Best Month at $33K, But Law Firm Marketing Automation Is Broken - #236

Law firm marketing automation breaks first when you scale fast. Best month ever at $33K, the lead system couldn't keep up.

Tom’s firm doubled, then hit the wall every firm hits: manual lead tracking, missed calls, and no CRM. 

We discussed the cheap fixes, score leads with AI, answer the phone, and track consults first. 

➡️ Register Here: https://rocketclicks.com/unlock-hiring-secrets

📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughes

                                https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocket-clicks

📝 Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/

📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit

---

📄 CHAPTERS

0:00 - Law Firm Marketing Automation Missing After A Record $33K Month

0:43 - The Real Numbers Behind The Best Month In Revenue

3:29 - Law Firm Lead Tracking Becomes A Mess Without A CRM

7:30 - Google LSA Leads For Lawyers: Lead Volume Vs. Quality

12:25 - Never Miss A Client Call: Phone Answering And Intake

17:43 - AI Lead Scoring: Tracking Leads Without A CRM

----------------------

Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers? 

Follow these steps:  

1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/  

2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/  

3. CONNECT WITH US: 

LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Facebook: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Instagram: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls

4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:  
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.

Transcript

0:00

I think it Tom's doing it, but I just make sure the phone gets answered. Track your your consults. Those are the super important metrics. Some of the metrics can just fall by the wayside. You know, that's okay. But you know, answer the phone. That's so critical. You got to keep it coming because you're going to get busy. You may not answer the phone. And then three months from now, you're not going to be busy wishing you to have answered the phone three months ago. So that's just like the that's the up and down of a growing family law firm. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. I am one of your cohost, Tyler Dolph. I have Jeff Hughes with me and we are continuing our series on watching our boy Tom build his firm. We're going to review February today, which was the best month you've ever had. Is that correct? That is correct in terms of top line revenue. Yes, definitely. Congratulations. Incredible. We were just talking before this episode that you have about doubled your firm since since the beginning, which is an amazing milestone and are feeling the the effects of that additional work. So why don't we get started? Give us a preview of how February went. Walk us through the metrics and then we can get into it. Sure. So yeah, let's start with metrics. Top line revenue was was it, as you said, my best month so far. We did about 33,500 in terms of top line revenue. I don't want to jinx it. I think in March we might hit 50. But we'll get we'll get to March next month. We had nine hires. My expenses have obviously gone significantly up. You know, 99,500. I'm just using as, like, a catch all expense. I can maybe one day walk through more specifically what that is. But but now we, you know, we have the two offices. The marketing dabbled in Google ads, so I'm still not officially running them full throttle. And then obviously, the biggest reason for the increase in the expenses is my new employee. February was the first full month. So total expenses $23,000 a month. And again, that's that's really without running Google ads. I've estimated that might be closer to like 27 or 28 once I start really running Google ads, or maybe even more than that, we'll have to test the market. So profit was about not a terrible month, but about an average month just because even though the top line revenue went up, the expenses went up with it. So about 10,500 in profit. But that although that profit number is the same, that's with me doing significantly less work on the family law side. So it's more almost feels more like, you know, if I was reporting on profit last year, it basically was money that I was earning from working myself, whereas now it feels more like certainly not passive as I've been doing it. It's probably the most I've ever worked in my life. But, you know, at least having somebody else to help out doing the legal work. Well, Tom, if I were with you, I would give you a big hug. Congratulations. I am so thrilled for you. The biggest month ever for revenue. The biggest month ever for new hires. You had nine new hires last month. You brought an associate on. You've doubled your firm. This is like what we've been building for for a year and a half just watching you do this. So this is really good. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. And as I said, I'm trying not to get too overconfident because I know February and March tend to be tend to be the busiest months of the year. Hopefully that'll bleed a little bit into April. But yeah, I'll just tease up. And we're sitting here on March 23rd. I think we're somewhere in the mid 40s in terms of top line revenue. So I would I would love to break that 50 barrier if we if we can. But yeah, the question is what will. Yeah. Because then. Right the expenses have stayed the same unless I turn on adds a little bit but still profit will obviously that would March is going to be a great month, which is great because I have a tax bill to pay from last year. And yeah my you know so it has been great. Worth every penny. I got to figure out a way to pay her more as soon as I can because she's she's she's fantastic. And then yeah, one thing you didn't hear me mention when talking about my reporting is my lead tracking has just become a mess. I don't I need I need some type of automation here because I, I couldn't keep track of my leads before. And now it's just it's much, much worse. And you do not have a CRM yet? Correct. I have my case. I so far am only using it for like time tracking and billing and invoicing. I have not. I think they do have a way to track leads, but it's all manual as far as I know. So basically I have I have what converts, if you guys know what that is. I think it's similar to call rail. And so basically every time someone calls it, you know, I get an email afterwards saying, you know, here's, here's like a summary of the call, basically an AI generated summary of the call. And then it just gives like their name, their phone number and everything like that. But it's I don't know, just it's a lot to track, especially when I'm, you know, if I'm in court or doing other work for doing other like patent work on the side or something. It's just become become overly, overly burdensome to start tracking every single, you know, manually tracking every call that comes in. So I don't know how you larger firms do it. I assume there's some type of automation out there, but I have not found it yet, so it sounded like a sense, but it's more of a question. Jeff, do you remember around this size when when you guys encountered a similar shoe? Well, we weren't on Salesforce yet, so we were doing everything manually, basically on a Google sheet. That's how we were doing it. We had we had we had a team we already already at that point answering the phone. So that was their whole job. So you're you're in a different scenario here, Tom, because you're basically you're running two businesses at once while you're trying to figure out how to keep keep track of this really important metric, right. Leads and consults. So so you didn't put anything down for consult. So are you not even able to track that because you're doing so many phone calls that you're not sure you have to go back and think through each one? I might have been able to. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Sorry. I also filled Okay. Yeah. I'm not trying to beat you up here because this is a this is a growth issue. So this is a this is a good problem to have. Just like a side question here. Which one of these is your side hustle. Now is it the IP work or is it the the family law firm where you started. guess I had this idea of like once I hired an associate and I think I talked about this for a while that the, you know, my legal work from the family law firm would drop off. She would be handling, you know, majority of the legal work. And I would actually wind up picking up more patent work because, you know, and then basically, like running. You know, running the business. But that hasn't happened, you know, and she's busy. I have a you know, she's she's definitely keeping busy. I don't know, it's just, you know, workflow is just I don't know, we had enough new cases come in that I still feel even though I've offloaded a bunch to her, that I still feel busy and. But. Yeah. But still. Still not at that point in revenue yet. Or even really close to it where I could consider dropping off. Or at least, you know, consistently. And I've done some math on, on what I would need that number to be. And it's probably a little bit, a little bit less than double what I did in February. So we're in the 50s. You need to be in the 50s consistently. Yeah, maybe even closer to 60. Yeah. I think for me, for it to make sense for me to, to fully drop off and, you know, I'd want to see I wouldn't, you know, not like if we did 60 in April, I would, I would jump, you know, I would want to see that over a couple of months. It feels like that inflection points coming. Well, yeah. I mean we'll see. Right. We're in we're in the busy time of year, so let's hope things come up. You know, again I've, I had a I've had two very different experiences with Google ads. One the first time I ran them, I set, you know, I set a pretty high weekly budget and I got a ton of in like a couple days. I got nine calls from Google ads, but like five of them were not were not even real leads and I don't know. And it wound up being wound up being a mess. I couldn't even every like I think four of them. The number that I tried calling back was a deadline. So it yeah, it wasn't something was going on with that. So I wound up shutting it off. And then I basically retarget them. I'm kind of like playing around with it myself. So I shrunk the area on the map to be very small, pretty much like only surrounding the area of my office. And then I turned them back on and the lead volume has been low, so I think I only got and a full week. I think I only got three LSA leads, but they were all all good quality leads. I think two of those signed and another one is at the console stage. So you know I'm thrilled with that. But obviously need to there's got to be some middle ground where I can increase that number and still keep the quality good. And from a capacity standpoint, would you say your associates full? I say she's she's probably at like 75, 80%. So she's she's busy. So are you thinking in order No. No I'm not that hire someone else. Was that your question. I don't I don't know I think that would increase my overhead to a point that would be a little bit to to intimidating. I think it would. I think it would make more sense for me, to me to just drop, drop the side work. And I don't know, it's a good question. I think it's not out of the realm of possibility, but I'm not. I definitely am not going to be actively recruiting anytime soon. I think if I were, if someone were to refer someone to me, which is what happened with her, you know, if they knew like some fantastic attorney that was that was really looking, I might consider it. But yeah, I'm definitely not posting any putting any job postings on indeed anytime soon, certainly not before the summer or even during the summer. Tom, have you given the thought of your next hire being a non attorney, someone to support the two of you? maybe I think if I, if I were to drop the patent work and go full time, then probably, yeah, then maybe my next hire would be a paralegal after that. I think if I keep with the patent work, then no, I think my next hire would be another attorney, primarily because I want I'm, I'm in like two counties and I would I would love to have an attorney handling each county. So if I dropped I would probably take the one county and she would take the other, which makes sense for geographically where we live, because I live in Nassau and she lives out in Suffolk and or and I so if I were to hire a new one, a new attorney, I would want a Nassau County attorney. So you're still working through like when is the right time to drop the IP work. And right now early indications are that you're you need to string together 3 or 4 months in that 60 ish range before you're going to feel that comfort level to do that. I think even if I had 50 ish, I'd be okay, because then, you know, if I was full time, I probably could we could bring in a little bit more from that to just, you know, because I'm naturally operating a little bit slower, but the IP work on the side. But yeah, I would want to see consistent in the 50s. And she also in each month both in February and in March, she brought in probably the highest value case each month she brought them in at least for at least for March. I'm trying to think February. Are you are you aware of what your lead flow is in the two different counties right now? Is she getting what the same as you're getting in your county? that's the problem is it's still she'll handle both counties. It's just very, you know, for her to for her to go to court, it takes it's an hour or 15 minutes in each direction in my county, whereas in the other county it's 20 minutes in each direction. Right. So now most of the work is still in my county. That's the downside. She'll do it. You know. She knows. She knew that that was the case when she joined. But the goal was within six months to a year that she would be more out in Focused on her county. Yeah. you know, my first office in Massapequa is Nassau County. So that's still we're still mostly getting leads from map pack. And so, you know, mostly here we have gotten a few local leads from Bayshore from the new office, which is great. Yeah, I have I've slipped off the I'm I'm usually pretty militant about getting reviews. I've slipped on Growing pains. How are you with answering the phone? Do you feel like you're getting your your phone answered all the time or. What's happening? Someone just called like 30s Oh, great. So this podcast cost you a client? I'm sorry. Again, I have I have the backup answering service. Just another issue that, you know, they're okay. I'm always asking, is there a way we could be doing this better? And I don't think so. I don't I don't think I'm quite yet ready to jump into the AI answering service. I think we talked about that on the last episode, so I went harp on it. I do know that firms that have done it with some success, but I did. I had someone call me the other day and I picked up while I was driving. I was on the way back from court and they were like, are you a robot? And I was like, no, they're like, are you sure? I was like, I'm pretty sure. So you get down or no. Bottom line, they were they were a little frustrated that the previous firm, they called that an AI person. Then AI in that person. What happened with that caller? Did they set up a console with you? actually the LSI lead. That is, I think she's meeting with him Okay, okay, well, that's good to know. That's good feedback. he quickly hung up. He quickly hung up on the phone where. But you know, it could have been a terrible AI service, whereas maybe a good one might not have thrown him off so much. So who knows. But I think I'm not ready to jump there yet. But as of right now, my answering service is just pretty much answering and telling them that I'll call them back when I can, which is not that I need to at least which they're capable of doing. I need to at least get them to start booking consults, but I don't. I don't have a great sense of my calendar or her calendar yet, which I should be making a priority. Yeah. This is the first podcast I can remember. You're kind of behind and you're saying I should be doing that. I should be doing that. You're really feeling it right now? I very much am. Yes. But Jeff, what advice do you have for Tom in this moment as the serial entrepreneur, you know, leader that I know you to be? What what would you do if you were in Tom shoes? I think it Tom's doing it, but I just make sure the phone gets answered. Track your your consults. Those are the super important metrics. Some of the metrics can just fall by the wayside. You know, that's okay. But you know, answer the phone. That's so critical. You got to keep it coming because you're going to get busy. You may not answer the phone. And then three months from now, you're not going to be busy wishing you to have answered the phone three months ago. So that's just like the that's the up and down of a growing family law firm. I used to wear an Apple Watch, and I kind of got sick of it because it was always, always bing, bing. So now I did I turned it back on just so to stop me from missing calls. So when someone calls, if even if I'm busy, like, right now, you didn't even see it, but I just clicked it off. So this way it'll ring to my answering service will pick up. So I'm not I'm not missing any calls, even if I'm not a like, you know, I'll get back to them after this, but at least it's not a missed call. It's not going to like a voicemail or that, you know, someone's picking up the phone and talking to them and gathering information and and telling them I'll There's very few things that make me more anxious and kind of close to a panic attack than not answering the phone. It's just like I'm wired that way. I just such an important thing. It is. I know if I could prioritize that and started to get more consistent reviews and figure out my I think. Yeah, there's a problem. Sure there's more. Those are the leverage things to focus on, though. So you're doing the right stuff. It is got to work through this part of the growing pain. So. I know it's a lot. And then taking vacation next month. So trying to figure out what's going to happen there, I'm going to have I'm going to have to have her doing intake for a week, which she's she's fine. She's she's done it. She used to they used to add her old firm. They use to make them do intake for like certain like an hour, you know, here and there. But she is busy on top of that. So. Well, you could. Have you thought about hiring an overseas worker that comes in a little bit cheaper. I've thought about it. Yeah. But so I think more more of my missed calls tend to be after hours rather than during the actual workday. So if you get someone overseas when they're still working, you know, eight or maybe even a ten hour a day if you get a good one but still need a Yeah, I'm talking more. Just doing a lot of the admin stuff that you're, you're kind of swimming through right now. So. Like We'll like track tracking your numbers. And are you getting your bills out on time. That's something that you could easily delegate out to have someone do. that I'm pretty. That I'm, I'm good with. This month that was a little behind because it was my first month using the new software and it took it took me like three days to get my bills done. It was a really frustrating process, but now that I have it figured out, it's going to be it's going to be way Yeah okay. All right. Great month in the books. We're going to have a bigger one next month. So I'm excited to hear. Yeah. So from any advice from a lead tracking standpoint or just got to do it manually at this point, Seems like you have to. Yeah something like that. I mean you do know your calls coming in because those that you can probably look up real easy, right? You just don't know the quality of those calls. Yeah. Are you sure you're getting a transcript from every one though? Yeah. You can just easily dump that into an AI and it can, like, score them for you. At least you could train that in no time. yeah that's true. I could do that. That's another thing I want to add to my list is starting, starting to use AI in some form because everyone seems to be doing Everyone's talking about I don't know if everyone's doing in. I'm not even sure everyone's getting value at it right now, but that's still TBD. Yeah, don't stress it because you could kill yourself trying to like, quote, catch up to nothing, catch up to a phantom. It's important. But, you know, start where it's simple and easy to, you know, make sure you're protecting your data, obviously. Right. Yeah. time, you're going to look back on this and be like, man, I was so busy then. And I hope so. I hope one day I'll look back and not be so busy. You got a couple more years of this. The problems just get bigger until they you get enough staff that you can focus on the the real big issues. Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean that's been my goals from the Yeah. You haven't wavered from that. You've been really focused on that. So this is just another step. You're getting there. We're getting to watch it in real time. It's fun. Yeah March will do next month. March will be a fun one to report I'm hoping I think one more one more case. We'll hit that 50 mark, would be. Go get it. You got to call that that lead back that just Yeah. Two of them. Yeah. the transcript. So let's see what it's about. Tom we appreciate you. We appreciate your time. Love hearing your story and journey. And we'll look forward to seeing you next month.