How to Run Your Law Firm So It Doesn’t Run You – Sam Mollaei – S6E28

00:08 Rob Hanna:

Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast. You are now listening to Season 6 of the show. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week I’m delighted to be joined by the amazing Sam Mollaei. Sam graduated from University of California with a Bachelor of Art. He also studied abroad in Tel Aviv, before completing his Juris Doctor at Southern Western Law School. Sam worked as an employment lawyer at the law offices of a firm and then went on to found his own firm Mollaei Law. He is now the proud Founder and CEO of Legal Funnel. Sam is a legal disrupter and has grown 3 of his firm’s to 7 figures. He is also the first lawyer to be part of the ClickFunnels 2CommaClub and so much more. So it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, a very warm welcome Sam.

00:59 Sam Mollaei:

Thank you so much Rob. It’s very exciting.

01:01 Rob Hanna:

It’s super cool to have you with us. So before we dive into all your amazing projects, experience and the value you’re giving to those in and around the legal community, we do have a customary question here on the show which is, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality?

01:20 Sam Mollaei:

A good grading scale is never given a score of 7. So I’ll give it a score of 5.

01:26 Rob Hanna:

I like, I like that rationale. I also like that answer because I also gave it a 5 when someone flipped the mic round on me. So with that, we will move swiftly on to talk all about you. So let’s start at the beginning Sam, do you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey?

01:40 Sam Mollaei:

Yeah, pretty much it was in, in, at UCLA. And I had to figure out what to do next. And I knew I had to continue my education. And it was actually just seeing my close friends go to law school and I’m like, law school, I don’t know anything about law school. But you know, it sounds okay, let’s, let’s go forward. So actually, like took a leap of faith. But I don’t know anything about it, pretty much entered law school. And then my first experience in legal was actually working at my mom’s cousin’s employment law firm, where I got exposed to doing discovery work, doing demand letters and all that stuff. And I’m like, wait a minute, this is, this is what I signed up for, I didn’t, I was wasn’t expecting this. I was always more of a creative thinker, a little bit more outside the box kind of thinker, coming up with new ideas, fresh ideas, things like that. And I’m like this is so black and white, is not really what I signed up for. I started having doubts in law school, but I couldn’t do anything about it. And then I went into the bar, and I was waiting for my bar results. And when I came to work at the same employment law firm like this is, this is not a sustainable long term, you know, decision for me to be able to do this and to figure something out. And that’s when I started soul searching, started talking to a lot of people, started reading a lot of books, reading a lot of blog articles to find out like alternative ways to be able to use my law degree to basically still practice law. And that’s when I met 1 of my close friends from law school, was 1 year ahead of me, and shared with me that he started his own law firm. And what was cool about his versus what I was doing is he kind of built it from the ground up, it was his own business. And my idea, I’m like, he can do it, so can I. So right soon after that basically took a leap of faith right after I passed the bar, to go start my own law firm. And at that time, in my first year, I had a lot of time on my hands, since I don’t have that many clients. So whenever, whenever else was working, I was sitting there reading a lot of blog articles, watching a lot of YouTube videos, and I started teaching myself about the whole world of generating clients online, systems, all that stuff, literally reading as many books as I possibly could. And I started implementing it right away. And I would never, thank God, for some reason I never, I was always an implementer. I read and implement as I was read. As I was implementing, started getting results, I basically proved the model with my first law firm. And I’m like, this is cool, this works. So let me go replicate it over and over. So I went on this journey of replicating literally the same systems over and over and over. And then at that point, and my mentor about 4 years ago, and he kind of got me focused to just focus on the client generation building systems, the law firms on automating it. And I was able to do that over and over. And now fast forward I have 7 active law firms that I’m either a, a sole owner of or honours in. And also at the same time, I went to Germany about 3 years ago, teaching this and passing this off to other lawyers about how they can also create their own online law firms and how they can get, get clients online. And also more importantly how to systematise it and get you out of the law firm so that you can have more free time.

04:33 Rob Hanna:

Wow, folks, if you’re casually listening, I just advise you to really switch on because you just had a masterclass there from just the first answer from Sam. He talks about a lot of things that I’m going to unpack. 1, he doesn’t just talk about knowledge, he talks about applied knowledge. He talked about implementation. So he’s not just studying YouTube, he’s not just reading, he’s then going and applying it because knowledge is nothing without application. He then talked about the importance of mentoring. Exactly. He’s just showing you on the screen. Focus, implementation, urgency, so, so important. He’s built a network, he’s got mentors, people who can get him to find solutions quicker. He’s then talking about clients and the lifeblood of lead flow within his firm, so he can survive, because without clients and actual systems to actually service his clients, you’re not going to be successful. So Sam thank you for just dropping the bomb right from the bat on the first, the first question, but let’s get back a little bit on the journey, because there’s a lot to sort of go through and a lot of our listeners will be, will be curious to know more. So you’ve mentioned about your study. So you studied abroad, you studied in Tel Aviv before completing your JD at Southern Western Law School. So what were your experiences like studying abroad?

05:37 Sam Mollaei:

Amazing, amazing. Whenever you mix in 1 with work, good things happen. So there was yeah, of course, we got credits from law school, it was also the literally the best month of my life. And I was very conscious of it while I was there, like literally got there, and I went there with all my best friends from law school, like guys we’re literally gonna have the best month of our lives. And it did pan out that way, a lot of good experiences. And obviously we learned and learned a lot and you know, all that stuff. But you know, when you mix in work with fun, you know, you will get a lot out of it.

06:04 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, and such a key word fun, you know, you’ve got to have fun with whatever you, you do, and have the passion fuelled with it. So I’m glad you had those experiences. And then like you’ve mentioned, you then decided to become the entrepreneur, and you are the Founder and CEO of your own firm. So why did you decide to, to do that? And would you mind telling us how about you actually went about building your practice in a little bit more detail?

06:25 Sam Mollaei:

Sure. So I strongly believe in that people should build their own equity in life. You look at the most wealthy people in the world, they all have their own businesses, they’ll have their own real estate, they’ll have their own thing, ownership. And it’s so crucial and, and, and I had to learn this myself. And I had to go through the experience of owning stuff to realise how important it is to own. Now I’m like literally trying to first off to convince my own friends, literally, if they’re working at a law firm, like what are you doing? What do you know? Leave your job. So I’m sorry for anybody who has employees. But again, it’s not everybody needs to be owner. But if you are owner inclined, you have this tendencies where you’re kind of you know, you’re a creative thinker, you like being your own boss, things like that, if you have already had those signs then you should not sit on it, and you should make that move. Next is, you know, how do you transition to, you know starting and growing, and there are little life leaves you clues, those clues come from either other people or from good resources. People is like having a good mentors, somebody who really cares about you, who’s already been on that journey ahead of you, who is either genuinely good person who just really cares about you or there’s certain somewhat incentivised to your growth, whatever that is. So find that person. And then there has to be found either organically or actually these days there’s programs that provide mentorship to other people in a very specific field and those are the kind of like the masterminds, the coaching programs, all that stuff. That’s basically mentorship. And that’s when I saw the power, the true power of how powerful that is because I literally have a mentor, for the last 4 years, every day somebody that I talked to, every single day, and I meet, and I meet every single week, and I saw that I’m like this is so valuable. Let me be a mentor to other people. And that’s what literally the Legal Funnel is, a mentorship, shortcut to success on a program for people, just from ideas and templates and resources that are shared and able to take the shortcut to get them the result. And then a second part is an access to information, guarded information, valuable information, not public information, but they secret, relevant, recent information that’s shared. And that’s updated over time because a lot of business and marketing always changes constantly changes is something that seems so clear to me in the last couple of years. It’s about having information, but you need the recent information. So I’m going to find that source that can give you new, fresh ideas, new things to implement now is based on what’s working now and go ahead and implement that. Once you have those 2 things, those 2 worlds, people and resources. And you’re able to put in work yourself to implement, no one’s going to do it for you, then that’s when, but again, it’s a shortcut to success.

09:03 Rob Hanna:

Yeah. And it’s such a great, you know, example once again and I love how you’re stressing the importance of mentoring and sort of people resources, and you know, always comes back to what 1 of my mentors says to me, if we’re not growing, we’re dying. And it’s about kind of keeping up to date and things do change so quickly, laws change so quickly. So it’s a really valuable point that you mentioned there. So sticking with your firm then, what types of clients do you work with? And do you have any memorable clients?

09:26 Sam Mollaei:

Sure, at this point, I don’t deal with clients. I’m actually directly dealing with my team that deals with clients. So I’ve been mentally been out of dealing with clients, but we do I’ll just share with my practice areas, we do lemon law, employment law, employment class actions, workers comp, business law, X IDs, and we’ve dabbled in, in property damage as well. So a variety of stuff, but they all have some similarities, usually, which I’ll share. Usually, they’re high value. Ideally I like high value kind of things. The reason is because there’s marketing there’s always a cost to it. So if you’re going to put that effort and, I’m not going to, you know, generate something that’s 1,000, 2,000 dollars. Ideally you want something that’s 5k plus or more. And then the other thing is your geographic location of where you can serve clients. Ideally, ideally, I know most legal practices are either, you know, if you’re in a country or if you’re in the US state based, I believe you can be multi-state, or the entire US, that is the most ideal situation to be in. That doesn’t mean you cannot, you know, you cannot be successful with just 1 state or your country. But just know, the bigger geographic location, you have more, you know, more clients to be able to tap into.

10:32 Rob Hanna:

Yeah no, and again thanks for being so thorough with, with sharing that. I want to sort of flip back to the Legal Funnel because you’re, you’re a Founder and your CEO and I know how successful the business has been and will continue to be, but you know, just break it down in a little bit more deeper, people who might be completely brand new, explain it in very simple form. And just give us sort of 60 seconds, because I just love the whole idea of.

10:55 Sam Mollaei:

Sure, so funnels, most people when I, I mean they hear funnels they think it has to be those specific pages that they see to be like, oh, they can get their, get their email, and now they get essentially this funky page. Now they’re like kind of pushing you, it doesn’t have to be the specific pages, that’s just the system behind the funnels. So keep that in mind, it’s not the specific pages it’s just the system behind it, it’s 3 parts. 1 is the funnel, you always want to get your, your leads contact information upfront. Usually, you either make a promise of a problem that you’re going to be solving, or you’re going to be giving away something to be able to get their contact information and that takes time to figure out what that is. And I usually look at competitors or see what’s out there or based on what has already worked in other fields, try to make something similar, but basically just the point is, get your leads contact information upfront. Number 2, once you get the contact information is you need to nurture, build the relationship with your leads. And it’s done in 2 ways, either automated emails and a video, or multiple videos, emails and videos. You, before you, your leads do anything with you, you need to nurture them, build a relationship, attempting to hear from you, they need to hear your story and to figure out who you are, what are the problems they’re gonna be solving, what’s the results you’re gonna get from that, what are the social proof or the reviews, histories, you need to systematically build out an email series and a video that as soon as you’re getting information in it pushes them there and to see those things. Third is, you drive them to a your call to action, which are most lawyers is to go book a call or to give me a call, okay, that’s all these funnels, that’s all they’re doing. They consistently go book a call, go book a call, go book a call, go give me a call, go give me a call. And that’s basically a very short gist of basically a funnel, it’s very easy to understand. But it’s, it requires you to put it a create it, put it up once and then over time refine it to make it the, the most streamlined, easiest way to get your clients again to take action, which is basically go book a call or to give me a call.

12:45 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, and again, love that. And there’s so many nuggets in there, folks, I’m just going to gently unpack because yeah you talk about information that you know, information data, that is the new goal, that is the new oil, that’s exactly what you want, then, you know Sam’s talking about you know, I always talk about like agitating a pain point and your that pain relief in that message, you identified that problem so people want to learn from you. And then you know, contacts are good but relationships pay. Sam talks there about nurturing. There’s no point having this data if we’re not going to do something to warm it up and kind of move it along. And then like anything you move to a close and having a very sort of straightforward, easy to understand call to action that people can apply. That’s again a mini masterclass, make sure you rewind that, listen to Sam’s points because it’s absolutely bang on. So let’s move on then Sam, because you do assist clients, identifying which stage their firm is at, identifying the problems they’re currently experiencing, and giving them the opportunities to automate and grow their firm. And I’m sure lots of people listening to this are like wow. So would you mind going into a little bit more detail about those 3 stages? I think there’s some real value you can share there.

13:51 Sam Mollaei:

Sure. The first stage is I need more clients, because basically you don’t have enough clients, or the, your client source is not really dependable. That usually means you’re depending on referrals. That means you have some good months where everything’s looking amazing. And then you have the next month, oh shoot, what’s going on. And that constant worry or anxiousness that you get from not having a consistent source will drive you insane until you go find a dependable way to consistently get clients. And that’s the true benefit of having a funnel. Once you get a funnel that’s working literally 24/7 around the clock, you’re getting new leads, they’re entering your funnel, your automation is automatically following up with them, sending them to the, to your video so they could get nurtured and it’s driving them to book a call with you, so that you or your team can take on those meetings at your desired time. That’s the benefit of having a funnel again, that consistent and predictable source of consistent clients basically. The second is you have enough clients but you’re consistently putting out fires or you’re doing a little bit of a lot of things, okay, and that’s when systems comes into place. That’s when you basically have 2 parts, delegation and automation. Delegation is just adding, hiring more, having people that fill in specific roles of those different departments in your law firm. There’s some people who sign up clients for you, there’s some people who onboard your clients through this, there’s some people that start doing the drafting for your clients. And then, and then second part is the automation, which I mentioned is like using tools to be able to connect the pieces together, when a client comes in, what if we automatically send them the intake, and once they fill out the intake, automatically that information starts filling out their PDFs, including their folders, all that stuff for them. And then you know, it gets them moving forward, that’s what automation is. So, you know, if you’re somebody who feels like you’re doing a lot of stuff, especially a lot of different stuff, that’s a trigger for you to need more systems. And the third part is you have systems but now it’s about, you’re stuck putting out a lot of fires. And now you’re like kind of team building and scaling to skill level, which is basically more focus on systems and kind of freeing yourself up from this system of, like this organism that’s doing its thing. You become kind of like an orchestrator of your law firm and you’re not directly involved with any part of it yourself. But you’re the 1 kind of managing or overseeing the big picture. And most businesses are all like, it’s all universal, most businesses go through a transformation of the, the owner starts their business, they start doing everything and over time, firstly they focus on getting clients. Then second thing is you need to hire more, then you know, skill and all that stuff. So, it’s very universal and eventually, everybody has to go through these phases. And you have to go through these phases to have again, a steady, reliable business that doesn’t drive you insane.

16:30 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that because it’s so true, because when you start a business, you’ve got the buzz, you’ve got that natural bars, but without all the things that Sam’s mentioned there around those systems, processes and infrastructure and everything you will eventually burn out or actually find yourself in a very, very dark hole. And that’s not what you need to be doing nowadays. So actually taking heed on that advice is super important. And I was gonna ask quick question, you’ve kind of touched on it, but I kind of just want to get your view, you know, what’s the, the biggest challenge you see when people are trying to grow their firms virtually?

17:02 Sam Mollaei:

This one’s very, isn’t, isn’t very, very obvious, the who in your business is the hardest part of your business, the people hiring people, pretty much your team is going to be the hardest part of every business. And not only am I dealing with this myself, but all my partners, all our legal team members, every lawyer that I know, this is a universal problem that everybody has specially in the past year or 2, when the job market is much tougher, people are less likely to want to work, the market is much tougher, and the talent pool is much smaller, which leads to actually going virtual, you know, when you are trying to hire for somebody to come to your, to your office, your talent pool is literally people that are living within a 20 kilometre radius to your office. I mean, you could hire virtually you, you exponentially increase your talent pool, you could literally hire so much such a, more talented person from anywhere in the world. And that does wonders for your business. So, you know, for every problem there’s a solution, I guess that’s a solution for us that are dealing with the who problem.

18:08 Rob Hanna:

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20:25 Sam Mollaei:

So yeah, totally, totally, exponentially accelerated that journey of going virtual, remote, not bound to any physical location, not bound to any physical time and not bound to, again, people and things. Anything that limits you, limitation. The good part is I had a good 4 year or 5 year head start on this virtual journey. I kind of learned about the concepts of virtual and automation and scalable. And then I basically made a rule to myself to abide every business decision I made for my, my law firms to check off those 3 things. And I set it up that way. And then, you know, when the pandemic happened, then everybody was kind of forced to, to kind of nudge people towards that way. And that’s when people started exploring and using Zoom more commonly, all that stuff. So yeah, totally. And it’s just a so much better business model, just for so many reasons. I could probably do it like a 30 minute, you know, talk just about this, why it’s so much better, a lot more scalable, a lot more efficient, a lot easier on you, a lot easier on your Saturday, a lot better for your family, so many different reasons, so much freedom, all that stuff, freedom of time, so many reasons. So yeah, totally. But again, you know, it’s also, you know, when people hear virtual they think like it has to be completely virtual, no, it could also be a hybrid model, you take concepts, things, implement it slowly into your law firm. That doesn’t mean, you know, often making dramatic changes but understanding what those concepts are and slowly implementing it, to become a more efficient law firm.

21:45 Rob Hanna:

Yeah and I love that you’ve kind of showcased both examples there with, with hybrid as well as the sort of full virtual because you’re right, you can, you can do what’s right for you. But I love that message that you snuck in there around freedom of time because folks, and it’s 1 of the reasons I chose to be an entrepreneur and go out and do my features and whatever I do, because the 1 thing you’ll never get back, that’s time, you can make more money, you can make a lot of things in this world. But the 1 thing you can never get back is time. So, this is really good advice that Sam’s sharing with you. And if you can optimise everything that he says and put it into practice, you will find you have collected a mountain of extra time that you can actually start to do enjoying things or other things that you want to do. So talking of sort of talks and speaking you previously have spoken that your “epiphany came when you read Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Workweek book exposing you to 3 key principles”. So can you explain those 3 principles and how you’ve incorporated them into your firms and businesses?

22:39 Sam Mollaei:

The first 1 is that we touched upon is the virtual. Virtual for me, it just means not tied to a time or location, which again, gives you, allows you to, gives you the freedom to be able to grow much faster if you’re not tied to those 2 things, to work on your own desired time and you’ll have a team from all over the world that could do a lot more with much less resources, whatever that means to you. The second is, automation is something, it ideally, your law firm or your business should be automated as much as possible. Automation isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing because it gets you to go focus, to get you to do what you enjoy doing and you’re what you’re best at. The more automations you have the closer you get to basically doing, doing that. Automation just means basically having the systems that will do things for you 24/7 around the clock, instead of you needing you or your team needing to go in and do it. And there’s a lot of things that could be automated if you know, such as your lead, automatically, your leads being followed up, your clients being on-boarded, your clients filling out intakes, the demand letters, and the filings being dropped for you. A lot of that could be automated for you. And third is scalable, scalable means growing exponentially without you necessarily doing more work. Once you have the systems and you have your marketing and everything that’s flowing down to your, your growth is not linear, literally, it’s literally compounds and it’s scalable because online, when you tap into the power of videos, when you tap into funnels on stuff, things get built on top of each other, because you’ve built this thing, this is going to get your clients and then when you build this other thing, this is also going to get your clients well guess what, you’re also going to continue getting clients with this first thing and the more you build on top of it literally, it’s literally a compound effect. And it grows exponentially. And actually I could attest to that because my first 4 years of my law firm, yeah, first 4 years I was able to quadruple my revenue and now I’m about 2 to 2.5 x every year of growth based on using the concepts that I’ve just shared with you and then just 1 other concept and 1 add on to that has been very fruitful is understanding leverage. Leverage, go study it, go learn it, go implement it because it’s a very, it’s a secret sauce that the rich and the wealthy know about it, tap into it, there’s different types of leverages, I won’t get into now but I’ll just put it out there go learn leverage.

24:49 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, again folks this is a mini masterclass you’re receiving here and it’s so, so true because, you know, leverage and you talk also about that sort of, you know, the hockey stick effect really where you know, you will see that exponential growth with all of this if it’s implemented in the right way or you’ve got people like Sam and his team helping you along the way. So Sam, you know, rather shockingly, you were the first lawyer in the world to get 2000 plus 5 star Google reviews. So, how do you feel about that achievement?

25:20 Sam Mollaei:

Amazing, actually, we’re sitting at over 2,000, when you have your 3,344.95 Star Google reviews, it feels amazing because I kind of had a, I knew where the market was going. And I knew at the time was like 5 years ago, people were collecting reviews on Avo, looking at reviews on Facebook and Yelp, and I was like, what are you doing in the future in 5 years? Is there going to be more, you know, is there going to be more? Is Google gonna matter more or more Yelp or Avo? So very obvious for me to start collecting reviews on Google. And I was kind of forced into it. I basically about 4 or 5 years ago at this point, but at the time I only had like 3 Google reviews. And I ended up getting a 1 star review out of nowhere, from I don’t even know who was from, but anyways, end up getting it I’m like, how am I gonna get rid of this review, and I couldn’t get rid of it. So basically, I’d have kind of been stuck in a weird situation, I’m like, guess the best defence is a good offence. So that’s what I’m going to offer an offensive to start collecting reviews. And since then I’ve been able to build an automated system and also use a very specific scripts that works incredibly well. That’s not really common knowledge. Nobody talks about this. And I’m like the only 1 saying, hey this thing works like crazy. Do it this way. Thanks to that. And thanks to having funnels that consistently bring me clients been able to collect all these reviews. And a lot of people when they hear that over 3,000 Google reviews, they’re like, well yeah, it could have been fake or it could have got a company to do this. No, every single 1 of these are real, if you don’t believe it, go look at it, literally scroll through it, all the way through the first review, every single 1 is real and it works wonders. And I kind of see it as the last leg of a having a good scalable law firm, because your reviews really feeds back your client generation. It’s kind of like a positive feedback loop and if you’re missing the last component, collecting reviews, then you’re just going to be bringing clients in and it doesn’t really feed back the system itself. But once you’ve kind of built that as the last leg positive feedback loop, again, it helps you grow exponentially.

27:08 Rob Hanna:

Yeah. And again, I love that you’re always talking about sort of, you know, a 360 approach to this, you know, bringing people in and then retaining and keeping flow. And again, it’s a system isn’t it, that you’re sort of articulating there how the system works and that’s part of, you know, part of the process. So, loving it. So you’re also the first lawyer part of ClickFunnels 2CommaClub. So can you tell us more about the award and just more about it generally?

27:31 Sam Mollaei:

Sure, it’s an award given to usually it’s online people, people that have used funnels in an online space to be able to make a 1,000,000 dollars online. At the time when I heard about this, I’m like, this is so cool because it’s kind of like a goal that it gives you if honestly, I didn’t have this goal I don’t think I would have went for it. So it gave me something to strive towards. And it took me 5 years to get and make a 1,000,000 dollars online for my first law firm. What was cool, what was cool about it is once you do once you kind of see it like, that wasn’t that bad, I know what it takes, you know, maybe and to go figure out where to get clients from, get sent into funnels, set up automations to automate the follow up with them, get them both, sign them up, have, you know, my virtual assistants take care of them, have my virtual assistant collect Google reviews and I could just give it to replicate this over and over like, ah okay, so then I duplicate it and duplicate it, get it to basically manage second 1,000,000 dollars with my second law firm, right, maybe I’ll see go teach this to other lawyers, started teaching it, started earning an award for that 1, and then also ended up also receiving it for my third law firm. But what’s cool about it again, the first 1 took me 5 years, the second 1 took me 3 years, the third 1 took me about 2 and a half years, and the last 1 took me less than 10 months. And every time they do it because it turns into again, it’s all system, once you figure out what that is, very rinse and repeatable. And that’s the reason why it’s shared. That’s why I put it up because it gives people a goal or vision, something to strive and then a 1 other good news I’m gonna share is our first Click 1 member has been able to receive his own 2CommaClub, basically, basically be able to make a 1,000,000 dollars within 12 months of joining the program. So these things can get passed off and share with other people and implement it for themselves as well.

29:02 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, and it’s great example of that, that sort of rinse and repeat as you say, because once you know, you basically become more and more efficient every time you go through that. And you’ve given a great example of how you kind of narrowed down those timescales and, you know, new level new devil and all of these things that you’re going up to and each time you’re kind of rising to the challenge and delivering more, so absolutely love that. So let’s stick with online then because 1 of your YouTube Channels has more than 12 and a half 1000 subscribers, you know, a lot of subscribers. So, how do you use social media to leverage your brand?

29:35 Sam Mollaei:

Fully. Social media works but only works if you go all in into 1. A lot of people when they hear about social media is like, oh I heard about Instagram, I’m gonna do Instagram. Oh I also heard these kids doing it and I gotta do that. And that’s the wrong way to do it. Instead you want to pick 1 that’s the best, that you’re the most comfortable on doing long term and then go literally all in on it and then just avoid the rest. Literally delete those other apps and ignore it. I don’t care, the grind now, my focus is not TikTok. Is TikTok great? Yes, but only if I’m going to be doing it like if focusing on it. My strategy is I’m playing the long-term game. I’m always excited this again, another idea long term came with long term people, I’m playing that game, I don’t want anything short term game. And I kind of see some platforms that are short term sided but I see YouTube as a long-term play because again, you put out stuff as a compound effect. Not only does this video that you posted 3 years ago, got your views, but also the video that you posted 2 years ago, and the video you posted last week. And overtime, the more videos you put out, look like in 5 years, every single 1 of these videos is essentially rental property that’s generating you income from each source. And I literally see each video as rental property. That’s how valuable it is like people, some people have like visions to owning 200 rental properties, well have a vision to have 2000 rental properties in about 5 years. And if you were like what, what happened, like, because I was like, you weren’t, you know, building all your rental properties in last 5 years, what have you been doing, and that’s what I’ve been kind of sharing and I’ve been not only today I started doing YouTube 10 years ago for my first law firm, I also started about a year ago, building out from literally from 0 subscribers and I’m up to 1500 subscribers for Legal Funnel. And I consistently go at it literally like a robot for the next 5 years, and then look back in 10 years be like I’m so glad I did that, I was able to build my rental properties online.

31:13 Rob Hanna:

Yeah. And it’s such a great example you know, YouTube is also the second largest search engine in the world behind Google, right. And there’s a lot of things YouTube are doing strategically, like Sam’s given a sort of tip of the iceberg there and what they’re up to, and it’s really smart advice, what he’s sharing there. And I can’t agree going all in on 1 platform. For me my 1 platform was LinkedIn, I’ve been on all in on it, you know, and it’s now got me to being on accelerator programs, getting out there, you know, lead, winning business, things like this. And so it’s that platform and be consistent and persistent. And don’t get blindsided by all these other shiny objects, because otherwise, you’ll just fade into the, fade into the masses with everybody else. So I think it’s a really good point that you shared there and basically listen to it as a platform. I’m super bullish on as well as Entre because I think they’re going to be the next LinkedIn of the future. They’re embracing Web3 technologies, so that’s a little tip from me. Right, Sam? You are also, I mean we’ve already been through so much and so much you’ve achieved but it doesn’t stop there. You’re also the author of an Amazon best-selling book, ‘Virtual Law Firm Secrets: How to Run Your Law Firm So It Doesn’t Run You’. I just love that title because that resonated with me. Yeah, 1, 2, 3 of my business and entrepreneurial journey. Can you explain the motivations behind your book?

32:19 Sam Mollaei:

Sure. So when I started Legal Funnel, teaching lawyers how to run their law firm in a more virtual, scalable and automated way. I got exposed to a lot of data, I started having conversations with lawyers, I started hearing their pain points. And I realised that really the, what we just mentioned how to run your law firm doesn’t run you is actually the biggest pain point that law firm owners have over time. And there’s some people who need more clients, sure, but over time, you’ll end up having this problem unless if you learn these concepts. So I basically went and changed my program revised it to, to kind of solve that problem about how to get yourself out of the law firm so that you can run your law firm and the law firm doesn’t run you, and I literally focused on how can I solve these specific problems that fall into this little umbrella, big problem that you have now basically came up with very practical ways to get you out of your email inbox, how to cut out the distracting social media, how to, how to automatically follow up with your leads, how to collect automatically collect 5 star reviews, and so much more and also share a lot of tools and resources, templates and things again that frees up your time so you can basically run your law firm and your law firm doesn’t run you.

33:21 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, again that’s such great advice because I always say to a lot of people with their businesses you don’t actually have a business you’ve just got a job with really crappy hours, overworked and a rubbish boss and actually without implementing what’s in that book, you will run into a similar scenario. With that what topics do you cover in the book? What’s the message or messages you would like the book to convey to other people listening in? Give us your kind of your nuggets of wisdom on the topics and what they can expect if they go and buy it?

33:49 Sam Mollaei:

Sure, it really opens up everything that’s shared in the book is a novel ideas a, you know, as a reader book reader myself on so many books that are very repetitive of the same ideas, kind of handover. And everything’s straight here and it’s like table of contents, a little teaser is literally every chapter is novel ideas. And I mentioned those what those chapters are. So all you have to do, again, just go on Amazon just search Virtual Law Firm Secrets and just it’s, I made the book also short, straight to the point on purpose, that people actually read it, literally you will to even read it intentionally in 1 sitting but I don’t want people just reading it, I want you to maybe not the first time you just get exposed to ideas, feels like it, sounds cool. But go back a second time and there’s a lot of resources and literally it has steps 1, 2, 3, go do this, go install this tool, go do this, follow along. And this is literally your way to freedom from your law firm.

34:34 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, I love that. And that’s what we want folks freedom. And you know, listening to Sam’s journey, he’s got award but then he’s also authored you know, he’s branded right so that’s already gonna bring in more inbound leads, opportunities to his business. So, you know, if you’ve got a story, you’ve got a value think about actually getting a book published. It’s not always about the sales of the book, it can bring wider opportunities because once you’re branded, the more likelihood is you’re actually going to get things coming to you. So before we look to wrap up, this has been an absolute masterclass from question 1 to finish Sam, no pressure, but what’s your 1 piece of advice you would give to those wanting to grow or launch their own law firm?

35:11 Sam Mollaei:

Focus is number 1, a lot of people are missing this comprehensive component and it’s something that I’m working on since I was in 8 different operations. And I’m trying to focus in on those top ones right now. Focus for everything, you know, apply the 80-20 principle, if you have multiple clients sources cut that down, if you have multiple, you’re active on multiple social media cut that down even more, if you have side businesses cut that down. Just go focus. Number 2, so all about implementation, everything comes down to implementation, if you’re just gonna learn and not implement, what’s the point of learning, so it’s much better to, to implement a little bit of what you learn, than learn a lot and not implement anything, be very conscious of that. And third, which I think is crucial, you’ve got both. But if you don’t have urgency behind it nothing will get done. And I see this over and over, like that people know that they need to do stuff, but they don’t feel any sense of urgency, urgency, you need to put some fire up your butt to get things done. And that really, you know, practically is schedule it in your calendar and take it seriously and stick to it. You know. So again, focus, implementation, urgency, I’m actually going to be sharing this with my Legal Funnel members, getting people focus, focus on these 3 core principles. And the more that we kind of tap into these 3 powers, the more successful you’ll be.

36:15 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, and again, folks, just make sure you take heed of that advice. And I love that you stress the, the urgency piece and kind of blended that into, I talk a lot about accountability. I think once you can accept accountability for everything in your life, the world suddenly becomes a lot easier. And 1 of my mentors said to me, if it’s meant to be it’s up to me, so if you can accept full accountability, even when things are going terribly wrong and it’s someone else’s fault, if you understand what maybe I could have done X, Y and Z, life will suddenly become a lot easier. And I just love that focus, implementation, urgency. Sam, if our listeners, which I’m 100% sure they will after today, would like to learn more about Mollaei Law or Legal Funnel, what would be the best way for them to contact you, please shout out your social media and web links, and we’ll also share them with this episode for you too.

37:01 Sam Mollaei:

So if you’re any of these comments, anything to share with you, kind of you know, resonated with you. Urgency is, don’t just sit on this, go to Legal Funnel dot com, Legal Funnel dot com, either Google it, go on YouTube, or literally put in Legal Funnel dot com. Find my resources, the way that I share stuff it’s free knowledge, literally 90% of stuff that I put out just free. And then basically we have an online program that it’s, an, I kind of call it implementation program. It has different components. It’s not just like go sit there and watch videos. Now there’s a whole implementation behind it. We have support team things that can help you implement these things. Again when it comes to getting more clients, putting the systems and freeing yourself up at any of those resonate with you and you’re a lawyer go to Legal Funnel dot com.

37:42 Rob Hanna:

And if they don’t resonate with you, they definitely should because it’s really sage advice. So Sam, thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure having you on the show. So we would like to wish you lots of continued success with your pursuits, careers and all of the wisdom you’re sharing to give back. So from all of us from the Legally Speaking Podcast, but now over and out. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you liked the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website www dot Legally Speaking Podcast dot com for the link to join our community there. Over and out.