Announcer: 0:00

You're tuned into the Marketing Law Cast with James Campbell. Brace yourselves for game-changing digital marketing tips and exclusive interviews with industry gurus and top-tier attorneys, smashing the six and seven-figure barrier. It's time to drive your practice to success. Welcome to the Marketing Law Cast.

James Campbell: 0:16

So when you had this transition, thomas, from litigator to estate planning, what were some of the biggest struggles that you faced in building the estate planning practice? What were some of the times where that you felt like that was the biggest struggle, and what were those struggles?

Thomas Limón: 0:33

First off, education. You're a dyed-in-the-wool litigator. You know trial law Coming into a transactional setting. I had a teaspoon worth of it in law school. You study a little bit for it on the law for the bar exam, and then you quickly forget about it. You know, perhaps maybe there's the errant will or two that maybe you do for family members, but by no means expert in that area of law.

Thomas Limón: 1:04

So, coming up to speed with the educational component to ensure that I'm behaving by the rules of ethics to either be competent or become competent within a reasonable amount of time exceedingly important. I want to do a good job and I want to be competent in what I do. I want to do a good job and I want to be competent in what I do. And so I just went head first into reading everything that I can get my hands on and honestly, just to recalibrate myself to the language, I literally picked up a estate planning for dummies book and I just thumbed through it just to remind myself of the terminology for Dummies book. And I just thumbed through it just to remind myself of the terminology. And then I obviously, you know, you go deeper and you pick up some literature from the ABA and from the general practice section to learn some of the basics of estate planning. But geez, when you get into estate planning, there are a lot of programs out there that gear themselves towards people who are looking to transition, and if you're not careful you can spend a lot of money on that portion of retooling yourself into an estate planner, and so you have to be really careful and judicious about which sources you pick up.

Thomas Limón: 2:18

But I would say the number one thing was overcoming the competency hurdle. Once you've overcome the competency hurdle, then you start talking about well, what are some of the the, the struggles of transitioning to an estate planning in terms of, like business, right, Uh, because you're not just a lawyer but you're also a small business owner. Um, that requires a change of mindset. Um, owner, that requires a change of mindset, and I would say that sort of the anxiety of making sure that business was coming in the door. That was number one, in fact, when we originally had our first several meetings together, james, I expressed a lot of anxiety about making sure that I had clients and the clients will come and it might take some patience.

Thomas Limón: 3:04

And I expressed a lot of anxiety about making sure that I had clients, and the clients will come, and it might take some patience and it might take a little bit of time, but one of the things that one should keep in mind is that you get back from the practice what you invest into it, and that's both in terms of time and of money, too right. Your labor can only get you so far. You also need to be intelligent and judicious in sourcing the right, for instance, media company to help you obtain clients, and so at some point, you have to take a little bit of a leap of faith. You have to, um, open the palm right, not so much a clenched, clenched fist, but an open hand, in order to receive it. Um, and that was, uh, a challenge for me at first, because it takes a takes a bit of trust.

James Campbell: 4:02

Yeah, but you've had a um, had an amazing year, so the last 12 months have been, in your own words, highly successful. What was that moment where you felt like you finally made it as an estate planning attorney, where you felt like, ok, everybody knows that I do this now and this is my brand and I'm consistent. Everybody knows that I do this now and this is my brand and I'm consistent. What was that moment where you sort of had that oh my gosh, I've done it. What was that moment for you?

Thomas Limón: 4:31

Well, when you start getting referrals from other lawyers, that's a good feeling. It's acknowledgement by the other members of the bar that they take you seriously and they entrust to you their own family or their own clients, that's a big one. When those word-of-mouth referrals started coming in, that felt good. But interestingly enough geez, what was it? Maybe two weeks ago, my law partner and I we meet up on Fridays to work on the practice. There's working in the practice and then there's working on the practice, and so much of the time that you're so busy meeting with clients, doing consultations, drafting, doing all the legal practitioner work that you also kind of forget or put into the side burner actually working on the business, growing your business. And so we've made it a habit to meet on Fridays. We meet at a coffee shop in a town closely in proximity to Las Cruces called Mesilla, beautiful place, and we meet at the coffee shop. And I got up at like 9 o'clock. I slow rolled the morning with a cup of coffee and just kind of sitting on the couch with my dog and my wife, and now it's about 9.30 in the morning and I make my way over to the coffee shop. Beautiful day, sun shining, weather's fantastic and I have arranged my calendar so that the Fridays are blocked off to work on the business, and so I'm feeling really good about myself. I've done the work for the week and we can begin to plan for the next week.

Thomas Limón: 6:09

Recap this week and I'm sitting there with a cup of coffee and my law partner and we actually begin to joke because we're talking about dress code for both us and for the staff that we're hiring, and we're talking about cufflinks. We're going to get like these French cuffs on our shirts. And my law partner said these words exactly you know, we've made it when we have our logo on our cufflinks. And his wife didn't know anything about this conversation but, despite not knowing anything, like serendipitously, like a week later, she had ordered away for cufflinks with our logo on them and we're really proud of the logo.

Thomas Limón: 6:57

The logo is really cool. It's got this crest with a lion in it. It looks really good. A lion in it, it looks really good. And so my law partner presents me with what his wife had given him, which was a little card that said you know, we've made it and hopefully we have a long way to go, or something like that. And so it's funny that you say that because or you asked me that because, um, we know we've made it when we have logos on our cuff links, and so now I have logos on my cuff links, so I think that's just positive. Uh, yeah, that's it right there.

James Campbell: 7:37

Yeah, they can send you the certificate now. Right, right, I love it. Uh, that's a cool story and um, and what a fun way to sort of commemorate that moment of, like gosh, we're actually doing this thing. We are so before working with IMS, and I know you kind of started your estate planning practice roughly around the same time. But what were the things your biggest concerns as it related to marketing, like what was the primary, like I don't know, I want to say motivator, but the thing that was kind of eating at you about marketing in general?

Thomas Limón: 8:15

Well, you know I've tried. This is my second run at going into private practice. The first time I opened up a door practice and you want to talk about a miserable experience. Open up a door practice. The first time I opened up a door practice and you want to talk about a miserable experience. Open up a door practice.

Thomas Limón: 8:26

And for those who don't know what a door practice is, a door practice is, your practice is anything that walks in the door and for most people that ends up being criminal defense and family law, divorce and custody cases, and so I was really unhappy doing that. And you don't really have to try very hard, you just have to hang a shingle, meet with some lawyers, let your name get out there, especially in this community, that you're taking those kinds of cases, and then all of a sudden, business just happens and then you're up to your ears and in litigation and you're not being judicious about the kind of cases that you're taking, but you're making money, but you really become captive to your own practice. This time around I wanted to do things more intentionally different, but how do you do that? So you have a couple of things, and this is something that you had mentioned previously, which is you have time and you have money, and at first you don't have a ton of money, right, Because you're just beginning your practice. You don't have any capital reserves set aside to dedicate towards marketing, and the money that you do have is scarce and you're really protective over it. And so you know I had elbow grease to put in.

Thomas Limón: 9:40

So what do you do to put in the elbow grease? You meet with clients. You're hungry for those Google reviews. I can't underestimate how important Google reviews are, and no matter how you service the client maybe it was just a consultation they decided that the answer was yes, I want your services, but not now. Okay, Well, does the consultation, does the information that I just provided you, the food for thought warrant a Google review? And most oftentimes, the people are going to want to help you out and they're going to say yes, and so you collect that Google review. So that's the elbow grease part of it. Right, Making sure that you're on your game to get those reviews critically important.

Thomas Limón: 10:19

But then also from the money perspective, you have to let the belt buckle go a little bit. You have to spend some money on advertising because ultimately it's an investment, and it's an investment in yourself. If you're going to be investing in anything, invest in your business. Invest in yourself, be confident, and it's nerve-wracking to let go with some money. I have tried some marketing things in the past. Not all marketing companies are built equally. Not all lawyers are built equally right. There's a bandwidth of competency and a bandwidth of services provided and quality of services provided. And so becoming comfortable with the IMS way, taking direction, having enough humility to know that IMS has a program, it has really good information, it has good coaching and to trust in the process. So just trusting in the process and the trial lawyers are combative. We're kind of, maybe a little bit paranoid by nature, and so you know, but knowing that you're not the enemy, right, You're not the enemy.

James Campbell: 11:41

You're there to help. What was the? You've been working together for about a year now, so what can you say is the biggest impact that IMS has had on the practice? Like, impactfully, where's the impact come from us? Is it in the lead flow? Go ahead.

Thomas Limón: 12:00

Yeah, leadflow, seo, hugely important. Google, google, google, google. I keep coming back to Google because people know Google. It's like the most used search engine, right? And sometimes people don't even really start to click on the links. What they're doing is they're just kind of surveying Google Maps. It will show up on the right-hand side of the screen. They're going to see people at the top and people at the bottom. They're going to be looking at the five-star reviews or 4.8-star reviews or 4.5-star reviews, and the higher you're up there on the Google ratings in terms of reviews, the more clients you're going to get.

Thomas Limón: 12:37

People will just eyeball it superficially, see your number, click on it and then call, and so driving up the internet traffic has been hugely, hugely important. You know before maybe my phone would ring once or twice a week. Now you know I've been looking at my phone. It's off to the side here, it's on silent, but I've already gotten two phone calls. You know, during the process of having this podcast that we're on and I'm going to have to get back to them and give them a call back. But now this thing just rings off the hook and I ask people where they find us and invariably they say, well, we just did a Google search, so that's huge.

Thomas Limón: 13:18

But also just listening to you in the conversations that we've had, giving us examples about how to approach people in a sales capacity, and it seems awkward to talk about legal services as something that requires sales, but what is sales? Something that requires sales, but what is sales. And one of the things that you helped me to do was and therefore IMS, was to not think of sales as like trying to sell the proverbial catch-up popsicle to the lady in white gloves, but really you're there to help them to solve a problem and get them to realize the services that you provide and the value that you have to bring to the table and that they need it, and not thinking of yourself as kind of like this huckster or salesperson of forms or something that someone doesn't need. I'm not trying to sell them some new Tupperware when the Tupperware that they have is perfectly fine, but I'm really trying to provide them with protection for their children and gosh, that's really important, right? That's hugely important.

Thomas Limón: 14:33

You can make a big impact on somebody's life, someone's life, by providing the services that I have to provide to them. I think it's vitally important and I want them to know it, changing that mindset. I can't tell you how helpful that was, and to listen to you and listen to your coaching and then apply, that has helped me a great deal. Because the phone can ring, but then what do you do?

James Campbell: 14:58

once you answer it Right, you've got to close the deal right.

James Campbell: 15:02

Yeah, I love that and I think, thomas just kind of to piggyback on that, one of the things that makes the marketing work so well is one yes, the Google, the ranking on Google. But the way that you rank on Google is recognizing what people are searching for, and people look for information related to their own personal problems. So if you understand what those issues are, so, for example, your website, copy your blog, copy this. The information that you're putting out there is problem centric, like that's what you're focused on. So in the marketing, you're not selling trusts so that when people call you on the phone, they're asking you about hey, how can I solve this issue?

James Campbell: 15:42

And you, with the sales training and your persona and your approach to helping people, it leads right into that. It's not about selling them a trust, right? It's not even about hey, let's just avoid probate. It's about how does this affect your family? Let's find the right solution for you. In doing so, you become a little bit more bespoke as well, so less commoditized, and therefore you're able to charge a higher fee. So talk to me about your fees and revenue. How has this last year affected your fees and revenue? Have you seen the growth? And kind of explain that a little bit or describe it for us a little bit, that growth that you've seen.

Thomas Limón: 16:25

Sure, growth has been phenomenal Growth in terms of the numbers of clients. But you also don't want to get in the habit of trying to devolve to the lowest common denominator, right, it's not a race to the gutter. You don't want to make it that and you don't want to just overwhelm, um, your, your revenue with, uh, with, numerous clients. What you want are are good, high quality, well, well-paying clients, because you have a confidence in the services that you provide, um, so, so, yes, the number numbers of clients have gone up, but also the fees that we command have also increased over time, also because that's a really important component. And you know, geez, sometimes I just feel that and maybe you can even speak to this better but, geez, like, if you undervalue yourself, what you're doing is you're putting a price tag on yourself and that is a reflection of the value that you provide, right? And if you're constantly underselling yourself, um, then what you're communicating to your clientele or potential clients is that you know, in the end of the day you'll fold like a cheap suit.

Thomas Limón: 17:36

You're you, you really don't have a lot to provide. You're't have a lot to provide. You're a glorified form, fill or outer person and there's nothing really bespoke about anything that you do and really, then, you're just competing with artificial intelligence and some of those companies out there that provide you forms and walk you through forms online, and that's not what you want to be. You don't want to be competing with those companies. What you want to be is a standalone legal practitioner that brings additional value to the table. So, yeah, I mean it's been a fantastic year, both in quantity and in quality of clients too.

James Campbell: 18:23

I love that. And when you to that kind of drive home that point you mentioned your reviews earlier and as I was going through and I was reading some of your reviews, the one thing I noticed is that people don't write things like great product, fair price, right. They write things like Thomas helped me so much with my family and made sure that my mom was taken care of and I now have. You know, they they kind of pour out their heart in their reviews. It's not about the, the product, it's about the relationship. And so when you're, when your marketing presents you in that way, and then you follow through with that in this, in this quote unquote sales room, where you're solving problems, that's where things really fall into place. And when you put the sweat equity in and recognize the value of your google reviews, like asking for those and having the, the tools and automations in place to generate those consistently so don't things don't fall through the cracks, you know, like putting those things in place and being intentional with your elbow grease about making sure that stuff is, when you know that that's what drives the business, when that's where the lion's share is coming from. You put that work in to get it. That makes a huge difference and I'm really proud of you, by the way, for making that transition.

James Campbell: 19:39

I love. That's why I wanted to have the interview with you is I've, I love your story and I love the challenges that you faced along the way. One of the things I thought was interesting is that you mentioned earlier in the podcast your law partner, and I know when we first started off, it was you and your wife helping you out, but now you have this partner. Explain to us how that came about and how you had the confidence to bring him on and how that how's that shake out for you with your, with your, with your law partner.

Thomas Limón: 20:06

Well, my law partner one, Sal Guardiola. He's fantastic, great guy, hard worker, smart and a huge heart Right, and so he and he wants to help, and so those qualities really amplify and speak to the things that you find that are important, which is a desire to help others to solve problems, and put the focus really on what your focus should be, which is providing good outcomes for your clients and making them feel comfortable and making them feel that you've solved problems on their behalf as a trusted counselor, advisor, for them and for their family. And Sal is fantastic. He spends extra time on the 10-minute phone calls. Oftentimes they extend to maybe 10 or 15 or maybe even 20 minutes, but gosh, he gets the people in the door and he makes them feel valued and welcomed. But gosh, he gets the people in the door and he makes them feel valued and welcomed In terms of bringing him on.

Thomas Limón: 21:04

We met at the DA's office. We were both deputy prosecutors in New Mexico. A deputy is, you know, one step below like chief deputy of the DA, and so we handled really high-profile crimes together. We did trials together and we talked every once in a while. You know what, what? What might it be like to be in practice together, you know, and we kind of would would daydream a little bit about going into practice together. I was the first to jump ship to start the practice and I was thinking about Sal the whole time, thinking it might be nice to have him come on board. And so I reached out and I wanted to talk to him about the prospects of doing that, him leaving the DA's office. He had just had a baby and he had paternity leave. The state gives paternity leave in New Mexico, so he's out on paternity leave, time on his hands to think and to contemplate his future at the DA's office. He's got three kids now. Does he want to spend the next several years sleeping three, four hours a night and working like a dog prosecuting these high-profile crimes? And so we had a conversation. He asked me a really critical question I think this speaks to the question that you asked me which was if I come on board, how is that? How am I in a better position than just me going out on private practice together? And my answer to that was the parts would be greater than than the sum Right, which is, in a sense, we're we're multiplicative. You know, three plus three is six, but three times three is nine. And are we? Are we more together than the sum of our parts? And I thought absolutely yes, and I've seen that in trial and it's borne a lot of fruit when we've been out in private practice together. That us, together, the synergy that we have, is more than what each of us singularly could bring to the table on our own. And that should be true for any decision that I think you make in business.

Thomas Limón: 23:11

We're looking to acquire staff. Now We've got virtual staff, we're going to get an in-person staff and we're growing our network of attorneys in other states. And so the question when we do these kinds of things are in doing so, what are we bringing to the bottom line in terms of acquiring an asset for the business? Are we just bringing in somebody who's going to make their salary back? Well, if that's what you're doing, then… why Right that? In order to acquire somebody or anything, whether it's staff or a new printer or a computer? The question is what does that do for the bottom line? Does it increase it? Or are you just using it as convenience, or what is that? What does that bring to the table? And um, for Sal, what he brought to the table was a whole lot and um I wouldn't be in the position that I'd be in if I didn't have him working alongside me.

James Campbell: 24:14

I love that, um, thomas and and just my conversation with him, Uh, I was like, yeah, I see I can see why you wanted him on your team and why you you say the synergy cause it's like the energy that you both bring, like it's maximized when you're together. So I love the calls that we had with the three of us were on there. So I see that what's sort of the next step for your, what's the next phase or the next goal for your law firm? What do you sort of have in your mind's eye of the next phase?

Thomas Limón: 24:48

We have some pretty exciting things in the pipeline.

Thomas Limón: 24:52

One of the things that we're focusing on is bringing in in-person staff to have highly competent, highly trained staff that can do some more client interface at kind of a higher level also to take the burden off of some of the sales calls, perhaps, and also meeting with clients, collecting information, doing intake and then perhaps even at some point helping out with the signings, either directing them or being a critical component of signings.

Thomas Limón: 25:27

We're more in line with the practice of law, which is doing design sessions for our clients to design out their trust or their estate plan, to do the drafting, especially in some of the more bespoke clients that we have that are really idiosyncratic, very unique situations. It would free us up to do more of that and less of the other things that don't necessarily require an attorney. In terms of growth and expansion, we're trying to be a little more virtual reach out to northern New Mexico, so beyond our immediate geographical area, we have some people who are interested in working for us in other states. So branching out to states like Utah, wisconsin, arizona, texas, those are options that are very much on the table and, just as a bit of a teaser, we're up to some really exciting stuff involving trust administration and blockchain and trust automation. So I won't get too deeply into that, but it's well in the works and we're moving full steam ahead with some of that stuff and that's going to be really exciting.

James Campbell: 26:48

I love that. I love how you can still even though your practice is still new, for lack of a better word you know a couple of years old now at this point, almost even not even a couple of years old but you're still working on ways of expanding, like you're seeing a vision for the firm that goes beyond just what you can provide in your lone local self for your own. Like how can you provide this service and expand your reach and solve problems for people and kind of build that brand on a larger scale. And I love that drive. I love that that you can bring in a new offering of trust, admin and ways to sort of advance that with technology you know, and leverage some of the new technology that's coming out. This is the way that the estate planning attorney is going to grow and stay relevant in the future. Right is leveraging the technology, not being afraid of it. But if you're only selling documents, if you're only commoditizing and you're not focused on the relationship, then people may as well go to a robot.

Thomas Limón: 27:50

Right, they may as well. Yeah, I can't. I can't, you know. Sorry to cut you off, but I get so excited when I when I think about this topic. You know, technology is not something to be afraid of. Technology is something to be really excited about and, as an estate planner, knowing what I bring to the table and knowing the relational aspect, technology is going to only make us even more powerful, I think, and I'm really excited about the additional help that I can bring to a lot of clients the efficiency, the ease. I'm fired up. I'm really excited about our future and you know, we're not just robots, we're more than that. Now we might use a robot to help us advance our practice, but I'm not worried about being replaced by one.

James Campbell: 28:39

Yeah, I love it. We have to have that outlook of possibilities and stay confident. That's when good things come our way. Thomas, if you could give advice to another attorney maybe transitioning from litigation to estate planning, or even maybe just starting their estate planning practice what advice would you give them? What would be some of the bits of wisdom to give them?

Thomas Limón: 29:00

Sure, sure, first, be humble. Right, you're going out into practice, you're, you're, you're in a new area of law and, uh, there's people out there that want to help. Sure, there are some people that want to take advantage, but if you're going to be working with IMS, uh, be humble, be willing to accept coaching and, um, be ready to put in some elbow grease, be ready, be ready to put in the work. It's not going to come to you, um, overnight, it's not going to come to you immediately, but, like with any good thing in life that's worth doing, uh, the more you work at it, the more rewarding it's going to be. Um, so, except coaching, be humble, work hard and good things will happen.

James Campbell: 29:48

That's great advice. What would you say to other estate planning attorneys who are maybe on the fence about working with IMS or they're considering IMS? What would you say to sort of push them over the hump?

Thomas Limón: 30:00

Sure, they're on your side. They want to help. Their success is predicated on your success. They don't exist as a company unless you're doing well and they have a service to provide. They want to help you to advance and to achieve your goals, and you have to unclench the fest in order to be able to receive the reward in exchange, and so make room in your budget, invest in yourself, invest in your business, be confident while also being humble at the same time. James is a great coach. He's going to help you out and be willing to be coachable and be flexible and just receive the information. It's a journey, and so you know IMS has been great to me lots of good follow up, and I recommend.

James Campbell: 31:01

Thomas, thank you, man. Thank you for that short testimonial there, but thank you for taking time. Man, Thank you for that short testimonial there, but thank you for taking time. I know you had sales calls coming through while we were recording the podcast, so you know, obviously the marketing is working for you, your brand is built up, you've, you've put the work in and built yourself up in your authority, both online and in the community, to create a really amazing practice, and I'm excited for what you have in the future. Any closing thoughts before we close out today, thomas?

Thomas Limón: 31:31

Thank you A lot of great gratitude for having me on today and I look forward to some potential colleagues in the estate planning practice coming real soon.

James Campbell: 31:41

Yeah, very good. Thomas, thanks a lot for today. We appreciate it, and that'll conclude this episode of the Marketing Lawcast.

Announcer: 31:48

That's a wrap on this edition of the Marketing Lawcast. Thanks for joining us. Head over to imsrockscom for more growth-focused insights. If you're ready to skyrocket your firm's marketing, don't hesitate to book a free strategy call with our team right on our website. Here's to your success. See you next time.