Seminar Success & Growing Your Elder Law Practice – Expert Interview with Attorney Greg McIntyre

Video transcript as follows:

Jim: All right, welcome back to another one of our Expert Interview sessions with Bambiz. Today we’ve got Greg McIntyre of McIntyre Elder Law. He’s got a couple of different locations in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Welcome to the Expert Interview, Greg.

Greg: Charlotte metro area, I’m metro, let’s go. Thanks, man, I appreciate that.

Jim: Awesome. Well, give us a little bit of an overview of your practice.

Greg: I’m an Elder Law attorney with McIntyre Elder Law and I’m one of our attorneys. Our practice has multiple offices in the Charlotte metro area and we’re very big into elder counsel, love elder counsel. I’m a huge believer in systems and processes and being able to provide next level services. What does that mean? I mean really great services, fix any problems, provide great Estate Planning and Elder Law services to our clients in a timely manner. Companies like Krause Financial, Elder Counsel, Bambiz Marketing help us put in place systems because I’m one guy. I am one person with like, maybe, so much time at work. I was going to say eight hours in a day but that’s a joke. With 12-13 hours in a workday, no, with 24 hours a day, right, and I’ve got sleep eight of them, spending a little, some time with my family, and not feel too guilty that I’m neglecting my kids, my wife, too much. Then it goes back and forth. Or not feel guilty that I’m neglecting my practice too much. So that’s always the juggle and the struggle but with our Elder Law practice, we have, Elder Law to me, we have three departments. We have Estate Planning, which I call pre-planning, because with Elder Law, you’re always looking at the long-term care piece and that’s a big issue. A little different from traditional Estate Planning with someone in their 30s, early 40s, with two kids. That’s the easy stuff. Then there’s probate, which is when someone passes away. It’s probably our busiest department, even though we tell people how to avoid probate all the time they don’t listen. So we continue to service them and we want to do that, provide great services there when they’re in need. We also do probate litigation in that department and guardianships in that department. I like to get in court and do those things, our attorneys do, we have attorneys who go to court and do those. Then we have Medicaid crisis planning and veterans benefits planning, which is a really, really, I think that’s where we have the most fun, which is planning to save assets that maybe other attorneys and street lawyers they talk to, their friends tell them, social workers tell them, you just have to spend every dime that you’ve ever earned down on care. There’s many, many other ways to go with it. I thoroughly enjoy what I do, I love it, it’s my passion and I hope it shows.

Jim: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I remember you telling me, we actually met together at one of, a business growth conference at the beginning of the year and you were kind of telling me your story about how you kind of got into practicing law. If you could, just briefly kind of give us the short version of that because it’s a pretty good story.

Greg: Yeah, so, I mean, it’s the cheesiest story ever, man. I mean, literally I watched Perry Mason reruns as a kid, they were drilled into my head over and over again and I wanted to be Perry Mason. That’s what I wanted to do. I was in the Navy, I went into the Navy, I’m a Navy vet, loved the Navy, loved being in there. There was some tough times and good times but I love being a veteran and serve the country. Met my wife while I was in there, we got married, had a young child. Was in the tech industry, I was a computer programmer for a few years at RTP, Research Triangle Park, and wanted to complete my dream of going to law school. So I finally did all my exam studies and got in and went and we kind of worked our way through. I went to Campbell University for my JD and MBA, which I love Campbell. It’s kind of like bootcamp for lawyers for a few years. And then we just worked very hard, worked for an attorney in a firm in Raleigh while I was in law school, bartended and waited tables. There’s no better job I’ve ever had that helped me with sales and customer service more than waiting tables, by the way. And servicing people. I think everyone should have a job where they really, really service people and help people and learn what customer service is or how to present things. Because I can present a service to you or a product many different ways. And I need to be able to read you and how you’re feeling and communicate with you effectively. I learned as much on my side jobs as I did in law school. In fact, law school, in my opinion does not teach you the practical aspects of practicing law at all. It teaches you theory. You have to get out and work and make it work. I came out and did a ton of courtroom work, well, hey, started in real estate to begin with, okay? But that was for me beginning as an intern in the beginning but then the bottom fell out of real estate. As a younger attorney, I had to really shift to more of a courtroom practice at that point. I was still doing Estate Planning and kind of picking up the scraps off other attorneys’ tables that in the firm that I worked for. I was doing the things they didn’t and trying to make a meal out of those for my family, right, and for myself. My wife and I continued to give ourselves more responsibilities and have more children as we went along. We now have six. But nothing will inspire you to build something great like having six children and taking it seriously, okay, and having a big family. I know you have a young one, too, right?

Jim: Just one though, not six.

Greg: Just one, well, you’re just getting started, man, you’re just getting started. Wait, give it time. It’s not up, it’s not just up to you. My wife’s cut me off, she said I’m done right now so we’re no more kids. But yeah continued on working, growing the practice and really learning about courtroom work and litigation and those things, jury trials. I love nothing more than talking to juries and arguing those point. Those were a lot of great years for me. But then I realized what I really love is the strategic part of it. I don’t see planning for a civil case or criminal jury case much differently than planning for an Elder Law Medicaid crisis planning case. It’s just strategic planning under rule sets, that’s all it is. It’s problem-solving. It’s computer programming. I mean, it’s problem-solving, that’s all it is. And that’s the way I see it and that’s the way it is. There’s rules and you plan under those rules. But I think that having the 12 people in a box and really what you’re doing is your selling them on your viewpoint. You are marketing the entire trial to the jury. At the end of that, you’re selling them with the close, with your closing, literally called a closing. You are closing the jury. All you lawyers out there that think you’re not sales people, you are. There’s a marketing aspect of that. I don’t care if you’re a district court traffic attorney, you’re politicking all the time. If you’re a superior court criminal or civil attorney, you’re politicking and you’re marketing and you’re selling. Your point of view, your client’s point of view, and your position. I learned that I was pretty good at selling 12 people in a box to my point of view. Not enough people do Estate Planning. I love that problem solving and I love the systematization and opportunities with elder counsel. We parlayed that into an Estate Planning and Elder Law practice that I really found my niche with and was able to create a suite of services, create systems at every position. I’m a big e-Myth, Michael Gerber guy, too, and I really believe in those concepts and that they can be applied to the practice of law. That allowed me to finally make that jump and that shift. The reason that 12 people in a box is important is every time I do a seminar and, Jim, I can’t thank you enough for what you helped me do with seminars and packing a room, or a house, or a venue with potential clients that want to hear what I have to say and that I can help. Because in the end it’s all about helping people, right, your family included and theirs. If I can do that with a jury, I can do that with a seminar and that’s what I do is I’m simply am able to have fun, have a conversation, ask questions. I’ve got a PowerPoint behind me as a crutch if I need it but, again, that is an assist and a crutch. I don’t need it. The best seminars are sometimes the one where there’s technical difficulties or something goes wrong and I just have a conversation with the audience and we talk about it. I can’t talk with the jury but I can talk to, I can ask questions of, and I can delegate. Seminars are really easy if you delegate the work to your audience.

Jim: One of the things I did want to go over quickly, your story of starting your Elder Law firm and the growth of your practice, right? When you started, where were you and what has that journey been like to where you are now?

Greg: It was a hard, it was a hard shift. At some point I just had to say, look, we are only taking Estate Planning and Elder Law cases. In fact, we’re going to change the name of our firm from The McIntyre Law Firm to McIntyre Elder Law so there’s absolutely no confusion whatsoever to what we do. And still people come in either trying to be smart or trying to be wise or, actually, some of them generally, genuinely asking who Mr. Elder was, right? Or if I was attorney Elder because it’s McIntyre Elder Law. Now, we, as Elder Law attorneys we know that Elder Law is an actual specific area of practice. Everyone doesn’t know that though so even as I was, I wanted to leave myself no escape. I wanted to leave myself, confine myself, literally, my marketing, my message, everything specifically to Elder Law. In order to do that, I started with the name of the practice and that was intentional, McIntyre Elder Law. It doesn’t give me a lot of wiggle room because I will backslide, I used to years ago, and still take the occasional criminal case or the domestic case or the civil case because I felt sorry for the client or it tugged at my heart strings. Gosh, I’m the worst person in my office probably for having a bleeding heart for, that’s why I’m an attorney, for trying to help people, or not charging our right fees, or doing pro bono, or other areas of law and work. I wanted to confine myself to just Elder Law so we made a hard switch and that’s all we took at that point, which I thought, and my wife thought I was crazy, or knew I was crazy, anyway, because she knew me. I think, she’s very glad that we did that. I mean, that’s been a very good decision, but narrowing down, focusing, I call it the X-factor. Focusing on the X from this side where you’re doing everything down to this one point, to the center, it’s scary. But then after that, everything opens up on the other side and you develop those niche practice areas within the niche practice area, right? The different departments, you expand the staff, you hone your marketing message and that makes all the difference because you’re doing one thing. You’re, you’re, the cliche saying is a mile deep and an inch wide, an inch wide and a mile deep as opposed to the other way around. And that’s extremely true. That’s made, that’s one of the things that’s made a big difference for us was making a hard shift just to Elder Law and that’s it.

Jim: And that’s been beneficial for you, obviously.

Greg: It’s been extremely beneficial for us, yes. It’s always a work in progress and it will always be a work in progress for us. We’ll constantly keep retooling. And everyday I’ll feel like I’m probably going to go broke if I don’t do this, this, and this. I don’t know that I’ll ever get away from that. I don’t care how big we get, how successful we are and we’re just, I’m just glad to be able to feed my family right now and I’ve got one in college. So that was, I can’t tell you the satisfaction, the pain and satisfaction of being able to pay for him to go to college this fall, again. And we’re able to do that, we’re able to shoulder those burdens and really help our family and help other families, too. Right, but just from a business perspective being able to take care of my family is a big deal for me.

Jim: Yeah. I know you mentioned workshops and obviously people know us because most of our clients are Elder Law and Estate Planning attorney clients are hosting workshops. You’ve been doing, I don’t know, I feel like you’ve been doing more than two a month but you’ve been doing averaging probably about two, maybe two or three seminars a month and have been having really good success with those. I’d love to hear kind of like, obviously, if you can get people in the room, which we’re helping you do, how do you run those? What’s kind of been your secret sauce as far as getting those people to kind of learn more about what Elder Law is, how it affects their family, getting them into the consultation, then retaining them as a client so you can help their family?

Greg: Right. I’ve found that great things that we, that I, great things that I like, things that I like come in threes. One, one of the prongs of our marketing, there’s several ways that we reach people. One of them that we extremely commit to is seminars. Throughout the years, I’ve done, I’ve been a yes man like that Jim Carrey movie, Yes Man, literally. That’s what I tell everybody in my practice. If someone asks us to come show up and talk, anytime day or night, say yes. We’ll work it out, put it on the calendar, and we’ll be there. I have done seminars where one person showed up, which is really not a seminar, that’s a consult. Then I’ve given a, I gave a strong seminar to that one person. I’ve done those. I’ve done seminars for 150 people. I’ve done seminars where I partnered with financial planners or other people to put them on. I’ve done seminars solo. I’ve always searched for how I could turn on a geographic area and how I could provide, find plenty of available potential clients. You have helped us do that. Right now, our formula is, and I don’t mind sharing that, we give two seminars per month, private seminars is what I call them, where we do all the heavy lifting. We have to put all the butts in seats. We have to set up, we have to provide all the equipment, we have to pay for food. I’m a big believer in paying for food, having some kind of food there to sit there and eat dinner, break bread, if you will, and hang out for a little bit and then give a seminar. A seminar is a great way to build trust and an initial way to build trust with a great number of people. I’m always looking for the biggest megaphone to talk to an audience and build that initial trust. Anyone can help them. Or how about, they can go to any Estate Planning or Elder Law attorney but why should they go to me? Those are the things that seminars allow you to do. Seminars being a big part of what we do. The private seminars that we do with you as well as any church or Sunday school or women’s group or book club or whatever that wants us to come speak. Or All Timer’s or veterans group, I’ve done a lot of speaking to veterans groups and events. American Legion, I’m a a member of American Legion and VFW. But, so anyway, there’s no shortage of opportunities if you’re willing to hustle and work and put in the hours to do seminars. Okay? And there’s plenty of canned groups to go speak to. However, I have found and always search for a way to do private seminars routinely and regularly so it’s a regular part, it’s a system, it’s a part of what we do. That’s what you’ve allowed us to do. And Bambiz can put, if I asked for 30 people in a seminar, we are, and you and I have worked back and forth, how many people does that mean I need to say that’s committed? And you’re always on us, hey, you need to call everybody back and make sure they’re there. We’ve got emails we send with a video and I’m, hey, can’t wait to see you tomorrow night at the seminar, hey, here’s the menu. Then even afterwards, a follow-up video, thanks for coming to the seminar. Then a thank you note, handwritten. I’m big on handwritten thank you notes. Thank you so much for coming. We’re building an entire system around that seminar and you, on the front end, allow us tap a geographic area and know that we’re going to have, we can pretty well estimate how much food we need to pay for and how many people are going to show up. Sometimes there’s variances but then we try to figure out what that was. But for the most part, I mean, we’ve been pretty steady. You said we pack them out early before we started. What do you think? Do you think we pack them out?

Jim: Yeah, I mean, there’s some pictures. I can post them maybe in this article, if you don’t mind, some of the ones you had posted to your Facebook page but I mean, yeah, they’re packed. I mean, and when I say packed, the room was full and I don’t know these people because I’m just seeing a picture of it that you posted online but, I mean, they look like they’re qualified, targeted candidate for what you’re doing. I mean, they look the part.

Greg: All you can ask for, I’m going to get, I’ll give you, I have a tendency to get hokey because that’s kind of what lies behind what I think. It’s just, when you put out to the universe what you’re looking for and you get really specific about it, you’re going to find, you’re going to get it back. There’s like six, seven billion, six and a half, seven billion people on the planet, all I’m asking is 30 people to show up at a seminar, man.

Jim: And so when these people sign up.

Greg: If you can’t get 30 people at a seminar, you need to quit right now.

Jim: We see that they sign up, obviously. And then we kind of know what kind of people should show up. But, I mean, the most important thing that we always tell our clients is like, it’s kind of like, if you don’t follow up with them, you’re kind of rolling dice. Maybe you’ll get 80% of people to show up, maybe you’ll get 20% of people to show up, who knows, right? It’s going to be like the luck of the draw. But you kind of mentioned some really cool things just now like a handwritten thank you note, making a video and sending that out, reminding them about the events. How many times do you think you actually, I mean, our system sends them one confirmation email, but how many times do you think you personally, from the office, follow up with the registrants?

Greg: You can’t do everything for us. I can’t just look to you and say, hey, take care of the whole thing. If I did, you might do it but you’re going to, you’re going to charge additional fees for that, right, to do that. I think we have to take some responsibility-, this is a partnership. You’re finding people, you’re sending them a confirmation email but then it’s on me, right? They know where to go. But then, and it doesn’t take long for me to set this up. I may have taken, somebody in my office grabbed this phone, this million dollar plus producer right here for us, right? The telephone. And the HD video camera, right, and took a 30-second video of me telling them how much I couldn’t wait to see them tomorrow night at the seminar and how we were going to talk about this, this, and this, right? Part of its energy, too. Don’t go on and, hey, . Get some energy, drink some coffee before you go, right? And then, because energy means a lot, right, energy means a lot period. Communicate that positive energy. It gives you a chance to see, to get in front of them again, and they’re like, man, this guy’s, and we tell, maybe have the address in there and then Taylor, in my office, does a great job of doing those things. It could be someone else but it’s worth it. It doesn’t take long to put everybody’s email that you give us, you give us their emails, and you can BCC email them all at the same time and they get dropped in their inbox an anticipatory, building, building, I’m building to the client acts, which is a seminar, I’m building anticipation. There’s just a ton of things. Plus it’s sunk costs for them. I don’t want to get too psychological but, in marketing how that works, and going for the close. But literally the close would be making an appointment with our office at the seminar, okay? That’s what I’m going for the entire time. How much time, the more time someone spends prior to the seminar with us, and then at the seminar, the more chan-, the chances are much, much higher, exponentially higher, that they’re actually going to sign up for an appointment if I do a good job at the seminar.

Jim: If you get a room when they’re at the seminar, they’re having dinner with you, you’re educating them, right? And when it’s all said and done.

Greg: Yeah, it’s a conversation, I’m answering their questions. Every seminar’s different, yes.

Jim: Yeah. And when it’s all said and done, I mean, what percentage of that room says, you know what, Greg, I’d like to set up that initial consultation.

Greg: Call everybody beforehand, too. Email them, then pick up the phone and call them. As the attorney, you don’t have to do that. You may not have time to do that, literally. But it would be worth it if you took an hour to do that but have someone from your office call to make sure they’re going to show. What we’re trying to do is make sure that what we spend in money for the seminar is pretty close because that’s going to be relevant to the number of people that you have there, that you estimate are going to be there, that you have your packed house that you want, right? That might be 20 for you, if you feel comfortable with it. It might be 50, it might be 30. Thirty’s a good number. Hey, but sometimes we’re putting 60, 80 people in seats. Then you said at the seminar, so then at the seminar, what’s a good sign up for me or say Brendon, who’s another attorney that gives seminars in our office. I’m not the only one that gives seminars. Again, I’m one person. I don’t want to limit myself to just me, right? So I’m okay with training other people. It took me a while to get there but entrusting other people to do this, too. We want 100% of the room to sign up. That’s always my goal. We usually get literally 2/3 of the room at least to sign up for an appointment, for an appointment, right. Then it’s on me to make sure they get to the appointment, which we have some automatic systems in place that read our calendars and automatically call, text, and email them to get them to confirm the appointment like 24 hours ahead of time. Hit one to confirm, two to reschedule, three to cancel. If they reschedule or cancel, our office is on the phone with them rescheduling or, hey, why did you cancel, can we reschedule that, right? And once you put forth this much effort, time, and money for a customer acquisition, for client acquisition, then you want, those are seeds you planted. You want to cultivate that. It’s a lot easier to turn that person into an appointment that’s sitting in front of you than to then turn your attention and go after somebody new. So, yes. There’s systems and processes everywhere that you want to have but they’re not complicated. Again, it’s just writing that script out over time and tweaking it, see what works, and then having someone you trust in the office, train them to do it.

Jim: I love that. I love that feedback there. I think that’s going to be very valuable to a lot of the attorneys that are watching this video right now or listening to this or reading the transcript. One of the things I really wanted to touch on, it’s just the idea of being a real human, not that attorneys aren’t real humans, right, but like one of the biggest push-backs that we find.

Greg: Perfect man.

Jim: In our marketing, in our marketing we don’t really use that legal jargon. We don’t try, because we find that it confuses the average person. Honestly, we actually run all of our marketing through a system to make sure that it’s under a sixth grade reading level, believe it or not.

Greg: Mine will, mine will be.

Jim: What are your thoughts on that? Sometimes we’ll have our clients that have come back and they’re like, no, we need to have it say this, we need to use this language. What are your thoughts on basically what I just said, using a simpler.

Greg: Literally you’re talking to someone who absolutely loves a legal, there’s nothing more I like than getting lost in some big legal problem, researching it, and winning, or coming up with a solution, or, I love that. But your client doesn’t, in my opinion. They love that you love that but what’s going to be more appealing for you. Hi, I’m Greg McIntyre. Thank you for coming to McIntyre Elder Law’s seminar and website. I mean, I am the smartest attorney on planet Earth. I’m going to use huge words you don’t know what I’m talking about. Or just, hey guys, I’m an attorney, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a wife and six kids, and a lot of problems and opportunities, I do Elder Law, let me help you. Let’s sit down and talk about it. And hey, here through social media and every single channel and facet and outlet out there, I’m going to give you a window into my life where I’m not going to be perfect and I’m going to be a real person to you. That’s the easiest thing to do. What could be easier than that? But your scared to show that you’re like an actual human being. Because you’re an attorney, you’re some perfect person or you’re going to expose yourself to some liability or somebody’s not going to like you. Newsflash, people aren’t going to like you anyway. The greatest thing that I could do is create a ton of raving fans and a few enemies and a few haters. If I’m not doing it that way, then I’m not doing it right.

Jim: Love it.

Greg: Of course, I’m being, I have a bland, vanilla message that every other attorneys out there and you might as well just go ahead and buy you an ad in the yellow pages with the other 500 attorneys in town. And stay there. And get lost there with everybody else.

Jim: Yeah, that’s the kind of stuff that we always say but it comes, it’s a lot better when it’s coming from the attorney than their marketing, than their marketing firm.

Greg: I mean, I know attorneys. That’s why I’m not worried about them messing with me for the most part because none of them are going to operate at the energy level that I do, and they’re scared to put out there who they really are because there’s this facade of I’m going to keep it really nice. There’s this facade of perfection that I used to buy into, by the way. And bravado and ego that you feel like you need to maintain when, in fact, if you can simply be yourself, what is the easiest thing to be other than yourself, and show your life? I mean, I get that I’m a bit more open and extroverted. If you follow us on social media and if you’re looking to do that, just, you don’t have to look hard, Google it or go on any social media channel and look for Lawyer Greg or Greg McIntyre and you get to meet me and our family and our office. I mean, people are interested in that. I mean, think about it, oh, that’s my attorney. Yeah, Greg’s a goofball or, hey, I heard, I saw you at the beach this weekend, or man, I love that article that you just wrote on how you were so frustrated with guardianships and are they constitutional and they’re so much different, they take away your freedoms, and there’s not the standards there are in criminal court that takes away freedoms. I get that, I’m struggling with those things right now in this guardianship case. And you never know, something you say is going to resonate with a potential client. And they’re going to call or they’re going to, as long as you, I try to put a call to action in all those things. Hey, to learn more, call this number or click here to go to our website. Every page is literally a funnel that educates and also gives you an opportunity to connect with us. And try to build that, I try to build that in to everything we do. But, I mean, our marketing is pretty simple. That’s one of our marketing, let’s just say that would be one of our marketing prongs. You would be the other. A commitment to seminars and working with Bambiz to fill those would be the other. Another, one of the others.

Jim: Yeah, and just being real and being out in the community. You guys do so much outreach.

Greg: Keep it real, man, just keep it real. Yes, yes, okay, so I’m involved with the church, involved with veterans groups, involved with my family. I mean, I find myself just the older my kids get and I just have one in college and they just, it takes up so much of our time and money and effort and everything else and I’m always, I mean, I really want to scrap the entire university system in the nation sometimes, okay, because of how everything works. But I mean, I figure I’m frustrated with that the same as my clients are frustrated with that. Or their kids or grandkids are getting ready to go to college. I’ll tell you, for instance, I had a client the other day that I sat down with that was so, he wanted to set up a trust, he wanted to make sure that his kids were the trustee in an irrevocable trust that it wouldn’t be counted on their books because the grandkids are going to college and then it would mess up their ability to get financial aid. I mean, there’s an article that I could write right there. I mean, what kind of society do we live in where we’re trying not to give our kids stuff because it would screw up their grandkids’ ability to get financial aid to go to college.

Jim: I was reading an article the other day that basically said that parents were disowning their children so they could qualify for financial aid.

Greg: Well that’s in Chicago, yeah, Chicago, Illinois. That was in Illinois. Yeah, that’s the next big scandal after the one in LA with the bribery and all that stuff. Then now, but see, there’s, I don’t think there’s anything they can do to these parents at all. And what they did was both horrible and awesome at the same time. Horrible and strategically correct at the same time. You disown your kid, like adopt out your kid, basically. I used to joke, and this is not a good joke, but I used to do a lot of social services work and I always, these kids, a lot of them were in horrible positions but in our state, in the State of North Carolina, if you’re in the social services system, say six months before you turn 18, you can go to any state university for free. I have six kids, I’m telling them my wife and I, we need to get on the program where somehow we just get them out, we get them in social, they go to foster care for the last year and then they go, or I’m trying to move them to Georgia where they have the Hope Scholarship with my parents. I have all these strategic college plans that nobody pays attention to and I end up paying it out of pocket, right, I end up paying it is what I do. But, yeah, people, but those are articles you can write, right? Those are articles you can write using real life and real instances and real situations that you have passion. And that’s part of energy and passion, too. If you can’t get really behind your point and what you’re saying, then you probably might as well not say it. It’s going to resonate so much more if you keep it real, like you said. I like that, just keep it real.

Jim: Keep it real. You’ve done some cool things where you’ve actually written multiple books kind of sharing your thoughts and your ideas.

Greg: How did you know?

Jim: On what you call how to be a rock star lawyer, and that’s the name of one of your books, where you cover topics like omnipresence, mindset, perseverance. Tell us a little bit more about Rock Star Lawyer, kind of where that came from.

Greg: I can play the air guitar. And that’s about it, okay? And I think I can sing like in the shower or the car but my wife doesn’t. But to me, being a rock star is just being good at your profession or just being all in in your profession. Just kind of going your own way and doing your thing and just how can you excel in your own profession. And it was kind of partly my journey in learning to make the jump from this haphazard practice where I’m always in flux and the money’s up and down and there’s not a lot of systems in place into morphing that into a practice that has systems, that has marketing, and that’s a system, that talks about putting less limits on yourself without exposing client secrets or exposing yourself to liability. And attorneys have those special concerns and I’m sensitive to that. I’m a practicing Illinois attorney with plenty, lots of clients to serve and we want to grow our practice. Yeah, so I found the easiest way to organize my thoughts was to write a book. And if I can write an outline for a seminar or I can write a great closing or something like that, I put that approach first with Saving the Farm,, A Practical Guide to the Legal Maze of Aging in America, which is a book not written for attorneys, again, written for the consumer to educate them on Elder Law and Estate Planning issues. Then I wrote Rock Star Lawyer, which I’m very proud of. This is a real book about, if you read it, it’s certainly not just written about me. But it does have a lot of my journey in there and I think it has a lot of things to impart to attorneys both young and old. I mean, I know attorneys who still practice in their retirement years, not because they want to, but because they have to. My goal is to practice into my retirement age and old age because I love what I’m doing and I want to but not just because I have to. I wrote that, I thought it was a nice insight into marketing and in the systems and how to organize a practice. It’s got a lot of exercises. There’s a, it’s got a backstage pass at the end of every chapter. There’s a corresponding website called LawyerGreg.com. In fact, anybody who watches this, if they want to get a free copy, Jim, can I get you to throw something up that’s maybe a free audiobook and e-book?

Jim: Oh, yeah. For sure, we love doing that.

Greg: You can get any of these books on Amazon.com or Audible, there’s an audiobook as well, or Kindle, or any iTunes, right? Audiobook, e-books on iTunes as well. If you want a print book, but I’ll tell you, anybody who watches this video at any one of our sources, mine or yours, call our office or go to LawyerGreg.com . If you sign up for the e-newsletter on LawyerGreg.com you’ll get a copy of the e-book and audiobook or you can get that on Jim’s site at Bambiz.net

Jim: If you’re confused about how to spell that, we just bought the domain ElderLawGrowth.com so you can go to ElderLawGrowth.com.

Greg: That’s awesome.

Jim: Good deal.

Greg: ElderLawGrowth.com. And yeah, so Rock Star Lawyer is in no way being braggadocious on my part, it’s simply saying, I love the logo and I love, I mean, it worked out really nice. I can see that I need to get a hat. A t-shirt and a hat. But just building a practice and living a lifestyle that involves living it to the fullest and I’m big on family. So this works with family, too, and it works with your business. I think the more you organize your life and systematize your practice that the more money you’re going to make easier, the more people you’re going to be able to help, and the more time you’re going to be able to spend with your family. Ours is kind of a family affair anyway so I’ve raised a lot of kids in the office, along with my wife. There’s Rock Star Business, too, which is the sequel to that. I don’t have a copy of that here right now at this office but Rock Star Business is also up. You can get that on any of those sources. I like writing and I like working. I like working and writing. My wife just says I like working, it doesn’t matter if I was doing this, I’d be doing something all the time anyway. But that’s fun, man. Or call Tiffany at my office. Call Tiffany. Tiffany works very closely with me. She will get you a free copy of the e-book. She can send you a free copy of the print book or audiobook, she can email you a link on that, too. Or LawyerGreg.com, sign up for the e-newsletter at LawyerGreg.com.

Jim: Very cool. I’m definitely going to have to check out the book as well. I know, I know other people will, too. The one thing we do like to ask everybody when we’re wrapping up these expert interviews, we like to ask what is the number one piece of advice you’d give an Elder Law or Estate Planning attorney today?

Greg: It, number one is I like to keep it real. I mean, I think keeping it real, committing to your craft, there’s no way you’re not going to get there. There’s plenty of people to help. You don’t have to be an over-the-top marketer to get there but certainly if you want consistent access to clients, seminars is a way to do it, to build trust, to get to know someone easily in a short period of time, to reach 30 people at once. There’s no better way than to get face-to-face with them, break some bread, and talk about their problems and talk about probably what you like doing the most, which is talk about what you do and talk about Elder Law and Estate Planning. I really enjoy working with you, Jim. I’m not just staying that because we’re doing this video but certainly I do love marketing, I do love those things, I love business, and I love helping people. I think just keeping it real, doing seminars, getting out there, getting out of your office is the number one thing. Dropping some inhibitions, getting in front of people and speaking, which is really, can be the easiest thing that you do even if you think it’s the thing you’re most scared of.

Jim: Normally I always find out the thing that you are most scared of is what actually benefits you the most in the long run anyway, right? You may not like it at the beginning but, and if I’m being honest, like these expert interviews, right? I’ve been doing this now for three, over three years and I just started doing these expert interviews. Why? Because I don’t know, I guess I was afraid. I don’t know what I was afraid of but now that we’re getting in here, we’ve done a few of these already, people love them and so we’re.

Greg: I think people are scared of criticism. I think people are scared of criticism. As an attorney, you’re scared of criticism. I know that, I know those voices. You’re scared of criticism from your other attorneys, from other professionals. Oh, Greg’s out there doing seminars, or Greg’s on social media doing this, whatever. But what I found also is you’re kind of moving the center. Everybody’s milling around over here, they’re al hanging out at the courthouse chasing the same nuts. It’s a squirrel chasing the same nuts. Ninety-nine percent of the attorneys are right there. So you move over here and you do something else your own way. Then you’re going to get criticism by all the squirrels chasing the same nuts. But then you’re going to see that center move if you’re doing the right thing the right way, you’re going to actually move the center. That’s what attorneys are scared of is criticism and something negative being said about them from a fellow attorney or from anyone else. I just think you’ve got to say you’re never going to break out of that pack. You’re never going to break away from that unless you’re willing to accept that criticism. And just, and just know that that’s part of the deal. And that that changes over time. That criticism then turns into admiration that turns into raving fans and followers.

Jim: And we love the raving fans and the followers. I know we appreciate you and the whole team that you have there. Everybody’s a pleasure to work with. I appreciate the time you’ve taken out of your day to talk with everybody. I hope that there’s been a, I mean, I know that there’s been a lot of gold nuggets in this conversation and I hope that other firms around the country are able to implement some of those ideas and thoughts that you have into their own practices so they can see the type of growth that you’re having there in North Carolina. If you do want to get the book, Rock Star Lawyer, we are going to have a link to that in our articles section on Bambiz.net or ElderLawGrowth.com. You can get that. If you’re watching this on YouTube it’ll be in the link below this video so you can access that as well. Then finally, I’ll let you, Greg, give us just the best ways for somebody to reach out to you, one more time, if they want to contact your office or you personally for more information on anything.

Greg: Thank you very much. Yeah, that’s a good wrap up because I was thinking, we’ve been doing a lot more coaching lately, okay? Ultimately, at some point, I’d love to do nothing but work with professionals to do kind of what you do, what I do, and find the intersection there with helping them put those systems in place, grow their practice. And I try to give as freely of my time as possible. I have an open door policy, okay? If you want to come sit down with me and talk about the practice of law, Elder Law, Estate Planning, marketing, I literally have an open door. Call us, 704-749-9244. Or email myself, Greg@mcelderlaw.com. Or email Tiffany, tiffany@mcelderlaw.com. 

We can get you a free copy of Rock Star Lawyer, e-book, audiobook, or if you want to set up a time for us to talk about your practice, about being an attorney, about your journey. If you’re thinking about switching to another practice area, it doesn’t have to be Estate Planning, if it is I know a lot about Estate Planning and Elder Law. If you’re thinking about just narrowing down your focus and when I was talking about the X-factor, just narrowing down so that you can do one thing and market that and just study that, I’d be glad to offer my help and my time. Give me a call. You can go to LawyerGreg.com, also, or mcelderlaw.com if you want to look at our Elder Law practice and see a little bit about what we do. Too many, I put out too many forms of contact right there. I’m going to narrow it down. Email me, call me, or go to the website, http://www.lawyergreg.com.

Jim: Perfect. That’s a great way to wrap it, Greg. Again, thank you for taking the time out of your day to do this for everybody. If you have any questions while you’re watching this, reach out to Greg, he’d bet happy to help you and I can vouch for him. He knows his stuff. So thanks again, Greg. Have a good one.

Greg: Jimmy, you’re the man. I appreciate working with you. Thank you.

You can learn more about Greg here: http://www.lawyergreg.com/