How To Manage Multiple Business & Still Live The Life You Want

Take a minute and imagine this with me for just a moment. Imagine you are the owner of a very large and successful business that requires a lot of your attention. At home, you have 9 kids, 4 of which are adopted, and some of them are special needs. How do you get more done than the average person day after day and have time for everything that's important. Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today's episode is how to manage multiple businesses and still live the life you want. Now, this follows a lot of the strategies that Dan Kennedy talks about. And if you're looking for one episode that summarizes a whole bunch of Dan Kennedy's strategies, this is one of them because Ben Glass is a fighter and you get to hear how he chooses to fight and how he wins that life that he calls perfectly his own. Let's listen in to how to manage multiple businesses and still live the life you want with Dan Kennedy and Ben Glass.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy.

The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril.

They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by.

Dan opened my eyes to what what small business marketing looks like.

Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to your direct call. I think you will find it particularly interesting. We are going to mostly mosey around in a category of thought and information that endlessly seems to perplex and fascinate, which is how to get a whole lot of stuff done, a whole lot more than everybody else gets done, still not completely short circuit and collapse and blow up or destroy your personal life or whatever. And so just in a few minutes, we will begin that. Uh, the guest is probably, uh, well known or known of by many of you. Um, it's Ben Glatt, and Ben is an attorney, which of course we all forgive him for.

Thanks.

You're welcome. Uh, so Ben has a full-time, uh, he's not a full-time practicing attorney like he says on his book, um, because super schizophrenic, but, uh, he has a large personal injury and medical malpractice law firm, uh, in Virginia. Uh, he is also a really terrific information marketer. I lost track of it off mic. He just told me that next year is their 10th year anniversary of greatlegalmarketing.com. Been in the Titanium Group for a multi-year term and has grown a great staff for the information marketing business. So that's sort of the second, not in priority. I'm sure I'm not doing them in the correct priority. But the sort of second thing on the plate, uh, he's also managed to stay married for some, a long period of time and, um, what I call an orphanage or a ranch over there. Uh, he's got 9 kids and 4 of them have been adopted from China and some of them have special needs. So that's sort of the third thing, uh, on the plate. Um, I think that's probably the 3 big things on the plate. Correct me if he likes. Um, so, uh, his new book out is, uh, Renegade Lawyer Marketing. And, um, uh, his previous book had in its title Still Being Home on Time for Dinner. And so I said for this call we should talk about how to manage multiple businesses, uh, and still be home on dinner at the orphanage. So, Ben, thanks for your time and for joining us. And I did a lot, but I'll let you, before we get going, tell anybody you think they ought to know about Origins, how you— how your businesses have evolved sort of and what they look like now.

Sure, Dan, and thanks for having me on. I'm 57. I'll be 58 years old in February. As you said, in February we'll celebrate 10 years of survival of the info marketing business, Great Legal Marketing. I started practicing law in 1983. I worked for a firm as many lawyers do, young lawyers do. I worked for a firm for about 12 years. And I don't know if I ever told you this, but at one point we had 4 kids and a dog, and I thought, well, that's cool. That's all filled up. And actually tried to take golf lessons because I had never learned to play golf, and I had all this, quote, time on my hands. Things changed. We sort of— the number 5 was a little bit of a surprise by Matthew. Who's 16 now. And there came a time where I was working about 45 minutes or an hour away depending on the Northern Virginia traffic. But I was coaching 3 soccer teams. Always, and we'll talk about this a bit, put up really high values. So I would— so of the 3 things you said, I would flip them. And we'll talk about family. And said, you know, I really need to be— closer to be able to coach more and to get home in time for dinner. I also had, even though I had not discovered you at that point, I had some entrepreneurial DNA sort of built in. In other words, I knew that there was more that could be done to promote a practice. I didn't know what that was. I had no idea. And I had read all the sort of traditional books published by the ABA And it's all start with do a good job and they'll come, problem solved. So I one day sort of announced I'm quitting. I was a partner in the firm. I'm going to go start my own firm. I had just bought a house. We had a big mortgage. We had 4 kids at the time. And left out and started my firm in Fairfax City and had cases and I had a decent reputation. I knew how to try cases and settle cases.. But what I quickly discovered was that I knew nothing. I knew zero, not only about marketing, but really about sort of the whole business side of running a business. And so when the cases that I took with me were completed, I— you know, our joke is we used to take Friday afternoons off because there wasn't enough work to do. Discovered you through— I was a Nightingale client customer. Saw the ad for magnetic marketing. At that time, $299. It was probably version 2, probably, of magnetic marketing as I go back through your product, your lifetime of work product. Got it. Almost sent it back. Listened to the tapes and I still did not understand more than half of what you were talking about. I mean, I just had no clue about this. I'd never heard terms honestly like lead generation and information widget, follow-up marketing and 3-step marketing. But I said to myself, if I could figure this out, wow, that would really change my life. So I quickly joined your, whatever it was, this is pre-GKIC, the Dan Kennedy World, started to get the newsletter. Read everything, kept buying more of your books, and started to implement some of— well, virtually every idea I saw. Thought to myself, how can I use that in the practice? Started to create— today, looking back, very simple reports and free information and stuff like that. And it was interesting because it really is about 10 years ago now If you look back on your stuff, when you ran your first Renegade Millionaire seminar, if you remember, this event was— you could only go to the event if you had bought the product. So I remember a relatively small group, 75 people or so I think, at that first meeting. It was during that event that I literally outlined on a pad what great legal marketing would look like. And then launched it, launched it in February of 2006. So our birthday is coming up February of 2016. And along the way my life changed in other ways. So we felt, Sandy and I who had been married over 30 years, felt called to adopt. We now have, there's 5 teenagers at home. And none of them are driving, so we are outnumbered every single night. Yes, literally. I mean, it is not pretty. And we've always done this without au pairs or nannies because we value, we really value the time we spend with the kids. What I say, I would flip the 3 things you talked about, and we'll talk about sort of living by principles, I think, here. But the highest value for us, for Sandy and I, is that my job is to provide for the financial and emotional security of my family. And so could Ben Glass Law be bigger? Yeah. Could Great Legal Margin be bigger? Yeah, but not at the sacrifice of growing kids and sending them out into the world as great citizens. A couple of my kiddos, because they lived in orphanages in some pretty bad places, have issues related to— it is PTSD and brain injury. And so that's a challenge. One of the things we've had to do is relearn parenting because we parented in a very traditional way. But when you parent kiddos from tough places, you have to change. You change. So that's been an adventure. It really has. But here we are today. I do, I mean, if you were to follow me around, you would see that just about every night our family sits down for dinner together. We can maybe even go through a day, but it's a very, very, very high value for Sandy and I. So that's where we are. I absorbed—

How big of a staff is there spanning the two businesses?

Yeah, so in—

You don't— 'Cause you know what people are thinking is, Yeah, you have an army in there.

And it's— yeah, yeah, I mean, I think they do army, army load of work. So in the, in the Ben Glass Law side, we have, oh, I have one other lawyer and really 3 support staff team. And then the Great Legal Marketing side, uh, we've got, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people there. And they're all pretty much young'uns, right? They're younger than me. We'll kind of talk about how do you sort of get a great team. So it's not an army.

It's—

and one of the other things that we value is teaching sort of entrepreneurism and teaching Stuff you talk about, you know, get up and be productive, okay. And so we've launched kiddos who've worked for us in either of these businesses into other companies and other businesses where they've— some of them have gone on to great marketing jobs working for big companies. So that's cool. But no, it's not a big army. We're selective in the— on the law side, we're very selective. So we have black and white criteria. Of who we are going to deal with and what types of cases we're going to handle. And when we know who our avatar client or customer is in the great legal marketing side, we clearly defined those perfect customers and clients for our two businesses.

That in and of itself is— and I know you— well, obviously you try and get— and so let me back up first. Just one other background question. Give people some semblance of size and scope. It's probably easier with Great Legal Marketing without ever asking you a direct money question. Number of active members, number of people in coaching.

So total number of active members in Great Legal Marketing is around 300 or so. So it's, again, it's a small universe. So far it's divided into 3 groups. We've got a high-end area exclusive mastermind group paying $18,000 a year to play there. We've got a middle-level diamond elite coaching group paying $500 or so a month there. We've got an entry-level gold membership paying $200 a month there.

Annual conference and products, right?

Annual conference, products. One of the things we've added is I mean, look, I'm not that creative. I kind of follow what you guys do and what you've done. So we've added to that a new members or members-only day-and-a-half boot camp that's more workshoppy than lecture. And so we did one of those, and this year we're doing 3 or 4 next year, much like the GKIC boot camp. Yeah, I mean, our revenue—

go ahead. On the law practice side, I mean, I don't know, number of cases, number of clients, are you— would you be considered a big practice, a mid-sized practice?

Uh, right. So we, we divide things into, um, sort of— so we'll call them the TV mill firms, where there's lots and lots, maybe thousands of cases going through. We are not that. We are— and we are also self-defined as we're in that group called solo and small firm lawyers. So 1 to 5 lawyer firms. And in that, you would say maybe more boutique-y than in terms of defining you as medium or small. So we are not in the business of— mass advertising, taking every case where the person can, you know, breathe at all. We want cases at a certain value and above. And there's a market in our world for those who want all of the cases. They tend to be guys and gals you see on the back of buses and park benches and stuff like that. So we are seeing the marketplace as, I guess, more a boutique, uh, serious personal injury and medical malpractice firm.

So the, the question I was about to ask was, and I'm sure you, you essentially teach what you do as a, at least if not the model, an optional model to the attorneys. And I would imagine you run up against this same it's almost a mindset obstacle of maybe okay for you, but I don't dare narrow the prism. I don't dare decide exactly who I want as a client or customer and deliberately neglect or drive away Everybody else, that's really not a viable business strategy for me or most or anybody but weird and rare individuals. I'm sure you bump up against it. What do you say about it?

10 years in, we can show them example after example. So one of the law firms that you profiled in your No BS Grassroots Marketing book are my mastermind members, Mark and Alexis Breyer in Arizona. And they're big time, but they made a decision, you know, sort of within our mastermind group years ago to not take any case that didn't involve a clear broken bone or herniated disc. So we would separate cases into so-called soft tissue, I've got back pain, and more serious cases. And that was a very scary thing. For them to do because that was most of their cases. They just developed really great systems for— because here's what lawyers— here's their fear, Dan, is they'll say, "Gee, if I turn down that little case, then that little case, they might have a big case later and they won't call me." Right? Well, Mark and Alexis did this brilliantly because they had their internal systems so well that Mark's position was, "I can't take your case. We partner with this firm over here and they're great at cases just like yours because we're the big case lawyer. And when you or someone in your circle needs a big case lawyer, you'll know to come right back to me." But that relationship with that potential client stays. I mean, you know, newsletter, what you wrote about in the "No Grassroots Marketing" book was there. They had client appreciation events, you know, come to the movies, come to dinners. So they keep that relationship. And every person that— every lawyer we've dealt with who made that decision to narrow the funnel, they have not regretted it. And you'll hear every excuse, you don't know, it's, you know, my part of the country or you don't know about all the competition in my area. To which our answer has been you can never get home in time for dinner if your door is wide open for everyone. It will just drive you crazy.

I think there's direct link between people's willingness to do this at the business level and willingness to do it overall. Decide who you want to be, how you want to live, what you want to engage in and what you don't. You know, really make those decisions. And then govern by them. If people buy it conceptually very easily, but really very few people implement it— you are one of them, uh, who obviously does and has, uh— what do you think? Why do you think most people don't, don't get it?

I think that that you need kind of social acceptance. So enunciating that statement that I have principles about life, let's just talk about life, and not having anyone who you can discuss that with. So whether it's a church Bible group or whether it's a mastermind group locally or whether it's a national group, I think you really do need to be in an environment. And I first got this better and better in Peak Performance with Lee Miltier and Bill Glazer back in the day. So there you were in a room where you not only heard it from the front of the stage, but you met people who said, "Exactly right. This is how I do it. And now this is what I feared and this is how I got past my fear." So I do think the entrepreneur is the loneliest person in the world. But most people don't do this because they're just not hanging out with people who show them that it can be done and it's okay. I often say, Dan, on this whole time management thing, I'm an asshole with that.

Certainly by most people's perception.

—right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so one of the first things we ever did was, hey, no unplanned inbound calls. Got that directly from you. And so when we did that in a personal injury law practice, right, where you're, quote, where you're serving clients and they're calling you with everything that— every brain fart they have. And today they're emailing you with every brain fart. And everybody— so my staff said, well, that's stupid. You're never going to get away with that. But it's the best thing we've ever done because we teach clients that this is for your benefit. Because when I'm working on your thing, I'm not answering the phone and answering email and all that stuff. So again, anyone who's listening to this recording and hasn't read your time management book needs to go and read that. And I think the other thing I'll say about this is that Most business owners, most people are so busy, so busy with the minutia that they never carve out time to really think about their life plan and to give serious thought to what is it that I want this to look like and how do I get there. Now, it ain't pretty. I mean, if you follow us around, come inside my house, it's a disaster sometimes, right? It's just the sheer number of moving parts is a disaster. But it would be a bigger disaster if we didn't have filters on number of events we let kids get involved in, number of school things we volunteer for, which is kind of about zero, number of other committees. Because people who do things really well in their community, they get invited to do more stuff. And every time you say yes to that, you're saying no to something else. And so They need to be in a group where permission is given to be, excuse me, to be an asshole, to be a jerk with their time. It's okay because at the end of the day I'm ensuring the financial and emotional security of my family. And I can't do that if I'm at meetings for stuff that's not essential all the time.

Well, one important point is that most people say no by default. They don't say no by any sort of deliberate strategy or strike. They say no by default because they said yes randomly, and then the no is because there is no time left for the next yes, which is no way to run a railroad. The other thing that's kind of interesting is in what you said, I was recently asked to try and succinctly and concisely, like in a page or two, that might be framed and stuck up on a wall, summarize what the hell we've actually been doing. I say, you know, what really is this thing? And so one of the things that I said is we issue permission slips. Yeah. You know, we give people permission. To think certain thoughts that generally are looked upon with shock and horror and disbelief, and to exert authority and control over their businesses and their lives. Um, so let's get to some specifics, like 3 or 4 things, one of which is you've sort of figured out how to screen out the morons and surround yourself with some pretty coachable and productive people on staff, on the team. So I'll seed that. You can pick the other 2 or 3, but some specifics about what you do now that has evolved that you do differently than you did 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago that are the big contributors to being able to keep all this together, keep it flying well, and keep control of time and life?

Yeah, sure. So I think that team that you're building up around you is critical. And so one of the big things I've learned is hiring Only those people who share your values. And firing as quickly as you can those who you discover don't share your values. Now that then presupposes that you've actually thought about, Dan, what it is that you value and what it is that your company value or what it stands for. So again, being ruthless and being patient now. Because if I'm going to be ruthless on who I hire, Charlie Mann, who you know, who works for me, he really is the hiring— and he's listening in on this call, I'm sure. But he's the hiring guru here. So he really puts people through their paces. And we'll talk in a minute about how I got Charlie to sort of think that way. But being ruthless and being patient and getting the right people in there. The second thing is I think that most businesses— aren't very transparent about the money. We're pretty transparent in both businesses about the money. What's come in? What does it cost to make the phone ring? The first time you have that discussion with people, they are aghast really at what it costs to get a lead, a client, and a customer. So now they're paying more attention. To the training on how to answer the phone, how to convert people, how to make sure that entire customer/client experience is really, really good. And then the last thing I'll say that we do sort of religiously there is in our team meetings. So just talk about the law side for a second. But in our team meetings where we're discussing the new intakes and we're discussing whether we're going to take this case or not and if a problem comes up. It's very important that I not only tell them what to do, but I explain to them because this is how Ben thinks about this. So that the next time that type of situation or that type of client approaches us, they can handle it themselves. And I think far too many business owners, because they have not clearly enunciated Who's my avatar client? Who do we want? Who do we not want? If you don't have that standard, you can't teach that standard. And now your staff can't regulate who's getting in through the door. So that's a big one, being transparent with the team, hiring a good team. And the other thing that we've implemented really in the last year, because I'm sometimes a slow learner, is really an annual an annual offsite sit-down where we look objectively at what we've done and what we want to do objectively for the next year. We try to figure out what our highest priorities are. And then quarterly we're getting together for half a day in both businesses now and making sure that we're consistent with our principles, that we're hitting our goals, that we're not getting distracted. Because that's the other thing. Especially you're in the GKIC world, it's really easy to get distracted by all of the ideas that you could implement, right? Let's stay focused on the goal. So that's a bunch of team stuff. In terms of personal time management, you know, the thing I learned early on and I'm, I think, really good at right now is this whole time blocking exercise. And the way it works, for me is I— so my whole teams of both businesses can see my calendar. And they are free to put stuff on my calendar. All right? Now that sounds scary. But what this means, Jan, is it's my responsibility to go out, as far out as I can, and block out that time that I want for me. Okay, so that may be if I'm doing that or coming to one of your summertime trainings or doing some— I'm blocking that stuff. But I'm also blocking in my time off, my exercise time, my case preparation time as far in advance as I can so they're trained. So I give them only really a limited amount of time to block other stuff and too many people I think business owners let the staff and the customers control the whole calendar time thing. The objection you will hear is that, of course, my business is different. We're serving clients. They need help now. No, no, no. Most of them, they don't need help now. It's not an emergency. For 99% of emergencies, a well-trained staff who understands how Ben thinks about this they can solve the emergency for the client. The other thing you taught me very well about this, we had a conversation a few years ago, is that our presentation now to the world is Ben has built this, I'm the coach of this superstar team. The question that clients ask, law clients ask is, "Who's going to handle my case?" Well, they have no idea what "handle the case" even means. They want the answer to be Ben, right? No, no, no. There's a million things that go on. I build a great team and James is great at this stuff and he's going to be in charge of this and Amber is great at this and she's going to be in charge of this. And I tell them, my job, the highest value use of my time in your case is to think about your case, to strategize how we can get an effective outcome. That's really what you're paying me to do. Oh, okay, now I get it. So that's client control. That's customer control. Those are the big things. Um, I think—

see, the gold thread in all of it, and I'm always disturbed by seeing people behave in the opposite way. I mean, the gold thread through all of it is like courage and clarity, right? I mean, the gold thread here is the opposite of people's reluctance and timidity to be transparent with customers or clients. Here's how we do things around here and here's why. With staff, with community, with everybody. And I'm just amazed at how people are sort of afraid to exert their authority.

And as a result, President Bush II's great line was, "If you don't have it clearly expressed, your agenda, other people will be very happy to create one for you." Yeah, and I think that, again, if you're in a world where the other folks you hang out with reinforce this notion that you can and should take control, then it becomes easier. Most business owners, most people are just lost. Like I was when I got Magnetic Marketing. I mean, I had never even— I didn't even know what I didn't know, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Very few people read books anymore. I probably read a business book a week. They just have no frame of reference for this, Dan. They don't even know it's possible. If they go to one of these local meet and greets of business owners, these social BS time-wasting things, all they hear about is other people being miserable. If you go to lawyer meetings, except for at our conference, all you hear about is bitching and moaning. About misery, about judges, about working too hard. And so they're not even— they don't even know what they don't know in terms of finding people who think like— who think like we do, right?

So I have a side story I want you to tell, if you don't mind. Yeah. Because I think it's destructive when people start to try and exert themselves in these various ways and they bump up against Resistance. So your, your hiring system and the Bar Association, which I, I thought was hilarious.

The— well, which— the—

which, uh, uh, your job candidate who found the whole process so objectionable.

Oh yeah, I mean, look, so, so You know, we run sort of now the references Gary Halbert looking for his next girlfriend or wife type ads for all of our positions. And as I said, I used to be the one, but now Charlie is the one who's absolutely ruthless there. And I mean, I don't know if we actually had a bar complaint, but people threaten that that the steps that we make people go through just to be able to come and have an interview here is not fair, is not right. You know, I'm the guy who thinks, thank God that back when I was learning this, that free interns was allowed, right. Because that's— I mean, I went to a law school that wasn't on anybody's map. And the way I started to learn was to volunteer and say, I will follow you around. Just let me follow you around to meetings and depositions and stuff and I will learn. Of course, if you do that today, you'd probably get arrested or fined.

So your process, like for selection, tell everybody a little bit about this.

Yeah, so the process is very clearly defining who it is you want to walk in and see working in your office on Monday morning. So we will—

And who you don't, I assume. And who you don't.

And who you don't. So we've had great success, although it's getting tougher, I think, Craigslist. I mean, a lot of people just sit at home who are unemployable and should remain unemployable. But the formulation of the ad then takes the form of this will be a great job for you, and this is who we are. However, this job, and whether it's a lawyer or, you know, other staff person, you will hate this job and you will not be great here if, you know, your mommy had to check on your grades in college, you haven't read a book since you graduated from 7th grade, you have no clue how to write. So it's very— I mean, it's not derogatory, it's true. But we have—

But a lot of people would feel— A lot of people would critique that as demeaning and mean and condescending.

And that's what some of them tell us, but because they'll write back and say you'll never find anybody, but what you actually find is people who say, I like that spirit. So now we have, we're moving toward a values match because again, You don't really need experience for a lot of the stuff that we do in either of my two businesses. If you come here with the spirit and the attitude, then you're going to be great. So when they come on, like for Great Legal Marketing, we get a youngin' to come in. Usually it's— so we've hired like a video editor, come in and write some blogs or something. So the first thing we do, because they've never seen our world either, is we give them my book, a couple of your books. We say, "Go watch this video of Ben on stage. Listen to this CD of Dan." We pay them to go to listen to that stuff. Then we say, "This is the world you are entering." They'll say, "Well, it's weird and different." If we've hired, you know, if we've identified the right ones that are coming through the door, they'll say it's weird, different, and it's exciting. Okay? And so we've got a great little, you know, I have other people say I want to come work for you. My pastor was in here shooting because we open up, one of the things we do is we open our video studio up to local small biz and charities and stuff. Hey, come shoot video. You want to shoot video? We'll help you shoot some. And she said she would, you know, she would want to come work for us because our people are so, are so cool. Now, they work hard, right? They're not on their Facebook thing because Charlie, he's in charge of that and he's a real tyrant. He kind of watches over them most of the day and they're really terrific. A couple of them are new so they're going to be coming to their first great legal marketing event. Even our vendors. So our vendors at our events, the first time they come to an event, We tell them you have to sit inside the room. You have to understand what we're doing because you can't come back if you're not totally congruent with what we're teaching, what our whole attitude is. And so again, most people who are putting on shows or events— Who cares about attitude?

An exhibitor will be mad. They'll go away. They won't give us their $1,800. Or whatever it is. This courage, right, to insist on it.

Yeah, and as a result, we have a team of great vendors who really like us. I mean, we've helped grow some of their businesses just by getting this relationship, having a values connect, which again comes back to I understand what I think I'm here for.. And I understand what I am willing to and what I'm not willing to do. So if we flip back to the law side, there's a lot of big cases that we could take that are just the complexity of the case, the number of days it would take to try a case, the number of experts, the number of travel. It just— I rule it out because it's not congruent with the lifestyle that I want to be. I've actually traveled a little bit more in the last couple years than I want to. Seems like every time I do travel, something's, you know, I'm actually needed at home. So, but a lot of lawyers would take a case because it looks to be a big case and give no thought whatsoever to the lifestyle side of it. And some of this is bravado, right? I'm tough. But too many lawyers we see then, you know, at our age, they're divorced, they're paying 3 wives alimony, the kids don't like them, and it's very lonely.

And I, you know, I don't want to be there. So, um, because we have the InfoSummit coming up. Yep. And there may be somebody hearing this who has not yet registered. Um, just, I don't really want a commercial commercial, but just sort of, uh, how you feel about having added the second business and entered the information marketing business now approaching your 10 years. Um, Almost makes you a pioneer.

I am almost. It was kind of funny because I was telling the team today, I said, "Hey, we have a Yellow Page manual here, the phone book." I said, "I think I'm going to bring this and slam it down on the desk and say, '10 years ago we were talking about this.'" The info marketing business has been great for a couple of reasons. Number 1, it's very, very interesting. I mean, we are pioneers, particularly in the legal side of that. We have a handful, but no more than a handful of competitors. So number one, and so from an intellectual standpoint. Number two, we've influenced a lot of lives. And so even before we get to the money side of it, it gives you that visceral feedback that I'm sure that you feel when people come to you and say, "This changed my life. I was burned out. I was sick and tired of the practice of law." And I get it because this can be a real grind. People think lawyers have these great lives and they make tons of money. It's actually a lot of hard work. And if you think about it, the people on the other side of you are always telling you how stupid you are, right? Because there's a lawyer on the other side saying your arguments are stupid and that can grind you down. Then from the money side, it's good. You have recurring income. But we need to let people know too that it is work. It's not like buy Infusionsoft, create a couple of products, and people will come. I think you need to be an authentic person, and I think you need to have principles that if someone did watch you in your business, in your social life, in your other business, that they would see consistent— consistency of your life. So you can't be saying one thing on stage and living a different life. I think that's what differentiates me a bit from some of the other people who are in our space in the legal marketing side. The last thing I would say is these businesses are complex enough that if they're not— so someone who enters this, so like they come to an event, so we've had this and you've had this, they come to an event and they count the heads and they go, "Sure, I can do this, right? How hard could this be?" And you all have the model. So any number of products that GKIC offers that will get you up to speed on on sort of managing the complexity because I think done well, these are fairly complex animals. It obviously can be done because while I have a team now and I've talked a lot about my team, the first couple of years, damn, this was Ben, you know. This was Ben doing every step of the way. And every year we give out the first edition ever of our newsletter.. And it was, you know, just typing stuff on paper, on black and white, and sending it out. So that's what I would say is, yes, it can be done even if you're in a competitive area, more competitive area like a lot of chiropractors, a lot of dentists with these type of businesses. There's no end, I think, to the number of other businesses that you can help. But don't try to shortcut, I think, the work that needs to be done to be authentic, to put products into the marketplace that are actually valuable. The other thing I would say is, and I know you're very careful about this, is who you let into your world to talk to your members is critical. You have to be very clear on when you put someone on your stage or on a call or something. In my opinion, you can't be doing that for the money side of the equation. Because reputation is everything. Um, and you know, in my business, that flows back into the, into the legal side of my life.

Well, you can, you can and should do it for the money, but you have a— you have both an obligation and a necessity to protect your— and protect your relationship with your members. So you can't do it just for the money. Yeah, every— everybody in the info marketing space will have times when there will be a bucketload of easy and fast money to be had that needs to be said no to because of the broader and long-term ramifications.

Yeah, and if you get any good at this at all— and so here, so here's what will happen at an info summit or a super conference is somebody like me or another decent info marketer is walking through there and they can't go 10 feet without getting pitched by somebody that says, "I should be your thing. I've got this cool widget you've never heard of before." So you have to be really, really clear about who you are going to, again, do business with and let on your stage. Your role of Hey, tell me 3 people, I think if I paraphrase it, who've done business with you before and who would do business with you again is a really good rule.

Yeah, it's a pretty good little test. Yeah. You know, because if there aren't 3 and the person's more than like 3 years old, the odds of you being the first that comes out on the end is not good.

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