[ Sound Effects ] Our next in-person mastermind is coming up this fall and we're heading to Vegas. We're kicking off this mastermind with an in-person tour at Zappos downtown Las Vegas campus, where you'll learn their strategies behind company culture, core values, employee engagement, and customer service. Looking outside the legal industry for business concepts and strategies allows you to gain fresh perspectives and innovative solutions that can be applied to improve and differentiate your firm's operations. Following the tour are the mastermind hot seats. Every attendee has the opportunity to dive deep into their business obstacles with their mastermind group and coach. We believe that nothing beats working on your firm in-person. So join us in Las Vegas on November 7th and 8th. This is your chance to break through barriers, spark new ideas, and accelerate your law firm's success. Limited spots are available. Visit maxlawevents.com for full event details and to grab your ticket today. [ Sound Effects ] Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum Liar Podcast. Maximum Liar Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking, and Tyson Nutrips. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome. I'm Jim Hacking. And I'm Tyson Nutrips. What's up, Jimbo? Oh, how you doing, Tyson? It sounds like you're at an arbitration or some such thing. Well, just got done. I've changed, so I'm not in my suit anymore, but arbitration went well. We got done pretty quickly, so we got a lot of prep work done early. So, yeah, it went well. Now we just had to wait. It's a high low, so we can't really lose, because the lowest we would get is $2.50. We're in pretty good shape, so I'm not too worried about it. Yeah. How are you, Doug? Nice. I'm great. I'm great. I'm having a good day. I just got done with my immigration show, so it's recording day for me. What else? Just live in the dream. Having fun. Went to the gym this morning. Everything is good. Nice. Well, let's get to our guest today. The guest is Martin Parsons. Martin owns the Legal Advocacy Headquarters, a law practice in Carterville, Illinois that specializes in advising small businesses and nonprofits and assists with trademark registration. Martin views his relationship with his clients as a partnership in their business or nonprofit success. We can get into more of the details of this bio and a little bit, Martin, but welcome to the show. We're happy to have you. Hey, thanks, Tyson. I'm excited to be here. Well, Martin, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you like to do, how you like to spend your time, how you make money, all that good stuff. All right. Yeah, so I spent 24 years in the military and did some time at one of the places that Tyson was at for McCoy, Wisconsin, a couple of different summer camps. I'm sorry, retired, and then I went to law school, so I'm a late in life lawyer and initially worked at the law school doing VA disability claims appeals. And then through some kind of law and COVID walks, decided my wife and I decided to do our own thing. So I opened my practice and then decided to keep it very narrowly focused with small businesses. And the nonprofits initially was just sort of a thing like, oh, we'll do those too, but recently it's real that part of my practice has grown more than the small business side because here in deep Southern Illinois, there aren't many attorneys who do it or do it in a way that nonprofits can afford it. So that part's been really growing. We have a couple of unique subscription models that helps with that. So, and then my spare time, I love to read, I'm a huge reader, I'm always reading something. I just finished a book that we'll talk about later and just spent a time with a family, love to travel, love to travel. All right. So, Jim, before you ask a question, I got to ask about when you were at Fort McCoy, did they have McCoy's there whenever you were there? Oh, yeah. I mean, McCoy's has been there since like the '90s. And I was there back in the late '80s and it was there, it was there then. It might not look, might, may have looked a little different then. Like many of the barracks did at that time too, but it's pretty fancy now, they got screens all over the place. So, okay, cool. I was just, I was just curious. All right, Jim, go ahead. Well, let me thank you for your service. First of all, and anybody that was in those places where Tyson was, that I know that that was hard work where you were. So, thank you for that. Talk to us about being a, a late in life lawyer, as you call them. What was that like going to law school and how did you interact with the, I always thought that the two years I took off between undergrad and law school helped me? How about, how about you, what was it like going through law school and observing these young people who thought that it was just so hard to be in law school? There was a lot of that, for sure. It really worked out. I was very fortunate. I was the oldest person in the class, oldest guy in my class. There was one other guy who was one month younger, who also happened to serve in the Army National Guard. But the, my classmates really just embraced me. It was really pretty fantastic. I started law school coming out of a divorce, a sort of a change of, there was just a lot of life stuff happening, so I came to law school out of a divorce. Kind of just wanted to keep my head down, do my job, go to school, you know, do this thing and knock it out and go back to my apartment. And several of these young, my classmates wouldn't let me. They just, they included me in a lot of things and very supportive and helpful. And then I was able to help them bring a little perspective at times to the challenges that they, as you said, they kind of perceived that they were running into. But it was an uphill battle at first. I hadn't studied. I hadn't been to school in years, so figuring that out was hard. I mean, my first year of law school, my grades were not stellar. They improved as I went along as I figured it out. But it was a great experience. I really, I love to learn and read, so I was right in my element. All right, so Martin, I want to ask you maybe, maybe getting a little weeds a little bit, but I'm curious. So in your pre-interview questionnaire, you said something, it's really interesting to me. So give me a second to my read through both of these. The one aspect of your firm that is most successful, you said client service and satisfaction, we work hard to be accessible and easy to talk with. We designed our office space to be client focused and comfortable. Many of our clients who have never worked with a lawyer remarked that it was not the experience they expected. Okay, so that's not the full thing you said, there's a little bit more, but then the aspect that you need that needs the most work, you said marketing and client acquisition. To me, that seems, those two, if the client satisfaction is there and you focus on that, but then it's not leading to more clients, it just seems a little off. So I wanted you to talk about that because you can probably get a little more clarity, but I do find that interesting because sometimes what we'll do is we'll provide this amazing service and the clients are happy and then we're not getting referrals from. So talk about that a little bit. I think I filled that survey out several months ago and it has, interestingly, in the last couple of months, I've been getting more and more referrals. And partly because it's taken longer to get started, I've been at this a couple of years, because we're so narrow, small business and nonprofits, we do trademarks, and I'll do an occasional will or power attorney for some friends, but because of that narrow focus, it's taken a little longer for that word to get out and the referrals to come, but for some reason, in the last few months, it really has started to take off because you're right, you would think that from that fantastic customer service and the things that they're getting and feeling when they come see us, there would be more referrals. And we're starting, we are starting to see that slowly, I guess, maybe I'm impatient. How did you decide your practice area and what led you to decide to do trademarks? I had, so the small business and nonprofits, I worked at a small firm briefly out of law school, about a year out of law school, before I went to do the veterans clinic and they did small business and nonprofits. So I had been exposed to it in my former life in the guard. I had owned a couple of different small businesses, so I had an interest in it. My dad had small businesses, so sort of in the family, and then when we decided to do our own thing, we had ruled out things like family law, criminal law, didn't really want to go deep into trust in the states and doing just kind of a serve, you know, what do I like to do? Who do the people I want to hang out with and spend my time with and serve and small business owners and nonprofit founders were the people that we really came to? And then a friend of mine, who was here locally, who did IP work and was going to be leaving the area, is actually who suggested trademarks to me. So I learned about it from her and it's also, and it goes very nicely with the small business advice that we're providing and even nonprofits. So Martin, are there any things that your parents did that you picked up from that either you really don't like that they did or that you really did that you do like that you picked up and added to your firm because my parents are both small business owners and like they do some things that I think are fantastic, but sometimes it just drives me crazy some of the things they do from a business standpoint, it's not a good idea. So I wonder if you learn anything from your parents like that? Yeah, I definitely did. I mean one of the big ones is the value of relationships that people do business with people was one of their recurring themes and even now when I call home to tell them how things are going, I get the same two or three mantras and that's, but that's one of them I learned from them is the importance of relationships and taking care of people and customer service. Probably the things that I didn't like that they did with my dad was sort of a serial entrepreneur as he just bounced from one thing to another. There was hardly anything, he had one very successful endeavor which was a restaurant, you know, small town that was very successful and he sold it and got out and then went to another business he had for a year or so and then another one and then another one, so we bounced through quite a few. So one of the things that I've learned and try to share with my clients is, you know, and I've seen from my own practice it's, it's not a quick thing, it takes time and you've got to stick with it and you can't just bounce from one to the other where some things that I saw in how they worked and some due diligence and my dad did a lot of, he trusted a lot of people, probably common and as we know, if it's not writing then things happen or in a good writing. So those are things that I, for my own practice and that I try to share with my clients is the importance of documenting things regardless of how good a friend they might be or your family member, we've got to put it in writing because otherwise how do we know what's really going to happen or supposed to happen. Let's talk about your firm setup. So what kind of a structure is it, who is it just you, do you have helpers or what's the team like? Yeah, I'm the only lawyer at the moment and then I have an assistant who is my wife who, she used to be the admissions director for the law school, that's kind of how we met after I was out of law school and working there. So we both left the law school at the same time so she's my assistant and she's, her customer service is just fantastic. She thinks of all those things that I don't follow up cards and emails and notes and tracking birth. Are you tired of the marketing guessing game? 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So, what are you waiting for? To learn more about how Rise Up Media can transform your firms, visit riseupmedia.com/maxlaw and rise is spelled with a Z. RiseUpMedia.com/maxlaw. With days and other events and watching the news for things that happened to their kids to send little messages to let them know that we saw that and congratulate them and welcoming them when they come in. All those things. She's just fantastic at. So, that's part of our really great customer service, I believe. In addition to just kind of how our office is set up, when you first come in, we just have, it's almost like a living room with very comfortable chairs and a coffee table. You don't walk right into a reception window or even a desk. It just feels a little different. You come back to the conference room and it's right next to our kitchen and it's kind of like coming to our house almost with sort of the vibe we were going for, which I learned from a mentor of mine when I first started practicing. She did most of her interviews with clients in the kitchen, just meeting in the kitchen, sometimes over a beer or other cocktail. She met a lot of clients and she didn't often wear shoes. We haven't gone that far. I am intrigued by this. When you described it, I'm picturing you all having conversations with your business clients and a kitchen almost. It's a really interesting approach. I really like that. I like the approach that you take when it comes to clients and everything too. That's pretty cool. Let's talk a little bit about the book. Why the book? Why did you want to write the book? What was that about? When I left the law school, in this area, it's not a big area. You guys are St. Louis, not that far away. Carbondale, SIU. In this area, in our two or three county area, because of all the work I did for veterans, I was the veteran's guy. So any time a judge or a lawyer or anyone had a question related to veterans, call Martin. Call Martin. They'd call it law school or they'd text me. As when we decided to go out and do our own thing and not focus on veterans work specifically, even though our logo and our brand has a very, I think, military look to it, then that was intentional. I needed to do something to let people know I knew other things or that I was doing something else. Since I loved Reed, I stumbled on somewhere this gentleman named Mike Kapusi who talked about the short, helpful book, The Shook, and having this small book that you can use like a calling card or like your business card. I thought, "Well, that sounds great. I've always kind of wanted to write a book. There's an incentive." So I did and wrote the book and then have used it. It worked out. I had a deadline to do it. I also work with a nonprofit called Dogtag Bakery that helps disabled veterans learn to be entrepreneurs and they had asked me to give a session on legal business issues. So that was my deadline to finish the book so that they could have it and have a tool to use. And then when I go out and do presentations or meet clients, I've got the book. So it's just a great thing. It shows expertise in many clients' minds that I might know something because I wrote a book. Talk to us, Martin, about the process of writing the book and what you've done to promote the book. The process was just kind of grinding it out. I'm a big David Letterman fan from old days. You used to have the top 10 lists. So that's where the title came from, top 10 legal mistakes that entrepreneurs make. So once I decided it was going to be a top 10, I picked 10 chapters and 10 mistakes and then dug into thinking about all the things that entrepreneurs make in that. And then, fortunately, my wife was very -- it takes a lot of time, nights, weekends, and we were on a short deadline. So she was very gracious, gave me the time and space to do it. And it was right before the big rise in chat GPT that might have been a little bit of helpful in structure, just kind of grounded out. And then I learned how to publish it. I just studied. I love to learn things. So instead of sending it off to somebody, I figured out how to publish it and how to get copies. And ultimately landed on Amazon because that's really the most reasonable way to get copies made and printed. I don't really sell it there much. It's mostly just so that I can order copies as I need them to give to people. And then I use it. I speak to chambers. I'm one of several different chambers of commerce. And any time I go to speak, I've been coming to the business law expert. So at the end of last year, I made the rounds at four different chambers of commerce to talk about new laws in 2024. And I took books with me and I presented it at some other rather specific conferences. And I take books there to typically give away an exchange for an email is what I try to get in exchange for that. Because that email list is important as we know. So let's talk a little bit about some tips you might give to people. What are a few tips you might give to people that want to write their own book and publish it themselves? Because I mean, we've had a couple of people talk about it in the past, but no one recently. So I am curious if things have changed a little bit. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely changing. You know, we just chat GPT definitely or any other GPTs. Definitely make it easier to get going to have an outline done and get kick started for sure. But it's definitely something that anybody can do. You can do it. It's not hard. It takes time. And that's the challenge that most of us have the period when I wrote it. Fortunately, I had the time if I was setting about because I thought about writing another one for nonprofits that I just haven't found the time for because now I'm working and have more to do. But there are businesses that'll help you write it. There's some that are specifically targeted at lawyers where they'll interview. They'll kind of like this. They'll do an interview. They have a structure. They'll ask questions, get your tone of voice and they'll take that information and ghost write your book and do everything all the way to publishing, creating the covers, getting you copies along the way. But it's definitely doable. And there's different ways to do it. I've moved away from I still have hard copies, but I moved away from that to digital copies. And there's different ways to be able to give those away as PDFs or Adobe or a Moby file that people could read on a Kindle that makes it really inexpensive that you really don't have to have a big investment in buying a box of 100 books to give away. You could have a QR code on your business card that someone scans, takes into a landing page, they put in their email and they get an electronic copy of your book. So what does the future hold? What are your big plans for world domination? I want to add more nonprofit clients. That part of my practice is the part that just really I just really enjoy being able to help them. I mean, I love just helping people who want to help other people. It's fantastic. And as I mentioned before, I've got a couple of subscription options that make it pretty affordable and accessible for them. For 95 bucks, they can call me. 95 bucks a month, they can call me, email me and ask questions to stay out of trouble. We've got a couple of other levels that give them some different levels of work, which for nonprofits is good because they can budget for it better than just the expenses that come up when they don't. And the nonprofit founders and entrepreneurs, mentally or a little different entrepreneurs, we want to do it all, at least initially, we want to learn how to market and we want to do everything. We don't want to give any of it up or much of it up. But nonprofit founders seem to be more ready to just say, you know what, I don't know, I don't want to know, I just want to help people, you take it. So they've been more likely to get involved with the subscription and get and do those things. So the nonprofit side, I really want to keep growing. And then I really enjoyed the trademark side. It's creative. And the people who are doing those things are creative, coming up with fun names. And so I really like that practice area too, that I'm starting to try to get more work in. And I don't know if I'm not ready. I haven't thought, you know, a lot of thoughts about growing the practice yet, even still get my own stuff figured out. I think that's I think it's a natural thing. I do want to go back for a second, because you work with your spouse. I work with my spouse. Jim works with his spouse and I've seen it more and more. And I do you have any advice you'd give to lawyers that are considering that as an option? You've got to have a good relationship and being able to communicate open and honestly, I mean, like any relationship, communication is key. But we've definitely worked through some of our things. Before we worked together, when I was at law school, I didn't have a secretary and assistant, I had law students, and you can't really count on them for much, not completely, or at least not, you know, anyway, I didn't really have people to delegate to or that often. So or answer to because I was sort of a on an island of sorts. She had, you know, she answered to the dean, but didn't have to work for somebody either. So we've had to navigate working together and working for each other. But we've been able to do it because we can communicate with it. And if I get a little tense or short, we're able to talk about it. So I think communication is the most important part in deciding who what everybody's job duties are. I sometimes have to remind her that she's not an attorney and that legal advice, because she likes to give advice. She is a, you know, she's a mother and a wife and she likes to give advice. But that's not her arena. So we've just worked on defining those those boundaries. And I think that's the other things that are that are important. Each of us knowing our lanes. And I have to work on giving stuff up, not responding to every email that comes in, because that's what I'm used to doing. So giving those things up to her and let let her do her job. So that I can do my job better and more efficiently. Do you have any advice, Tyson and Jim for for you've been doing it longer than I have with your spouses? Yeah, I mean, I'd say, I mean, your advice was sound. It really was. But I think the number one thing is that this is your job. This is my job. Like, like just like anyone else, but like, it's got to be even more clear with your spouse because there's more of the tendency that you want to kind of step on each other's toes. And if you don't, if everybody in the firm doesn't know who's doing what, then you could, you could have some real issues. And so we had to, we stumbled through that for the, for probably the first six months, but I think once we figured that out, it was like, okay, we're cooking, but you got to figure that part out because otherwise you do have, it could cause some issues at home. And so that'd be like my number one bit of advice. Determine the roles, write out the roles, make sure that you're both very clear on it. And then a lot of those issues won't become issues. Jim, what do you say? For me, I agree with all that. I agree with all that. The big thing for me though is leaving work at work and not bringing stuff home. I think that's the big headache is when you're trying to fall asleep. And one of the other of you says, Hey, this thing, I forgot to tell you this thing happened at one 30 day at the office. I meant to tell you earlier, but yes. And then you're like, ah, so it can be disruptive. Yeah. Yeah, I second that because I'm not the one. I don't have, I don't get my work email on my phone. I don't have, I don't, I get it on. I don't have notifications on my phone for my work email, but she does. And so instead of me, I'm not typically the one bringing the work home. Well, that's, that's exactly what'll happen. Jim, going to sleep and just like, Hey, you know, Joe emailed in and, and they they said yes to the contract. So yeah, leaving that, that separation is important. We're working on that. We're, we're not as close on that one. We're not close at all on that one, Jimbo. It's like you're speaking to my wife or something that we, we, I tried to, I tried to enforce like a no, no business in bed rule, but it, it has never been enforced. So that's how it happens sometimes. But Martin, we are going to start to wrap things up. Before we do, how do people get in touch with you if they want to talk to you? My email or our websites, legalad, because he headquarters.com. I'm, I'm on LinkedIn, Martin Parsons or Martin D Parsons on LinkedIn. My website has contact information and a contact form, probably just the best, the best spot legalad because he headquarters.com. Nice. All right, we're going to wrap things up before I do. I want to remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group, just search maximum layer on Facebook and you'll find us there. And then we would love to have you in the guild, maxlogil.com. We have a lot of great members there that just share a lot of their, their tools that they use, a lot of the, the knowledge that they have. It's just a great group of people. So we'd love to have you there. And while you're listening to the rest of this episode, if you could help us spread the love by giving us a five star review, it would mean a lot to us and we'd really appreciate it. Jimmy, what's your Haggot week? Well, I was on my walk today listening to Gary V and I was reminded of the fact that he has this like 260 slide deck that he gives away for free. It's very, very good. It's on how to repurpose content. And you know, we have a lot of people who struggle to create content and struggle to know how to repurpose content. He talks about the seven big platforms. And it's like a step by step by step that as he says, probably, but it's also true that if other people could charge $2,000 or something for this, it's free. So if you just Google Gary Vaynerchuk social media slide deck, you'll come right to it and it's terrific. I love it. Free's good. I like it. All right, Martin, we always ask our guests to give a tip or hack of the week. Could be a book podcast, quote, tool, whatever, you name it. What you got for us? Yeah, I'm a book reader. So I've got a book called make time. It's, you know, the central focus is about choosing a focus point. It's a lot of similarities with the one thing by Gary Keller in that initial thoughts. But it's written by a couple of Silicon Valley guys that self-proclaimed time geeks. So after the initial part of it, it's then it's got these 87 little tips and hacks about how to do that, how to pick that one thing, how to focus on that one thing. I hadn't heard of the book until recently watching a couple of YouTube videos that are randomly stumbled on it. So some of the tips have been very helpful. I like it. Very good. I've never heard of that before. So I'm going to check it out now that I need another freaking book to read, but I added another one yesterday to my list. It just, they're actually I bought it. I actually bought another one yesterday. So anyways, I got it. I got the recommendation from our buddy, David Haskins. So my tip of the week is actually not the book. My tip of the week is bring in outside people to help train your people. And so one of the things that we've been focusing on is getting referrals. And we're not like, we're not the pros when it comes to referrals. And so what we what we're done is we've actually scheduled different people that we know are pretty good at referrals. David Haskins, he came in and he didn't necessarily speak on referrals. It was pretty much a marketing workshop. It was pretty cool. And it was about social media and it was loosely related to referrals. And a lot of it had to do with like social media marketing and how the team could do it. It was, it was a really fun exercise. It was, it was, he did an amazing job. David Haskins, he's a really smart person when it comes to marketing. He's got a lot of, a lot of cool ideas. And so it was fun. We did, we did that yesterday. And so don't hesitate to reach out to outside people. We've done it where we've actually paid people to do it too, where it's, it's worth the money. It is absolutely worth the money if you pay people to do it. We hired a nutritionist once where she came in. We paid her to, to give us a remote training on, on what you should eat, what you should need, like some practical tips on eating. And so I highly encourage people to reach out to people outside of the, outside of the legal industry, outside of the legal space to get training for your firm because it, they know things we don't know. So it's, I think it's, I think it's important. But Martin, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. I love the fact that you, I know you did this kind of later in life, but I love that you're, like you, that's something you wanted to do. You went out and you did, achieved it. I think that's really cool. That's really admirable. So thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing your story. Yeah, thanks, Jim. It is great to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer, Badgash, to stay in contact with your host and to access more content, go to maximumlawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time. Hey, before you go, stick with me for just a minute because I have a discount that is exclusive to maximum lawyer podcast listeners only. And I want to make sure you know about it. As you all know, it is absolutely crucial to stay on top of calls with clients, with court staff, with judges. I even had a client the other day say that the provider was calling him saying that they've been trying to get ahold of us and they had left us a couple voicemails. 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