Embracing Subscription Models: Legal Services & Small Business Growth | Scott Reib

Discover how to revolutionize your small business operations by embracing a subscription-based model, as we chat with Scott Reib, America's Legal Coach. Scott reveals his transformative journey of shifting his law firm's business model towards a recurring revenue system, drawing inspiration from successful companies like Dollar Shave Club. This episode promises to equip you with actionable insights on building financial predictability and fostering client relationships that can prevent costly legal issues for your business.

Step into the world of subscription-based legal services and learn how they're reshaping the landscape for small businesses. Scott and I explore the intricacies of offering proactive legal support through a tiered access plan, tailored to businesses at different growth stages. We dissect challenges like client churn and staffing, and discuss how automation can help streamline operations. This conversation is a treasure trove of strategies for staying attuned to client needs and market trends, ensuring your business thrives and evolves.

Finally, we navigate the often turbulent waters of entrepreneurship, focusing on stress management and the art of building meaningful relationships with referral partners. Scott shares unique methods for handling stress, especially for those transitioning from high-pressure roles, and underscores the importance of maintaining strong health indicators. We also delve into the power of mindset and surrounding oneself with positive influences, highlighting the role of business coaches and communities in achieving both personal and professional growth. Join us to uncover strategies that can transform your business and empower your journey as an entrepreneur.

Scott Reib: CEO and Founder of Reib Law

Website: https://www.reiblaw.com/home

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescottreib/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thescottreib/

Podcast: https://www.reiblaw.com/the-shatterproof-entrepreneur-podcast

#SmallBusinessSuccess #SubscriptionModel #ScottReib #ReibLaw #RecurringRevenue #LegalSupport #BusinessAutomation #ClientRelationships #EntrepreneurMindset #StressManagement #BusinessCoaching #GrowthStrategies #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurJourney #SmallBusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #BusinessStrategy #BusinessSuccess #Entrepreneurship #BusinessPodcast #PodcastEpisode #SmallBusinessPivots #Success #BusinessOwners #ZigZiglar #MichaelDMorrison #OklahomaCity #BOSS #EntrepreneurAdvice #DollarShaveClub #AmericasLegalCoach 

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Recurring Revenue in Small Business
• 10:13 Flexible Subscription-Based Model for Small Business
• 16:51 Managing Stress and Building Relationships
• 20:26 Daily Routine and Business Strategies
• 31:30 Empowering Business Growth Through Delegation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, Welcome to another Small Business Pivots. Again, we have another special guest from around the world, not too far from where our headquarters are in Oklahoma City. But I know that business owners can say their name and their business only like a business owner. So tell us a little bit about yourself, your business and how we're going to help our listeners today today, you bet, michael.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Thanks for having me on the show. My pleasure. I am Scott Reeb. I'm America's Legal Coach. I have a law firm called Reeb Law located in Denton, texas, just north of Dallas, and a coaching and event company called Shatterproof Solutions, and we help business owners grow, scale their businesses in a protected way, and that's been my mission for the last decade. I've had my firm 20 years, but we made some pretty big shifts around 2012 and the way we deliver services, and so we, our mission did kind of change from getting people out of trouble to keeping them out of trouble.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Wow, that that right there probably perked some ears. I don't know of a business owner that does not feel in trouble somehow. Yeah, so how do you think specifically we're going to help business owners today?

Speaker 2: 1:13

Yeah, we're going to talk today about one of my favorite subjects, which is recurring revenue. I'm a huge proponent of subscription models for businesses and I want to talk to them about how I've made that change with a law firm and how we've seen other business owners do the same thing.

Speaker 1: 1:29

Fantastic. All right, we'll buckle up. We've got some good information coming our way, but first we're going to introduce the show. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of Boss, where we make business ownership simplified for success, so that you can own a business that runs without you. To learn more, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. My friend, where would you like to start today? Welcome back to Small.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Business Pivots. My friend, where would you like to start today? Well, let's start with recurring revenue model. Back in 2012, I had a problem in my business. We were a litigation firm and I had a lot of repeat business and they kept coming back with their house on fire wanting me to fix it. And I could, but it was really expensive, and I was just baffled that they would never call me before they made a decision, before they signed a deal, and it was always after when it went bad. So I had to do a deep dive. Is it me, is it my personality? Am I propelling them away from me?

Speaker 2: 2:38

And what I kind of figured out was it was really the system and the way lawyers worked. We billed by the minute and no one liked it. They felt like money was flying out of their pockets, so they just wouldn't call me. They'd dial a friend, google it, flip a coin, anything but call Scott. And so I had to change my model, and so I looked out at what was kind of happening in the world back in 2011, 2012.

Speaker 2: 2:59

And you started seeing people selling things on subscriptions, on monthly recurring payments. One that caught my eye back then was the Dollar Shave Club, and I'm like you can sell razors on a subscription, and they did it with humorous commercials, and that really got my attention that if you can change that whole market, instead of making people go every time to the drugstore and buy new razors, that you just ship them to them for a monthly payment, maybe you could do legal services that way. Then I started running into business coaches that were selling packages with monthly subscriptions. I'm like, okay, there is a different way to deliver this service. The other problem I had is that when you're selling time, you have to bill.

Speaker 2: 3:48

We would spend a couple days a month billing our clients for the time that we'd spent, and then we had to collect it, and so sometimes we'd have trust money that we could apply to the cases, but a lot of it was. Then we had to follow up and get them to write us checks or give us credit cards, and so then you spend time doing that, and so you never really knew how much money we were going to make every month. So I'd walk in the first of the month and wonder how we were going to keep the lights on, and then how was I going to pay my bills at home? I've had this firm since 2005. And so I did that dance for 10 years and we kept the lights on, but it's pretty stressful.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Once I made a switch and started creating the recurring revenue, my stress level went way down, because I would come in on the first day of the month and know what my minimum amount that was going to come in was. It was a guaranteed number, it was going to happen every month and within maybe maybe 5% there might be someone whose credit card didn't work, but it was very consistent, and so I knew I could keep the lights on, pay the rent, make payroll very quickly, and so it changed everything about how I ran this business, not just from a delivery of services but how I was able to manage it, because now I had a cashflow system that made a lot more sense and I have no more accounts receivable, and not having accounts receivable is huge.

Speaker 1: 5:11

We switched to what you're talking about and it really is more comforting, and I know for a lot of business owners they don't know where to start with the process. So could you kind of explain how you heard about it? You saw other people doing it, but how did you come to the realization? Here's how I can do it in my business.

Speaker 2: 5:31

Yeah. So it started with the vision right, I had this idea of how could I create an on-demand system where small business owners like me you know people that are doing $250,000 a year in sales just trying to figure out this business stuff, but making legal decisions every day and not having the access to the information. And so I started looking for a coach. And so I hired a business coach and said here's my vision. Can you give me a map for how to build this thing? You don't have to go A to Z, but can you get me like A to G maybe, so we can just get started, get something down this road. And I found one of my friends was using a coach. He introduced me and I went to work with Clay Clark out of Tulsa, oklahoma, and Clay uh, totally bought into my vision, said, yeah, I can help you do it. And we built what is now the access plan that we've been operating since 2012.

Speaker 2: 6:23

And you know, first you have to identify what problem are you going to solve with your subscription and figure out what that problem is. And then next, you have to identify who has that problem. And then, once you've identified those two things, then you figure out how are we going to price it? And I heard one of your shows actually where you were talking about pricing models and you know a lot of us going to price it. And I heard one of your shows actually where you were talking about pricing models and a lot of us will just price it whatever we think the value of the service is and there's some legitimacy to that on the value you're giving, the transformation that they're getting. But if they can't afford it, it doesn't really matter. And so you have to look at it from both sides. What's the value you're delivering? What does it cost you to deliver that value? And then can they afford it? And you've got to create packages that you think they can afford. And some of that is trial and error. And you have to create the offers and put them out in the marketplace and sell them. And once you start selling them, then you figure out pretty quickly OK, they can't afford this, I'm not getting. I stopped getting price objections if I drop it to this price. And then you kind of adjust your packages until you get to something that makes sense for you as a business owner and for your consumer. And so once you do that, the next step is how do I start to automate and systematize that subscription business, whatever it is? Now? We've got HVAC people that are offering subscriptions for taking care of HVAC systems. We have plumbers that are doing the same thing. Home services is huge. I've got doctors that are creating subscription plans to deliver services to their patients that go around insurance so they don't have to deal with insurance anymore. But that's kind of the process you go through and once you've done that, then you can you start testing it and you eventually will have something that resonates with the marketplace and if it doesn't go back to the drawing board and I guess I'll kind of back up a step.

Speaker 2: 8:26

Once you have that vision, use this wonderful thing called social media and start talking about it on social media and see if anyone's interested in what you're talking about. Ask questions. If you know who you want to work with, then start asking those people questions about the service you want to provide and is there any interest and at what price point? Do some research? Use that social media to do it and then build something. 10 years ago I would have told you, build out your whole thing before you ask those questions. But you don't really have to do that. You just got to build enough of it that you can explain what you're trying to do and see if anyone's interested enough of it that you can explain what you're trying to do and see if anyone's interested?

Speaker 1: 9:09

How did you get the traction of getting people aware of?

Speaker 2: 9:12

your new product? That's a great question. The first thing I did is I went on what I call a CPA tour. One of the easiest ways to market a product or service is find out who has your customers already and market to them. And so I bought a list of CPAs that were within 30 miles of our location and started calling them and setting appointments, and I went out and met with them, explained what we did, explained the subscription service we offered, got to know them too and what they offer, and created some partnerships with CPA firms where they would refer us business and I would have CPAs that could work with our business clients. That's the first thing I did.

Speaker 2: 9:53

I will tell you that getting that traction was much more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Speaker 2: 9:59

I had a grandiose vision of having 100 people in my program in the first year, and it took 10 years to have consistently a hundred people in the program, because I had to not only market it, I had to create the market. No one was Googling subscription lawyer in 2012. Now they are. Now people are calling us and saying we're wanting to establish a relationship with a lawyer, but back then no one was doing that, and so I had to find people with problems like they've got a contract issue, they've got a bad employment employee issue, they're trying to buy a business, trying to sell a business, and then show them how we can support them in a better way with the access plan. But now we're able to just market to the pain point of. You need this monthly relationship. You need to be proactive with a lot of parts of your business, but especially the legal, because it's the one that can really bite you if you aren't paying attention and being proactive and building it in what we call your business, in what I call a shatterproof way.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Can you give an example of your subscription-based model so that others can get an idea of what that looks?

Speaker 2: 11:10

like yeah, so my access plan has four levels. We start with launch mode, which is exactly what it sounds like it's for people that are launching their business. So it's zero to 250,000 in sales and our pricing is on our like. We're transparent with our pricing. It's 425 a month and you get we'll set up your corporate structure. Make sure you have the right entity structure in place so that you have separation between you and everyone else, so you have the legal liability protection. We then create the customer agreement that you're using with your main product or service. We then give you on-demand access to our team with questions as they come up and do monthly check-in calls with you, so that we're all staying on the same page with how you're growing your business.

Speaker 2: 11:52

Then you go up to momentum. We start adding bells and whistles to it. So now we're reviewing your contracts as they come in, because you're adding vendors, you're adding things that require more legal supervision. And then you go to expansion as you start scaling, and then our top level is called guardian, and at guardian we're talking about succession and legacy stuff. Like we've got a business that's scaling, we have employees we're now working on the business, not in the business, and we start talking about who takes over when we're done.

Speaker 2: 12:25

Do we have an estate plan in place? Is there a buy-sell agreement? Do we have the right insurance in place if something happens to us? And we start having those kinds of conversations at that guardian level. And that's how we've structured it Now. If you would go back and look 12 years ago, we had five plans. The pricing was very different, because it really has been an experiment in trying to figure out what makes sense to small business owners, not just to us. Some of it is us like what parts are the most profitable for us, and we try to do it in a way that's profitable, but it's like which ones actually resonate and which ones don't. And so every year in December we'll look at the plan and figure out what do we want to change for next year, and then we go back to market.

Speaker 1: 13:11

How automated is your subscription-based model?

Speaker 2: 13:15

It's not as automated as I would like it to be, but it's fairly automated. We use Asana to do our project management. Right now I'm looking at some other solutions, but if you were an access client and needed to have a contract reviewed, then you've got a portal that you would go to and you click a link. You can then ask you questions where you can submit your request, whether it's a legal question or a contract review. That then goes into the system and then is assigned by our access coordinator to one of our reblog preferred providers. They then start reviewing the agreement, communicating with the client, and then that's delivered to them, and so we use a lot of technology to do that. It's not all as automated as I would like it to be.

Speaker 1: 14:01

What about the cyclical part of the business? So you have let's say you have 200 subscribers today. Does it fluctuate very much month to month?

Speaker 2: 14:12

Yeah, um, not so much month to month, but year to year. It does, and that's that. There's any subscription business, there's churn the go-to book on subscription businesses is the automatic customer and churn it. You have to keep track of your churn and there's certain percentages that you want to try to hit, but you're going to always have people going in and out. We've, we've.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Our philosophy is that we never want to hurt you, and so there's sometimes business owners are in a cash crunch and so they'll go. They'll be on pause with us for 60, 90 days. We try to help them through their cash crunch and then they come back, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes people will go out, and so we're tracking on a monthly basis how many people are coming into the program and how many people are going out. Why is that happening? We're asking. You know we're surveying them, asking questions and making sure it's not something that we've done or that we could have done better. And so you just have to measure those numbers, and there's a few, there's a few different numbers that you look at. You know that you wouldn't normally look at in a business.

Speaker 1: 15:14

Is it difficult to staff up or down? Is it difficult to?

Speaker 2: 15:18

staff up or down. No, it's pretty easy. I suppose it could get hard If we were to start bringing on huge volumes of new clients at one time. It could get difficult to staff. But we're usually bringing them on an average of four or five a month, so it's not very difficult to staff up. You can see it coming.

Speaker 2: 15:39

We've got a lot of flexibility. We use a lot of contractors in our world to do that so we can add them pretty quickly. They don't need full-time work and so we can add them, give them a few projects and keep the client's projects moving and then. So in that way it's fairly easy. Then we can usually tell year over year just you know kind of what our just by our growth progression over the last few years, what we can expect next year. And so we just do planning and add, adding positions as we do and and and. We start. We're. We're now talking because our numbers are getting to a point now where we're going to start having teams that work with different sets of clients, as opposed to just that my whole team works with everybody. We're going to have to start dividing it up and conquering it.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Have you taken your blood pressure before and after since you started this subscription, Because it sounds like this is a lot easier than just grinding, going to find new clients and hope the phone rings and, yeah, my, my overall health is is much better.

Speaker 2: 16:40

It's not. And there's, I do I was on the, I did my. I've got a health coach that I meet with on about a quarterly basis and all my numbers are. I'm in a good spot. But we were talking about I think you know they always ask you what kind of how's your stress level? And I think it's a hard question for entrepreneurs to answer.

Speaker 2: 17:00

If you're in crisis, it's easy, you know. You're like, yeah, I'm stressed out, but there's a certain part of our world that is just stressful, and I think that we learn how to to operate under stress in a way that normal humans don't, and so it's hard. It's like, yeah, yeah, I guess I'm under stress, but it doesn't really bother me and as long as my like you said, my blood pressure is okay, uh, I'm managing the stress. Uh, I think it's fine, but, yeah, knowing that I have that income, um, the way it is. The other part of of it for me that's helped is that when you're in litigation and you're billing by the hour, there's a formula to it and you're always working. It's in the back of your mind. I've got to bill this many hours if I want to make this much money, and so that's always in the back of your head.

Speaker 2: 17:48

And litigation is really. I mean, you're constantly butting heads with people and part of your job is kind of to make other people mad, and so you're constantly you're attacking, defending, attacking, defending, and and that's not. It wasn't something that I wanted to do any longer We'll we jump in and out of a few small cases. Now most of what we do is send them out to litigation partners. They litigated, I manage it, and that really lowers my blood pressure.

Speaker 1: 18:24

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Speaker 1: 19:03

If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to stay connected by hitting that subscribe button, giving us a thumbs up or leaving a positive review. Your support keeps us going. Now let's get back to our incredible guest. When you reached out to all these accountants CPAs how difficult was it to build a relationship? Because I know I often refer to those as referral partners. But when you're a referral partner, they also kind of expect something in return. So you can't really refer everybody to every CPA you have a relationship with, and I'm asked that often by business owners. How do I handle that?

Speaker 2: 19:40

Yeah, one of the things that I pluses that I had was that my offer was so unique that there wasn't anyone else they could refer to for that. So they were. I was kind of the only. I was the go-to person. If they want, if they had someone that they wanted to have with a lawyer for a few hundred a month I was the only show in town that helped and I would refer in setting up the relationship. I would talk more about synergy and less about referrals. I wasn't really asking them for referrals, I was just trying to look for ways that we could work together.

Speaker 2: 20:11

I would send them once I made the relationship. I would send them questions. So if I was on the call with a client and the tax question came up, I would run that question by them and then see is that something they'd be willing to answer for the client? And then they would have a chance to get the business. And I require all of my clients to have a CPA. And then if and out of that, out of the 45 I met with in 30 days, there were only about eight that I really wanted to do much business with.

Speaker 2: 20:40

The rest of there's a problem in the accounting and CPA world that most of them are in this, in the small business accounting. They are historians. All they want to do is say this is what you did last year, this is how much money you owe the IRS. They don't have any interest in really building a relationship with you, learning how your life and business work. How can we create strategies to where you can keep more of your money? Most of them had no interest in that.

Speaker 2: 21:09

The eight that I found that did, have interest in that we've been able to work with over the years. And then there's always a few that are kind of rise to the top, and so there's always a few that are, you know, kind of rise to the top. And so there's two or three that we do regular things with. I've got a if someone, if, if if someone comes on with us and they don't have a person, we have a sheet that has a list of them that they can then choose and interview who they want, interview them and decide who they want to work with. I don't often refer directly and I will introduce them if they want, but I kind of let them choose who they want to work with and that's, it's worked for us. I'm not going to say that we get all our business from CPAs, but they definitely have our clients, financial planners, who have been good sources, and bankers to some extent.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So you've talked about your path to success here. You and I've talked about your old past, and so I'm just curious if you might share, because I know a lot of business owners have challenges with mindset. So were there any pivots or challenges that you had? How did you overcome them? And the reason I ask for those that's not watching this podcast behind you is Brian Tracy, zig Ziglar some popular business and personal coaches and how did you? Who do you go to for learning?

Speaker 2: 22:30

Yeah, and it, it. It varies in times, but uh, the you know Zig has been a big deal for me. I'm a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer. I'm the official small business lawyer for the Ziglar company and I've had that privilege for almost 10 years.

Speaker 2: 22:52

And Zig would say you are who you are and where you are because of what you've put in your mind. And you can change who you are and where you are because of what you've put in your mind. And you can change who you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind. And so when I get in a bad spot mentally and we all do, if you're in business it just happens. And sometimes it's real, like there's objective reasons for it, and sometimes there's not. But either way, your mindset's wrong, you're not happy, you might even be depressed, and one of the ways that you can fix that is by listening to good stuff. No, I'm a Christ follower and so I try to spend as much time as I can in God's word and applying that to my life, and that helps for sure. And then I'm reading books, like the first book that started me on my journey was the E-Myth, revisited by Michael Gerber. Oh yeah, I go back to it time and time again, and he's so right about so many things and I see it as I work with small business owners on the legal side and in coaching. And then another one that was huge for me and my first coach made me read it was Chet Holmes' the Ultimate Sales Machine. And there's just things that you pull out of those books that you apply. Some of them you apply immediately, and then sometimes I'll find myself going back to those books and going I remember seeing something in there and and it's and it will solve a problem I'm having. Now, like one of the one of the strategies in Chet's book is the his dream 100. And we're, we have a retreat coming up in Atlanta, uh, and we're going to, so we're going to, we're selling seats and I'm going to be using his dream 100 strategy to put the people in the room that I want in the room, and so, um, there's just you. I pull those things from. All these different people, the people behind me have all influenced me in one way or another and, um, inspire me.

Speaker 2: 24:50

But you've got to surround yourself with good people, and so I'm always working with a coach on something in my business. I'm a part of communities of business owners so that I can, we can have camaraderie and shared struggles, because being on it's a business owner. You're often on an island and you. There's two problems with that. One you can start believing everything you say is true, which can be bad, and then, from a positive standpoint, you think everything you're doing is great, or you can start thinking everything's horrible and probably neither one are true, and so you need other people to bounce things off of that, don't have any skin in the game and can say, nah, you're, you're, you're missing it, it's not, that's not what's going on. And so you gotta have coaches and people that you can, uh, that are kind of where you are or where you want to be, and can can help push you forward and give you some correction when you need to.

Speaker 1: 25:50

You've heard it here listeners, business coach. We, even business coaches, have business coaches, myself included. They're powerful.

Speaker 2: 25:59

If your coach doesn't have a coach, I would question it.

Speaker 1: 26:02

That's. I say that all the time, amen. So what? Take us through a day in the life of yourself, or maybe your week, kind of. What percentage do you maybe study, use a business coach, work on your business, do sales? Because I know a lot of business owners that are listening. They just don't feel like they have any more time to add one more thing to their schedule because they're so working in their business, as the EMS says, and not on it. So what's a good percentage you you find for yourself?

Speaker 2: 26:33

yeah, and so I'm in a, I'm in a, I'm in a pretty good season of life. Right, we're empty, I'm empty nest, so my boys are out. Um, so I have. I have much more time than I used to have, uh, and I've got a business built that runs on systems, uh, and I have a good team around me.

Speaker 2: 26:53

So a typical day for me just kind of run through my schedule is that I'm not a morning person. I never have been. I've tried. It doesn't work. It sets me up for failure if I try to do things at 5 am or even 7 am. So I'm at the gym at 8. I have a trainer two days a week and the other days I work on my own and then I leave. I leave the gym, I get a cup of coffee from Joe at Starbucks and then I do my quiet time and then I hit the office around 945.

Speaker 2: 27:26

My first appointments are usually at 1015. And I do all of the sales for the firm. Right now, one of the next things we'll be hiring is a salesperson, but I do all the sales. So I usually have two to three sales calls a day that last 20 to 30 minutes, and then I'm doing client relationship calls the rest of the time, and then my calendar from four to 5 is blocked every day. They cannot put anything after. So my last appointment is 3, 3.30. They can't put anything on my calendar after 4 unless I agree to it.

Speaker 2: 28:00

And from 4 to 5.30 is when I'm doing the work on whatever what I would call my three projects, and I usually have three things that I'm working on that I've got. Those are. I've got goals set around those three things. They're the main events or projects we're working on, and I work on one of those projects between in that timeframe and then. And then I, then I get out of here around five, 36 and then go home, spend time with my wife. We'll usually go for a walk at some point in the night and then it's not unusual for me to grab my laptop again while we're watching something stupid on Netflix and then I'll do some communication at that point.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Social media is a tool. I don't spend a ton of time just scrolling through it, but that's when I'll get on social media and comment on posts and interact with people. Uh, I don't do that during the business day. I, I don't, I don't have, I, I don't find time to do that, so that's when I'll do that, or or maybe I have some idea that I want to work on. That's not one of the three, and I'll play with it then, because that's my time and I can do that.

Speaker 1: 29:13

I appreciate you sharing that because so many business owners they you got to get up early, got to get up early and they're just burnt out.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Well, yeah, but if you go, if you go back, if you go back 15 years, uh. So I started the firm in oh five. Um, when I started the law firm, I was coaching one soccer team. Two years later I was coaching three soccer teams and so I would hit the office at 8. I would be out of the office around 3.30 and grabbing all the soccer stuff and getting out to the soccer fields and then I'd get home around 7.30 or 8. Boys would go to bed and then I would often be back at the office from nine till midnight trying to crank out work. So I've, I've done it that way.

Speaker 2: 29:55

That wasn't fun, but there there's a. There is a. There's a part of doing this where there is some grind to it. Um, I know there's some people that avoid it somehow they. But I think the norm is that you're going to have to work hard in your business at some point. The harder you work in the beginning often makes it where you can. It makes it easier later. If you're working on the right things, if you're building, if you're building the right culture, the right systems, you're learning how to automate and delegate things so that that grinding makes sense for you in the future, don't just grind for the sake of grinding, but, ladies and gentlemen, you at some point in business, you have to work hard.

Speaker 1: 30:37

We talk about working on the business versus in the business, and again, business owners are putting out fires all day, it seems like, and they're always asking me like, what are some things that I would work on as a business owner that is working on the business? Can you kind of explain the difference?

Speaker 2: 30:55

Yeah, and there's kind of two parts of that for me. Is that working in the business? For me is if I'm doing in the law firm, is if I'm doing legal stuff, if I'm doing research, if I'm reviewing a contract, if I'm answering legal questions, that's working in the business. If I'm looking at how can we use this software better, how can we maybe find a different software package that will eliminate these three things? We're already our tech stacks so that we can save money, save time, be more efficient, that's working on the business.

Speaker 2: 31:30

And your goal should be to be spending more and more time making those kinds of strategy decisions and less of the technician things that Gerber talks about. Where you're, you've. This is why we started our business, because we're really good at something and think we can do it better than our boss could. And then you have to learn these other skills and how to assemble a team. And so when you're working on those higher level things like what kind of software to use, what are you know, reviewing your core values, making sure your mission statement's in line, doing setting up systems for reviews, for you know your employees, planning, planning longer term things that's working on the business.

Speaker 2: 32:14

But when you get into the nitty gritty of delivering the product or service that's working in the business, and I still have to do that some, but I'm out of it more and more. And that's when you can see it, and I'm a visual person and so I'll very I'll draw out squares. One of my mentors, howard Partridge, showed me this years ago of all the boxes of things that have to be done in the business and write in them. You know the names that are doing them and my goal is to get my name out of all those boxes, except for owner, in the next five years.

Speaker 1: 32:53

That's a great description. So when someone is considering to work on their business because most business owners don't know what, what balance did you see was kind of a good one for you? Was it like maybe an hour a week to start with, or maybe it was half a day to start with, Was it?

Speaker 2: 33:11

like maybe an hour a week to start with, or maybe it was half a day to start with.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Yeah, I think that you should try to block off, if you can, most of a day per week that you're going to focus on bigger picture things and I know that's hard, but there's some great value.

Speaker 2: 33:27

There's value for you and that it will lower your stress level because you're thinking about more positive things instead of putting out fires. There's value to your team and, like I wouldn't even pull away and do that day somewhere else Like, do it at home, do it at a coffee shop when you're working on the business, get away from the business and make your business survive without you for a day. And there's some anecdotal evidence that if you do that, your team will start to take on responsibilities that they would not normally do and your business will start growing in ways that you can't imagine. If you can get to two days a week of being gone, it's exponential on the progress you can make. It's hard to do it, but so I would start with maybe take Friday afternoon and go, focus on the business and work to try to get up to a full day. But again, try to do it. Don't do it at your desk, go somewhere else and do it away from your business.

Speaker 1: 34:21

I'm going to ask you a two-part question. One is from your attorney education experience. What is a piece of advice that you would tell all business owners?

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, document everything If it's not written down, it didn't happen.

Speaker 1: 34:37

I love that. I love that. I see it. I was just on a podcast, oh, probably a week ago or so, and they said what is your biggest failure? And my biggest failure was forming a partnership without legal counsel because I didn't know better. I just forming a partnership without legal counsel because I didn't know better. I just it was kind of a handshake deal, and so I encourage everybody to heed your advice and reach out to an attorney. I just can't say it enough. Two areas of business I encourage everybody to. Even if you can't afford it, you've got to find the money to afford it. And that's an accountant, a good one, a cost accountant and an attorney. Like, don't, don't try to do those things yourself, Would you agree with that.

Speaker 2: 35:14

Yeah, I would add to that business coach.

Speaker 1: 35:16

Business coach.

Speaker 2: 35:16

yeah, so those are the three that cost you money, Then you need to have a banking relationship, not just a bank a banker that you've got on the speed dial and then an insurance broker that can help cover that risk. And if you have those key people, that board of advisors, in place, it will make your life much, much easier and your business will grow.

Speaker 1: 35:36

Amen. So the second part of that question is coming from a business coach perspective. What would you offer business owners?

Speaker 2: 35:44

Get out of your way. You are the reason your business isn't growing. So figure out what, what, where are you stopping people from doing what they need to be doing in your business? Um, my guess is that you're micromanaging something that you shouldn't be, and take your hands off of it. Teach them what you want done, show them how you want it, what your expectations are, and let them do it. But I, if you're the roadblock in the business, um, that's fixable. Uh, if someone else is, um, you know that's, I guess you're going to fire somebody.

Speaker 1: 36:18

I was going to say that's fixable too.

Speaker 2: 36:19

That's fireable, but if, if it's something you can control, that it's crazy not to do that. And so look around and where, where are you causing the problem? Because I guarantee you it's you. You're causing the problem in your business. Everything rises and falls on leadership. So even if you're not the problem, you're the problem. But look, be introspective and try to figure out where are you causing problems in the business by to kind of tie it to what we were talking about where maybe you're doing something in the business you shouldn't, Maybe it's something that you're not even good at, but you won't let go of it. Let go of it and let your business grow.

Speaker 1: 36:58

And never forget the business you have today. Business owners you created that or you allowed it. You are the boss.

Speaker 2: 37:05

Yes.

Speaker 1: 37:06

It's nobody's problem, but yours yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:10

Or you have a job with a crazy boss, yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:12

Right. Well, you've been a blessing to many and a wealth of knowledge. How can someone find you interact?

Speaker 2: 37:20

with you Two places, uh. On Instagram at the Scott Reeb is a great place. We release a lot of content there and it's easy to communicate with me through a messenger. A lot of content there and it's easy to communicate with me through Messenger. And then, if you'll go to reblawcom forward slash small business pivots we'll have a page set up just for you guys and you can download a part of my book, the Shatterproof Entrepreneur kind of get a sneak peek at it before you buy it and see if you want to buy it. And then you can also press a button and schedule a laser legal coaching session with me. You can tell me everything you're doing in the business and I can tell you the things I see that you're doing right and the things you're doing wrong. And then you can take that away and go fix it or have us fix it. However you want to take care of it.

Speaker 1: 38:02

Fantastic Listeners. I encourage you to take Scott's offer. He's a wealth of knowledge and comes from both sides the legal and the coaching. So I know for a lot of us business owners sometimes it's a little frustrating when we go to an accountant, we ask a question and they say, well, you need to talk to your attorney and vice versa, or you need to go, maybe, a business coach. But you've kind of come from both angles so you have a better perspective. So again, scott, I appreciate you Listeners. Go reach out to Scott. Have a great day. Wish you much success. Thanks, michael, my pleasure. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. If your business is stuck, you need help creating a business that can run without you, or you need a fast business loan or line of credit. Go to our website, businessownershipsimplifiedcom and schedule a free consultation to learn why small business success starts with Boss. If you want to talk anything small business related, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.