The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Maximizing Retirement Plans for Law Firms with Courtenay Shipley
In this episode of The Renegade Lawyers Podcast, join me as we delve into the complexities of retirement planning for small business owners with Courtenay Shipley of Retirement Planology.
Discover the art and science behind crafting corporate-sponsored retirement plans, learn about common pitfalls to avoid, and gain insights into using retirement plans as a tool for employee retention.
Whether you're a seasoned firm owner or just starting to think about retirement options, this discussion is packed with valuable advice to navigate the financial future confidently. Tune in now!
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
The first step will be considering getting one, because you are trying to save for yourself. Usually as the firm owner, it's like okay, I've gotten to the point now where I want to put some money away for my retirement savings and also I want the tax benefits that go along with that. So typically we're seeing at that point your accountant is nudging you. You're probably hiring some people. Those people are saying do we have a retirement plan? Where's my 401k? I had that at my old job, something like that. So those tend to be the point at which the door starts to open. I would say Now, as far as who and how, the who could be a financial advisor. If you're a small enough firm, you can get by with just a regular financial advisor, probably for a while.
Speaker 2:Hey there. I just want to take a quick break from today's podcast to tell you about an event that we're hosting August 1 and 2. I'm going to be hosting a small, intimate event for solo and small firm lawyers here in our offices in Fairfax, virginia. If you've never been to a great legal marketing event before, or even if you have, this is going to be the place for you to start. If you're running a small law firm and you're looking for ways to attract more clients without spending a lot more money, we're going to be diving deeper over those two days into all of the little DIY things you can do, even if you have a small team. This is going to be perfect for a law firm that's doing between about $500,000 and a million dollars in pipeline revenue. If you're making more money than that, good for you. You're doing a lot of things right, but this event isn't for you.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what this is not. This is not an event where, under the guise of a seminar, we're going to be selling you websites, pay-per-click ads or other digital marketing media. That's not our space in the market. This is where you're going to learn how to effectively use your next hour and your next dollar in growing your law firm. We'll be part lecture and part workshop. There'll be some prep work to do before the event and some post-event follow-up so we can answer lingering questions and keep you motivated to building a better life for you and your family Together. Let's figure out why you're not making more money, getting better cases and converting more of your leads. Again, this is August 1 and 2 in our offices in Fairfax, virginia, and if you want to be on the early list of people who are getting up-to-date information, just shoot me an email at ben at greatlegalmarketingcom.
Speaker 3:That's ben at greatlegalmarketingcom, and I'll make sure you're one of the first to know. Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are? Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners.
Speaker 2:Join us for today's conversation, hey everyone, welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. This is Ben. Each episode, I get to interview people inside and outside of legal who are making a ding in the world. Today, we're going to talk about money, taxes, retirement planning, all things that small biz owners, particularly lawyers, aren't very good at, because we don't do it that frequently and the first time we do it, we really oftentimes do not know what we are doing, and so today's guest is actually pretty local to me.
Speaker 2:Courtney Shipley has a company called Retirement Planology. We're going to talk about how she got to that name in a little bit Based out of Northern Virginia, helping small business all over the country, though, courtney is the founder and the chief planologist and she's a consulting and registered investment advisory firm for corporate-sponsored retirement plans, which, look. I know that this can sound like overwhelming, so for me, a visionary, all of this stuff was overwhelming when our firm went through this, but Courtney's going to walk us through it and, in fact, tell us maybe some stories of firms and companies that went with kind of big branded black and white plans and then come to her a couple of years later trying to get things fixed up. So I think it's going to be an interesting discussion. Courtney, thanks so much for being on the program today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2:So we're recording for Posterity State. We're recording this in May of 2024. So you know things can change over time. Tell me a little bit about your journey, my friend. You're young. Everybody looks young to me, but you look young. You've got your own business in this space in the DC metropolitan area. How'd you get there? Where'd you come from?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So I'm young-ish. This is actually my 23rd year of doing retirement plans. After college, I needed a job and I didn't want to move back into my parents' basement, so I took the first job I could find and that was actually in the insurance and also retirement planning space and quickly learned. I did not like selling insurance, but I did like the investment side, moved through a couple of different jobs just focusing specifically on retirement plans, and during that time I won the lottery on bad bosses. So around 2010, I went out on my own for a short stint. I had some partners and then Retirement Planology came out as the brand that it is today, and that was in 2014.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations for that. I consult with or advise and mentor a lot of youngins. What did you study in college? Was this Music Music, okay, all right. So now let's talk about that, because a lot of kids go to college and thinking that they need to know everything and know what their life plan is at 17 or 18. You may well still be in the music space, I don't know, but talk to me a little bit about the move from music and college to insurance and financial services world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm right on the cusp of Gen X and millennial, so that's only important because the self-driven and the entrepreneurial spirit tends to come with that, the risk-taking. But I'd say that the one thing that they were recruiting for was someone who was a self-starter and someone who had control of their own time and good with time management and also didn't have to have somebody standing over them to reach goals. So musicians and athletes is actually who they were recruiting for because of that, and so that's how I got that job.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. And yeah, I grew up playing soccer and played down at William Mary and continued to referee in the space now 50 years after I got my referee badge. But my daughter was in high school and she ran cross country and you know, we just always saw the cross country team as the most driven, focused, high achieving individuals across the sort of scholastic spectrum. They were good athletes and now I think she has her 20-year reunion coming up high school reunion and they have done things in the world her core group of friends. So very good. How did you sit around and come up with Retirement Planology as the name? Do you like checking out URLs?
Speaker 1:To be different than what else was out there already. I wanted to have a different firm, because obviously I don't look like most financial advisors that show up to manage a retirement plan, so I wanted it to reflect that and also just be different. And it's an art and it's a science, right? There's a lot that goes into these types of plans, both from balancing the business owner's needs to what do the employees need? What's the budget? Are we constrained? Are we growing? All of those things. And so there's both art and science behind it. And so the ology, the study of, sounded pretty good at the end of it, and retirement planology was born.
Speaker 2:So there you go. Good for you. So give us a sense of the scope of the services that you and your firm provide. Now, is it all like to business and corporations, or do you provide the individual retirement planning as well?
Speaker 1:So our focus is on corporate sponsored retirement plans. So that's going to be like a 401k, a 403b, a cash balance, a 457, anything like that Probably has some sort of tax code that goes along with it. We do talk with the employees to help them make smart decisions about how to use the plan and make sure they understand it and appreciate it. After all, the company is spending all this money and time on it, so we want them to be getting a lot out of it. So we help the employees from that sense. We don't do wealth management, we don't do insurance sales, we don't do banking or anything else, so we are hyper-focused on that space of corporate retirement plans.
Speaker 2:One of the things that's interesting. So we employ in the law firm probably 20 people under roof. Many of them are young. My son and I are 50-50 owners of the firm and have done well, and one of the things we try to do is impart generalized life and financial advice. Five major cycles of crash and explode stock markets over my sort of from teen to now, and yet our sense is it's hard to get somebody to listen, or to actually listen, but to execute. So I'm curious about that. But to execute, so I'm curious about that. When you come in to talk to employees, how effective do you think you are, first of all? And then, what are techniques or what stories are you telling to get someone who's young, excited about delayed gratification with money?
Speaker 1:It's the worst, right? Okay, so there's a few things to consider here. The first is that people may not remember what you said, but they'll remember how they felt when they were hearing it. So that's an important thing. You cannot speak with jargon. You cannot assume that people know anything when you walk in the door, and so my first job was working with school teachers who were just not very savvy investors, and so I always start with a fifth grade level. If my mother can understand it, she's my test dummy then I know that I'm on the right track. So, being very basic about it, but I think everybody can get behind the idea that. Look that that retirement is the luxury to decide how you spend your time later in life, so that could be at any age. That could. You could be one of these people that does the retire early, the fire movement, and you might be, you know, 30 when you do it, if you can be an ultra saver you might.
Speaker 2:I was listening to a podcast second time today. I heard of the fire movement. I wasn't really sure what it meant, but now I I just I kind of figured it out, right, but that's interesting that you use the same term, excuse me just on the way back yeah.
Speaker 1:That's something that's out there and so that's, but it drives home the point that you could be at any age. It's just that 65 has generally become the accepted age because that's what social security was tied to, and now it's 67. So retirement could look like a lot of different things for people. It could be that you're hanging out with your grandkids, or it could be that you're making a career change, or it could be that you've just kind of you know downshifted a little bit. You're still working part-time with the same job that you loved for all those years. We see that with a lot of lawyers. They just want to be the brain surgeon. You know, bring me in for the really tough stuff and I'll be here to help support you and mentor otherwise. And so that's where we, that's what we drive home on, and if you're not going to be showing up at a job to get a paycheck, then we need to figure out how you're going to make your own paycheck in retirement. So that's where we start, and then we go from there.
Speaker 2:And then you make it as easy as possible to these youngins who, honestly, goodness, don't even know how to fill out a checkbook or a check, right? I guess they don't use checks at all anymore. If the numbers on the iPhone are black, we're good, and if they're red, I'm in trouble this month. No disrespect to youngins, but good for you for doing that, all right.
Speaker 1:Sure, but I will tell you, those youngins are very happy when you say that you've automatically enrolled them in the plan.
Speaker 2:They appreciate that and they're expecting it Exactly, and our mantra is and you should max out your own contribution and look at these numbers, because you are, you know, 26 years old and yeah, but their Gen X and their baby boomer parents have lectured them ad nauseum.
Speaker 1:You must sign up for this, because we didn't save enough and now you have to do it right so they're not as hard to sell as you might think. That's good.
Speaker 2:That's good, all right. So now let's talk. So, as you and I talked about before, we went live a lot of firms that come to great legal marketing. They come sort of at the beginning of a firm journey or early on. They're not making a ton of money but at some point they do start to make money, hopefully earlier rather than later. And one of the things they've heard about they know the last place that they actually were employed at before they started their own entrepreneurial venture maybe had a retirement plan.
Speaker 2:But those different plans you named off three minutes ago. That's dizzying to us Because, again, we don't do it a bunch. So how does one who's a firm owner go about starting to think about this? Is it let me just go find an advisor? Is it let me go find a big brand because they all got them right? Is the company that does my payroll? Would they be good to go set up a plan? Or my payroll technology right? So kind of walk us through how somebody who's owner of one of these firms should start to think about the process of how do I start now building a retirement plan for myself and for my employees.
Speaker 1:Yep. So the first step will be considering getting one, because you are trying to save for yourself. Usually, as the firm owner, it's like okay, I've gotten to the point now where I want to put some money away from my retirement savings and also I want the tax benefits that go along with that. So typically we're seeing, at that point your accountant is nudging you. You're probably hiring some people. Those people are saying do we have a retirement plan? Where's my 401k? I had that at my old job, something like that. So those tend to be the point at which the door starts to open.
Speaker 1:I would say Now, as far as who and how, the who could be a financial advisor. If you're a small enough firm, you can get by with just a regular financial advisor, probably for a while. However, as you grow, as you scale, as you start to want to have more customization with those plans, that's when you really do need a specialist. So someone like us who's a retirement plan advisor specifically for that. We're not just dabbling in it, but rather this is what we do all day. That's when you look for somebody like us to come help.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned the big brands and again, starting out sometimes just getting started is the most important thing, right?
Speaker 1:We don't want to put a lot of hurdles in place here, but at some point you're going to want extra help, and when you are thinking about who to hire for the first time whether that be the big brands or otherwise, like Fidelity or Vanguard or you've all heard them before I want you to think long and hard about your operations and who's going to be the person that's pressing the buttons to have the payroll go to get for the money, to get over there, because a lot of decisions for small businesses really do need to take that operational consideration.
Speaker 1:You don't want to add a lot more overhead and a lot more work for yourself as the owner. That doesn't need to be there, and we're at the point now where technology really does matter and does a lot of the heavy lifting. As long as you're looking for systems that are connected so you mentioned, like, your payroll provider that may not be a bad place to start. There could be others that are you know they already have a relationship with as well, like, oh, we have a 360 or a 180 relationship where we're feeding data back and forth, and so those are always good things to consider.
Speaker 2:Walk me through as though you were talking to your mother. At the. You said, I think the fifth grade level or something sort of the buffet of types of plans or architectures of plans, that a small firm who's starting to become profitable they've maybe crossed through seven figures. They do want to attract and retain A players, but there's a smorgasbord of choices out there and I know each case is going to be different and you're going to walk people through individually. But as a big picture, what do some of these plans look and feel like?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So depending on how large the firm is to how many employees you have that's going to be another thing that drives this conversation as well. So I'll just put that out there to start. The first would be a SEP IRA. A SEP IRA is something that you're going to work with your accountant on as far as how much you can put away. But one of the caps is 25% of your pay, but it's just going to depend on how the numbers shake out. So that's one where you can start with your accountant. What you do for yourself, you have to do for your employees too. So if you're maxing yourself out and you have a bunch of employees, that's going to get expensive really fast. So that may not be the route that you want to go. But for small firms that are three people or it's a husband-wife situation, something like that they could consider that, or it's a husband-wife situation, something like that they could consider that.
Speaker 1:The next is going to be what's called a simple IRA. A simple IRA is also just like an oversized IRA. Just like the SEP is. The simple requires a company contribution. You can either do a match or just give everybody a percentage of their pay. It's very easy in that the employee has to then go set up their own account. So you just have to make sure the money gets there.
Speaker 1:For simple IRAs, the most an employee could put in for 2024 would be $16,000, unless they're turning age 50 or older, and then they could do $19,500. So you may stop there. You may say, oh, okay, well, that's all anybody wants to save is? You know that would be the high end and you just go on about your business and you can have that plan until you hit 100 employees. But you may be at the point now where you're like no, we're like $30,000 put away or something along those lines. So if you are creeping into that 20, 20 something thousand range, that's when you need to start looking at that 401k plan. Or if you want to do profit sharing and have the option to put that in the plan or do a different kind of matching contribution into the plan, so 401k is the thing that allows for that. Now that's run like a trust, so everybody's bundled together for tax purposes, even though you have your own individual account inside that pool.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense so far? Yes, ma'am, yeah, okay. Well, it's a little different, like the IRAs I just mentioned a second ago I said the employee had to go set up their own account at their own financial institution. They're responsible for the investments. Once you cross over into 401k land, then you have fiduciary responsibility as the person who is overseeing the plan. So now you've got to pretend like it's your grandmother's money that you're taking care of. And I always say pretend like you're putting Nana in the home. You know you've got to go visit that home. You've got to go make sure it's a good place for her and it's got places where she can sit and play bridge with her friends and she's going to have a good time and she's going to be taken care of medically. It costs the right amount all that. You're getting value for the services. Same concept with the 401k. So that's where you have to have that level of oversight, because it's not your money, it's everybody's money, right?
Speaker 2:And that's where the responsibility really starts to grow. And, as a law firm owner who's probably working on cases and trying to manage and scale a firm, while they accept the responsibility, they don't want to know which hammer to use.
Speaker 1:They really don't, no, no no. That's where we come in. At that point, Start directing traffic, help them out, make sure they know what they're supposed to be doing. Sign here, send this there, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Talk to us a little bit about using plans as a retention device. In other words, hey, the longer you stay here, the more there is vested for you Of the plans you just talked about. Where does that come in?
Speaker 1:So these used to be something that would really keep people in the seats. Baby boomers really value them. Other generations do value them too, maybe not as much. It is going to be part of why somebody stays with your firm. It will not be the sole reason that they stay with your firm, but it all adds up right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And it can be the straw that broke the camel's back. They didn't even match me. That's the last thing that they say right Before they leave. So, from a retention standpoint, there's the expectation that they're going to have a retirement plan at some point. For most people who are joining what they perceive to be a larger firm. The second aspect of it is can we all share in the profits?
Speaker 1:And so that's a retention strategy, because you're showing them, hey, your work is tied to the firm's profitability and you've got this money for the future. You're probably going to want to do a cash bonus as well as put some money into the retirement plan, because people like you said, the delayed gratification is hard. Yeah, the other piece of it is you can attach a vesting schedule. So stay here, stay with us for five years, and if you should leave the next day, then you take everything with you, what we've put in, what you've put in together. So the shorter it helps for keeping people around from a longevity standpoint, and they're earning ownership of the company dollars that went into the plan over time. So that's how it tends to work as far as a retention strategy is concerned.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So one of the fears of young and growing firms is that revenue and profit can go like waves right. It can go up, it can go down year to year, and I know that when, at least many years ago, when I first started thinking about this, I'm like we had a great year, good, am I tying myself into something that I won't be able to meet my contribution obligations next year if the year isn't as good? So talk to me a little bit about how. Is that a real fear? Number one and two if it is, how do we alleviate or lessen the risk that, if next year isn't as good, somehow this is actually going to put me in a deeper hole than I would have had I not set up a plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we are very careful with our clients to build in a lot of flexibility, and so we're there walking alongside them and taking a look at the budget too. If they had a fantastic year last year, awesome. If the year before that was awful, then we know the range right. The most important thing is the plan design is set up to be flexible in that situation. So can we put some like discretionary opportunities in there where they are not required to put in money unless they want to? You know what decision points could they have throughout the year for when they want to make that decision, or just at the end of the year? So that's where we really take a lot of effort and painstaking effort, quite frankly to match the budget needs as well. As you know what's the vision for this year, how are things going to shake out, what can we predict and what can't we?
Speaker 2:That's why you get paid. You're the strategist setting up at the beginning so that it works Almost no matter what the cash flow and the profitability is. So let me ask you this when a lawyer comes to your company and you all do make decisions as a team and you set up the plan and let's just call it a well-oiled plan, no matter what it is how much time and energy is the lawyer putting into keeping his or her eyes on the plan over the course of a year? Is it, hey, a strategic meeting with you once a year? Is it something they have to look at every Friday afternoon before they're heading home? Yeah, I mean again with a well-oiled plan that's probably set up and you've had these discussions with the owner of the firm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's going to vary based on the size of the firm and the complexity of the plan, and then how much money is sitting in it.
Speaker 1:Right so the larger the plan, probably the more often you're looking at it. But the person who's going to be looking at it the most is your operations person. Whoever is doing the payroll, they're probably interfacing with it a lot more often. Otherwise, there's two times a year that there's some heavy lifting. One is right after the end of the year, and that's when the all the information is due for them to tie up all the compliance work for the prior year so that, and then signing the tax form for the plan, which is called the 5500, the Form 5500. And that's due in July, unless you extend. Some people don't have their taxes done yet, and so October is the other date.
Speaker 2:With a well-oiled plan set up by somebody like you. What, then, are the risks or mistakes that lawyers who are owners of firms can make, or you have seen made, probably with other companies, not yours that can get them into any sort of trouble, either as their fiduciary obligations, tax wise or any other legal trouble Like what's the worst? What do lawyers do? That's really stupid and what's the worst that can happen when they do it, because if it's possible, we'll do it.
Speaker 1:So there's a couple of things. The first is not completely understanding how the plan was set up, and so you're not running it compliantly. So, for example, what is the definition of compensation that's allowed in the plan? What gets matched and what doesn't? So, are bonuses included? Are they not included? Different types of pay, different firms have different things, and so you just want to make sure that you're actually following the plan that you set up. That's number one. And then the money is getting there on time. So you didn't miss a payroll. There wasn't some breakdown where money didn't get to the record keeper on time. You didn't forget to enroll somebody when they were eligible, something like that.
Speaker 2:So those are real things, but again, Maybe misclassifying a person who's doing work for you as an employee versus a contractor or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that. I can see that happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And the second is just letting the plan go too long without taking a look at it. That's what we see. And they're like, yeah, we do this, we have a safe harbor plan, we put in 3% and you say, oh, okay. Well, have you thought about doing profit sharing? Have you thought about, like, maybe carving out some of these groups for the equity partners versus the non-equity partners, versus the staff attorneys versus the paralegals? Have you thought about whose contribution is higher for the company and so therefore you want to maybe do a different type of profit sharing for each individual groups? So there's a lot of advanced plan design stuff that, if you're not taking a look at it, suddenly this thing that sucks money out of your business could actually be an asset to the business, but if you're not paying attention, then you outgrow your old plan design. Really fast.
Speaker 2:But I imagine that's where you come in, because, as the advisor to the firm, you're the one who should be proactively saying, wow, awesome, a streak of three, four years of really good, let's have a look, you got it. Did you know about ABC or DEF and really having that? And you are enticing them to participate fully into a strategy plan with you, and maybe we've covered this. But before we went live, you talked about you fixing mistakes when firms have set up plans and now come to, and maybe it's everything we just talked about in terms of just not being aware what the plan is, not looking at it as the firm gets bigger. But is there anything else that you are typically looking at when a firm with plans comes to you and you're seeing things like oh my gosh, you're missing something over here. What issues have you seen there?
Speaker 1:So some pain points we've seen lately were we had one firm where they had a couple of partners who kept getting refunds out of the plan, because what happens at the end of the year is this non-discrimination testing, and they have to make sure that the owners aren't benefiting. The owners and the highly compensated employees are not benefiting from the plan substantially more than the non-highly, and when things get out of balance, the easiest and cheapest way is just to refund money to the owners and highly compensated. And so it's like, well, hey, this is like the third year in a row, we can fix that, you don't have to get this back. And they're like wait, what, how? What happened Again?
Speaker 1:It was they had outgrown the plan design long ago and just weren't aware that there were other things that they could do. Or another scenario was they wanted to do more complicated profit sharing type of contribution at the end of the year and they were having to pay a lot more than they should have in order to maximize that benefit, just with the way that the plan was set up and how they were doing the contribution to all of the employees, and so we were able to actually save them some money. In a weird way we saved them, but it went back into the plan to help max out everybody. So it was like reusing dollars, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 2:No, it does. Let's talk a little bit about you. We are all entrepreneurs who are listening to this. We are growing companies, like your company. We're just in a different vertical than you are, but we're always curious about you. Know, how do you get your new clients? What are you doing to quote, market yourself? And then, what are you doing, do you think, to retain folks year after year? Because you know, I'm sure, your best client is someone who's going to pay recurring revenue forever, but you've got to be doing something to make sure they don't go. Wander off the reservation, I'm sure. So tell us a little bit about, from the marketing and business perspective, what's Courtney doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So again, you kind of nailed it when we got on the podcast and you said you look young, we just market in a different way. So early on, even before the pandemic, I was one of the first approved for LinkedIn Live. So I've been on there doing videos and live shows now for several years. So we have a ton of content out there. Lots with video, lots with blogging. So our SEO if somebody was Googling for someone to manage their retirement plan we're going to come up at some point, which I think is good, and I think is good, and I think it's also good to be steering people in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you just said three things that are really cool and our listeners are really going to be interested in. All right, so now, what's your infrastructure for getting media out there? Because you mentioned video, you mentioned blogging, you mentioned LinkedIn Live, and that could be with your iPhone boom. Or we have a team in the Philippines that helps us. We send raw video to them. How are you getting it done?
Speaker 1:Okay, so public speaking is kind of my jam, so I love making videos. I'm well rehearsed, so doing that and then taking the final product, sending it off. We have a small team of people very small, it's like two people and they will go through a LinkedIn live or a presentation that I've given and they will snip out the parts that they thought were the best and make those into just smaller, smaller videos.
Speaker 1:I also get the transcript and send it to our writer copywriter person, who then turns it into a blog and sends it back to me, and from there I can say oh well, here's what I meant to say, or here's where I will expound upon what I said, and it gets turned into a blog post that way, but that can also be cut down into posts as well.
Speaker 2:So we're all about reusing the content, but you got to go ahead. Yeah, you said my team, so it's just employees outsource contractors a company Outsource contractors. Yeah, very good. Yeah, you said my team so is this? Employees outsource contractors a company.
Speaker 1:Outsource contractors.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, very good, yeah, and now talk to us a little bit about just building and scaling the people in the firm. I don't know how many people you have under roof as employees.
Speaker 1:Yep, we have four total.
Speaker 2:Okay, so a small number of human beings there. What do you all? What do you do? And are you the sole owner or do you have partners?
Speaker 1:I have a partner as well.
Speaker 2:So, what do you all do to make sure that you have a consistent quality of service? Again, the smaller we are probably, the easier that is to do, because you can listen to the walls at conversations if they're there in your office, but at some point you may go from four to 14, right, if you want. And so what are you doing to make sure that your brand is being consistently delivered to the market?
Speaker 1:brand is being consistently delivered to the market. Yeah, so we have a pretty robust operations outline maybe, I guess, is probably the best way to say it. So we know exactly the services that we're delivering. And, of course, that's tied back to the contract. You always have to make sure that you're delivering the services you promised you would.
Speaker 1:But from there we're going to leverage as much technology as possible and make the humans do what humans do best. So all the number crunching, all of the CRM that's going to capture all of the client data. We have the regular team meetings by Zoom twice a week just to touch base on what everybody's working on. And then we have a shared project management software. We use mondaycom, where pretty much everything is traded off in inside that. So, number one, everybody's work is visible, because that's important to know what everybody's working on and how long it's taking and all of that good stuff, but also just to streamline the handoffs and be able to have asynchronous conversations as well and work going on, rather than having to all be at the desk at the same time.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? It absolutely makes sense. Let me ask you who do you get your inspiration from? Are you listening to podcasts? Do you have favorite speakers? Authors about the business building, not about the substance of the vertical, but what Courtney can do to take the company to the next level if she wants to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm looking at my bookshelf. Hold on For sales. Dan Pink to sell as human, for traction. The visionary.
Speaker 2:Do you run on EOS?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do Not to the T, but very close. Yeah For something that makes sense for a group of our size.
Speaker 1:Adam has a lot of stress in his life as my partner because he is definitely the implementer in many times. Let's see what else. I would say that I have really cherry picked from a number of different industries because I found that most financial advisory firms were not set up to handle retirement plans. Number one because it's just most financial advisory firms were not set up to handle retirement plans. Number one because it's just not their bread and butter and also I just didn't like the way they did things. I didn't think that we needed to be in the office for 60 hours a week. I didn't think that even having an office was important. So it's funny when you look back over your career and the number of times you heard like you can't do it, that way.
Speaker 1:You can't do it that way. You can't Okay, watch me.
Speaker 2:You know like, exactly right, oh, there was an idea that came from that, but I just, I just, oh, I know. So who are your referral sources? You know? So for us, in one of our verticals, you're always looking like who else is serving our next client? Obviously, the healthcare industry. Obviously, other lawyers who do work that's similar to us but not exactly in our ERISA disability space. Obviously, lawyers, family lawyers who don't do any personal injury or disability work For you. Who is it that has your next potential client? And then what are you doing to make sure that you're staying in front of these sources?
Speaker 1:So ours would be ERISA attorneys maybe, who have clients that need an advisor or they have some work from M&A or other things that they don't want to do or doesn't fall into their wheelhouse. So that's the attorney front. Accountants are good referral sources for us. Outsourced CFO or that kind of function controller function as well. Outsourced HR is usually very good for the growing companies who are staffing up quickly and they're trying to add policies and procedures and streamline all the operations. So people who are in that kind of space as well.
Speaker 1:And are you doing anything deliberate to reach out to the universe? Who does not already know you and send you referrals? Yeah, we do. The other one is the benefits firms that don't have what we do in-house, and so, yes, as far as seeking them out and then keeping them abreast of, just changes, because the good idea fairies that live in Congress come up with all kinds of stuff all the time that people need to be aware of and what the changes are and what kind of heavy lifting that looks like now and how they can I just laughed because it's always heavy lifting, because it's buried inside some 4,500-page bill about something else.
Speaker 2:Truth.
Speaker 1:Truth yeah, but you know, helping other people sound smart.
Speaker 2:That's a good way to put it Helping other people sound smart. That's very. I'm going to steal that one. Well, look, this has been great. If anyone again you can serve law firms anywhere in the country. Where should people go? Do you offer a free consultation? Or I don't even know. I didn't go to look. Do you have a white paper or a book that you've authored? How can people find you?
Speaker 1:So I've got a whole lot of nerdy stuff out there. On retirementplanologycom, you can go under the blog section. There's also, if you go to retirementplanologycom slash, learn more. That'sa good place to start and that has my calendar. So if you do want to reach out for a quick phone call just to discuss your issues, see if we're a good fit. Or you know you need to go in a different direction, or what should you do? We're always open for that. And then on linkedin you can find me linkedin c ship is just like you're big on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yes, Yep, yep. So those are great places to go and just kind of binge on our content for a while. Very good.
Speaker 2:And thanks so much for sharing this and taking some time out. You've built something that's pretty awesome. I guess my last question is ready to see yourself in the firm three to five years from now, what's your vision for perfect?
Speaker 1:as we look down the calendar, oh, man, ben, One thing that I have found is that women build businesses differently, I think, than men do sometimes, and I have a six-year-old and I love to be able to show up at school and eat lunch with them or whatever the party is of the week. As he gets older, his schedule is going to change and I would just want to make sure that I continue to have my life supported by my business and not my business supported by my life. So I don't know if I can answer that question.
Speaker 2:You said, perfect is to have my work supported by my business. That's what the Renegade Lawyer podcast and Great Legal Marketing is all about. Your life is the primary. That's the most important thing. Yeah, you know we don't know exactly how many days we have. There's nothing more precious than the time you're spending with your six-year-old, and the rest is just to build it, to support that, and it's okay to say that.
Speaker 2:No, I think that was a perfect answer. Very good, yeah, well, look, it's been wonderful to chat with you and to get to know you, and we're local, so at some point we'll have to get together. You should come see our digs out here If you ever need a place to do a seminar. You know you've got a 42-week training center right out here near Fair Oaks and we have all sorts of businesses come in to do meetings or to do seminars and stuff, because part of what we want people to do is just to walk into the law firm and say you know what is this place really? Because it doesn't seem like an old-fashioned law firm, like these guys and gals who work here are something different, and we are. We're entrepreneurs first and lawyers second, but we're moms and dads just like you.
Speaker 2:So that was a perfect answer, my friend. Thanks, all right, we'll chat soon. Thanks for being on the program, courtney.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3:Ben, If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high-quality legal services coupled with top-notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at GreatLegalMarketingcom. That's GreatLegalMarketingcom.
