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- [00:00]
A
Hey, really quick. If you're a law firm owner, I need you to hear this. It's 2025 and Max Lacon is back. And for five days only, from February 17th to the 21st, we're offering an early access flash sale with unbeatable ticket pricing. Once the cart closes on February 21, it won't reopen until spring, so you don't want to miss this chance. Mark your calendar now for Monday, February 17th, when you can get your early access ticket@maxlawevents.com.
- [00:31]
B
This is maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix. Welcome back to another Saturday episode of Maximum Lawyer. I've got a really interesting one today because it comes from a friend slash listener of the show by the name of Ryan Weber, which I'll get to the end of that conversation in a second and who Ryan is. Before I get into that, though, we've had some really cool submissions recently. I'm going to play a submission that we got from Ryan and we're going to talk about that a little bit today. But I would love to hear from. If you have anything that you'd like for me to discuss on the show, just shoot me a text. 314-501-9260 it doesn't have to be an audio format. It can be just a simple text message. But you could also go to maximilawyer.com ask and you can text your questions. Doesn't matter if you're just starting out or, or if you've been running a law firm for a really long time and you just want me to discuss a specific topic, I'm happy to do so. So make sure you submit those. It's always a lot of fun. But for today's episode, I got a video message from Ryan. And Ryan is someone who has. He's already had a successful exit from a business where he sold the business. He's a successful business owner. He's also awesome at video. He's got his own YouTube channel. He runs the YouTube channel for his wife who's an attorney, Tiffany Weber. They make just an amazing pair because she does amazing content and he does a great job of polishing it, putting out onto YouTube and just you should really check out both, both of their pages. They do a really good job. But I want you to listen to what Ryan sent to me and I'll play a part for it. Just a small part. I'm not gonna play the whole thing, so go ahead and listen.
- [02:19]
C
I think a fun topic for you to talk about on the podcast might Be something around hiring. And the whole premise of the best employees or the employees that you're looking for are not sitting on job boards so they're not looking for your job posting. So it's kind of pointless to post jobs. And we know that like hiring is the biggest factor right now to growth in law firms. So a more effective model is for you to be your own headhunter or you hire somebody within your organization to reach out to this top tier talent, probably through LinkedIn, to be honest. But I think that would be an interesting like Saturday episode conversation because people think that they can just post a really cool job posting and they're probably not going to get A or even B talent because A and B talent is not looking for a new job. They're generally happy. So if you want really high skilled talent, you're going to have to go seek them out yourself, probably going to pay more. But I mean us and our law firm, we're willing to pay more and every single hire that we have that we've sought out has worked out really well compared to the ones that we've done through job boards. Just thought might be something you can put on your, your topic list if you start running out of ideas. Talk soon, man.
- [03:45]
B
All right, so it's really interesting because this really kind of got me thinking and it, I think it really is a critical error that many law fir are making when it comes to hiring top talent. And you know, really if you're relying on job postings alone, which I know that many of you are because I hear about all the time people asking all the time, oh, should I use LinkedIn or should I use Wise hire? Should I use this, should I use that? And I mean I'm going to go through. I went and actually wanted to look all this up because I kind of thought about, you know, who are our best hires. And I'm not saying people that we got through job boards aren't also awesome, which we found some really good talent, but we found some really good talent through networking as well. Some of our best employees came from people that you know were former co workers of, people that we've, that we've had, people that we knew that they knew they were a really good employee. And so it was just networking has been a really good part of attracting great talent for us as well. So it was something really interesting and I wanted to see if there was any, really any truth to this. And so some of the stuff I found was, was pretty interesting and I, I do think that Ryan is Correct. That we shouldn't be relying on just job boards and everything else. And we, we really should be going out and finding top talent and being our own headhunters. I think it's a really interesting point. So let's get into some of these numbers. Really interesting. So the most of the best talent is passive and generally. So the workforce in general, 70% of the workforce is not actively looking for jobs. That means that of all available people that could work, only 30% are actually on job boards, actively looking. That doesn't mean that they would not leave. That just means that they are not actively out there putting their names or not putting their names on job boards, but going out and actually applying to jobs on job boards. Okay. And of the 30% that are there, as many of you have figured out, many of them are not the best for fit for your firm. Just the reality of what it is. I do wonder also if there's some of truth to the fact that maybe the fact that they. Because they are looking, that they're not the best potential candidate for your firm either. That's something that has also crossed my mind. Just the sheer fact that they are looking. And to be honest with you, I didn't really dig into that a whole lot. But it is a question I really have about whether or not just the fact that they are actively looking, does that make them closer on the worst side of being a hire? I don't know the answer to that. So I'm not going to opine on what I think about that. But I do know that there are a lot of people that have been opining about low quality applicants. I do know that. And so I think that there is some other way we've got to look at to get candidates. I found this number so fascinating. I found it on several different studies and several different websites. 70 to 85% of jobs of all jobs are actually filled through networking. So even though 30%, only 30% are actively looking. 85%. 70 to 85% of jobs are actually filled through some form of networking. Which I found that a really interesting number. And I found it on several, from. For several sources. Which means that, you know, we really should. Then I think it supports the idea that we should be going out, we should be shaking the trees of our professional networks asking for referrals from, or I guess options, I don't know if we call them referrals, but options from. From the people we know about people that that might be looking to be hired. And I think that that is a really Good opportunity for us. You know, you can go to bar association events, mastermind groups. You know, Maximum Lawyer might be a really good example. You know, anyone looking for a candidate, I'm in this city, anyone knowing anyone in could help me out. There's lots of difference. And actually Maximum Lawyer does have a job board that you can put things on. Just so you know that is something that's not a pitch for that. But just so you'll know if you want to put a job on there that that is an option for you. Something else that is interesting is that passive candidates, they do seem, it seems that they tend to be higher performers. So the majority of top performers are actually happy in their current jobs, which is not so great for you if you're looking for someone. However, 87% of those would still entertain a better offer. That is interesting. So even though they're happy in their current jobs, 87% would still entertain a better offer. That could also indicate that the fact that they are, they may have a better attitude. That could be an indication of the fact that they might just have a better attitude. I'm sure many of them are just happy worth where they are because of the, the job that they have. But it could also indicate that they're just happy to be around. I'll put it that way. So I think if you could reach out to these people with the right message because you find them through, through networking. I think that if you make the right offer, you could pull in an experienced, motivated employee that and you're going to do it without flooding your inbox with a bunch of people that are sending you generic resumes. So I do think that you know, going to different events, reaching out to people that you know, asking for that could get you those higher quality people that, that might be interested in your firm. One of our best employees, I do know that she, she case manager, she, we found her because we were asking our office administrator hey, like does anyone, you know? And so it was one of the people that she worked with previously and she knew that she was a really good employee and so we went and got her right. It was something where we made her a good offer and we wouldn't got her and she's with us today and I hope she stays forever because she's, she's fantastic. But utilizing your, your top talent that you have in your firm to then go out and try to find people that they know is another good sour of doing that. I do think that this is a really doing it this way. And I've talked to a couple other people. We had. I've talked to Marco Brown about this. I've talked to Paul Yocobitis about this. And Paul Yocobitis and I had a really good conversation about this just last month about doing this very same thing about going in and finding this talent. And it will give you a massive, a massive competitive advantage over firms that are just going to job boards and putting up their job and they're going to be getting a different candidate pool. But if you really limit yours down to just top talent, you're going out and trying to find that top talent. And even setting aside the whole idea that you're going to be getting your inbox flooded with a bunch of, you know, just generic resumes that really are just looking for any job that they want. I mean, you are, you're just making your talent pool only A players. I mean, that is, that's incredible where you are. You're fishing in a pond where it's even. Let's say that they're not all A players. Let's say you got some B's and some C's mixed into there. The vast majority are going to be A players. And you're going to be fishing in a pond where your chances of actually catching an A player are going to be far better. Do you think that that's really, really interesting? And so you're strategically going after talent just like you'd be strategically going after clients. Because this is marketing, let's be honest, this is also marketing. Hiring people is marketing. You have to sell yourself to them. You have to. To find the best talent. You have to show to them why the best place to work. And that's part of this too. But once you get past that hurdle, I mean, you're. The advantage you're going to have over other firms long term is, is really great. There is a quote from Stephen Covey that I think might be, might be apropos here. The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it, instantly correct it and learn from it. So if your hiring process isn't bringing in the right people, okay, you need to fix it by being proactive. So the proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it, instantly correct it and learn from it. If hiring process isn't bringing in those people, you need to fix it, okay? And I know that many of you, I know for a fact that many of you have a broken hiring process because you told me, okay, you've told me and you told me how you can't find the right candidates and how you're getting a bunch of applicants that are not great, yada, yada, yada. Well, okay, let's fix the problem by you going out and proactively trying to find these people. Is it more work? Absolutely. But is it going to pay off for you? Absolutely. All right. And then I guess finally I do want to talk a little bit more about just pick on the job boards a little bit more. I'm not going to mention any more by name other than what I already have, but it really is. It's a volume game, right? It's really a volume game. It's not about quality. It's about volume. And I'm not saying you can't find talent on these job boards. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's harder to do so. It's really hard. And that's why we've had to create our system the way we did to quickly, quickly get through candidates and try to figure out, all right, who are the ones we actually want to reach out to and have four interviews with and do all these assessments. And we're going to reach out to the people that they want us to actually reach out to and vouch for them. That's why what we've had to do is we've had to find a way to quickly get through all of these candidates. And so before we send them through all of the interviews we have, before we check their references, have them take assessments, do all of that, all of these things that we have them do before we go down that route, we want to filter them out, and we have to do that. And that's because it's the volume game. And that's. Whenever we're going through these job boards to put up our jobs, it changes the game. And if you can shift all of that, all of that effort over into quality game, as opposed to a volume game, you're going to get a high volume of good applicants compared to what you're getting. When it comes to the high volume of bad applicants on these job boards, it's going to mean you're going to have also more time screening. So even though it's, I guess, high volume, I'm really saying proportionately high volume, not necessarily an actual high volume. Just so you know, some clarifying on that. But. But that means you're going to have more time screening the applicants because you're going to be looking at fewer qualified candidates, which is going to be. That's. That's a massive benefit, too. So not Only are you targeting the best talent, it's going to save you. So you're increasing the chances of actually getting top talent. But you're going to be saving yourself a lot of time. So do the direct outreach, do the networking, do targeted hiring. Something else you could do is I love this whole idea of if you interact with someone in your business in some capacity and you have a great experience with them, I am a firm believer in reaching out directly to them and seeing if they're looking. Now, I would not recommend doing this. If it's one of your major referral partners or in some way going to negatively affect your business, don't do that. But if it's not going to negatively affect your business when it comes to, you know, your revenue is going down, you don't want that to happen. But if it's, if it's not going to negatively affect your business, I'm a firm believer in going out and see if you can, you can attract that talent and get them to come over into your firm. So see if you can go out and source and find the best people for your firm. If you stop relying on these job boards exclusively, continue to use them. I do think you should still continue to use them. But if you want to find these A players the fastest for your firm, start thinking like a headhunter. I think that that is the best way of doing this. Start thinking like a headhunter. Reach out to your colleagues, reach out to the, you know, different, you know, go to bar association events, the multiple legal communities that are out there, BNI groups, all of that actively recruit to find that top talent and really start thinking long term about it as opposed to. I do think sometimes we're in such a need sometimes to hire people we think of hiring as a more of a short term thing. So look at it more of a long term thing might change your perspective. But as a reminder, that's all I have for us. But as a reminder, if you want me to cover something on the Saturday show, give me a shoot me a text 314-501-9260 with whatever you want to cover. I got a funny text from someone. I'm not going to repeat it what it was, but it was pretty funny and I get a kick out of it. So keep them coming. I love to hear from you. Remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care. Talk to you next Saturday.