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Secrets of Winning Arguments Every Entrepreneur Should Know | Ryan Umina DSH #1290
00:57:05
Discover the secrets of winning arguments every entrepreneur should know and take your persuasion skills to the next level! 🚀 In this episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly, we sit down with an accomplished trial lawyer turned...
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- [00:00]
Ryan
What you're doing. Okay, I'll teach a little something that's about argumentation. Never try and untell the other side story. You stick to your version of the truth. They tell their version of the truth. When you start trying to untell their version, they got shots.
- [00:17]
Sean
When you lose, you're definitely going to.
- [00:18]
Ryan
Lose, because now they're just. You're playing.
- [00:27]
Sean
All right, guys, got Ryan from SCTC Pros. First guest from West Virginia. Represent.
- [00:31]
Ryan
Yeah. Big shout out to West Virginia.
- [00:34]
Sean
Let's go.
- [00:35]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. Went to law school out there. It's an interesting place. You know, it gets a little bad of a wrap sometimes, you know, nationally, but it's an absolutely stunning place. And they're actually doing a lot right now. A lot of manufacturing jobs going in there. Big businesses. Berkshire Hathaway, one of their companies, putting a big manufacturing plant down there. And then people don't realize there's all sorts of, you know, interesting people that. That come from there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Little place. I grew up. So I grew up just south of where, like, West Virginia University is. It's like the next little county down, like 15 minutes away. And you're talking that whole county. The county has 60,000 people, and people like Nick Saban's from there.
- [01:22]
Sean
Wow.
- [01:22]
Ryan
Mary Lou Retton's from there. Senator Manchin, who, you know, a couple of years ago was probably the most powerful senator in the Senate when he was the tiebreaker. He's from there. Starting center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Zach Frazier's from there. Dante still starting defensive tackle for the Arizona Cardinals. They played at a 800 kid high school in West Virginia on the same team, and they're, you know, two of the 700 starters in the NFL. That's crazy. It's an odd little place, man. It's cool. A lot. A lot of great folks from there. Yeah.
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Sean
Quality over quantity is what they say, right?
- [01:59]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's always nice. You know, I love getting out here, you know, in these larger stages and, you know, chatting with people and representing for all those guys back home. Yeah.
- [02:11]
Sean
What made you want to become a lawyer? And what type of law do you practice?
- [02:14]
Ryan
Yeah. So, you know, path to becoming a lawyer, you know, I finished undergrad a little bit later in life. I was, like, 25. And so I had some time to, you know, think about what am I actually good at. You know, I spent, I guess, my summary like hospitality management and things like that. I was like, maybe I'll just work at a resort. And I was always pretty good at Public speaking and, you know, liked some academic exercises. And you know, one of the things about becoming a lawyer that I would tell anyone who's thinking about it, you have to really practice, even if you can speak well, reading, writing, and then like philosophical logic. Right. You need to understand true logic. And so like, I minored in philosophy and really appreciated the academic exercise of that. And so, you know, when I went to law school, I was just very focused on being a trial lawyer. It's just what called me. And people would say, what is a trial lawyer? I tell people it's like, you ever see a show, you know, the Practice or some of these other, you know, lawyer shows? Suits. Yeah, yeah. And with the exception of maybe some of the corporate stuff they do in suits, which, you know, we handle some of that stuff. I do a wide range of things. I try, I've tried a lot, a lot of cases for someone my age, but I've tried, you know, so many criminal cases, we've handled stuff in the, you know, civil rights arena. A lot of kind of catastrophic injury, wrongful death, people being wrongfully killed. And then, you know, our practice, probably 20 ish percent. We do a lot of business, business work, you know, medium size and, you know, large, small businesses. We do a lot of work for them.
- [04:06]
Sean
What was the first case? Was it a win?
- [04:08]
Ryan
Yeah, so I had a great run in, in trials early on. Yeah, right. You know, I was at a point and again, I worked. They tell you in law school, like, you're not going to see the inside of a courtroom for 10 years, seven years. And I just, I just chose not to believe that. And I, so I was on, like competitive get a trial for them. And they were like traveling trial competition teams every semester starting my second year, so, so four separate teams and, you know, won the school's like, trial competition. So I mean, I really worked at getting good at it. I would, I would set up a computer. I'd go up to the law school on like a Saturday and, you know, set up my computer in the jury box and sit there and be all by myself. Wow. You, you know, practicing and watching and critiquing myself. Yeah. You know how. I mean, you watching yourself on camera sometimes it can be so painful.
- [05:03]
Sean
So uncomfortable hearing my voice. It's like, oh, my God.
- [05:07]
Ryan
Yeah. And, but, you know, that's how you, that's how you learn. And so first, first case all by myself was the first two before that. So very first case, pretty heavily publicized, but I was more, you know, second chair. Just really did like the work of it. I was fortunate when I started out, I don't know practice now. But I ended up, you know, I did big law my first summer and then I was like, I don't, I don't really think that's my.
- [05:35]
Sean
You worked under a big common.
- [05:37]
Ryan
Yeah, I worked for like a. One of my first summer was with one of the, you know, largest law firms in the country. A huge. I mean and they've merged since then. They have about a thousand lawyers. Like giant. Giant firm. Yeah. And which, you know, love those guys. And I have a lot of friends that work in that environment. But it just wasn't for me. I wanted to be, you know, in court. So I had an awesome mentor of sorts who was a judge at the time. He still is a judge, he's a federal judge now. But he let me come and just kind of tag along for the summer, you know, and really, you know, taught, you know, you walk into the courtroom, he's like, all right, here's what really just happened. Right. Here's what's really. Here's what they're really saying. Right.
- [06:19]
Sean
Interesting.
- [06:20]
Ryan
Yeah, it was invaluable. And then I went to work at a smaller firm. But these, they were very well established. So we had some, you know, significant cases. So first trial ever. It was really hot button itch. It was right on the heels, if you recall, the Brock Turner case, you know, this, the Stanford swimmer. Right. And so the allegation was that our client at a party sexually assaulted a girl.
- [06:50]
Sean
Yeah.
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Ryan
And not that she didn't consent, but that she was too intoxicated to consent. Right. And of course you hear that and it's like, oh my gosh. And this, the allegations alone nearly ruined kids lives. He, you know, kicked out of school. Damn. Oh yeah. Kicked out of school. I mean, and it was picked up nationally story.
- [07:09]
Sean
Yeah. This was peak me too movement. Right?
- [07:11]
Ryan
Oh yeah, yeah. And so you're talking. The AP picked it up. It was coast to coast news. And you know, when I got into it, I started realizing and kind of uncovering. So the, the witnesses are the girl. And then she went to this party with her friend and the, you know, our client, this was her ex boyfriend and what ended up coming out, you know, you watch the interviews that they went and gave to the police and they give one version of events and they say one thing about how much they've drank and they say. And then when they're in the student conduct hearing now they're telling a completely different version of events. But then what the saving grace for this young man was there were cameras all over this. It was a fraternity house. And this. It's not like the stereotype that you would think of. This. This gentleman does not look like that.
- [08:14]
Sean
Not the Diddy cameras, no.
- [08:16]
Ryan
And he was a really, really good young man. And you know, that group of guys, they were a good group. They actually got that house only because a rowdier returning got kicked off campus.
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Sean
Okay.
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Ryan
So they got to move into this. This new house, but cameras everywhere. And it was very clear that what happened was the girl ditched her friend at the party to go hook up with her ex boyfriend and left her dished at the party. And then when they're leaving, her friend's yelling at her for ditching her at the party. And she's like, leave me alone. I think I just got raped. And then her friend really starts pushing this narrative. Well, what we came to find out and uncover, they try to tell a story that she goes up to the room and beats on the door. And they come to the door, and she's trying to pull her out of the room, and he's pulling her back and slams the door. This is a story that they tell you Watch the videotape. She comes to the door, she has a conversation. She says goodbye and leaves. He's nowhere to be found.
- [09:17]
Sean
Wow.
- [09:19]
Ryan
And then the alleged victim attempted to say that. Because they're saying, you're so drunk. He didn't forcibly do it. You're so drunk, though, you can't give consent. And they're like, what? They're like, what happened after? Like, when she's talking to the police, he kicked me out of the room, and I'm carrying my clothes down the hallway naked to the bathroom, crying. Lo and behold, in the video, they walk out of the room, they're holding hands. She's fully clothed. They go into the bathroom. She realizes she forgot an earring. He goes back, gets her earring for her that she forgot. Because you'd remember that if you were so, you know, incoherent that. Yeah, yeah, you know, and takes her. Takes that back to her and holds her hand, walks her down the stairs. Didn't need her.
- [10:00]
Sean
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- [10:52]
Ryan
She didn't hold her hand. She freely kind of bounced down the stairs and goes to her friend. And then when you see she engages a friend, the friend is angry, right? And it's, you know, and then, and then, you know, what we kind of later found out is it sounds like it maybe they maybe weren't just friends, the two gals at the party together, right? So she didn't want to tell her, hey, I bounced on you to go hook up with my boyfriend. You know, da da da, da, da. And it turned into police went and pulled this kid out of his bed at 4:00 in the morning, interrogated him all night, arrested him, charged him, he had to stand trial. He was kicked out of school.
- [11:36]
Sean
That's crazy.
- [11:37]
Ryan
You know, they're just, their inconsistencies were so much, you know, we had a four person was a retired, you know, female school teacher, not guilty, you know, gave the kid his life back.
- [11:51]
Sean
So that's nuts. Did he get back into school? Did they let him be transferred?
- [11:55]
Ryan
He transferred. That's what, that's what happens. And I mean in a college town, you know, obviously that topic, right? And it's been talked about a lot lately, sexual assault and consent and all of these things. And that topic is a very sensitive issue, man. But I would tell you, I have seen, and it's scary, I've seen a couple incidents now where, here's how it always happens. I've probably seen three cases like this, right? Here's how it always happens. Young lady goes out and she ends up hooking up with some dude and she has some sort of significant other that is not that dude. And then she says, well, I didn't want to or something like that.
- [12:40]
Sean
Yeah.
- [12:41]
Ryan
And then significant other says, well then that's, you know, you've been sexually assaulted and we need to do something about it. And that's a scary thing, man. I have two sons and I've seen it firsthand. We've defended them and you know, very hard to win because of the nature of the allegation and fortunately the ones that we were involved with, we did. But but, you know, we had truly innocent clients. That's the scariest.
- [13:08]
Sean
That's scary, man.
- [13:09]
Ryan
Scariest thing you. You can do. I mean, it doesn't matter. You know, you try cases for money. You try cases for someone's freedom. I don't care how much money it is, dude, nothing is live as when you wake up and you're driving to a courthouse and if you don't win this, this person's getting years or life. You know, if you're going to trial, it's like there's big years on the table, you know, plus 10. So, yeah, it's.
- [13:33]
Sean
There's a lot online.
- [13:34]
Ryan
Yeah, it gets you out of bed differently in the morning, you know, you're still a human. It's like, you know, even to now, it's, you know, we've done dozens of trials now and probably over 20 jury trials. And I say we, My, my wife and I practice together.
- [13:52]
Sean
Nice.
- [13:53]
Ryan
Yeah, we've tried. We've tried many, many cases together. She's excellent. And you know, so you still, it's like you look yourself in the mirror and you put your suit on and, you know, the jury walks in and it's like, you know, counsel, you may give your opening, you know, argument, and it's. It's live, dude. You gotta stand up, go look at jury in the eyes and. And deliver. It's.
- [14:15]
Sean
It's an art, man.
- [14:16]
Ryan
It's a fun game to play. Yeah. A lot of psychology, tons of psychology. I would say I learned the most about psychology as. As really studying the craft of being a trial attorney, because you study everything and you learn, you know, one of the, one of the most significant things. People don't make decisions for the reasons that they think that they make decisions. People make decisions based on their previously held beliefs and then they're just trying to fit logic into that previously held belief and then they justify it. But then this. By the time they're hearing the rationale for their decision, they're justified.
- [14:59]
Sean
Wow. So they make their decision early on then.
- [15:01]
Ryan
And for reasons that they don't realize. Wow. For reasons that they don't realize. The primary reason that people make decisions are survival or the appearance of danger. Right. And so are you familiar with Mazal's hierarchy of needs? Heard of it? Yeah. So it's like a triangle on the bottom is like, you know, survival, scarcity, you know, what your basic needs, and at the very top is self actualization. And there's, you know, these different levels and basically, if the need below isn't met, you can never get to like self actualization.
- [15:39]
Sean
Yeah.
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Ryan
And where a lot of messaging for. For different things. You know, politics, we see this a lot. It's. They're trying to keep you in the survival state because if you can get someone afraid, if you can grab on to fear, then you have them.
- [16:00]
Sean
Right. The egg prices in politics, they got a lot of people in that one.
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Ryan
The gas prices, all of it. Yeah. And that's why, you know, it's unfortunate that that's the manner in which. That's why politics feels so negative. Right. Could you imagine if they didn't have to do that? It's just so powerful. If they don't do it, the other side is going to do it. And if you can put someone in a fear state and get their mind into a survival state and make them believe that them and their DNA. Right. Them and theirs are in some sort of danger or will lack some sort of resources. You got them. You got them.
- [16:40]
Sean
Yeah.
- [16:41]
Ryan
And that's what it all really comes down to. So, you know, the people will intentionally create fear. That's why it's so hard. Certain criminal cases are hard because if that person sitting next to you seems like they would be a danger at all to the community, they won't even really care to hear the evidence. That person is a threat. Yeah. And then they have confirmation bias. So you really want to try and get a jury. It's nice when you can talk first.
- [17:14]
Sean
Yeah, that's a good point. So I'd imagine the conviction rate on criminal cases is higher than.
- [17:18]
Ryan
Yes. Overall. Overall. Yeah. And you know, especially in the federal system that, you know, people go to trial.
- [17:26]
Sean
The federal system, 95 or something.
- [17:28]
Ryan
Crush it.
- [17:29]
Sean
Crazy.
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Ryan
Yeah. They have, I mean, immense talent. It's not even like so much. The resources. Yeah, the federal government has a lot of resources, but they just get very talented, thorough attorneys being it. Being an AUSA is a pretty prestigious post to hold a USA Assistant, like a Assistant US Attorney.
- [17:53]
Sean
Oh, okay.
- [17:54]
Ryan
So you have the US Attorney's office for like every district. Federal courts are broken down, you know, on the trial court level. You have a bunch of districts in different states and then each district might have multiple courthouses and just kind of divided up. So that's the kind of the trial court level. So you have a U.S. attorney for, you know, you have the Attorney General and then they have a specific U.S. attorney for every federal district that, that runs that. Like a very famous one is Southern District of New York, Southern District of New York. The U.S. attorney there is a very, very Very prestigious post because of the litigation that happens in that district. Right. And then everyone that works under them is an ausa.
- [18:46]
Sean
Got it.
- [18:47]
Ryan
Yeah. That's what they're called. Yeah.
- [18:48]
Sean
They're lethal.
- [18:49]
Ryan
Yeah. They're, you know, smart cookies. Right. There's. They're smart. They're. They're really, really smart. And then, you know, a lot of them go on to, you know, larger firms or, you know, maybe into teaching or. Or different things like that. Yeah.
- [19:03]
Sean
What was your toughest case? Was it a criminal case?
- [19:06]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah, I. You know. Well, toughest. Toughest. Case I've ever had. No, it was actually a civil rights case. And it was like, first. First kind of case that someone just brought in, like, to me. And it was a. It was a shooting, police shooting, and he had run. Right. And, you know, they try to say he was basically being a threat with the vehicle, and they shot him. He was unarmed. Right. And, you know, factually. Right, factually, yes. It was likely a bad shooting if you really looked at the physical evidence at the scene, because basically, he had run and he ran out through the country, and then they were already shooting at him, which they had no right to shoot at him.
- [20:01]
Sean
So he got pulled over and was on foot.
- [20:03]
Ryan
Running. No, he was running in a car.
- [20:06]
Sean
Oh.
- [20:06]
Ryan
And then they cornered him up at a well pad. Right. And the. The big, critical piece of evidence in this was this. He's in a Jeep. It's a stick shift Jeep. Right. And they attempted to say he was coming at them. Right. And coming at them and shoot him. So if that is true, then, yeah, he could have absolutely shot him. However, they had pulled the body out of the Jeep and everything. And it was noted in the report that when they came, the Jeep is still running. Well, a stick shift cannot run in gear.
- [20:50]
Sean
Wow.
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Ryan
A stick shift must be a neutral to continue to run with no one in the car. Which means unless he somehow, in his last dying moment, shift the car into neutral, he couldn't have been trying to run it, whatever, because he was, like, backed up into the weeds. It was like a dead end. And then they shot him and then killed him. It was horrific. And, you know, they made a pretty substantial offer to settle that case. And, you know, family just had a different number in mind. Learned a lot about client management in that. I mean, it was a significant offer. And, you know, you get in a trial and you're doing great, and, you know, then people say things like, your own witnesses that don't reflect well, and then they're not even looking at the evidence. They don't care. Once they decide they don't like this person. And I don't think they're doing it consciously. It's just confirmation bias.
- [21:45]
Sean
Right.
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Ryan
You know, once they decide. No, I kind of feel this way. Instead, they will. And this is what people do. They will subconsciously diminish evidence that goes against what they're already thinking and they will amplify evidence that they, you know, support sweater thinking.
- [22:05]
Sean
Yeah, I see that in debates all the time. They'll just completely disregard the other party statement.
- [22:10]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And because of those things, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, people will just like you. You could take two geniuses and let's say they want to argue about politics. Right? Two astrophysicists, you know, super smart dudes on very opposite ends of the spectrum. Would they. Every argument that they make to each other that they think is good and logical will actually just reinforce the other one's previously held beliefs. It actually just makes it worse. Yeah, yeah. The. In persuasion. So here, I'll give you a little free tip.
- [22:41]
Sean
Okay.
- [22:41]
Ryan
Okay. In persuasion, the easiest thing to do is to get someone to agree with you about something that they already agree with. Right. So you can take a premise that you believe that they're already going to agree with. Right. And. And we do this in jury selection. Right? You want to take like underlying themes of your case.
- [23:04]
Sean
Right.
- [23:05]
Ryan
And you know, we had a case once, it was a business case, insurance company breakup. All right? And the one insurance company or the, the agents, they were going off and starting their own. Their own thing. And all they, all they, they hadn't contacted anyone, they hadn't done anything. All they had done was get in touch with the actual insurance companies to sell the lines. So, you know, travelers, farmers, all that, like, they have to be set up with them to sell their insurance. Right. So that was as far as the conversation that they've had. And you know, and for them, it's like, well, you know, why did they do that? It's like, well, they're not even going to think about quitting or leaving or doing their own thing if they can't actually sell anything. Right. So we came up with a theme of. Or not a theme. But in jury selection, we asked, raise your hand if you've ever heard, don't quit one job until you have another. Every single hand.
- [24:08]
Sean
Smart.
- [24:09]
Ryan
Yeah, every single hand goes up and they. We got through, like, openings, you know, the first day, and we get there the next morning. And we had been trying to, you know, we basically Proposed in the beginning, you know, and this was at the time I was the junior attorney on this case, but I was still working for the guys I started with. So great mentors. So, you know, from the beginning, they were just like, hey, listen, we'll leave. You leave. You know, we'll take what's ours. You take what's yours. And we're not exchanging any money. Like, see you later. Like, we're just gonna. We just want to go. We just want to be free. And so we walk in the second day of trial, and, you know, that's how we ended up resolving the case. Jury goes home. Right.
- [24:55]
Sean
Wow.
- [24:56]
Ryan
So it's resolved. We're not paying anything because they were. They were suing us in that case. Yeah. And so we walk out, me and the. You know, the partner I'm working for, and we hit the sidewalk, and one of the jurors comes up, and she's like. She's like, why'd you guys settle? And we're like, well, we didn't. We didn't have to pay anything. And, you know, we just put her behind. She goes. She goes, they didn't have anything on you. She goes, everybody knows you don't quit one job till you have another, and I love it. Yeah, man. So. So those. Those little kind of, you know, when people ask me stuff like this, like when you see someone speaking publicly or speaking like that. Right. It all looks very seamless, but it's tools in a tool belt. It's a polished craft, and. And that's what makes it look so seamless. Right, Right. And you can just grab all these little things from your tool belt. But. But the. The. The things that you learn along the way in getting those skills, they are so unbelievably transferable to especially, like, business. I mean, life and understanding people. But, you know, shifting into entrepreneurship and such. I was just telling someone yesterday, you know, if there's a young, younger person or. I don't even know what young means. Right. Relative.
- [26:12]
Sean
Right.
- [26:12]
Ryan
Yeah. So someone that's, like, unsure and never thought about it. Like, people thinking about going to law school. Like, I would highly, highly recommend that someone's thinking about going to law school. And even if they want to be an entrepreneur, they want to do their own thing, especially if they want to work for themselves. Put in the work, like, do the time and get really good at it and then go. Go just, you know, you don't have to go do a whole career and go be a public defender for three years. Go put in some. Some Time in the trenches and it'll build humility, it'll build a lot of things. But, you know, go to trial and that exercise, I always joke, like, you know, if I, if I do really, really well in my, like, grandkids trust, I'm going to put this in there. They're going to have to go to law school, try three cases for an indigenous person and win.
- [27:00]
Sean
I love it.
- [27:00]
Ryan
And then you get your trust.
- [27:01]
Sean
That's cool.
- [27:02]
Ryan
Yeah. And the reason for that is, I mean, you develop public speaking skills, you understand persuasion, you pool under pressure, at least you eventually get there.
- [27:13]
Sean
Right.
- [27:14]
Ryan
And you're, you're just so much more effective. And then, not to mention, I mean, you pass the bar, you have a pretty good understanding of most of what you need to know on the, the things that people have to pay lawyers for.
- [27:27]
Sean
Yeah.
- [27:28]
Ryan
To do in business, which once you start really going in any business, especially if there's anything with compliance, regulatory, that's sometimes your greatest cost.
- [27:36]
Sean
It's good to know. Yeah. Legal, Legal is a big cost for a lot of business owners.
- [27:40]
Ryan
Massive cost.
- [27:41]
Sean
Yeah.
- [27:41]
Ryan
So I mean, you can shortcut so much of that. Like, I mean, we still use outside counsel, of course, and we still do.
- [27:46]
Sean
Yeah.
- [27:46]
Ryan
Like that. But I mean, we're able to save tremendous amounts, tons of money. Yeah.
- [27:50]
Sean
Because most businesses allocate, you know, 10 to 30% of their revenue right. To legal. Depends on the industry.
- [27:55]
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, we're able to shortcut so much of that. I mean, super, super grateful. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, okay, somebody dedicate five years of your life to that. Plus they do get out in the business world. I mean, I think you just get a lot more respect, you know what I mean? The rooms that you go in, 100 taken much more seriously. It doesn't matter how old someone is. You know what I mean?
- [28:15]
Sean
Lawyers are respected.
- [28:16]
Ryan
Yeah. A lot of jokes. But when you actually get there, you know, to your face, you generally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jokes are fine.
- [28:24]
Sean
No, this is fascinating because basically you're telling me if you're convincing, if you're persuasive, you could beat facts in a courtroom. It's pretty mind blowing.
- [28:30]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [28:31]
Sean
That's really interesting to me.
- [28:32]
Ryan
It's, it's all you're doing. Okay. And I'll teach a little something else about argumentation. Never try. And until the other side story, you stick to your version of the truth. They tell their version of the truth. When you start trying to untell their version, they got you.
- [28:50]
Sean
That's when you lose.
- [28:51]
Ryan
You're definitely going to lose because now they're just. You're playing their game. Now you do see that, you know, in, you know, politics as well. Some politicians are a lot better at that. But there'll be all this noise and all this. Don't even, they're not even going to respond to it. They're just going to keep telling their version of it. Right. Because it just makes you. I don't, I don't want to say it makes you look weak, but for your argument's sake, it is all a trial is. Okay. I really studied and I've given some talks on, like, the history of the jury trial. Right. And it's, it's fascinating. You know, it starts back in like, Germanic tribes, like eight hundreds, and the folk, the people. And, you know, somebody has an issue, you know, farmer Bill took my pig and, you know, rest of the tribe. What's up with that, Bill? And they would just, it would be like a jury. They'd tell their side of the story, you tell your side of the story, and then the, the folk, the people decide. And then that evolved through England and you ended up with like, knights would sit on the court. That's where you get the 12 person. There would be 12 knights that would sit on those courts. And then it continued to evolve. And then, you know, we took England's. The basis of England's legal system. But at the end of the day, all you're doing, these are conflicts between typically friends, people or the government and a person, excuse me, and all you're doing is you're going to get some strangers from the neighborhood, you're going to tell your side of the story, they're going to tell their side of the story, the judge is going to be the referee. And that's that. That's it. That. That's at its most basic sense, it seems much more complex than that. And for me, it helps to simplify it, like then.
- [30:47]
Sean
Yeah, that makes sense. When was the transition from trial lawyer to entrepreneurship? When did that start?
- [30:53]
Ryan
So it was, it was ongoing, you know, and something else I want to say, like, I, I'm, you know, I finished law school. I was 30. I started law school at 27. And, you know, I've been out about nine years now. And I started, you know, when I first started, I was working for. For people and, you know, started little things. I always knew, you know, wanted to get into business. I didn't know. I didn't know how, you know, big or anything like that. And I had A pretty limited understanding of kind of like, the world that I'm in right now. I'm rapidly, like, seeing, like, big business and how it works and just the people that I'm meeting and the friends and just these other projects that are coming to us. But started off, first thing, me and my other friend back in West Virginia, Chirag Desai. He's up in Morgantown. Excellent attorney. We were both sitting there, had a little bit of money, and we started a commercial cleaning company with a sweat equity partner. Put, like, most of the janitorial equipment on. I mean, we had like $15,000 between us. Like, we just graduated, just started working and yeah, put up a little bit of cash, put a bunch of stuff on my overstock credit card. You could get a ton of commercial cleaning stuff on overstock, surprisingly. And, yeah, we started that. You know, you do banks and businesses and things and, you know, buy a little rental property and things like that and a couple other small businesses. And then beginning of COVID took my first, like, big swing, attempting to respond to the market and I guess opening my own law firm. So that was 2019. You know, I didn't think of it as entrepreneurship at the time as much. I just wanted to control my own life and destiny. And so 2020, so my first year had a monster first year. It was crazy, really.
- [32:48]
Sean
At the law firm.
- [32:48]
Ryan
Yeah. Like seven figure years.
- [32:50]
Sean
Damn.
- [32:50]
Ryan
Yeah, that's what I said.
- [32:52]
Sean
And there's a lot of overhead with law firms, too. And a lot of.
- [32:55]
Ryan
Yeah, there's. I mean, there's. There's a. A lot to it, right, in the cost and everything. But. But there's a lot of ways to skin a cat, right? You can do, you know, profit sharing and things of that nature. But I mean, we just. We just. I don't want to say. I hate even saying. Fortunately got some big cases because, you know, typically big injury and death cases are like somebody. Somebody lost something, right? Maybe a life. And you don't even. I don't know, you know, it's like, it's. It's. It's a weird thing to experience because it's like, great. You. You got a really good result for this family, and you helped them and you got them a large sum of money. That's great. But somebody gave something up, right? But yeah, it's a skill that is well paid environments. And so I had a big year and then kind of just grew too fast, right? I mean, hurried up and hired a bunch of people. And this is like January, February 2020.
- [34:01]
Sean
Oh, Covid right.
- [34:02]
Ryan
Yeah. And so I was getting a bunch of calls and they're like, listen, they're like, everyone needs wills, power of attorney, medical power of attorney. Nobody could get them. And then I noticed that they rapidly started changing the notary laws in every state that for the first time in history for these documents, right. You used to be able to a couple states at the time, you could e sign a notary, could e sign on like some real estate transactions. Florida had a law of Texas, but now they really started changing it. And you know, that was the only way that you could get people in nursing homes and hospitals and these things, these documents which those. The people who felt most at risk were like, you'd be surprised how many people don't have their affairs in order. And then now everyone's in quarantine. The people who are most high risk, you definitely can't go see and you definitely can't take a notary and witnesses in there and lawyers. So credo's solution for that? Um, but you know, I was very green in that size, you know, trying to launch something nationally and respond to it. But you know, I had a lot of cash, so put up a lot of capital and you know, tough lessons in entrepreneurship, right. I had some. I think one of the toughest things in a lot of entrepreneurial endeavors nowadays, because you necessarily have a tech component, is if you don't have actual talent in your tech space that can actually do what they say, when they say they're going to do it, you're in big trouble. And I'm telling you, anyone listening? If you're an entrepreneur, any, I don't care if they're your friend, your brother, if they cannot deliver on the tech, they got to go these days.
- [35:39]
Sean
Yeah, it's important.
- [35:40]
Ryan
You're. You're, you're screwed. Your whole business is gone. You know what I mean? Anything is going to be have a back end driven on tech. And if it can't move rapidly and quickly and you can't go to those people with problems and they not have an ego about it. Yeah. And be personally offended when, you know, they didn't get an A plus plus on the first time, they have to go. And that didn't used to be how it was. Man, I was so overly nice. I was my biggest problem in business. You know, I still struggle with like disciplining people and things of that nature. But in any event, you know, with that I learned, you know, I had to shut it down. Just I had, you know, was paying way too many People, I should have just done it. A lot leaner in hindsight. Right. But that gave me the foundation for, you know, kind of the business that I've been focused on now since 23 in the tax credit space. I mean, I learned all about branding and I understood what pitfalls to look for and I understood all of those things. So that's some something else, if anyone, you know, especially the young entrepreneurs or, heck, even the older ones. Right. You know, there was a time where I thought certain failures that I had were absolutely catastrophic and I was the biggest idiot in the world. And, you know, on and on. In any other negative thing you can feel about yourself, and especially when, you know, you had just made more money than you ever had, and then you just lost more money than you could have ever imagined you would have lose, you know, in the blink of an eye. And because you're going for it, you know, go. You gotta go for it. You gotta live.
- [37:08]
Sean
Yeah.
- [37:09]
Ryan
So many people, you know, they're afraid of experiencing that moment. And as someone who survived that moment, it's horrible. Don't get me wrong, wrong. Very painful. But who you come out at on the other side is absolutely fantastic. And you will come to welcome that and you will come to be grateful for that. And you would not change a second about your life and all of that pain if you're doing it right.
- [37:34]
Sean
Yeah, I agree. It's happened to me and it was needed and I grew out, grew much better from it.
- [37:40]
Ryan
Yeah. And I think once you get to that relationship, right. Just kind of with life, and I was probably. I don't know how many other people do. Right. But I was probably late to the game because I was so focused on school and law school. I didn't spend a lot of time on personal development until kind of after that when I, you know, you get to this place and I'm doing, you know, surface level well, got a couple little things going for me. I'm overall doing well. Early 30s, you know, had won some cases. You know, I'd proven to myself, you know, I am a good lawyer. I'd proven to myself other things. I was, you know, financially well off enough. And then you realize, oh, wow, this. What, you know, this thing that you're chasing doesn't make you happy after all. And, you know, it really just comes down to thought patterns. Right. What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about the world around you? What do you believe about where you can go in life and what you can do? I think most depression in life is People are just stuck. They're stuck in a job, they're stuck in a relationship. They're stuck in some sort of situation. Right. And then they have told themselves, either they're not consciously aware of it, or they've justified why to stay stuck rather than move forward. They think whatever the pain is on the other side of getting themselves unstuck is too scary. And then. So people live their whole lives there, 100 whole lives. And so this entrepreneurial journey, man, when it came up, I learned about, you know, kind of the business that I'm in. I'd never heard about, like, the tax credit space. And, you know, I hire all those people right when Covid started and did not lay anyone off. And so I was eligible for some. I met an insurance broker one day, and they're like, have you heard of the, you know, employee retention credit? And I'm like, no, what's that? And they tell me. And of course, you know, I'm like, the poster child for that.
- [39:49]
Sean
Yeah. And you were burning money during the pandemic.
- [39:54]
Ryan
Yeah, I was a poster child for all that stuff. I was trying, you know, I was trying to get it going for everybody, and I was trying to keep people employed. It was really, really important to me. And I. And so, you know, as a. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated consumer. And they tell me, you know, the fee structure and all of that, they're like, hey, but it doesn't cost anything. Let us see if we can get it for you. And if we get it for you, it was 20%. When you get it and you're going to get a bunch of interest, that's going to be like 15 to 20% on top of this number. I'm a lawyer that works on percentages all the time, and that was a much lower number than I'm used to seeing. So I was like, great. And I understand the value of having a specialist. You know, I can't tell you how many cases that come to me. Medical malpractice, for instance. Right. I have a person that is what he does, and I just send them his way. And, you know, and sometimes we work on them together and everything like that. Or. And I like. And I did early in my career just, like, work with specialists a lot. Like, so if I got a really significant case in a particular area, I'd go find the best person.
- [41:04]
Sean
Yeah.
- [41:04]
Ryan
And just split the case with me.
- [41:06]
Sean
Makes sense.
- [41:06]
Ryan
Yeah. So, you know, going back to that. Understood the value in it, and I said, man, I'm pretty entrepreneurial. Like, if Anything like this comes up, give me a call. And then he calls me back a couple weeks later and tells me about, you know, they're the credits for sick and family leave for self employed people. Some people call it the SCTC Self employed Tax credit. That's a nickname, you know, industry term. They're the credits for sick and family leave. And they're from the same legislation that the ERC came from. Right. And all these other programs. Right. There was the Eidl loans, the ppp. And you know what people saw? PPP was for businesses who kept people employed. ERC is for businesses who kept people employed. EIDL was for businesses. Right. That had certain other markers. So these credits, initially employers could even claim them for their W2 employees if they had to miss work. So what they ended up doing when they expanded it, they opened it to self employed people, which self employed is a very, very broad term. Okay. It is anyone who is 1099. So so someone could have a normal W2 gig. And then if they're also a 1099 contractor. And so like let's say someone's a DJ. Yeah. Right. And, and I don't know, maybe they're accountant by day, DJ by night. Right. I think John Summit was actually that for a while. Oh really? Yeah, I think he was actually accountant. He was a Illinois guy. University of Illinois. Yeah, yeah. So actual fact, right. Guy's an accountant during the day, D.J. by night. Well, if during that time period he couldn't go DJ because clubs are closed because of this, he can still claim this credit for that income. Right. And you can use the basis, either the greater self employment income that you had in 20 or in 2021, whichever is greater. But it's for 2021. And there's two categories. There are sick leave credits, which that is anything under the COVID sun. Right?
- [43:34]
Sean
Everyone got Covid.
- [43:36]
Ryan
Everyone got Covid. And if the business had to be shut down, if you had to quarantine, I mean government shutdowns, on and on and on and on and on, up to $511 a day. And for 2021 there's 20 total days, 10 in the first quarter, so January, February, March and then 10 in the second two quarters combined.
- [43:56]
Sean
Nice.
- [43:57]
Ryan
And yeah, so that's up to five, 11 a day. And then the family leave credit, that is up to $200 a day. And there it's a, it's 50 and 60 days. So it's actually 110 days at 200 a day. So. So you know, it's up to like 20 some thousand in value just on those. Yeah. And no one knew about this? No one. No one knew about it. And I'm a legitimately self employed person. Right. Have been for like six years. I have no W2 income. It's like if I don't generate it. Yeah. I mean fully self employed. And I understand, you know, some days you get, you know, massive checks comparatively. Right. You know, once you, once business starts going like, it looks like a big check, but you got expenses so you know that the, the value of money changes rapidly. Yeah. Especially as you go. So. But like, yeah, I mean there's days like, okay, had a great day and there's days where it's like I need to find like 10 or $20,000 by like tomorrow. And it's just the nature of being an entrepreneur. Right. And, and I had a lot of moments like that during, you know, kind of a growth period for me. And so for me to be able to create something that random people all over the country, self employed people can get on there, type in their information. They don't even have to upload their tax documents. We have contracts that allow us to pull the data directly from the IRS. They just verify themselves. We're partnering with ID Me. So if someone goes to log into IRS account, IRS.gov, iD Me, what pops up? It's the same exact login on our page. Yeah.
- [45:38]
Sean
That's brilliant because you probably lost a lot of people at first when they had to upload their tax returns.
- [45:44]
Ryan
So maybe 5 to 10% of people and then that had a 40% error upload rate. Um, now it's, it's about 82% of people that start like, give us their name, answer all the questions and we pull the.
- [45:59]
Sean
Wow, that's a really high rate.
- [46:00]
Ryan
Yeah. And then 50% of them are eligible and then the overwhelming majority ultimately, you know, complete the process for us.
- [46:07]
Sean
That's brilliant, man. Helping people get the money they, you know, they, they need.
- [46:11]
Ryan
Sean, it's the coolest thing I've ever done. It's like what I try and imagine is, and don't get me wrong, like I've done a lot of cool stuff in law and I've done a lot of cool stuff in life. But you know, let's talk professionally, right? Done a lot of really cool stuff. And with that, I mean, I mean truly, we've had the opportunity to change people's lives, but that's one at a time. This, we've helped tens of thousands of people get you Know, average refund that people can expect, about five grand. Right. But it's up to 32 too. Right. And, and we see that all the time. Right? All the, I mean, a lot of big numbers. But I can't tell you how many people and customers that we've had the opportunity to talk to or they've, you know, given us. I can't talk to everyone now. We've gotten pretty, pretty big.
- [47:05]
Sean
Over $100 million in refunds now, right?
- [47:07]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. In counting by the, the day. And it's, I mean, we're just so proud of that, man. Yeah. Well over 100 million. And we think, you know, it, it will well exceed that. And that sounds like a lot, but tens of billions were earmarked for this, and I bet you not 2 billion has been claimed.
- [47:29]
Sean
Wow.
- [47:30]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [47:30]
Sean
That's crazy.
- [47:31]
Ryan
To put it in perspective, erc, because business owners are used to getting tax credits and they're not like, is this real? Right. They're like, you know, their accountant and insurance, somebody calls them and they're like, hey, here's this thing. They're like, done, you know. Yeah. And for, you know, where you have folks who are mostly like that, you just don't, I don't want to even call it sophistication. It's just knowledge, right. That, that programs, a tax credit program for someone is, is not a crazy thing. And it's just how you will see the Trump administration do a lot of tax credit programs and sometimes they're refundable, sometimes it just offsets. Right. But yeah, it helped, you know, well over a hundred million dollars. And when you talk to these people, it's like life changing. We, we had a lady right around Christmas, she was down in Mississippi. And you know, her refund wasn't giant, let's say probably like 3, 4, 5 grand, something in that range. And you know, we went to debit. We, we typically don't debit our fee until they get paid. That's, that's how we do it. And you know, people that owe a massive amount in back taxes and there's, they're not getting a check, it's just going to take down their back taxes. We just do a super reduced rate for them because they're coming out of pocket, right? And we want them to be able to do it. We want them to be able to get it. The folks, though, that, you know, pretty much everyone else, they have the option, they don't have to pay anything until they get paid. But the lady around Christmas, her car had it Went into repossession, but it had not been physically repossessed yet. And then she got her money and she got her car out of repossession, but she didn't have, you know, she spent it all getting her car repossession. And when I heard that, I was like, that's amazing. That's exactly why we started this company. That was the coolest thing.
- [49:30]
Sean
I love that.
- [49:31]
Ryan
Yeah. And I was like, hey, Merry Christmas. Don't worry about it. This is why we started the company, you know.
- [49:35]
Sean
Yeah.
- [49:36]
Ryan
Good luck in the new year.
- [49:37]
Sean
Reminds me of, you know, Dave Portnoy.
- [49:39]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [49:39]
Sean
He started the thing during the pandemic.
- [49:41]
Ryan
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [49:42]
Sean
Helping small businesses.
- [49:43]
Ryan
Dave does great things. I'm really.
- [49:45]
Sean
Yeah. Shout out to Dave.
- [49:47]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Sean
But yeah, we'll link the SAT stuff below if anyone's watching this by qualifier.
- [49:52]
Ryan
Yeah, they really should check it out. And then if anyone, I should mention too, you know, because a lot of our team was big in erc. Like our team probably combined, I mean, hundreds of millions. I mean, that's our ownership, our affiliate marketers, massive ERC help. And these are the good guys. Right. We don't work with, you know, obviously there anytime we have a government program. Okay. Anytime there's a government program, you may get people out there that are bad actors.
- [50:25]
Sean
Yeah. They had to pause ERC for a.
- [50:26]
Ryan
While because of that. Yeah. Had to have a moratorium and all that. And. And that's unfortunate because these, these were created to help people.
- [50:34]
Sean
Yeah.
- [50:34]
Ryan
Right. And, you know, we. We have painstakingly done everything that we can. And it was, you know, kind of on the heels of all that blow up, but we're like, there's a timeframe. We have 40, 80 million people and we have to get them a safe, secure, good way to do this. And we need to build a company specifically for this that, you know, it has the security with their sensitive data. It has, you know, does do all of the right things in compliance, does look out for their sensitive data. I mean, on and on and on and on and on. You know, we did everything. It's like, how would, if this were me, this were my information, how would I want to be treated? And so we've set up, you know, just awesome there. And then we also have ERTC, so employer retention tax credit, ertcrefund.com and so that's hard ending April 15th. Right. So I highly recommend if anyone thinks that they might be eligible. Right. Free to check your eligibility with us. We use, you know, only experienced CPAs that you know, have filed these, really know it. And they can check the eligibility and we can get those in prior to the deadline. And then the people. Because there's hundreds of billions of dollars. That's what I'm saying. Erc, 600 billion in claims were filed. Right. Even if 20% of those were fraudulent, which they weren't. I mean, I'm sure it was a very small percentage. You're talking that's still nearly almost 500 billion in ERC claims and then some employee America, you're talking, it's 40, 80 million people. And some of them are so scared they've only claimed $2 billion.
- [52:22]
Sean
Wow.
- [52:23]
Ryan
So, I mean, think about that.
- [52:25]
Sean
Nuts.
- [52:26]
Ryan
Yeah. 250x on the ERC. It's like a lot of people are afraid, like, oh, am I going to get audited? Am I going to get in trouble? It's like, why, why would you get audited or in trouble for claiming, you know, what's going to be on average, five grand that you should have gotten on a tax credit?
- [52:41]
Sean
Yeah. I don't think they're tripping about five grand.
- [52:43]
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. What are you afraid of? Like, you think, do you know what it would cost to go back and audit someone over a $5,000, even if they get $20,000? Like, I don't think people realize how much money is actually out there in the world.
- [53:01]
Sean
Yeah.
- [53:01]
Ryan
And how many. And it blows my mind. I was looking at statistics the other day and it was like, you know, I was like the top, top, like one out of a thousand households. Right. 0.1%. And. And I swear it said so. One out of a thousand households has a. In the US has a net worth of $158 million. One out of 100 have a net worth of like $11.2 million. And I checked those stats like 10 times. I'm like, really? One out of a thousand households have a $158 million net worth.
- [53:44]
Sean
Wow.
- [53:45]
Ryan
And well, and you know, Sean, it's, it's interesting. It's something I started paying attention to a few years ago when you travel around. We're here in Vegas. I just left. I was in Tampa, Miami, Fort Myers, and then driving all down the coast and it's like, look at how many neighborhoods upon neighborhoods upon neighborhoods of 5 million plus dollar houses there are or how many buildings in Miami that it's a billion in real estate there in. In people. And I'm not going to come out of the Miami, like real estate market, but they're mostly full. Okay. And you can go everywhere in the country and you will find that in around the world. Everywhere. That's cool. Neighborhoods and neighborhoods of multimillion dollar residences.
- [54:34]
Sean
Yeah.
- [54:34]
Ryan
And it's like who lives in all of those? Right. And I think people don't realize that, that there is that much wealth and abundance out in the world. And so to be in a mindset that um, you know, you're going to get over a tax credit that Congress specifically created for you, you're going to get audited and they're going to try and wreck your, your existence over five grand. It's a. Yeah, it's an irrational thought.
- [55:01]
Sean
I think a lot of people are scared because of the PPP fraud articles that they blasted everywhere.
- [55:05]
Ryan
Oh yeah. New York. And you know, and maybe some of it especially you know, last administration, they're just trying to slow it down.
- [55:13]
Sean
Yeah.
- [55:13]
Ryan
Because it's work. It's work for them. But you know, they're actually processing faster the last couple weeks.
- [55:19]
Sean
They probably got some AI these days.
- [55:20]
Ryan
I bet. I hope so. But yeah, they're, they're processing everything much more quickly. You know, normally I should say, you know, it could take, you know, 16, 20 weeks, sometimes longer for the IRS to process these for anyone over 3,000. $3,000 or more on the refund. Not in Colorado or Iowa. They, we can get them most of their money over 70% in about seven days.
- [55:49]
Sean
Damn, that's fast.
- [55:50]
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah, we got an awesome partnership with a great banking partner. They're a huge SBA lender. They're a big PPP lender. You know our lending programs, you know their FDIC's looked at it, they're registered with the Treasury Department. Nice. So you know it's all done right and we have over a billion dollars available to lend.
- [56:11]
Sean
We'll link it below.
- [56:12]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [56:13]
Sean
Anything else you want to close off with here, man?
- [56:15]
Ryan
No, man. Thanks so much for having me, Sean. I'll look back to see you soon and yeah, man, I just hope people before the deadline coming up Again, that's April 15th for most self employed folks and then the anyone who filed an extension back in 22 for 21, they'll have a little bit more time. Great thing is our systems look at the dates and we know whether or not you still have time. So come check it out. Free to apply takes about 15 minutes. You're going to need your ID and a camera either on your computer or your phone to verify your identity and find out how much you're owed.
- [56:53]
Sean
I love it, man. Can't wait to do some business together.
- [56:55]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah.
- [56:55]
Sean
Thanks for coming on.
- [56:56]
Ryan
Thanks a lot, Sean.
- [56:56]
Sean
Thanks for watching, guys. Check out the links and I'll see you next time.