The Marketing Lawcast
Sales Training for Estate Planning Lawyers: How David Payne Grew His Law Firm to $1.5M
Curious about how to pinpoint market opportunities and build a specialized legal practice from the ground up? Join us as we sit down with David Payne, a seasoned estate planning attorney from Southwest Missouri. In this episode, David takes us through his transformative journey from a general practitioner and litigator to becoming a focused estate planning expert. Discover the moment of clarity that led him to this strategic pivot and the invaluable lessons he learned about sales training and maintaining a genuine, client-centered approach while balancing the demands of running a successful business.
But that's not all! We also delve into the art of building a formidable attorney team. David shares his methods for hiring the right associates, Jeff and Bill, and the importance of aligning their goals with the firm’s vision. Learn how sales training with Integrity Marketing Solutions played a pivotal role in this transition and the unexpected perks of adding new attorneys to the mix, including enhanced client relationships and perceived authority. If you're looking to understand the secrets to achieving a balanced work-life dynamic while growing a robust legal team, this episode is a must-listen!
Video version on YouTube
Book your free Discovery Call with my team.
Curious about how to pinpoint market opportunities and build a specialized legal practice from the ground up? Join us as we sit down with David Payne, a seasoned estate planning attorney from Southwest Missouri. In this episode, David takes us through his transformative journey from a general practitioner and litigator to becoming a focused estate planning expert. Discover the moment of clarity that led him to this strategic pivot and the invaluable lessons he learned about sales training and maintaining a genuine, client-centered approach while balancing the demands of running a successful business.
But that's not all! We also delve into the art of building a formidable attorney team. David shares his methods for hiring the right associates, Jeff and Bill, and the importance of aligning their goals with the firm’s vision. Learn how sales training with Integrity Marketing Solutions played a pivotal role in this transition and the unexpected perks of adding new attorneys to the mix, including enhanced client relationships and perceived authority. If you're looking to understand the secrets to achieving a balanced work-life dynamic while growing a robust legal team, this episode is a must-listen!
Video version on YouTube
Book your free Discovery Call with my team.
You're tuned into the Marketing Law Cast with James Campbell. Brace yourselves for game-changing digital marketing tips and exclusive interviews with industry gurus and top-tier attorneys, smashing the six and seven-figure barrier. It's time to drive your practice to success. Welcome to the Marketing Law Cast.
Speaker 2:Welcome everybody to the Marketing Law Cast. Today we have a special guest who is dedicated over two decades to helping families navigate the complexities of estate planning. Please join me in welcoming David Payne, an experienced and respected estate planning attorney based in Southwest Missouri. David has a deep-rooted connection to the area. It's where he spent his childhood years. It's where he pursued his education at the University of Central Missouri and the University of Missouri in Columbia, and after earning his law degree in 1999, david returned to his hometown to establish his legal career and has been serving the community ever since.
Speaker 2:With over 20 years of experience, david has developed a unique perspective on estate planning, offering his clients the benefit of his extensive knowledge and practical insights. His goal is always to leave clients better off than when they first walk through the door Today. We're thrilled to have him here today to share his experience, his expertise, his insights on growing an estate planning practice, hiring an associate, attorneys and staff, and doing all of it profitably. David has put a lot of emphasis on training for his staff to make sure that they're in the right position to where he and his teammates have confidence to grow their practice profitably. David, welcome to the show. Thanks, james. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here. So we'll kind of get into a little bit of your history. So tell us a little bit about yourself and about your law practice. About yourself and about your law practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been practicing law now for 25 years, all of it in rural southwest Missouri and, as I started out, like many rural attorneys, I was a general practitioner. Estate planning is something I've always done, but maybe started out as 10, 20% of my practice. Primarily, I viewed myself as a litigator. I wanted to be in the corporate and that's what I did primarily for 18 years, with estate planning being something I also did. About seven years ago I knew I needed to switch things up. I knew that continuing down the path of the litigator was not for me and expanding my estate planning practice that's what drew my interest and that's kind of led me to where I am today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So how did you make that transition to estate planning specifically? Did you have to let other things go? Did you draw a hard line in the sand and say I'm no longer litigating, I'm only doing these things? Or was it sort of like an organic process where it sort of weeded itself out like an organic process where it sort of weeded itself out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I never would have envisioned that I could have had an estate planning only practice. At the time. My experiences led me to believe that I would have to be a litigator in my rural communities in order to generate the revenue and to keep busy. Never would have envisioned that estate planning only was possible. So the first move was, yes, I started limiting my litigation and the idea was I could be halftime in the courtroom and then halftime estate planning. And within the first four, five, six months of that half and half kind of recipe I had mixed, I was seeing that, yes, full-time estate planning was possible. And that's when I shifted and that was about six and a half years ago to full-time estate planning only.
Speaker 2:Fantastic when you made that decision and you kind of look at your strengths everybody kind of does that SWOT analysis your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. As an attorney, when you made that transition, what did you feel like was your biggest strength that gave you the ability to make that transition?
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know if it's so much my biggest strength, as much as what I viewed as the opportunity. In my community, a lot of the older attorneys who had been doing it for years were starting to retire and there was more and more of a need to get filled there. Um, so opportunity may have been my biggest strength, and the opportunity that was being presented to me um, interested me, and I was curious um how how do I form a law practice based upon only estate planning?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is so important for those that are listening to recognize what your market is demanding and where those opportunities are and to look and see where you have those opportunities and where you can lean in. It takes some chutzpah to lean into that. What's your favorite thing about estate planning now? About what you do now versus maybe litigating before? What's the best part about it?
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know if there's one thing I can just identify and say this is the best part, absolutely, I would say. The ability to manage and control my practice would be very, very high on the list. As a litigator, you're kind of left up to the whims of judges and opposing counsel and all sorts of different things, and with estate planning, typically speaking, you can have a very controlled experience for your client and I greatly appreciate being able to have that level of control when I'm dealing with a situation, particularly in business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about challenges? What's the biggest challenge that you face in your firm right now?
Speaker 3:I would say it is as simple as focusing on the client in front of you and meeting them where they are and listening to them and their concerns and their priorities, and being able to take them through a genuine and authentic meaningful process to maintain that discipline with every client.
Speaker 2:And that's the biggest challenge at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see how, for those that are listening, they're running a business and meeting with clients, so it's like they're wearing two hats and the tendency can be to let the client work sort of be run of the mill process where it's just sort of a thing that you do right, versus an intentional process where you put thought and attention into each individual. And so I can see where that maybe is a pull like. Where do you focus your time? At the end of the day, what you're saying is, if you focus on the client, the person in front of you, the rest of this stuff sort of works out. Would you say that that's what you're talking about?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I mean also. I mean one of my biggest challenges, of course is to have a client that is satisfied with my services, will talk about their satisfaction of my services and come back to me, Someone that will see me as a valuable asset to their family and not just another expense that they had to incur along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, as we've spent some time together over the years, David and I've recognized that in Missouri, you and your firm and it's not just you, because you have associate attorneys and you have staff we're going to talk about those folks here in a little bit but as your firm, you've developed a reputation for working with farmers and land owners. A reputation for working with farmers and land owners. Tell me about how you got that reputation and what are the biggest issues that you saw for these folks and their families?
Speaker 3:Well, again, that's how I got that reputation, maybe based upon the opportunities of Southwest Missouri and my clients and what they were needing. Clearly, we have lots of farmers, we have lots of landowners, and so that was the need of the community, and real estate is something that I litigated a lot about. So I'd had a lot of experience up and down dealing with all of the problems that can come with real estate ownership, with all the problems that can come with the transitions for farmers and landowners to get from where they are to that place that they know they need to get, whether that be as a result of an inheritance or if it's the result of the development of their own farming operation yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2:Um, not too long ago I went through some we went to some sales training, uh, with a couple of your associate attorneys and the heart that they had for the farmers and the ranchers and the understanding that they had about the farmers and the ranchers and the understanding that they had about what those family dynamics are like. I was really impressed by that. I think that makes a big difference and, like you talked about before, the repeat business people coming back seeing you as a trusted advisor when your firm not just you, but your firm can take care of those folks at that higher level. That, I think, contributes to the reputation. That contributes to the better reviews and overall profitability and kind of carving out a niche within a niche, like you do estate planning, but then obviously for mom and pop, but you have this sort of narrow lane where you have this focus on the farmers and ranchers or farmers and landowners. That make those folks feel special. I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:David, a lot of people are tuning into this podcast episode. They're watching because they want to know how and when to add an associate attorney to their firm. A lot of these solo attorneys they have, maybe a paralegal, maybe an office admin person. They're sort of stretched at their capacity but they're scared to take that leap of hiring an associate. Could you tell me a little bit about your firm history, maybe? What kind of the indicators were that told you that you were ready to hire an associate? What were those things that kind of showed you that it was the time, the time was right?
Speaker 3:Well, it would. The indicators were basically, I knew I was ready to do something based upon the goals I had already established for myself. My three primary goals were I wanted to be the best option for every client that walked in my door. I wanted to be the best attorney for that person. So that was a goal. I wanted to provide elite service and I didn't just want to be another average attorney when it came to this. This was important to me. So, being the best option, being the best attorney for my clients, that was a goal. Clients that was a goal.
Speaker 3:Another goal was revenue, and I wanted to make money and so where my revenues were at, they were also indicators that I was to work 35 hours a week and I'm still working, ultimately, on all of those goals and keeping them in balance and in check. But when I was working so busy that I knew I could not be the best attorney for the person sitting in front of me because I had so many other things going on, that was an indicator. When my revenues started to kind of exceed some of my expectations, that was another indicator that, yes, I could afford to hire people to help me, could afford to hire people to help me, and when I was working 45 to 50 hours a week, that was clearly another indicator that I was not meeting that goal of 35 hours, and so those were some of the indicators for me that said, all right, it's time to hire someone.
Speaker 2:And how did you go about finding your associate attorneys? I know sometimes it comes down to dumb luck and somebody just falls in your lap. Sometimes you have to pursue it with intention. How?
Speaker 3:did you find your associate attorneys? I started talking about it. I started calling up the attorneys that I knew and speaking about it and seeing if they knew of anyone, and word of mouth was how it started. I had identified, clearly, kind of a handful of people that I thought would be good fits and started talking to them. I didn't want to rush the process.
Speaker 3:I wasn't in a situation where I had to hire an attorney, or else I mean it was an opportunity and so I've taken my time and made sure that when I made a hire, it was clearly a step in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, perfect. So you have two associate attorneys on staff now, jeff and Bill and you also have some staff people. Right now we're going to kind of focus our attention on the attorney hires. What were some of the expectations that you had for Jeff and Bill as you brought them on, and were those communicated?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the first expectation is they were going to be a good fit into the culture that had been developed, into the culture that had been developed as I started out seven years ago. It was me and one staff member and then we hired another staff member and there was a culture that was being developed at that point and I did not wanna bring in an attorney that was going to disrupt that culture. That was really the number one expectation for myself, for my staff, and also it was incredibly important that the culture we had would be valued by who we were bringing in.
Speaker 2:Maintaining that culture building off of that culture. So that may be one kind of lead into one of the next questions, which are what are the keys to success with hiring these associates? And so obviously, culture, a cultural fit, is going to be one of them. What do you think are some other keys to success with hiring the associates?
Speaker 3:I would say listening to them and listening to their hearts, their ambitions, their goals, their desires. I interviewed quite a few different attorneys along the way and it ultimately, I think, came down to rather than me trying to force an associate into my circumstances, it was much better to be able to find an attorney that would be a good fit for our culture, but also a good fit for their particular sets of ambitions, for what they wanted. I mean, these were seasoned professionals, these were valued members of the legal community. I wanted to listen to them and I wanted to provide a place where they could thrive and meet their goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic. So it's not just all about David's goals, but to have success, which you've had, success with your associate attorneys is setting them up to where they can reach their personal goals as well. What about challenges? What are the biggest challenges that you faced in bringing on Jeff and Bill and making that a success?
Speaker 3:well, honestly, a big challenge was and the associates that I brought in, largely I saw as peers um, I didn't see myself as a leader, I didn't see myself as I'm above them in any ways, and so it was awkward um for me to be in a position of somewhat of a boss role, if you will.
Speaker 3:That was really awkward for me and so training them as to the process of what we do, how we prepare for clients, how we take care of clients, the training aspect of that it was hard for me to be able to think I could take on that challenge and still run my business and still take care of my clients. And so, absolutely, absolutely, James, you were a key aspect of that in that you could take my hires through a process and they got them trained up on how we take care of clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's dive into that a little bit, because you and Jeff and Bill went through an eight-week or actually it was a 12-week sales coaching process with me and it was more of just your firm and me.
Speaker 2:And just to give the listeners a little bit of insight, my sales coaching program is called Total Sales Mastery and I think, David, you'd been through that with me years ago transition to estate planning full-time and kind of beefed up your skills on again how you treat the folks that come through the door. What do you focus on in your sales meetings? And I think that sort of I think you sort of ingrained that into the culture of your firm that we're here to serve people, we're not here just to sell trusts, we're here to build a relationship, not just have a commodity sale at the end of our initial meeting. And so I think, absolutely right, kind of having that cultural buy-in from Bill and Jeff was one of the things that you wanted to accomplish and why we went through the Total Sales Mastery program. What do you think are the biggest advantages that having Bill and Jeff on the team bring to your firm?
Speaker 3:Well, having Bill and Jeff on the team, it takes a lot off of me and they handle things that I don't have to handle and they, if I am, you know, at the table with clients dealing with them. They can take phone calls. They can deal with some challenges we may have, whether it be with a client or with a, b, with you know any, anything that comes along with running a business and helping manage the staff.
Speaker 2:How about revenue? What's revenue done? How's revenue been since hiring on the associates? Have you seen an uptick? Have you seen just more expense? Tell me the advantages maybe of, in terms of revenue, how that's worked out.
Speaker 3:It's revenue has largely exceeded my expectations, year after year after year exceeded my expectations, year after year after year, and we have a goal right now of monthly revenue of $125,000. And that gives us a yearly goal of $1.5 million. And you know, seven years ago when I started out, I never would have dreamt those or desired those. But that's where we are and largely we're on track. We're meeting our goals and everyone is aware of those goals and everyone pulls together. One of the things I think we did was kind of approach this in a way that was very different than the traditional law firm model, which is basically in a lot of ways kind of a broken pyramid scheme, and we formed this in a way that everybody was motivated, almost in an equal fashion, to drive revenue.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, spread that burden around. That's why we one of the advantages, one of the advantages, I think, of hiring on other attorneys is that we get these brilliant, like minded people that are on staff brilliant like-minded people that are on staff and when we start developing their skill, set around how to bring in revenue, how to increase revenue. These are smart folks. And now you have these smart folks on your team with an inclination of how to build revenue, and I think that's the big deal. A lot of times when we hire on maybe, a staff person, we see that as an expense, but when we hire on an associate attorney, we should see that as an investment into the revenue. Right, that's going to bring us a return. Tell me a little bit about the experience you had with Total Sales Mastery and why you decided that you wanted to have Jeff and Bill go through the sales training. What are some of the biggest takeaways that you've seen post-sales training?
Speaker 3:First of all, I would say the sales training really challenged a lot of traditional views that were not only held by me but are very much common amongst my colleagues in rural southwest Missouri, and absolutely these are a lot of beliefs that both Jeff and Bill had. We had to challenge so many of our preconceived notions, challenge so many of the things that the attorneys that we've respected and that we learned from taught us. So look at things differently. That was the challenging part, and your training allowed us to do that. Also, I will say this referring to it as sales is still a challenge for us.
Speaker 1:I think I told you this previously.
Speaker 3:Rather than sales training, I like to think of it as leadership training, and ultimately, what I mean by that is we are given an opportunity to help clients solve a major problem, and they need us to help them solve that problem, a problem that they may very well be resistant to solving themselves. So we have to take them through the process of leading them to the point to where they are motivated to act and act now to solve their problems. Yes, it is sales. Yes, you're always selling, but in my mind I can clean that up and I can feel a little bit differently about it if I view it as a leadership role, and I think Bill and Jeff have really responded to that mindset as well.
Speaker 3:So, first of all, the ability to challenge our own set of beliefs that were very entrenched into us. And then it was the ability to go through this process in a way that motivated the clients to act, that motivated the clients to find value in the relationship with our firm and not just see this as a transaction. And the whole process has taught me a lot about finding value, and as a business owner, I've become accustomed to now thinking about value rather than simply an expense, because when I think about expenses I don't want to incur them, but when I think about value, I always want to have something of value. I always want to have something of value. So that mindset and if I can get my clients to have the same mindset of looking for value and that's what I know at the end of our meeting when I'm asking them to hire me, they're not necessarily thinking about the number they're going to have to write on the check. Hopefully they're thinking about the value that they found in me and in my firm and in what we're offering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:I think that it honestly is a completely different sales model than what the traditional law firm follows, and one of the things that I thought was very key to your success was you stepping into that leadership role and saying, hey guys, this is how we treat our clients, this is how we display we find value with each prospect.
Speaker 2:This is how we make our offers. It's always in relation to the value that we found with the person individually. It's not just what we can pontificate or what we can regurgitate about the legalese and show people how much we know. I think that both Jeff and Bill truly bought in to the cultural dynamics that you set for the firm and were lively and excited to not only learn but then go apply and then tell me how that panned out in the next session. So they were eager to say, hey, I tried this new method, I asked these new questions and I was able to close this deal at a higher rate or faster, or have the better connection with the prospect, and that gives more confidence to those attorneys and all of that sort of snowballs into one and a half million dollars in revenue a year, right.
Speaker 3:I will say this, and I did not necessarily anticipate this, but another added value of hiring an attorney was that people started seeing me differently. I all of a sudden had more authority. I was more of an estate planning attorney when I had a firm, when I had other supporting attorneys. When I had a firm, when I had other supporting attorneys, it was more of when I was just a solo guy. I didn't quite have the same. You know, I don't think clients saw me the same and I was not prepared for that benefit by hiring other attorneys. It was actually kind of nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sort of elevates the perception of you, right, and it gives you that extra level of authority that, hey, he's actually he hired these guys on because he does so much good work. He couldn't handle it all himself so we had to hire these guys on, but he's the leader in that and so it does. It kind of puts you up there on a little bit higher level of authority, which again that's a great feeling it's. It is status, it's perceived status, which is we all love that right. But at the end of the day, it's also true that all of these things did take place, that you were the mastermind about how to solve problems for people and the cultural dynamics by which you treat those folks. Those were set by you.
Speaker 2:So it does raise that level of authority. You know those that reach out and take that risk. They're the ones that reap the benefits. What advice would you give lawyers that are thinking about hiring an associate? If you were to just say, hey, here's some advice, even if it's recapping some of the stuff that we talked about, what advice would you give other lawyers thinking about hiring an associate?
Speaker 3:thinking about hiring an associate. Don't rush it. Definitely take the time to find a good fit. It doesn't have to be a perfect fit. Find someone who is going to assimilate into your culture and into your communities, but also find somebody that brings something else to the table. Somebody, I mean, if you've got a weakness of your own, if you could hire somebody that has that as a strength that can be a game changer. I like one of the things, whether it be with my attorneys or with my staff, when I'm talking to them and giving them kind of a whether it be a review or just a check-in is I ask them what is their least favorite thing to do? And I want to remove that least favorite thing from what they have to do at all. Okay, give it to somebody else, delegate it out, because if we can remove what we dread the most from even being something we do, I think that's critical for people and how they feel about their job and how they can manage their own. You know, stress as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I think that you do have to be able to pull the trigger at some point, but nothing's more expensive than making a bad hire. That can be the most expensive thing you can do. So hire slow, fire fast is one of the terms that I've heard before. So that's sort of what you're saying is make sure that those folks fit into your cultural dynamics, make sure that they're proficient, look for the skill sets that they have and where they fill in the blanks that the rest of the team might have. I love that. David, you've done a great job with hiring. I think you have Charity on staff too, correct. She's fantastic. And then Jeff and Bill have done a great job and added to the team. Tell me this, david I know that you've had some lofty goals. You've already surpassed seven figures in your practice. What's next for you? What's the next goal that you have set?
Speaker 3:Maintaining the culture, maintaining our standards, and that's first and foremost on the list. And I just turned 50 yesterday. I just turned 50 yesterday and my son is two years away from graduating from high school and I'm looking at the decade of my 50s with lots of possibilities, not looking forward to my son getting out of the house, but when he does, I want to be able to really experience some things in life that I've never had the opportunity to, and part of that is time off. I've never had any opportunities for extended time off. So when he's out of the house, I would like to be able to have the opportunity to work 75 to 80 percent of the time, and I mean so that's two to three months off.
Speaker 3:And if I can do that for the next decade when he gets out of the house, that's my goal. Decade when he gets out of the house, that that's my goal, and be able to do it and maintain the high standards of the practice, to be able to do it in a way that also I'm maintaining my, my income, and I think I can do it. We're not quite there. I'm going to get two more years to fully pull that together, but it's really, it's possible now, and I mean the thought of retiring, does not appeal to me. I wouldn't know what I would do with my time, but the thought of being able to work nine months out of the year, I think that would be dreamlike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you've set yourself up, you've given yourself the possibility of bringing that together by thinking about your culture, by thinking about the teammates and how they serve people, and bringing on Jeff and Bill to be able to step up and handle cases so that you can take off. And that isn't really possible without a big dip in your income or your revenue if you haven't hired those associates, if you haven't taken those steps to grow the firm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it would be impossible, I mean quite frankly impossible.
Speaker 2:David, I really appreciate our time today and appreciate you giving some insight to the folks who are maybe at that point where they're reaching their capacity. They're thinking about hiring, but they really have no clear direction or instruction on how to do that. I think you've given folks a lot to be thinking about and to work with as they work on growing their practice. Any closing thoughts for folks as they look to grow profitably, what are some closing thoughts you could leave them with?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, if you are thinking about continuing to develop your practice whether that be hiring an attorney, hiring staff, whatever it may be I would encourage you to lean into it. The opportunity is there. With our population and how it's developing and shifting, and the silver tsunami and the boomers and all of those types of things. Those things are real and that's not going to change. And so we are sitting in a situation of great opportunity and what we do now to take advantage of that opportunity, yeah, the rewards are there.
Speaker 2:So lean into it. Very good, david. Thank you for your time today and be sure to tune in next time for the Marketing Lawcast, as we bring you more insights and ideas on how to grow profitably your estate planning or elder law practice.
Speaker 1:That's a wrap on this edition of the Marketing Lawcast. Thanks for joining us Head over to IMSRockscom for more growth-focused insights. For joining us Head over to IMSrockscom for more growth-focused insights. If you're ready to skyrocket your firm's marketing, don't hesitate to book a free strategy call with our team right on our website. Here's to your success. See you next time.