, well, I'm not going to praise them for doing what I expected of them. Yeah, but if you don't do that, it's not fair, because you are going to criticize them when for every mistake they make, because that's how they learn. And how they learn to grow and want to grow is by encouraging them. And it is not that hard. It doesn't take a lot of time, it just comes down to a commitment that says, I want my people to know that they matter here. And I appreciate their contributions. And that is not about money. Because I've closed with this comment. If you look at every survey for the last 30 years, where it lists all the priorities of team members, hey, is assuming it's at least fit basic fair pay. Money is always fifth or sixth or lower on the list. And the employers say the leaders of the firm say, well, that's not accurate, because all I ever hear from my people is money. But here's the explanation. If you don't give people like opportunities to learn and grow positive feedback, encouragement, all those other things, if you don't give them that all they're going to talk about as money. So there's a lot of things that don't cost money that make a difference in our culture, it's time to invest in that. Because the people you know, we all know, our people are critical, but we don't always act like it. You

never really hear someone say, you know, come by and give me a pat on the back woods. Yeah, they only come at the quarterly and, and talk about their financial content, competency, or a title or whatever. No, it's great. And thank you for reminding me I try and remember the little things as well as the big things and we're running on EOS now, not an entrepreneur, the operating system. And EOS says to give shout outs relative to the core values of the company. And so we're systematizing that and doing that in our team meetings, and you know, like, like anything it takes time to learn and, and also, like you said, remember to do it every day, not just in the monthly meeting. Yes. Great. Well, good news. I have some easier questions. Shorter. Weeks. Yeah.

I thought those were easy. So

what are some apps or techniques used for personal productivity?

One that I use? I mean, I use a lot. I mean, I don't use a lot of specialty tools. You know, I use my Outlook tasks, things like that. I do use my I do my daily priorities. That's a big one. I mean, I'll tell you, it's as simple it's as old as it's 100 years old. Now. Going back to its from the early turn of the 20th century. input which is, you know, every day, prioritize your top three things. And don't undo the first one first and don't do anything else to get it done. It's amazingly simple, but most of us don't do it. We get this tracted we come up with a list of 30. And we just don't prioritize our list. So that's something simple. It's not an app. I do that. Oh, there you go. Exactly. Eat the frog. Yeah, right on frog. Brian Tracy. Yeah. Another thing that to me, I do use, it's a really cool creativity tool that helps me think and design strategy, whether it be big strategy or little strategy as an application called I thoughts. And it's a mind mapping tool, that I use that almost every day in some fashion, it's a great tool, it's really easy to learn. But it allows you it's essentially on your, on your desktop, you can use it like you would do a whiteboard gaming session, where you do mind mapping, if you're familiar with that. It's a really cool tool. And I actually use it also to take notes of sessions, because then I can keep it organized. I can also do colors and colors when we do different colors that stimulate different parts of our mind. So I'm a big fan of that one as well.

And it's called mine thoughts.

I thought, I thought it's a letter I Yeah, thoughts? Great.

That's a good one. And what are your best business books?

love that. That's great. I'll check it out. When you mentioned traction, I also always want to mention to people. And again, my little personal story, eight or nine years ago, got the book traction at a conference and my one of my mentors, oh, traction is the best way to run your business. And I tried to read it. And then everyone was talking about traction, you know, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And I tried, again to read it and couldn't get through it. And then they came up with another book called Get a grip and get a grip as told in a story format and like a parable, and I devoured it. And then I read traction. And then I was like, Okay, now I get it. Because in EOS they say there's two leaders in a business. There's the visionary, and I took the test. I'm a pure visionary. You know, I love to connect with people and speak at conferences and be the face of the company. And I always come go to a conference and come back with 50 ideas. And then you need your integrator who's inside the company who gets shit done. Get get gets things done. Sorry. Yeah. And, and so the Get a grip is written for the visionary. So if you're, if you're like me, and you've heard about traction, and you've heard about the entrepreneur operating system, and you just can't get through that darn book, read Get a grip. And I guarantee it, I'll give you that Oh, aha moment. And we were self implementing with us. And now we're January we went full, full hog, and it's been fantastic for a company so wonderful. Okay, what blogs, podcasts or YouTube do you subscribe to? And when it hits your stream like that, that immediately switch over and listen to that one?

Yeah, boy, I jumped around a lot on that. I would say the things I read Mote consett most consistently for probably 15 or 20 years. I'm a regular reader of Seth Godin. His book, he's purportedly he purposely puts him out out there as a marketing guy, but he has topics or everything, his dailies, he can be talking about some big life issue in there. So I'm a big fan of Seth Godin stuff. There's, I listen, I tell you this listen or read anything that involves Malcolm Gladwell, anything. Another guy another Guy read and listen to all his stuff. Is Simon Sinek? Yep. Simon Sinek

we talked about finding your why. And that's he had the number one, two or three TED talk

on Oh, yeah, yeah, the Golden Circle. Those are the ones that I'm probably reading the most or listening to the most.

Yeah, quick, fun story. I spoke at a conference called eBay live. And my book, The 10 Golden Rules launched at that conference. And it was in the book, bookshop and nobody, you know, it wasn't available for sale anywhere else in the world. And so Seth Godin was the morning keynote, and then I was the, I guess, the keynote after that, on the main stage. And, and I said, you know, my new books launching, and I went through the 10, golden rules of online marketing, we walked down to the bookstore, and Seth Godin was there, and I got to meet him and shake his hand, take his seat in the, in the book signing another quick, funny story. You know, I sat down for the first time and someone ran in the bookstore and bought my book and put it in front of me, and I didn't know what to sign because I resigned a book before. So the only the only inspiration I could come up with was when I was a kid, and you go up to the hockey players, and they'd sign their hockey number. So I just signed Jay Berkowitz number 10. Because I haven't come up with much more inspiration on that

taught definitely gotta be short, right? I mean, you gotta have a short strike. If something's snippy.

I got asked Seth, I should have asked him. Great. Well, who's your nflt?

It's difficult to say this out loud. It's a tough team to root for. But I still do. I used to live in Cleveland, Ohio. So I'm a Browns fan. Still loyal. But boy, is it difficult. I moved to I live in Tampa now and I moved to Tampa five years ago and I call Cleveland the dust the Dust Bowl of championships or the Death Valley because of that they've only had one championship in like 65 years. And that was the Cleveland Cavs. And I moved to Tampa Bay and within two years, they had won a Super Bowl two Stanley Cups and lost in the World Series and I just kept going. This doesn't happen. This isn't real. I mean, I am a Lightning Lightning fan. Now that I have a local team but I guess still a Browns fan and football. Yeah,

the lightning are a lot of fun, too. And where can people get in touch with you? Well,

the fortunate thing about my name is I'm easy to find if you can spell my last name, which is N as in that is the Hwy tz. You'll find everything that says Jeff niche which is me, which is I mean, it's just a bonus of unusual name. But you can you can find my website at niche which group.com you can stalk me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, my all my platforms are very integrated. I've ever used YouTube channel as well called Think again coaching, which was my prior company title. Love to have people go there and subscribe, as you were saying at the beginning, Jay. Subscribers make the world go round.

Yeah, please do. Well, Jeff, this was awesome. Lots of fun, inspirational for me and hopefully for everyone who got this far. And I just want to thank you so much for your time and, and being a part of the podcast.

Hey, thanks for having me, Jay. i Oh, this is one of my favorite things. Whether it's recorded on a podcast or just sitting around having cocktails, or coffee, just sitting around having a conversation about these topics is what lights up my day. So thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. Please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 Golden rules.com That is podcast at t e n Golden rules.com