Bill Biggs: 00:00:04

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.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:00:26

Well, good morning, good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever time this podcast finds you. Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. We have a great guest today get to that in just two seconds. I just want to tell you, if you're listening to this live sometime in November, definitely come to our webinar, November 29. It's our 2024 planning webinar, you definitely want to get a head start on your 2024 plans. We've got great templates for how to do planning for your business. We're going to focus on law firms. But we're going to share with you the strategies we use a 10 golden rules in our 2023 Web planning webinar from last year has been viewed 22,000 times on YouTube. So the content is great. It's refreshed for 2024. And we hope to see you on November 29. Now as I mentioned, great guest today on the podcast. Bill Biggs is one of the most respected law firm leaders throughout our industry. He has been ce o or ce o for several very, very successful firms worked with a couple of my friends, the guys at Daniel Stark, and Jeffrey Glassman. He's the leadership strategist at Vista consulting, you know, just awesome law firm leader. And he spoke on day one at the GLM, Great Legal Marketing summit in Orlando. I was actually on stage right after him tough act to follow, by the way. And I took extensive notes during Bill's presentation when we sat down. we delved into all these topics, we talked about mindset. We talked about law, firm growth strategies, organizational design, building great culture, and the three beliefs. So if you enjoy this show, please do do us a favor. Give us a five star review on your pod wherever you're listening to this and love you for that. And without further ado, here's Bill Biggs. Well, Bill, thank you very much for doing this. You know, I really, really enjoyed your talk yesterday, as we discussed last night. And we're here together at GLM, Great Legal Marketing. And Bill and I went one, two, so he was the first speaker, and I was the second one out of the gate. And I really enjoyed his stuff. So I wanted to share it with you all. So Bill, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? And, and what got you on on stage?

Bill Biggs: 00:02:48

Well, Jay, first, thanks for having me. I love what you're doing and enjoyed your time on stage and hearing all the expertise that you bring to the industry. You know, what got me on stage, the kindness of Ben Glass, I guess. Or maybe it was a bad decision, the foolishness of glass I don't know been I'd heard his name for years and years in the industry and appreciated, you know, the reputation that he had, he and I met at NCL in Florida, we hit it off, as he mentioned, when he introduced me just kind of an immediate kindred sense about what we believed and about, not about people about this industry about what good we can do. And he came and spoke at the VISTA law firm leadership summit that I hosted. And he asked me to come down here and and it was a privilege to do so. And so meeting a ton of great firms and new people kind of a different tribe. And the opportunity to talk about culture and leadership and infrastructure of a firm is always very meaningful to me. So great opportunity.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:03:55

Awesome. Well, you know, I took a whole bunch of notes. So I'm going to sort through this and try and get some really great content for y'all listening today. So you said two things, increased case value. So why don't we do that right out of the gate? A lot of the folks listening or personal injury, but not exclusively. So. And I hope you recall these because sometimes sometimes I speak to but you know, what was the first thing that increases case value?

Bill Biggs: 00:04:23

Well, you know, and this is stuff that has been measured. This is stuff that's been looked at, one of the first things is is pure attorney talent, you know, the talent of the attorney. And I think you can define talent, a lot of ways a lot of things might go into that. Because you can become I think, in this context, what I mean by the talent of the attorney that may include experience that may include, you know, obviously high intelligence, but really the skill of the attorney and being able to build a case and that's a key piece to me. It's not just oh, well, here are the facts and this is probably what it's worth, and that's a very defensive minded way to look at it. That's what, that's the way they want us in VI to look at it. But when you can look at a case with vision for what it could be, what it can be the pieces that are there and a curiosity to know what else is there that I don't know, that I need to know, in order to build the case, attorneys and their teams who have that ability and that viewpoint, that perspective, bring enormous value to cases.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:05:31

And it's probably not a subtlety, that part of that, or the talent of the attorney, is the reputation of the attorney. And what I hear all the time is like, if a firm is not shy to go to go to trial, and the firm has a reputation for going to trial and being good, and being talented, and doing their diligence and bringing the experts and know all the other parts to winning, that the talent is a broader category than just to tell them to the individual in 100%. No, and it's the reputation of the talent, right? Yeah, and

Bill Biggs: 00:06:05

I love this stuff, I could go down so many rabbit holes and what you said, and they're all good. Yes, a firm that is has a reputation for fighting a reputation for aggression in the way they they view cases, a reputation for truly zealously advocating for their clients, and then very specifically litigating a firm that will take cases into litigation, is not afraid to afraid to go to trial, even if they're not successful at trial all the time. If the insurance company, if the defense side knows that you will go to trial, and that you will be aggressive. They document that they know that it goes in the book, and it will up what I have seen over and over and over again, in firms, when a firm decides to be more heavy litigation, to take cases to trial, and then particularly if they are successful at doing it which they will become so even if they have a few early struggles they'll learn well, then they start to see even better offers better value offered at the pre litigation or at the claims level. So I always say, Look, if you'll become a highly skilled litigation firm, even though you may be built as a high volume, pre litigation firm, you're going to start seeing that pay off even on the claims or pre litigation side. Because they know the other side knows, well, if we don't play ball on the front side, they're gonna get us on the backside.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:07:31

That's awesome. And what's the second thing that increases case value?

Bill Biggs: 00:07:35

So this is this is fascinating. But there's a science behind it. It's a tourney client contact, a frequency a consistence of attorney client contact, he say, Well, why? Why is it what are the what's the science behind it? What's the rationale? Pretty simple. We need to be able to encourage our clients to do everything they can on their side of the equation, right? To make sure they get the treatment, they need to make sure that they get better, and make sure that they fully understand how their body has changed or what true impact the crash or the injury has had on their life. If they trust the attorney, if they from the outset, I'm big on initial attorney calls. In fact, I like to see him in person or via zooms, I call it a face to face, the trust with the attorney with that client will lead to higher compliance will lead to when the attorney is is contacting them later on. Even when the rest of the team, the paralegal or the mid Management Coordinator, whoever is contacting them, the client is going to be more responsive. So you get higher client responsiveness, higher client compliance, if you build that trust and contact and then in that ongoing contact, I like to have standards for how often in various phases of the case that the attorney is contacting the client. If that client is hearing from the attorney on a routine basis, and the attorney is skilled in the way they manage those conversations, they're finding out more key information. How did this wreck really affect you? How are you really doing an attorney can can get into the life and the heart of the client and learn where the value drivers are. And so often we just we hear the meds we hear the the damages, and then we just try to send a demand all that when there are so often key pieces of information that we could have found out if there was trust. And if there was more communication between the client and the attorney and just by the way, I paralegals really drive our industry. What an incredible role they play in all of this. But I would say that as important as it is for paralegals to be in contact with the client. There's no substitute for an attorney client contact and it's On a client trusting relationship.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:10:03

Fantastic. So you told a great little case study, he joined a firm and 12x the revenue in 10 years. And you had three, three or so components to that success? What were some of those components of that big win? I mean, 12 Acts is awesome. Yeah. Well, you know,

Bill Biggs: 00:10:24

and while there are three components that really at the end of the day, I would say that the first or the preeminent one is putting together the right team. And of course, my mantra is love your team, love your people on demand, high performance. I just believe if you if you choose the right people, you hire well, you train them, well, you help them become and one of one of those three pillars is a team of true believers. Help them understand the nobility of our work, have talented people, smart people, driven people, people who are in cultural alignment, share your values. That's what I mean, when I say a true believer. You put that team together, and you're going to be you're setting yourself up for success. That's a big, big piece of success. Another

Jay Berkowitz: 00:11:13

before we go into the SEC, Alan, you know, it's easy to say hire, but it's a pretty darn hard thing to get ready up. What are some of the components of hire that work in this environment? Yeah,

Bill Biggs: 00:11:23

so while just like many owners and firms I'm, I'm a believer in having people in office, I prefer that, but but that's just because I'm, I'm relational. I like the energy of feeling people around in the office. But we are in different times. And so hiring remotely and giving people flexibility in the way they work, I think is a reality. And I think the positive to that is that opens the talent base. Now our talent pool is anywhere, which is a benefit. So first, I want to attract the best people, I want to make our ads, the way we put it out there are recruiting, I want to recruit to our values, I want to recruit to the nobility and the purpose of the work we do because I think, really good people are drawn to that. They don't just want a good job that pays the bills, they want to make good money, but they want to work someplace that they feel like they're doing something that makes a difference in the world. And I think we have that on a silver platter. So you recruit to purpose, you recruit for people who want to contribute to the world. The fact that now we can do that across the country, in some instances across the world is fabulous. The second thing of that hiring piece for me, is what I shared from the stage the shadow process. And we don't have time for the details of that. But basically the concept is you bring people either in person or via zoom, and you get them face to face with multiple members of your team. And you help your team members understand what it is you're looking for not Oh, well, this person has for four years experience as a paralegal, I'm not looking for that data from the shadow process I'm looking for, is this a person our team believes will make us better? Are they culturally aligned? Is this a person you want working next year, this is the person you trust? Is this a person that you think cares about what they do. So when you bring a person in, they get to that phase of the interview process, and you have four or five of your team members who understand what it is we're looking for, spend 30 to 45 minutes with that candidate, and can come away from their saying, This person is a stud, they're going to make us better. When you have all four or five of those people say that, you probably going to have an extremely strong hire, retention goes up. Satisfaction, team member satisfaction goes up great people like to work with other great people. And your team now has played a huge part in bringing new people into the family. And therefore they will want to support the success of that new team member. So instead of suspicion and instead of who's the new guy instead of is that girl here to take my job. Now you have four or five people already and everybody else in the firm knows this is our process. So they know now every time we hire somebody, they had to get advocacy, they had to get what I call the thumbs up from four or five. Because by the way, my rule is if it's not unanimous, then we don't hire them. So they meet with those foreshadow hosts, those strata who share their information with me, I'm the gatekeeper and the final person who meets with that candidate. And at the event, you know, by that time, I've already heard from those those hosts as to what they think about the individual. They have to be a unanimous Yes. And so that's a pretty high bar. And but when you do have that bar, then when we hire that person, you Tell them that you tell them look, in order for you to be getting this offer you all those five people you met with today all had to say yes. They love that, that builds them up. And by by their first day, the first day they start, they're excited, and they've got five people who have put their reputation on the line for the success of that individual. So I love that. It sets you up for success.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:15:23

You know, I try and get at the relationship piece in in interviewing when I, I have the team interview our prospective employees. And now that we're in the Zoom remote environment, I give them a couple of questions. You know, when I say, you know, if we were in the physical office, and you had to be at the desk next to this person, would you enjoy working beside this person, or I also asked him to project because we do get together a couple of times here, you know, we're getting together for the company holiday party, you have to sit beside this person for two or three hours at dinner, would you enjoy their company, and it really puts, you know, to the best of our ability? It pushes them to try and answer that question. Is there any other good way to get to that? Yeah,

Bill Biggs: 00:16:06

I always tell my folks, I always say, hey, I want you to find out, you know, as much as you can, as much as you feel comfortable with about what how does this person handle relationships? How do they, you know, I always ask them, tell me about what went good and what didn't go well, at your previous work. situation. If all they can do is, you know, tear down their old place, then that doesn't bode well. I like to ask people, one of my questions is often tell me about the last conflict you had with someone else and and how it resolved or did it resolve that tells you a lot? Even how they respond to that question, because he's sometimes you can see just the facial expression of who that lasts, I have a lot of, or I have a lot of unresolved, just recently happened. So to me, there's so many, I think success, high performance in the workplace is so often tied to emotional and relational factors. as much or more as it's tied to aptitude training, where you went to college. Those things, yeah, we need smart people we need and it's even better if they're smart and experienced in what we do. But most of the time when someone doesn't work out, it often has to do with their inability emotionally and relationally to apply their intelligence to exercise and reach their full aptitude potential. That's what I've seen for my entire career as the primary constraints of most people, and why they don't do well, to their jobs.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:17:50

I asked the question sidetracked. Yeah, my fault. It 12x to firm in 10 years. First thing is like people, the culture the team. Second thing,

Bill Biggs: 00:17:59

aggression. And you could combine that with being a true believer in the client, and in the work we do. But very specifically, you have to be aggressive towards cases and,

Jay Berkowitz: 00:18:12

and the word signing case.

Bill Biggs: 00:18:15

show any word signing case, settlements or victories? Yes, yes, yes, all of the above. But where I think it really, really day after day makes a difference is zealous advocacy is aggressive, defending our clients, from insurance companies that are trying to take advantage of them. So that, you know, that's a big, big piece. So I want every attorney you know, I'm, as I said, from the stage, I'm, I'm cautious. I'm skeptical of hiring defense attorneys, unless they're leaving that side because they want to come over and they've had a problem internally with maybe even ethically in their minds with, you know, trying to keep back money from genuinely hurt people. So I just think being aggressive every day on case value, deprogramming people from their ideas about how value should be set on a case. We've learned from the other side by default, by default on our side that they I believe, know that it's happening and they do it intentionally, which is wise strategy on their part, but adjusters train, our attorneys on case value shouldn't be that way. So aggression would be one of the second piece is interesting.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:19:30

One of my first lawyer clients, guy named Stephen Schwartz, Apple, Rand is fighting for you in New York City, big pie firm. And he was a child of a family that had been taken advantage of by the insurance companies and he should have been taken much better care of as he tells the story. And then his first job out of law school, he worked for an insurance company, and they sat him down at a desk and gave him a pile of files and said, you know, just deny all these claims. Yeah, and that was literally that, like his job was just He figured out a way to deny every single claim. And so it made him sick. And then he knew why he had the miserable and poverty childhood. And then he resolved to fight. You know, is brand is called fighting for you. Yep, for that reason. So you know, I love that story. Okay, stay on tack. So 12 extra firm culture aggression.

Bill Biggs: 00:20:21

Yep. Last thing is what I call an ownership mentality. And look, you could tie that back in, these are all interconnected, right? They're not isolated silos of what I think we build it. But when you put together that great team, they're aggressive about what we do. And then you want every one of them over time to see this place as their own, that they see the firm as their own, I tell them, I want you to walk around here like you own the place. Meaning if there's if there's paper on the floor, pick it up, even if it's not your job, if the toilets need to be scrub, scrub the toilets. And yet, let's also practice what we call highest and best use, let's put people in their highest skill level doing the things that that they can do best, and they bring the most value. When people really care about the place that they work. And they think the place that they work, they feel the place that they work cares about them, and they own the place, then you can trust as the owner, you can you can go off and take a vacation, you can go off and live the life that you deserve. After all this hard work. If you don't have that if you don't have people who have an ownership mentality, then you live in fear constantly, that your presence is necessary for success. And that's an unnecessary prison.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:21:39

Thank you. So we're getting into a lot of lists. But I took notes. And he gave us five components of organizational design. The first was culture, and you touched on that a little bit, you want to just highlight that. Yeah,

Bill Biggs: 00:21:52

and before, culture is such a big thing. But at the end of the day, I would say it's this, or this is how I measure it now is what I'm looking for. And I think there's been new information for a lot of people because culture has largely gone undefined. It's a word that everybody uses. And not many folks really, truly have an idea. And there's definitely not a consensus on Well, what exactly does this mean? So for me, after lots of study and research, and really thinking about this ruminating on this idea, I think it comes down to this, if you as an organization, as a firm, have people who are deeply saturated, deeply believe in the purpose, deeply believe in each other, which, as I mentioned yesterday, are is the toughest one and deeply believe in the client, which is different from the purpose, similar but different. When you have those things at a high level, when your team believes that and there are ways that you can infuse that train that teach that when you have that you have strong culture, culture

Jay Berkowitz: 00:23:02

is such a tricky thing. I feel like we have great team culture now. And part of it is just taking time with the team. Because we're all remote now and so on zooms we spend time and we consciously ask everyone how their weekend was and ask everyone how things are going, what are they watching on Netflix? What are they reading? And we have a book club. But it's such a amorphous thing in the remote environment. But you know, how do you define a culture that you want for a company?

Bill Biggs: 00:23:33

That's so good. And I'm a big believer that design is critically necessary. As you heard me say yesterday, a great leader is part of the role they play is as architect. And so knowing what you want out of your culture, is the first step. And I think that needs to start with, what are the things that we most deeply believe? If I could start a culture and affirm from scratch, I would say we're going to reinforce strongly our purpose, how much we care about each other how much we're going to have each other's backs, how much we respect one another how much we enjoy being around. And we're going to be diligent to hire people that fit into that so that we can really enjoy them. And then we're going to believe in the client. So you design your culture, you plan your culture around the things that are most important to you, again, an overused word, but still a very powerful concept core values, the things that the most deeply held beliefs, and you build everything around that. Everything points to those.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:24:37

That's yeah, that's cool. That's where you start with EOS operating system. And we've got a couple great sessions coming up on that in the next few weeks and months, both on the web two golden rules webinar, and this podcast. So five components of organizational design. First was culture second was the org chart. A

Bill Biggs: 00:24:58

lot of firms don't even have an org chart I think the org chart helps you for so many reasons. It provides the framework. But you can see how everything fits together, you can see who reports to who you can see what department is. And you know, in the best version of it is what we call a functional accountability chart. And it is based on I always tell a firm when I'm walking in through planning or through kind of a remodel or redesign that the functional accountability chart is developed, not with, Okay, here's the name of this person that's been with the firm for 12 years, how do we figure out where he fits in? It's built with saying, when we are our ideal self as an organization, what roles do we need to get to make the thing run? What are the roles? What do they do? How do they all fit together? fascinating to me how many firms don't have that. And when you don't have that, you are just basically throwing stuff together. And it's not well designed, it's not intentional, it's not strategic. And you find yourself creating something that is kind of a blob, and amoeba and it's slow, and it's clunky, and it has problems and communication is typically very core. But when you can visualize it, you've done it intentionally through the org chart or functional accountability chart. And it allows you to be scalable. You asked

Jay Berkowitz: 00:26:21

a great question yesterday, he said, when's the last time you did your org chart? And fortunately, for me, my answer was very recently, you know, we're recording this October 13, Friday, the 13th. Lucky Day, that I got your bill. But I recently did the work Turks, I'm looking at 2024 planning already. And it's amazing when you actually sit down and structure it out. And I plotted out some of our open and upcoming positions. You know, you see how really helps you plan, you know, and budget and look, you know, what, actually seeing it visually is very, very beneficial. And the other thing I realized is I certainly haven't shared this at least, you know, for 12 months with the team. And if I can't really visualize it, I'm sure my team has much less. I mean, everybody knows who reports to who. But once you see it on paper, it's really valuable.

Bill Biggs: 00:27:13

I find actually that the team loves stuff like that. And a lot of times ownership leadership doesn't realize that that type of communication, showing everybody Hey, guys, here's our newest at work chart. Here's our newest functional accountability chart every quarter, every six months every year. The team appreciates that, because they like seeing how it all fits together. And obviously they find themselves on there, and they want to know where they fit.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:27:38

So organizational design. Number one is culture number two is org chart. Number three people in process.

Bill Biggs: 00:27:44

Obviously such a huge one, but it's the hiring. It's the onboarding, it's getting people in the right spaces on the bus, it's that there's a culture piece to that as well. But also, that's where I say, you know, that's the, the emphasis on process is where you create the standards. And again, such a common challenge for firms. I know it's hard, but so many of them don't have process standards. They don't have a documented set of let's say it's the Berkowitz law firm that I wouldn't call it well, what is the Berkowitz way? That's what we're going to call it the Berkowitz way, this is how we actually

Jay Berkowitz: 00:28:24

call it the 10 golden rule. So that 10 million rows, we actually have developed a very detailed, s we call them SOP standard operating Exactly. And it's all in our clickup software. Yep. But tell you know, when we learned this through Eos, again, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, like it has been a 360 improvement in our company. Because, you know, we used to do things well, I thought, and then as we grew, you know, one person would do it their way and the other person would do it their way. And invariably, there'll be mistakes, you know, you couldn't explain to someone, well, you did it wrong because of this, because it wasn't written down the right way. It wasn't documented. And now, you know, if we assigned something as simple as someone's opening a new location, and we're opening a new GBP, a Google business profile, Google Maps, Previously called Google My Business, right, you know, a new a new location. In Google, we have, you know, eight or 10 steps that are clearly documented, we ask the client, you know, what are your practice areas? What are your hours and, you know, basic stuff, but, you know, if we miss one or two of those things, it's really going to hurt the map listings. So everything we do now has steps to it. And those SOPs, standard operating procedures are just a huge win for our firm. And hopefully for yours, Mr. or Mrs. Listener.

Bill Biggs: 00:29:43

Yeah, they absolutely are. How do you see a deal without having process standards? How do you train without having process standards? How do you ensure a level of service for clients without processing and

Jay Berkowitz: 00:29:56

by the way, it's painful, you know, it's your we hired a hideous a CEO Oh, and it was her main project for about six months. Thank God for her because I wouldn't have you know, it's not in my nature to be, again back to us. I'm the visionary, not the integrator. Thank God for Laura. Number four, a leadership and growth plan, I believe, leadership

Bill Biggs: 00:30:15

development and growth plan. I just believe that every firm needs to have multiple layers of leadership. And it is creating, cultivating those leaders with ownership mentality, those true believers that are now in positions where they are able to, and I really say it's about two things, they're able to care for their team members, and they're able to hold those team members accountable to the standards that we've set. Often, you have an absence of leadership, and leadership roles within your structure. And so you've got, I mean, many times, it's, you know, one leader, it's the firm owner and their firm's, you know, 38 people, there's no way that one person can effectively nurture and hold 38 people accountable by themselves. So I'm a huge believer in creating leadership roles, I think you need to have a plan, I think you need to develop those leaders. And so the book clubs, a weekly leadership meeting that as a portion of it devoted to leadership development, to professional development and training. Everywhere that I've done this, I have seen over time, those people who became that were brought into that leadership, what I call the mid level leadership team, or even the executive team, which would be the step up and the ultimate decision making body of the firm. Over time, those leaders, those people almost without fail, have told me, that was one of the most enjoyable My favorite thing about the work that we did, sometimes even down to the I love our 15 minutes at the end of the meeting, reading leadership books talking about our leadership challenges. They love it, they want it, they're hungry for it. Most firms don't do it. Because it's not seen as directly. Well, that's not going to, you know, help us get demands out? Well, of course, not directly, but it's going to help you get mans out, because great leaders are going to do better at building high performance and their team members. So whenever we see a firm that has low performing individuals, and we say I would just fire them are always with us about it, is because we don't coach, we don't lead, we don't train well enough. If we did, even though it's hard to do that it's hard to set it all up. But once you do, you begin to see the rewards and the benefits. So

Jay Berkowitz: 00:32:51

is there a template for professional development? Like, is there a good set of courses out there, if you don't have a starting point? You know,

Bill Biggs: 00:33:00

there's actually a ton of stuff out there on leadership. I mean, John Maxwell has his stuff, Simon Sinek has his stuff. But I'll tell you this, I mean, the simplest template, somebody who is a leader in the firm, hopefully an executive and owner a CEO, high rent, you know, a managing attorney. Setting aside, number one, creating a level of leadership, you know, in the firm that probably didn't exist before over departments or teams, getting them together, I would say at least every two weeks. And then in that meeting, where you're covering important things about the ongoing work of the firm, setting aside 15 to 20 minutes to read a book together to look at to watch snippets or full TED talks that are only 12 minutes or less, you know, everybody's homework is you're gonna go watch this Simon Sinek TED talk, and be prepared to talk about it in the last 15 minutes of our meeting. There's enormous resources on the web, for quality leadership. And I do think that the leader of the firm wants to make sure that we're not getting a hodgepodge of leadership theory. So I think there needs to be some organizations who are at what books are we reading? What videos are we watching? What TED Talks? Are we watching? What what resources are we using? That's the best version of all of this. But that is the simplest thing. And I think you get more out of that than saying, okay, everybody's kind of go through, you know, John Maxwell's eight steps of leadership online. I mean, okay, that's all right. But

Jay Berkowitz: 00:34:44

even better get together and talk about it, get together

Bill Biggs: 00:34:47

and talk about it and go over the same material together. There's so much I mean, as you know, multipliers is a great book. Start with Why anything that Simon Sinek writes, John, Maxwell is another good thing great Jim Collins the classic, Extreme Ownership by Jacko willing, these are phenomenal resources, that radical candor, that's another one crucial conversations. No.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:35:14

That's pretty good. Off the top of your head. All right, and the fifth step of organizational design, planning and maintenance. Yeah.

Bill Biggs: 00:35:24

So I just believe, you know, the simple idea. And I think the first time I ever heard this was from a phenomenal business coach, Andy Bailey, and Vern Harnish, the idea of, we've got to spend some time working on the business, not just always working in the business, and setting aside intentional time to work on the business. If you do that on a quarterly rhythm, and then on an annual rhythm, and you're identifying what are the biggest things that we need to work on this quarter? And what are and I call them critical number targets? What are those metrics that are most important to vital signs, the blood work numbers, whatever you want to think of, I

Jay Berkowitz: 00:36:07

call it a scorecard. Same, we started looking at it religiously every month. That's it, those numbers don't lie. They don't lie. And we got to have so many meetings to have so many qualified prospects to sign so many clients, right. So many proposals, simple things, like looking at the numbers every month, you

Bill Biggs: 00:36:24

got it. fact I did, and what I our level chin weekly executive meeting, I want to have our what I call the critical number of targets, I want to have those eight numbers in front of us every week. And I want to see real time, you know, where are we at this week. But I'm also looking at our quarterly priorities, and then our annual priorities. And our leadership team is looking at that. And then our mid level leadership team is looking at those every week, it keeps you focused. And I like to I for me, and look, mine's a little bit different than us. But EOS is a fantastic system. So I'm a big fan. The way I like to do is think of the critical number of targets, that's the in the business work. Those are the things that we got to watch all the time. That's the and I also said that's kind of the cake, right? That's the cake that we're baking all the time, that's the work. The icing is how we get better. It's how we get sweeter. And that's the working on the business. So the critical number targets that I'm looking at, at planning actually every week. But then when we look at him on a quarterly and an annual basis, we're setting aside almost a full day, every quarter to look at those critical number targets. Have we met our goals? We've set goals and have we met the goals. And then the working on the business part is the setting of priorities. You might call them rocks, some people call them rocks, or you might call them projects. But they're the things that we say, You know what? We're not getting as many fees in the door as we'd like we're not closing as many cases. Those are our critical numbers. What can we do to fix that problem? Well, that becomes one of the priorities for that quarter for rock or project initiative, whatever term you want to use. So you're combining these two concepts, and you're doing it every quarter. And that is, how are we doing? Are we reaching goals setting goals? First? Are we reaching goals? In the stuff that we do every day are vital statistics. And then when we're not, what is our process for attacking those problems? That's the planning. That's the setting goals. To me, that is a game changer. And if you're not doing that, end of the year is coming up. Great time to get started.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:38:33

Now I could keep going because I've got a lot more notes because you had such good stuff. I'm gonna I'm gonna do one last business question. Couple personal questions. And this one got some groans from the audience. And you said No Country Club attorneys. What do you mean by that? You

Bill Biggs: 00:38:49

know, this is just something that I'm passionate about. And, and I just I just think it works. Attorneys, who we are in this industry as as firms what is a country club is a country club attorney is an attorney that cares more about what the guys at the country club that are also attorneys are also are but maybe on the other side, the defense attorneys, here's more about what they think here's more about, you know, who's buying the beers than about really advocating for the client. And to be quite honest, it really gets under my skin. It really bothers me because I think about if I was the client and I knew that the outcome of my case was really more about you know, so and so being buddy buddy with so at some, you know, guy on the other side, that would really bug me. Now let me be clear, that doesn't mean that I don't think those relationships have value. And that sometimes you can utilize and leverage those relationships for better outcomes. I understand that. I'm not saying you shouldn't be friends with or you shouldn't be in the country club. But when you are not being truly aggressive and doing your best work because you don't want to upset your buddy that you just play pickleball with that is trying to lowball you on a case, that is where it's a problem. And for that reason I tell all of my attorneys, I would rather than hate you, then really like you, hopefully you can be really liked and respected. But at the end of the day, in this business, I think you need to be a little crazy, I think you need to be definitely aggressive. And I think you need to bring pain to the other side, for them to respect what you're doing. And just by the way, the best in the industry that I've seen, and that you hear about, that's what they're doing doesn't mean they have to be rude, it doesn't mean they have to, you know, like movement makes great attorney great trawler, if you've Minix a classy individual, but he will knock your head off in the courtroom court. And it doesn't mean that he's doing it, you know, in some type of rude way. It's just he's gonna beat us always it's like, it's like two guys that are friends after the boxing match. But in the ring, the point is to knock the other guy out to beat it. So I also by the way, just think that great people and competitors in our industry, on whatever side, they respect that. And so that so no country called lawyers need to take what we do seriously. And advocate for the client, you took an oath for the client, not for your buddy.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:41:25

You know, I didn't know in my notes because it's blended together. I started running out of space and reading in the corner here. You hit three beliefs. And I didn't know if that was tied to the country club lawyers. So I said before last question. But honestly, honestly, last business question, what are the three beliefs? The

Bill Biggs: 00:41:42

three beliefs? Those three beliefs? I think we are if I'm understanding your question, privately, he had to belief in purpose. Yeah. Belief and purpose, belief in each other beliefs on the client. It all boils down to that. You

Jay Berkowitz: 00:41:55

just kind of summed it up. Yeah, but you didn't go 123 Awesome. Alright, well, a couple sort of personal questions. What are your passions or hobbies? What do you do for fun?

Bill Biggs: 00:42:05

I love hanging out with my wife and my sons. We've have two boys that are in college and we're empty nesters. But I that kind of bums me out. I like the energy in the house. We love to travel, absolute travel junkies love to be outside. I love college football, love Texas a&m college football, but they break my heart routinely. So it's an abusive relationship.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:42:28

Now we had some fun yesterday, we got to introduce those who haven't discovered divan a chain, but at any age chance. We have a shared love now he's now an Aggie became a Miami Dog. There you go. And so how good was this kid in college? What do we have to look forward to?

Bill Biggs: 00:42:46

I mean, if he as you've already seen for the first few games, he's hurt now, but for the first few games as a dolphin, I mean, what every eight times he touched the ball, he pours a touchdown, he is lightning, and he is blazing fast. But he's deceptively strong and great vision. So if he gets an opening, he's probably going to take it to the house. Yeah, he has

Jay Berkowitz: 00:43:07

two or three of the fastest measured times the NFL already. Yeah. And he's averaging something crazy, like 12 yards per carry. And the next guy's at like six.

Bill Biggs: 00:43:16

So he hadn't gotten hurt i Rookie of the Year Without questions, not

Jay Berkowitz: 00:43:19

to get into football. Hopefully he still has a shot. Is the question I've asked in the podcast for a dozen or more years. What are some of the apps or tools that you're using for personal productivity? Or, you know, things just making your life a little easier? You

Bill Biggs: 00:43:36

know? That's a great question. I honestly live. And this may sound simplistic, I'm sure there are a lot of people that have much better tools are much more sophisticated than I am. I live out of Google Docs and Google Sheets. I organize everything out of Google Docs and Google Sheets.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:43:55

Shared sheets. Yeah,

Bill Biggs: 00:43:56

sharing sheets with team and we have for accountability purposes. But even even for my own life, I mean, I keep up with my finances, I keep up with my travel schedule, I keep up my reimbursements I keep up with whatever it is I've got, I've got a spreadsheet for it and Google Sheets. So that's

Jay Berkowitz: 00:44:15

it's amazing. How many times like from my mind goes there, Google Sheets. If I'm on a board of directors, or a committee or a charity, or my hands on the board of my synagogue, you know, everything's disorganized. You put it in a Google Sheet, share the sheet and all of a sudden, you've cleaned things up and everyone's like, why didn't we have this be amazing.

Bill Biggs: 00:44:35

And it's technology has been around for a long, long time. I will say one little caveat or one little piece on that. That is silly, but has saved my tail multiple times recently. And that is now air tags. And I used to be an Android guy and everybody made fun of me for being an Android guy and then yeah, then I got static for taking or getting an iPhone because I I am Matt guide also said I'm just gonna do that iPhone I leave my laptop I fall asleep on planes a lot and leave my laptop and the sleeve in front of me in the in the seat in front of me that's happened three times in the last three months which doesn't say a lot about me maybe says does say a lot about me but air tags and find my you know the ability to do that on my iPhone has gotten my laptop multiple times and has been helped us track luggage. When we went

Jay Berkowitz: 00:45:29

to get one that's a good one. Thank you. And this is helpful for you can do this as well. Top your head. You listen to any podcasts or watch any YouTube's you

Bill Biggs: 00:45:39

know, interestingly enough the podcasts that I don't spend a ton of time on podcasts other than industry. Podcasts are so many people. I like what they're doing in our industry on podcasts. I mean, attorney early, you know he's doing a great podcast. Charlie man has a great podcast. I'm a big Jocko willing fan. I'm a big Joe Rogan fan. That's a little bit more than

Jay Berkowitz: 00:46:04

two weeks ago in here at Clickfunnels. Oh, really? He was awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Bill Biggs: 00:46:09

Well, you know, this might be the first that anybody hears. I'm working on trying to get a very exclusive attorney event or industry event with Jocko and I'm in contact with his team. And we're trying to work out the logistics of how that might happen. He's expensive, but I mean, he's a hero of mine. It's awesome. I'm a fan.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:46:31

Let me know. We'll let everyone else yeah. Last question. Where can we find you contact info and how can folks access you?

Bill Biggs: 00:46:39

I'm happy to give out my phone number 979-219-1404. I have about eight email addresses given the firms that I work with. My personal one is Biggs period william@gmail.com. And I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. Just look up bill Biggs and you'll see all the silly stuff that I put out there about leading and culture and law firms.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:47:02

Bill, this was awesome. Thank you so much for making the time. Jay, what

Bill Biggs: 00:47:05

a privilege. Thank you so much.

Bill Biggs: 00:47:09

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