Ben Glass On How To Keep Ideal Clients From Choosing Another Firm

Episode 79 of the "Everything Except The Law" podcast has arrived! This time we’re speaking with Ben Glass, the founder of Great Legal Marketing, LLC.

The Everything Except The Law podcast can be found on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.

Ben Glass has been practicing law for over three decades — and for 21 of those years, he's also been running Great Legal Marketing, one of the most trusted organizations in the legal industry for helping attorneys build firms that actually work for their lives.

In this episode of Everything Except the Law, host Nick Werker sits down with Ben to talk about how GLM started, why the fundamentals of marketing haven't changed, and what the most important topics are inside GLM's mastermind rooms right now: people, AI, and digital marketing.

But this conversation goes deeper than marketing. Ben and Nick trade stories about CrossFit, triple bypass surgery, refereeing youth soccer, and the personal journaling practice that helped Nick transform his own life. Ben opens up about what it really means to build a law firm around happiness, and why the client isn't actually at the top of the priority list.

If you've ever wondered whether it's possible to enjoy running a law firm, this episode is for you.

Resources:

Renegade Lawyer Marketing — Ben Glass's book (available on Amazon) greatlegalmarketing.com — join the email list, find upcoming events glmsummit.com — Great Legal Marketing Summit (annual, October)

Ben Glass Law — benglasslaw.com (ERISA long-term disability & personal injury, Northern Virginia)

See the previous episode of “Everything Except The Law” here.

This podcast is produced and edited by Joe Galotti. You can reach Joe via email at [email protected].

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Nick Werker:

Hey everyone, welcome back to Answering Legal's Everything Except the Law Podcast. I am your host, Nick Werker. If this is your first time tuning in, this is the podcast where we share expert advice on all the parts of running a law firm that attorneys weren't exactly trained for back in law school. I actually think we have one of the most perfect guests for that topic ever. Uh, in this episode, I'm excited to welcome a true legal industry legend. You may know him from his long-running practice Ben Glass Law or as the founder of the organization Great Legal Marketing. How we've gone this long without having him on our show, I do not know. But I'm very happy to be changing that today. I actually I want to start out by thanking you. And this is why I didn't want to uh not thank you while we were recording. I had some things go wrong with me uh health-wise like two years ago. And I had tried CrossFit. I've done CrossFit in the past, like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and I was just out of shape, down, out, whatever. And I follow you on LinkedIn, and you were talking about doing CrossFit and how much you love it. And it inspired me to go back to CrossFit. And now I am fully in the cult. I go every single day. I'm a member of a gym. I do it at home. I own all the equipment. It's a huge problem, but like the best type of problem. So, I wanted to thank you for that inspiration specifically.

[2:05] Ben Glass:

Well, yeah, you're welcome. And it's but it sounded also like you had some good coaches both in the way past and now and now right crossfit is for every so I'm probably the oldest uh person in the CrossFit side of our gym and you know my when I retire from law I'm probably going to coach and just I just want to on board the over 50 crowd like introduce them to this cool thing show them what the words mean and how you can scale everything and have fun with I call it PE class for old people. It's my one of my best friends that I made through CrossFit is I won't age her and I won't say her name, but she's been a coach for 12 years. Yeah, I love her. And she's like all about the the 50 plus, 60 plus boot camp, CrossFit, scaling everything. Actually suffered a stroke, like a freak stroke, heart defect stroke, and came back and was coaching and doing uh I don't know, some sort of therapy. I don't know if it's physical therapy. Seven days later after getting like the stroke treatment.

[3:08] Nick Werker:

So crossfit.

[3:09] Ben Glass:

Yeah. You know, I mean, I had my I had uh triple bypass surgery just over two years ago and I checked out of cardiac rehab early once I figured out everything was actually working because it was too boring and I needed to get back to the gym. And you know, I didn't jump back into classes right away, but I that's where my tribe was. like one of my tribes is at the CrossFit gym and so it was a lot more convenient to go there and rehab and reset everything to zero and you know here we are today like it's it's it's as fun as it has ever been.

[3:37] Nick Werker:

It's crazy. I have I have one more athletic thing to ask you because I think it's cool and it is the World Cup which I'm excited for. I love watching the World Cup and then I'm a bad soccer fan. I used to be a good soccer fan. I'm a bad soccer fan, but you have been refereeing youth and high school soccer for a long time. If I ask you, not only what's your me most memorable moment as a referee, but like how hard is it to be? You have to run a lot.

[4:02] Ben Glass:

So, yeah. So, that second part, so I just did a game Saturday was a 19-year-old uh boys game. It was not highly highly competitive, but I did almost four miles in that. Um, and so that's that's my like a game that's a 90-minute game like I'll do around four miles. You look on the tracker later, you know, you you walk, you sprint. I don't sprint that fast anymore, but you do. But but the harder part really is, and I've written a book on this, like you, a teenage soccer referee, is is when you're a youngster, like getting through the beginning, when you are by definition, you you can't be good at it until you have some experience. And yet the crazy, you know, adults in the game are are shepherding abuse on too many of our young referees. And so me and a whole bunch of my friends like we are that is our fight to restore sanity to youth sports not just in soccer but across the youth sports spectrum just by advocating for the kids right who are out there doing things that most adults Nick they would never ever go behind a plate or on a basketball court or in the middle of a soccer field and try to uh you know evaluate fouls and stuff they just wouldn't do it. My dad was one of those people, much to the chagrin of me and my teammates and uh my friend's parents, but that's a different story.

[5:23] Nick Werker:

I want to talk about uh Great Legal Marketing because I have a I have my own personal opinions on on so many things. But I love what you guys do because I think I keep finding myself saying this recently like what is old is new again and a lot of what um Sure.

[5:43] Ben Glass:

used to be how do you say it? PL got change pl whatever I don't remember. Um, I don't know.

[5:49] Nick Werker:

But it was it it's like I feel like there used to be ter no marketing advice and now there's some good marketing advice and some terrible marketing advice for law firms. But when you started, was there was there like a huge appetite? Were people looking for this or did you just kind of figure it out and see that people needed this?

[6:10] Ben Glass:

Uh, no. There were people looking for this. So, you know, we were the first ones, right, to bring to market like events that were not CLE events. they were about the business of law and and it's 21 years ago and it's like okay how to make a better yellow page ad for personal injury attorneys that's kind of what it was right how to become an author of a book um but I had been speaking and writing before GLM actually launched and so I had a little bit of a tribe who immediately were very interested and joined you know a very small mastermind group back in the beginning and started coming to events that were held in very small hotel rooms so there was uh there was this untapped stopped uh yearning uh the lawyers thought like there's got to be a better way to do this but I don't really know how and there weren't a whole lot of books back then on how to build a practice and many of them came from the established bar so they weren't very good because they were so limiting uh and today you know no matter where you are as a law firm owner as a lawyer no matter where you are sort of on the spectrum there's a place for you like there's a lot of good places there's a you know a lot of uh current discussions about new technology. But but to your point to your point, like the fundamentals have not changed uh since way before me, like hundreds of years back, it's all about human psychology. Um who can you get to trust you? How do you do that? And every new media that we have, you know, in a lot of digital media, if you don't understand the fundamentals, like you, in my opinion, you're just going to like waste your money. So, you got to have this base knowledge and that's what GLM does. GLM doesn't sell any products. We don't we don't sell like websites and marketing services. There are good people that do that. We help lawyers, Nick, if I can figure out like where you are with your firm, where you'd like to go. What I do is I help people figure out like what's the most efficient use of my next dollar or my next hour because there may be a lot of things that are down here down the road that would be excellent for you but not today because you don't have some of the base built up yet. And so many lawyers I think the mistake they make is they want to skip to the fancy stuff or they're so willing lawyers are so willing to hand over their credit card um without understanding anything about how you're going to track where those dollars go. So it's work, but it's highly valuable.

[8:33] Nick Werker:

That's So I am by nature a very paranoid person. Extremely paranoid. I'm I'm very difficult to sell things to because I'm just skeptical and I don't believe you and truly I really don't. I don't know why, but it does serve me in a lot of ways. Like I don't jump into things too quickly. I'm not super impulsive um in that way. But I'm also like I've been working with law firms for over a decade and I don't I don't know when I I fell in love with law firms. I like I really do I love lawyers. I love law firms and I'm very protective of it because I've seen so many I don't know bad interactions, sales relationships uh over over time that my new thing is and everybody on uh on my team that works with me knows this is I'm so wary and also critical of most companies that sell things specifically to lawyers Because like you said, I think it's very easy, not easy, I think it's an easy target is law firms have a good return on investment most of the time on like uh on a on a signed case and they have to spend a lot of money to get that signed case, which just means that like your percentage of managing spend or or technology or anything like that, you can charge more for it. Um, and you just you sell it under the guise of it being specialized. I've seen that so often that it's like ubiquitous. Like every marketing agency that I see is talking about law firms. That might just be like my algorithm talking. Maybe.

[10:18] Ben Glass:

Listen, and I I understand if you were a dentist, if you're a dentist, you you you might say the same thing about the dental industry, which is another sort of rich rich with uh owners who are too sloppy with their credit cards and Yeah. Well, it's that's very similar is is like dentists and lawyers. And I honestly I don't even know any dentists besides the the one who cleans my teeth and I don't really know him that well. He's nice enough. I I don't even know his name.

[10:46] Nick Werker:

But I what I like most about your organization is what you're saying. It's not trying to sell anybody anything and it's educational so that you know how to buy things and how not to get sold things that don't apply to you and pay like a higher sticker price for something that's just being like packaged as for law firms even though it's totally generic.

[11:08] Ben Glass:

Exactly. So your expressed fear or paranoia or hesitancy I would argue is largely based because you you don't feel confident about evaluating the offer, right? You don't feel confident about how we're going to track the results. And so what we do try to do is not only teach lawyers how to do that better, but when we get in rooms like our mastermind group gets in room, we're having deep discussions about all these vendors and who's been good to who and who inside a particular company is the person you really need to have their cell phone in order to be able to, you know, fix the thing that may be bugging you. And so I think that's that's part of the value that we bring because we are agnostic as to vendors. Sure, we have vendors that Ben Glass Law uses and a lot of people say, "Well, Ben, like who are you using for digital marketing? Who are you using for, you know, um, case management software and all that sort of stuff?" We tell them, "But Nick, I always tell people, look, if I like you, I'll talk about you. And if I don't like you, I'll talk about you. So, if you want to do business with me as as a vendor to the law firm, just know that I want a partnership. I want someone who's genuinely interested in my stuff even though we're small compared to some of these obviously we're very small compared to some of these giant giant giant firms, right? But I want somebody who cares and you know I haven't help you if you if I think that you're screwing me or I think you're just lazy or you don't have great people because I will share that information. And you know that's my part of my responsibility. But on the other hand, boy, you know, the the the teams that we like and we use and we spend a lot of money on technology like we share that. We share that too. We the other thing that Brian and I, my son, I think we're total open book. Like we'll we'll show local personal injury quote unquote competitors to us. Like here's our whole playbook. Come come into our mastermind group. Here's everything we're doing. Here's our numbers. By the way, it because the world is so big, there's so many cases out there or else you wouldn't have these giant law firms, right? And if I show you something like you're going to do it in a different flavor, right? And by the time I show it to you, I've been doing it for a number of years, so I have this head start, right? Um, so that's that's been I think another key difference and things I've heard about some of these other groups is that you get in the room and people maybe aren't as open about what they're really doing uh as they could be.

[13:44] Nick Werker:

That's interesting. I don't I am in a very unique position where I I talk to a lot of law firms and I try not to disclose their I don't know like personal information or their numbers or anything that's going on with them or their but I do in uh like a vague sense talk about their problems and and what I know that they're facing and I because I have a marketing background obviously and I I manage a lot of spend I manage a lot of ads um I Do I take a look at some law firm's marketing? I don't do any law firm marketing, but like you said, I have who I know is full of and who I believe is not full of and uh I make recommendations on on what I believe would be a good fit based on where you are, what your goals are, um so on and so forth. But I want to ask you because I here's here's the thing that I do face is law firms will often ask me I'll give you a really good example. How much should I be spending on Google ads? It's a loaded question, very loaded question. And I'm like my first question is usually why Google ads? Why are you asking me specifically about Google ads? Oh, well, I know that it's the major thing and there's been so many changes and I have my competitor friend who refers me cases and he says Google Ads makes him X, Y, and Z. I don't even really want to go all the way down into that conversation, but I'm curious what are the questions that that you see or that or the or the the topics that you guys cover recently um in Great Legal Marketing.

[15:22] Ben Glass:

Well, all sorts of topics, but just to your the question you raised that that that's a only a version of how much money should I be spending on marketing, which I've always thought like that's a that's an irrelevant number if you don't have any other information. And so, uh, but to your to your current question, obviously, um, so Great Legal Marketing has grown from the very first days of teaching PI lawyers how to get more cases to really how do you build a law firm that serves your life, makes everybody happy. Um and so time and time again the topics that we discuss at our highest level are people people issues like how do you get good people and what are the various compensation schemes that you can have for lawyers and non-lawyers like in your firm. How do you attract them and keep them? How do you build culture? Because over time, if the train is running and everybody on the train is aligned behind the mission, it just makes everything else so much easier. And so, while Great Legal Marketing, like we never change the name because why would I, right? I'm old now. Uh, but that's probably the most frequent topic at our mastermind meeting. And because the lawyers don't have any other place they can pose that question, any other safe place. And so what goes on inside the meeting stays inside the meeting. Sure. Sure. And people have different levels of disclos comfort with disclosure. So that's number one. Um you know obviously AI um and and and Nick like it's so cool to be me because I've lived through the revolution of we went from books on shelves to online legal research. We went to laptop to computers like I practiced before computers. We went to the the internet at large. We went to the internet as a marketing uh tool. Um and now we have this AI thing which really that term that word AI so many people are like oh it's all about like writing briefs of hallucinations. That's a tiny tiny bit, right? But it's all the different ways. And for a plaintiff's contingent fee firm, it has it has dramatically made us more efficient because we can wrap our arms around the evidence much quicker and and get to doing our art like the lawyer's art is to strategize about the client's opportunity or the client's challenges, no matter what the practice area is. So the quicker we can get to that right and have the lawyer focus on what he or she is like born to do then the better it is for the client the better it is for the law firm all that and AI has really helped us to be able to do that. Um, and then I think the third topic always is like the digital marketing space. We're Brian and I are running a boot camp here next week as we record this and you know Gyi and Conrad and a bunch of other big names in the digital space will be here because you you look around and everybody seems to be doing it as you said like Google Ads or or Google My Business profiles or a website or do I build two websites? Um, all of that. How do I how do I show up now? It used to be how do I show up on the front page of Google? Now it's like how do I show up in ChatGPT? Who knows? Who knows? So those are the topics. It's it's people, it's AI and it's digital marketing as really the top three things that are discussed at our conferences and in our mastermind groups and our we have monthly group calls as well.

[18:56] Nick Werker:

I have always not always I shouldn't say I've always in the last few years I have learned that I used to think marketing was all creativity because I was I was heavily invested in SEO and writing blogs and optimization all that now I know yeah now I know marketing is just operations it's just uh I get a bunch of information about what's going on and I tell other people and then I fix up sales or I fix up uh the CRM or I fix up you know what it's uh it's funny to me that people will go to an organization for Great Legal Marketing and be like how do I hire better people and build a culture and uh like they have so many questions that go alongside of marketing but it's just it's just operations everybody wants to know how to run a better law firm or or a better business like you said that makes that makes your life easier and in improves your quality of life. That's really it

[19:58] Ben Glass:

100%. And then but then you get to All right. So then in a big topic in our firm is is the data clean? Like we're going to make a decisions based upon data and it's one of the things in the last 36 months we've really upped our game on the quality of the data we think that we are collecting right through all of these tools that are out there. And don't even ask me what our tech stack is because I don't know all of the tech stack. But I know that I've got a full-time person who's like her main job is to analyze for every call that comes in like why the heck did they pick us and where did that thing end up and and what could we do to whatever that source was? It's a good case. What can we do to boost that source? Whether it's a human being and by the way probably 83% of our dollars come in the law firm. Nick, because someone mentioned my name or Brian's name or the firm's name. So, it starts with a human being. Uh they may then go through our digital tools out there, profiles of course, but we have extensive relationships. This firm is built upon human being connection and that's a lot of what we teach at Great Legal Marketing. Why? Because it's very hard for most lawyers if you're going to compete on a spend, Google ad spend. Wow, there's firms that are the multiples aren't even like it would take too many zeros to cross the page, right? So, so the human and it's a harder thing today. Human beings, human conversations, building human trust is hard because we don't we don't practice it enough anymore. Everything is like this. Everything is on Zoom or Riverside.

[21:38] Nick Werker:

So is that is that like the first thing that you would recommend because I hear a lot of advice when you start your law firm and you're looking for cases and there's a lot of people who are very successful now who have a lot of good advice on how they started. Would that be what you recommend is is just focus on your relationships

[22:01] Ben Glass:

100%. So Dan Kennedy, many other famous marketers like the the money is in the list, right? And so lawyers have gotten pretty good at, okay, now we have computerized case management systems and all our clients are in there, but I haven't seen a whole lot who've got separate CRM uh or use their CRM differently to manage referral partners, and we're really good at that. And we send a lot of direct mail every month that's interesting to our referral partners, both in long-term disability and in the personal injury space. Um, and that's the thing anybody could do, Nick, because even if you're just starting out, there's a letter that you can write to your 10 friends if you only had 10 friends who are in the legal space or legal adjacent, right? Some other professional got your next client to say, "Hey, I'm starting out. I see you do this, Nick. You do these three things." Like, what what kind of clients or customers are you looking for? How could I help you? And that's a fundamental precept of Ben Glass like ask what can I do for you first like let's put energy into the world first um and just build on that right and in the old days it was literally note cards and it went to some very I had a 100 years ago a software called uh I think uh like mail room or something. It was it was a very simple spreadsheet database where I could just put names in and tag them and make notes. Now today there's a lot of sophisticated stuff but yes in and then and you know we use a lot of direct mail number one. Number two is personal showing up like speaking events, doing podcasts, um showing up and having coffee. But when if I'm going to have coffee with you, Nick, I'm not talking about me. I want to talk about you because you would love to talk about yourself. That's what we like as human beings. We love to be asked questions and talk about ourselves. Like like this podcast right now is really fun for me, right? I know it's a little bit heavier lift for you, but but having these conversations where you are genuinely interested in what the other person is doing and there's a you could ask about the business and what their challenges are and stuff like that. This is what brings us together and makes you memorable because people a lot of people like who refer us case like I'm not really sure I don't remember exactly what Ben and Brian do but I trust them and they're lawyers so call them and they'll have um they'll have a referral for you if if they don't do what the person needs. So that's uh any anybody can do that. The problem is it's so simple that people like how could that like how could printed newsletters work? Like isn't that old? like, well, this might be the only thing that shows up in somebody's mailbox these days. Uh, you know, we we publish an eight-page printed full-color newsletter put together by our team that's, you know, 15% legal stuff and 85% dogs, cats, and trips we've been on.

[24:59] Nick Werker:

But that's more fun. And I've been known to say that if I'm not having fun, I don't want to do it. And 100%. So, I try to make my job fun even though what I am is a very corporate marketing executive. And so, I don't really do a ton of marketing anymore. I do a bunch of leading. I do a bunch of training. I'm in a lot of meetings with people where I tell them where I think we should go. And one of the things that has been really cool and and thank you for validating me by the way because what I try to do these days is just have conversations with a lot of people like you. And it's because I'm not I I personally personally am not I don't care about outcomes. I like to have a good time while I'm doing things. Uh I like to get paid so that I can like do and afford things in my life. And I really really like to help people. And most of that comes from the people on my team that I manage and work with, but I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people in marketing, in uh PR, masterminds, name it. People that help law firms that I actually like and then like sort of evaluate, right? I told you I'm paranoid. I met someone recently who was introduced to me by a video company that I have a very good relationship with. The video company guy does not work with lawyers. He just shoots videos. He was at a business conference. He was talking to somebody. He's like, "You should meet this guy." Nick uh introduces me over email. I meet with this person. And today, just before I got on this uh and this is why I like this so much. I'm not a salesman. I'm the worst salesman in the entire world because I'll never ask you to buy anything from me. Uh I I just don't do it. If you want to buy it, go ahead. But I'll tell you about it and that's fine. I got an email introducing me to a law firm. I know nothing about this law firm from this person that I met a few months ago. just had like a nice half hour Zoom call with where we talked about life and helping law firms and and our our unique problems and they're like, "Hey, can we schedule a meeting to talk with you?" Because I didn't say, "I'll put you in a in a in a a meeting with a salesperson." I said, "I'm happy to have a conversation with you and talk about what you need and what your problems are." And if you want to go like sign up and do that, be my guest. But I'm not facilitating that because like I said, I maybe I should care, but I kind of don't. And it's not that I don't care. It's like uh I'm not that's how I focus truly.

[27:31] Ben Glass:

Here's so here's where the caring part would come in and where I would phrase it slightly differently for you. And I ask lawyers this all the time. It's like I'll ask them like, "Are you a good lawyer?" Well, they're all going to say yes. and they'll say, "Nick, is there someone in your town right now walking around with a problem or an opportunity for whom you would be the best solution and this would be a good client for you?" Yes. Okay. Why would you let them wander into somebody else's law office? And so now when you have a team in the law firm and a sales team in the law firm that is as go back like truly behind the mission and believes that for for the couple of things that Brian and Ben do, we are the right choice. We are going to deliver a better legal experience, a better quality client experience, and we would, our salesperson says she's personally offended if someone who meets the match doesn't hire us, right? And so that's what that's the slight shift because you've got something that's perfect for some and isn't going to be right for most, right? Um, and we we want people we want to be able to to have that confidence and deliver that message that that yeah, I just don't want you to go wander into like you said to some other person selling you stuff who doesn't have your best interest um in mind.

[28:51] Nick Werker:

I think you're right. I think that's a better way to look at it because I think what I'm trying to say is that my main objective is to help the person, not sell them something that they don't need. And so if I can find out if they do need it

[29:05] Ben Glass:

Yeah.

[29:05] Nick Werker:

then that's cool, but it's like I don't care if they tell me that they don't need it. Does that make sense?

[29:13] Ben Glass:

Right.

[29:13] Nick Werker:

Yeah. 100%. I think you're totally right.

[29:16] Ben Glass:

But you know, if you think of things that you have purchased that have changed your life in a significant way, like maybe you're a golfer and you've got a great driver or putter, whatever, right? Or a car or something. Well, you're happy that somebody on the other end of that transaction helped you make the decision to buy that thing, right? Um, and so I think it's not only is it perfectly fair, like it's the right thing to do, like like in in the ERISA long-term disability space, if if it's a fit for us, uh, you know, there's not many firms that honestly, and this sounds like brag, there's not many firms that can match our, um, record of achievement and our longevity um, and I would say our common sense about this whole thing, right? And so we are unabashedly not afraid to say, "Look, anybody can put AI slap up on a website, make it look like they're they have experience in doing this space. Here's our actual cases. Here's our reported federal appellate court and district court cases that actually made a difference for claimants as a whole. Here's our stuff. Now, just go ask anybody else who you're talking to for their stuff and then make a decision because we don't, you know, we're not the cheapest either, right? So, we we want to move them away from thinking about the the price or the cost of this to say, 'Look, this is you're in the right place when you're with us.' And and I think and to a broader point, they like every lawyer has that or should have it. And if they don't, they got to figure out like what could I do to be so confident to actually be able to say that and to deliver it. And the space that most lawyers can do that uh or make the most improvement quickly is customer service, client service, because lawyers generally suck out of that, right? Um and so that's relatively and now now you get back to culture and now you get back to people. And that's why those are the top discussions we have because at the end of the day, Nick can't be the one on the phone with everybody. You can't be having coffee with everybody. You have you have have you need to have a team that's like truly thinks that this is the place to be for the right customer, right?

[31:36] Nick Werker:

That's interesting because it does start with the top. I had a a therapist for a while who, you know, you go through things in life and and eventually you have you you foster or you grow a connection with uh a person that you're having deep conversations with. And she confided in me that she had a a rough growing up because uh her father used to tell her, which I thought was so funny and ironic. So she was like the oldest in the family and and if the younger siblings would would misbehave or something, her father would tell her the fish rots at the head, meaning that she was somehow the the responsible party for why things were so wrong. And I was just like, are you not the fish head in that scenario? And I think I don't I actually don't think this. I I think you're right because most law firm owners I meet are really genuinely good people. Um Yeah. and maybe just ignorant in a few areas because aren't we all? Like I don't know anything about the law. I you know I'm not going to do that but I can tell you about a bunch of marketing and tech and and business relationship type of thing.

[32:47] Nick Werker:

I think it's a it's like a management and a leadership thing. So I think this ties into the question that I want to ask you because you always talk about happiness and and increasing your own happiness. How do you because I think that looks different for other people or for for for law firm owners in general. What's what's like what you recommend in order to increase the odds of like happiness in law firm ownership?

[33:12] Ben Glass:

So number one, you have to divorce yourself from the message of the of the status quo, which is yes, your life sucks, but that's what you signed up for. You signed up to be a lawyer, and this is the established bar. That's mainly their message and even to the extent that they have lawyer wellness programs, they really don't know what to do. So we have to give ourselves permission to reject that type of thinking. Now how do you do that Nick? You got to get into rooms of other people, lawyers, but also for me a big change was when I got into rooms of non-lawyer entrepreneurs. And you start and you are the average of the five people you hang out with most. So when you start to see, for example, you come to Great Legal Marketing, you can find a lot of happy lawyers, different practices, different incomes, different family situations, all that. But most generally saying, but I kind of like the gig that I'm that I'm in, right? And so when you realize that there's that there's lawyers who think like that first, now I give myself permission uh to to do that, that is a big step. That's the mindset block that lawyer being a lawyer is supposed to suck and be a lot of pressure and all that stuff. Next thing you do is you really give yourself permission to to craft out, you know, write down on paper like what would perfect look like? You might not be able to get there today. But if you can describe to me what perfect is like for you and kind of where you and your firm are today, what do we get back to? All right, Nick, here's the next thing I would do with my next dollar in my next hour to move towards that. Right? And so my I don't have a therapist, but I've got a mindset coach. I've had him for 12 years, probably. Sammy Chong out of Toronto. Sammy says, "Look, the clearer that we can articulate for ourselves and then put out into the universe what perfect would be like for us, then the more often we will be able to see opportunity when it comes, right?" And you start with a simple exercise of, you know, the four quadrants, stuff I hate and I don't like, stuff I'm not good at and I hate doing. get them out of your life and recognize that for everything that's in that box, there's somebody in the world, there's a worldwide economy now, whose life would light up doing the things you hate doing. And if you get rid of just those things, then your your happiness index goes up a little bit. Now, look, you're not going to rebuild this overnight, for sure. And one of the biggest things that Brian and I had to do when we started to get serious about building Ben Glass Law and really exploding it was it was it was people, right? And the people that the people that were with us and had traveled with us to a certain level were not the people that were going to travel with us in the next level. That's neither good nor bad. That just is that is just life. And the quicker that owners can um figure out who those people are and help them find a great place for themselves that's not your law firm, then the quicker we believe you're going to be able to move towards a a higher happiness index for you. So, it's giving yourself permission. It's knowing. It's visioning what that would look like. Even if you think it's impossible, like I don't know how to get there. I don't have enough money. Somebody has gone on that path. We just got to get you hooked up with that person for some ideas.

[36:28] Nick Werker:

I did a similar thing like I told you, I went through like a a wellness thing, which I'm so grateful for. It's so funny and I I will say this that I was not well for a while and you would think that I would look back on that time and be upset that it happened or like never want to experience that again. I am so grateful that I went through all of that stuff because of where I ended up and I did not the same thing. I didn't do it in a professional sense, but I bought I went I I was desperate. I would do anything, including being really out of shape and going to a CrossFit class and being the only person in a in a CrossFit class just dying sucking wind laying on the ground of this poor guy's gym.

[37:15] Ben Glass:

You weren't the only I guarantee you were the only Yeah, I know that feeling.

[37:19] Nick Werker:

No, I was literally the only person in the class. I was I was actually there was I was one I don't know why I just happened to be. Um which like was devoid of community, right? you go there for a community and and and I toughed it out. Uh I bought a journal on I swear to God on the TikTok shop and I used to buy things on the TikTok shop. I don't anymore because it's dangerous and addicting. I buy this journal and the the initial exercises are what are what what do you currently not like about yourself and you write it all out and then what would it look like um to change that and what is like what what do you think that you could become if you allowed yourself or gave yourself permission to to work on those things. And for me that was like I wanted to be better professionally. I wanted to be a better husband. Uh I really wanted to get in good shape. I wanted to learn new things. I want to be somebody who reads books and gets educated and and enjoys talking to people. And wouldn't you know, and I went through this exercise. I did the journal every night. I did what I said I was going to do for the most part. You know, I'm not perfect. And there's checklists, right? You do the daily accountability At the end of this thing, I don't recognize the person that I was. I I truly feel bad for I pity the person who filled out the original uh like survey of of what I was and then what I got to be and that's what I imagine can happen for somebody who goes to Great Legal Marketing because I do imagine that you get to help people who show up as these lawyers who say like this is what I signed up for the 18 hour days the soul crushing work I'm miserable I'm alone no one can you know what I mean like do you see that a lot

[39:06] Ben Glass:

I I do. Yes, we hear that a lot and it's it's really gratifying, Nick, to hear that from older lawyers. Like he'll say to me, "Hey, Ben, like for the first time in decades, like I'm happy." But let me just go back to your story because I think I don't know how often you tell that story, but you should be telling that story every single opportunity you have because there's somebody there, Nick, who will hear that who you don't even know and they don't may not even appreciate it in the moment, but just that story can change their life because they can see the possible, right? And I don't know when you started the journaling whether you thought that was actually possible or you're just like, "All right, I got nothing else to do. Let me try this." Okay. Um but those are the stories that need to be told taught I think in high school in college like we don't do enough of this personal development um training instruction and and showing like how people have done these but yes this is what happens often times when people come to us now you know they come to us there are that you have to be kind of open-minded anyway to be searching for something like us to be investing with us to be a member or to show up at our events and things like that um and I'd really like it when the lawyer and his or her spouse comes too because the spouse is like, "Holy like this is really hard. Like, I didn't really sign up. I didn't sign up for this." To be married to someone who's miserable in his or her profession, right? That's not great. And when they get in the room, when the spouse, the non-lawyer spouse gets in the room and sees and here's the messages, that is a can be a big boost to the person who is trying to change and to trying to move from unhappiness uh to to some version of joy. And look, let's not fool anybody. This is work. It's why mastermind groups exist in part because there is some level of accountability. Everything in a mastermind group is Nick. You always find out like that guy over there that I thought was really smart. Well, he is really smart at some things, but he is horribly dysfunctional in another. And so you find that people are normal. Like everybody has a crutch. Everybody has something that they're weak at or shy or something. And we just you don't you wouldn't know that by looking on Facebook or TikTok, right? Everybody's got their stuff together. Um, and so there's high value in in a getting in a trusted group um to share wins, losses, and to be able to brag because there's very few places we can go to brag about it. And and bragging is important like like sharing your success with others who will then cheer for you and not say, well, you make too much money, you should pay more taxes, right? That's an important part of life as well. Um, and so, you know, we offer that. Again, there's a lot of great groups out there these days that are offering some version of this. I think what makes us different is that we are untethered uh from any particular vendor or, you know, you don't get on our stage just because you're paying to play and things like that, which I think uh, you know, happens in some places.

[42:09] Nick Werker:

I have heard tell of such a thing and I've been offered such a thing, so I can tell you that that exists. Yeah. depends on the on on the group. Anyway, uh seriously, earnestly, thank you so much for joining me today. It's truly wonderful to meet you and I do how do people join Great Legal Marketing? Like how can they get invite? You know what I mean? Like how does that how does that work?

[42:32] Ben Glass:

Yeah. So, we we have a number of things going on and they can always go to greatlegalmarketing.com and at least start to get on our email list. We uh Brian and I host three or four events in our offices each year and then we have a big three-ring circus in October. for the Great Legal Marketing Summit. So, glmsummit.com has that. I think you go first and you get from Amazon Renegade Lawyer Marketing book uh Renegade Lawyer Marketing. If you like the philosophy, then you'll like what's behind the curtain. If you don't like the philosophical bent which is success and giving yourself permission and going up against the status quo and you know finding your own life which we think is pretty cool but not everybody lawyers then then nothing else behind the curtain will help you right because those are just tools. The most important tool is your brain and your mindset and giving yourself permission I think Nick to build something that fits you and your family first. Here's what we believe. If the lawyer and the family is good and the team is good, the clients will be well served. But it goes in that order. The client isn't at the top. The client is third in the list. And that's renegade thinking as well.

[43:48] Nick Werker:

Right. My favorite thing that I tell my wife is that I have to put the mask on first. I have to go be well and then that increases my capacity for everything else.

[43:58] Ben Glass:

So I think uh I would enjoy your book very much even though I am not a law firm marketer but it's probably uh what would you call that? What's the word for it?

[44:08] Nick Werker:

It translates I don't know it's universal principles of persuasion which most lawyers should be interested anyway because they're in front of juries or judges or opponents or whatever. So it's all about human psychology tied to building a law firm.

[44:24] Ben Glass:

Well, we could put dentistry or I've got a friend who's a coach to pastors. It's the same book, right? If you believe that you run a house of worship where people should be coming and because you got a good message, then strategies are the same, right? It's just, you know, for-profit, not for-profit, that's different. But yeah, I look, the basics still work at the end of the day. The basics are hard work. And there's definitely a a I would I don't want to say a formula, but there's a way there's a foundational way to build your firm through marketing. And you can then get to the get to the point if you want where now you're spending money on the broadcast, the billboards, the more money into digital marketing, stuff like that. But a lot of us don't get there. We don't want to get there. We like our lives the way they are. We're making good money. We're coaching our kids. We're refereeing. We're doing athletics. We're, you know, known in the community. And for us, like that's really cool.

[45:26] Nick Werker:

I think so, too. Um, yeah, man. Ben, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you to all of our listeners. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. And we will be back with another episode of Everything Except the Law soon. Be sure to check out previous episodes of our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, which is new, uh, and the Answering Legal YouTube channel. Links to everything covered in today's conversation can be found in the description of this episode, including Great Legal Marketing, The Summit, and Renegade Lawyer Marketing, the book. See you next time, everyone.