Scott Reib - Founder of Reib Law

We all know that we need an attorney. None of us want to pay an attorney. None of us are happy when we have to pick up the phone and call our attorney because we know it's going to cost us usually, you know, in the 1/6 of an hour. Right. 10 minute increments. Right. And Shannon, today we have a guest that has sort of broken that mold in his legal practice.

Yeah. A really unique way to bring legal services to small business business owners that I think is really valuable. And there's a ton of great stuff to learn on this episode for every small business owner because there's always going to be legal stuff you have to deal with. And after hearing Scott Reeb, There's a better way to do it.

There's a better way. Yeah. And maybe, you know, but we got to the end of the episode and, and you'll hear us, you'll hear our reactions. But, you know, we tell our guests, look, you can't just come on and pitch your, your business or service or product, whatever it is, you can tell us about it, but really we want to know your story. And sure, as you know, listening, that's what we always do. And that's what you're about to hear with Scott Reeb in telling his story, though it's such a compelling thing that he offers that, you know, I'm sold on the concept and, and I'm either going to try and convince my attorney to do it or I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna hire Scott. So, you know, there you go.

Y makes sense.

It totally does. It fits into our whole board of advisors thing. Like, it's great. It's, it's efficient, it's predictable. It's all of those things that, that you know, that you want in your, in your business life. You know, in fact, it's, yeah, it's.

Whole thing and it's just extremely valuable. Yeah, in so many ways.

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I'm ready to go, man. Let's get legal.

Let's get legal. He's legally Shannon Jean. I'm legally Dave Hamilton, and legally. This is the small business show, episode 280.

Sure. Yeah. The concept of shatterproof, it kind of. It comes from the glass that's all around us. Every time you get in your car, you're surrounded by this shatterproof glass. And the idea is that when a rock hits it as we're going down the highway, the glass isn't going to shatter and come through and cut you, right? It marks the glass, or it may. The whole thing may crack up, but it doesn't come through and hurt you. And so we want the windshields of our business to be like that shatterproof glass. And so as you're going down the road of business in your business vehicle, when things happen that you didn't want to happen, I mean, things happen in life and in business, then they'll market, we see it, and then we can deal with it in a proactive way. If we set up our business in the Right way. If we have the right structures and systems and documentation in place, then that's not a big deal. When something comes up, we can deal with it. It's minor. We don't have a lot of exposure. We've done the right things to protect our business and personal assets. And that's what I call being shatterproof.

So everybody that listens to this show knows that Dave and I are firm believers that you should create a private board of advisors for your business to help you build a better system to achieve success. One of the most important people on the board is your attorney. Today we're excited to be joined by Scott Reeb, an attorney with over 20 years experience. Scott is going to share with us ways to shatter proof your business and discuss why having an ongoing relationship with your attorney is so important. Scott, thanks so much for being here today.

Oh, it's great to be here.

Yeah, we really appreciate it. So talk a little bit about your background, how you came to focus on business law and also, you know, how Reeb Law is different than most law firms.

Great. That's a, that's a long question.

We've got time. We got time.

I started out as a business major at Southwest Baptist University and wanted to do marketing and advertising. Really loved it and graduated in 91. And there were really no jobs. They thought marketing jobs were selling copiers, selling phones, selling computers. And so I got my first sales job and I was selling phone systems for AT&T, which was okay, but it wasn't what I really wanted to do. But I found I was pretty good at it and actually found some ways to sell their, their extended warranties that they had not figured out. They had a computer system that would allow you to download 60 days in advance their expiring warranties, create contracts or proposals, send those out in the mail to the customers. I found that about 50% of them came back in the mail signed, and then I could follow up with the other 50% and get another 20% in. And it just became mailbox money for me, really easy. And then I could go do the add on sales and I had the whole Tulsa, Oklahoma metro area, which isn't huge, but it was a good market for phone systems. And they decided to bring in someone else to take over the system I created that was making minimum wage and breached my contract and sent me to southeast Oklahoma. Now if you're from southeast Oklahoma, it's a great place. They just, IN91 didn't really have a real need for business phones. And so they kind of Sent me there to die.

And I went, you were making too much commission.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it was. It was a great system for me and not so much for them. And so they breached that agreement. I went to a lawyer, and they said, yeah, you could win if you could afford to litigate, but you can't. And so I did what every other American would do. I decided to go to law school.

I love it.

Awesome. That's great.

You joke about that, but that's like. There have been times in my career where it's like, maybe I just need to be my own lawyer. I get that mindset. You actually ran with it. That's awesome.

That's great. Yeah. So I applied to law school at the University of Oklahoma, and Baylor decided College of Law. Oklahoma was about $100 an hour cheaper. So I went there and loved time in Norman, Loved law school. Anyone that tells you that school isn't better than work is crazy. It is. You get to go to class, go play basketball with the guys, go home, eat dinner, and study. It just really was a fun time for three years. And I was married. My wife taught school, and, you know, we lived on, like, $714 every two weeks for three years. But it was a great three years, and I learned a ton. And then got out and started doing litigation at a. A commercial litigation firm and found that that was really boring. I didn't feel like I was helping anyone. And, you know, I'm sitting on these phone calls with engineers on these patent. These big patent infringement cases, just bored to death, not. Not delivering any value. And so I had to make some changes. And so I started working on some smaller cases for smaller businesses, for individuals. And then eventually that kind of morphed into me doing small business litigation. A lot of it, I was contingency where someone had been. Had taken advantage of them, and we would go try to recover that money for them. And so over the years, I litigated about. About everything that you could litigate and just. And it's a necessary thing. Sometimes you have to go to court. But it really should. Shouldn't. Should be a last resort. And most business owners should be able to avoid some of those confrontations in court if they have what you talk about at the first of every show, that if they had a board of advisors with an attorney on it. And so seven years ago, we decided to fix that problem, because what would happen here is we would get a case where someone would call in and they'd made some really stupid mistake because they didn't Know better. They just flipped a coin and made the decision, or googled it, and it was a bad decision. And they get sued. And so we. They come to us, we fix the problem. But it's really expensive. So at the end they're unhappy, right? They're not thrilled because they won, but it cost them too much. So then they don't come back. They just flip the coin again, make another bad decision, and then they're in crisis mode. Their house is burning down. Oh, Scott, come help us again and again, they're upset about it costing so much. So I hired my first business coach in 2012 to help me create a subscription model for small business owners to have the kind of access that Fortune 500 companies have to a lawyer so that they can get this on demand access and ask the questions. You know, they're happening in real time where you're in a meeting and something comes up and you don't know whether to go left or right and need to ask someone if there are legal ramifications. And so we created the access plan where now they can do that. They can send a text, they can email me, they can call me and my team and say, hey, I need to know if I can do this and what's going to happen if I do.

That's brilliant, man. Like that. Because you're right. As business owners, that's what we need is a relationship with an attorney where we feel like, yeah, I can just shoot a text like you said. Yeah. All right, well, you hit on one of our favorite topics in there. And in fact, you hit on it in exactly the way that I was thinking before the show. I want to make sure we ask you this. We love mistakes. And a little bit later, we're going to ask you about some of your own. However you identified that, what you see are clients that come to you that have made some mistake, and now they need an attorney. And if only they hadn't made that mistake, if they had had access ahead of time, then they could have avoided, you know, this whole thing. What is either the most common mistake or one of your favorite mistakes that you see clients make that maybe some of our listeners could avoid?

You know, the. The most common mistake that I still see 23 years into this is people doing business without a legal around them. Right? They're sole proprietors or they're a general partnership, but they have no corporation or limited liability company covering around them. So there's no separation between them and their business. And how, how that manifests in my office or my world is they come in and say, hey, I just got sued, or I got this demand letter that they said they're going to sue me. And I ask them, well, when did you file your corporation? And they look at me, you know, with the deer in the headlights look, and I'm like, oh, no. Everything they have is exposed. And then we start talking about the different assets they have, and they've been successful. So they've bought, you know, five or 10 rental properties. They have paid cash for all their vehicles, and they have several. And so their whole life is exposed to this one mistake that they've made in their business where if they had this corporate cover around them or shield, then the company might be in trouble, but they're not, and they're not going to have everything at risk. But they. They just don't. They don't see the importance in it or the urgency of it. And so people skip that step. You know, Gerber talks about people having an entrepreneurial seizure, and I think that really does happen, that people get excited about whatever opportunity they see in the market and. And they jump on it to take advantage of it, and then they just never take a breath to come back and. And kind of shore that up until it's too late.

Yeah.

Makes perfect sense. I like that term, the entrepreneurial seizure. I've. I've definitely had a few of those myself. Yeah. Yeah. Where you just run with it, which is great, except you need to make sure you got some structure. Thanks.

So, yeah, and I've. I've made this, you know, mistake myself, where you get running for a while and you're like, everything's working great. I don't even, you know, maybe my attorney left in the firm or I didn't keep in touch with them, and then you're. You're kind of stuck. You don't have anything. You don't have an advisor until you have a problem. And I mean, so your solution to that with. With reblaw is they've kind of got an attorney in their pocket, if you will, where they can get, you know, quick access and, you know, get support, ongoing support as they need it. Is that like a monthly service or an annual fee that they pay you? How does it work?

It's a monthly. A monthly subscription. And so they pay us a monthly fee. And then part of. Part of that is that we do monthly phone calls with all of our clients so that we can keep, you know, up with the pulse for their other business. What. What are they doing? We're asking. Asking lots of questions, listening actively to see if we can hear things that maybe they're not doing correctly. It's where we can kind of help them the most. The more they talk to us and tell us, the more transparent and naked they get with their advisors, the more help we can be. And so by having those monthly calls, we do that and then they have their SOS calls where if there's just something that comes up, they can call anytime. I do, I have a lot of texts running with different clients about different things that they're, they're working on. It's just by having that on demand access, they can be proactive with their legal situations rather than reactive. And you know, 99 of the business world, at least the small business world is, is reactive from a legal perspective because they don't really think they have a choice. They think that they can't, they can't afford legal counsel. And so we created a plan that for, for less than 7,000 a year, a small business owner can have on demand legal Counsel to form LLCs for them on the fly. If they want to try a new venture, right. They have a seizure, entrepreneurial seizure, and want to start something new, a new virtual business, then they can form the LLC around it, have that protection, and all they do is pay whatever state filing fee they want where they want to file that llc. It's all done right for them. All the steps are followed by, and then they know they have the protection. But without that booked in advance, it's very hard to do that. I mean, you can do it online. I know there's lots of different ways that you can form those entities, but you're just never sure you've done it right. And with us, you know, you've done it right. It's our responsibility to do it. And you get to be very, very nimble as an entrepreneur because you've got that support behind you. Without it, you're, you are kind of reactive. You have to call and make an appointment, possibly pay a consultation fee, maybe a retainer before you can ever get anything done, by that time, the opportunity may be gone.

Yeah, right. No, and it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. You'll often spend more money too, because if you have to ramp up every time and educate someone on what you're trying to do. And you know, and I've done this where they're like, okay, give me all this background. And it may take hours and hours to really get them to dig in. It's very, very expensive. Why don't. I mean, it sounds like Such a no brainer to me. Why isn't it more? Why don't I hear about it more? Why aren't more firms doing that? Is it just they're not designed that way or is this like a legacy system that they're using this crazy hourly billing and all this kind of stuff? What's going on in the law field with that?

Somewhere back in the 1960s, the hourly billing started. And it's a machine. Right. And they make so much money doing that. And all the firms are built around time. Right. They bring in these young associates and they just run them to death and bill them at really at the highest hourly rate that the customers will tolerate. So they make a ton of money. And so that model is really good for making money, but it's really bad for relationships. People do business with those, with people that they know like and trust. And how can you really like and trust a person that only makes money if they spend time on you?

Yeah.

Right there, somewhere, somewhere in the back of your mind, this person's person supposed to be your most trusted advisor. They're taking care of something really important for you and they make more money if they spend 10 more minutes on your case. I'm not saying that they're all dishonest, but it's human.

Yeah. The system is set up in a way that every bit of time that someone spends could be put under the microscope. You're right. I mean, there's attorneys out there that are under that model that are doing the right thing for their clients, but the model is not set up for customer service at all.

No. And I think that there's a conflict between the client and the attorney with that relationship. And the way, but the way we're billing people for projects, there is no conflict because I have to do business just like they do. I have to give them an estimate up front for what it's going to cost. And if I'm wrong and it cost me more to produce that legal service, then I lose. And if I can do it more efficiently, I win. And it should be that way. I should be in the same type of, type of business therein.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I love it. I love the concept.

But no one else wants to take that risk.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. You're taking the risk. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And I'm sure you, I mean, you may be surprised to know that attorneys are sometimes not the most popular people in the world. And I think you hit the nail on the head. It's like somebody you don't want to call because you're in this, you know, stressful situation, and, you know it's going to cost you a lot of money. And I love the concept of turning it into just another service that you, you know, you're subscribing to that's going to help you out. I think it's really cool.

Yeah. And it's all about relationship. I mean, I'll spend a lot of time on the phone with clients talking about things that have nothing to do with their. With. With the legal part of their business, maybe not even with their business. I mean, my call before we. We came on to do this podcast, what we were talking about the, you know, the coronavirus, talking about the different vaccines. This person happened to be a veterinarian, and so they had some interesting perspectives, and we talked about how they felt about it and what's going on with their family. And it had nothing to do with the law, but they're comfortable talking to me, and the relationship is valuable to them. So they want to talk to me. So they call me if they miss, if I'm not showing up for a call. They're upset because they want. They want to make sure that they're staying connected. And five years ago, that wasn't the case. My clients, not that they didn't like me, but they didn't want to talk to me because they knew it would cost them money.

Yeah. Yeah, I like it.

Yeah.

So since you brought up the whole coronavirus, the COVID thing has that, you know, I mean, it's impacted everyone, but has it impacted your business or the way you're advising your clients? What type of impact has it had on you?

It's definitely kind of added a layer of things we're now talking about and some documentation we had to create, especially early on. And now there's some new things kind of that we're having to deal with. Like, we created a Facebook group for our Access clients so that they could ask questions that all of the other business owners in the. In the. In the access could see. And then I could answer those questions once so that everyone could kind of learn from other people's issues. Because it was all. There's all these common things we were dealing with, and then we would create common templates that they could all, you know, use and implement in their business. And that's one change that we've made. And then our business has grown. We've grown during the crisis, especially the first 60 days of it. We're adding clients because they had questions they'd never had before and didn't have anyone to go to. Now, I'm not a COVID 19 expert, there's not one. But I do have the ability to help to get them answers. If I don't, then I have a team that can work on it and get them the best possible answer so that they can, you know, move forward with confidence. That's kind of the problem everyone have is just the unknown. And so we were able to give them some sense of confidence on what to do, be an advisor for them and help them make the best possible decisions. And then, you know, we'll all see a few, a few years from now whether we all made the right decisions with some of the lawsuits that are already starting to come out with, with employees suing employers and that sort of thing.

Yeah, it's a fascinating, you know, time and, and like you said, so many unknowns. I own a bunch of vacation rentals and we're just getting back and there's all these new things that. Okay, you, you know, what are we responsible for? What's our liability? How do we protect ourselves? Everything from the, you know, the way you put the sheets on the bed to the way you wash every single thing in the house. And I, I, I, you know, getting that guidance, I think is, is invaluable. When you don't, then, like you said, nobody really knows.

Yeah. One of the things I've been teaching our clients is that if you create the set of guidelines for your business on how you're going to deal with the COVID 19 as we open back up, then follow your guidelines. If you're not going to follow them, then don't create them because that's going to create, that's going to cause you more problem in the future. If you're not following them, that's going to be the negligence. Right. I created the set of guidelines and then I couldn't even, I couldn't even meet my standard.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

That's crazy. So I want to talk about looking at information and doing a little background. You know, one of the things I see that comes up is you're in your press information, you're described as the official Zig Ziglar small business lawyer. So for those aren't familiar, talk about Zig Ziglar, what that program is and how you got that title.

You know, Zig was probably the top motivational speaker and sales Guru in the 70s, 80s and 90s. My dad was in sales and would go to Zig's conferences. And I ran into the Ziglar Group about five years ago as I was starting really down this journey of wanting to be really effective and have influence on the world and not just be helping one person at a time, but be able to help more people. And so I started working with speakers, trainers and coaches because by helping them then my effect is exponential. And so. And around here in Texas, the, the. The company that does that is the Zigler company. And so I went to a conference for the Ziggler Group, got to meet Tom, Tom Zigler back in2013 and end up. He took me to the airport that night and so we got to talk for about an hour in Houston traffic. And then a few months later they came on as clients. I'm now a Zigler legacy certified trainer and have been representing the company now for about four years. And then do speaking for them when they have conferences and things to try to help the small business owners shatter proof their businesses.

Yeah, that's great. So on this, that's another thing that really stuck out on your website and information is this concept of shatterproofing your business. And is that what your program does? Is there more you can describe about that?

Sure, yeah. The concept of shatterproof, it comes from the glass that's all around us. Every time you get in your car, you're surrounded by this shatterproof glass. And the idea is that when a rock hits it as we're going down the highway, the glass isn't going to shatter and come through and cut you. Right. It marks the glass or it may, the whole thing may crack up, but it doesn't come through and hurt you. And so we want the windshields of our business to be like that shatterproof glass. And so as you're going down the road of business in your business vehicle, when things happen that you didn't want to happen, I mean, things happen in life and in business, then they'll market, we see it, and then we can deal with it in a proactive way. If we set up our business in the right way, if we have the right structures and systems and documentation in place, then that's not a big deal. When something comes up, we can deal with it. It's minor. We don't have a lot of exposure. We've done the right things to protect our business and personal assets. And that's what I call being shatterproof.

Nice. I love it. So somebody who's a subscriber to your service, they make some decisions or get an advice and everything looks Great. And then it turns out they have a bigger problem. Either, you know, someone's doing something they shouldn't be and they're going to have to file a complaint or try to collect some funds or different things. Do. Does reblaw offer then the next level of okay, this is your advisory portion of these services. Now we're going to go out and represent you. Is that a separate type of thing that you offer or is part of it included?

It's a separate relationship as far as litigation. And we do litigate for our clients. It's my preference that we not end up there. Yeah, we do occasionally. And sometimes I'll send it out to outside counsel if I've been so involved in maybe the, the transaction that I'm. I become a witness in the case. And so I'll find someone else to actually manage the litigation and then I'll kind of quarterback it for the client. But yeah, if they need litigation, then we'll. We'll definitely take that for them. And the great thing about being an access client is pre litigation is part of your package. So if someone sends a demand letter to you, then we get involved and help you negotiate it and resolve it without you having to go pay a retainer and start getting billed by the hour for someone to settle your case. Because that's not really likely to happen. If you go hire a lawyer who's working by the hour, they're going to make some money before they settle your case. So we're able to just eliminate that because we're already involved in it. We already know what's going on, and we can help resolve it. If we can't, then we can get involved and litigate it. And then the other way, if there's something that maybe you need to send the demand letter out, those are included in the package, and then we can resolve that as well. So we're equipped to take it to that next level if we, if we need to. But the idea really is jump on it fast, try to resolve it. Lawsuits are only good for lawyers. The. So you really.

It's like you've listened to the show before.

You've got to try to resolve your disputes. There's very few. There are very few business disputes that really need to be in the courtroom. It's just too costly. You know, the average contract, you know, breach of contract case is 80,000 in attorney's fees. You just can't afford to spend that. You need to find a way to resolve it, maybe swallow some pride and move on.

Yeah. And so and your description. So, you know, responding to demand letters, these kinds of things. You also do the other side where, okay, we need to. This person owes us $50,000, hasn't paid. You know, you help with those types of things as well.

You bet. Yeah, we've got a handful of those right now.

Yeah, of course. And you know, I can always tell a good attorney is when they make that statement as like, you know, the last place you want to wind up is in court. I mean, it is such a nightmare.

And justice is rarely served. I mean, like you said, it's all about who can outspend and who can out strategize. And oftentimes I'm one of the few people that has been through a lawsuit and actually found justice. At the end of the day it was because the other party ignored the judge. But hey, I'll take it, you know, but that you can't go in expecting that. In fact, I still am sort of surprised it worked out, but the rest of them haven't. So, you know. Yeah, makes sense.

So as Dave alluded to earlier in the show, we're big fans of Mistakes. You know, we just wrote a book called Mistakes and now they're the foundation of your small business. Thinking back, you've been doing this for a long time, had a lot of success. You know, what would you say is, is one of your best mistakes, the one that really stuck with you and taught you a valuable lesson as you built your business?

Okay, it's, it's kind of. There's multiple things in this mistake. Back in 2014, we were a little bit bigger. We had multiple lawyers, about six people, full time staff. And I had delegated almost everything except for building the access plan to the point where I didn't know where the passwords were for email, for how to get into the credit card processing. I didn't know where any of that stuff was. And I went on a vacation with one of my attorneys, a little bit disgruntled I guess, and didn't have my finger on that pulse. And so I get a, I get an email halfway through vacation. We're at Universal Studios in Orlando on the last day of May 2014 and there's an email from him resigning with an attachment. That is the list of all the cases he's taking with him and clients. And also the other, another, another resignation from a staff member that's leaving with him. And I had to make a decision then do I end my, the vacation with my 14 year old and 11 year old and my wife and fly back to, you know, get to kind of fight for, fight for that, or do I find a way to stay, enjoy the rest of the vacation and then come back and pick up the pieces? I very quickly figured out how to hire a virtual receptionist. Got the phones forwarded to them and stayed in Florida. Came back. And then when I, when I, on that Monday when I called the office, we had a really young receptionist at the time. She was 18. She was gone. I guess she showed up and when no one was there, she got spooked and left and never came back. So when we returned on June 2, June 4 of 2014, I walked into 2500 square foot office and it was just me. And I did not know how to, literally, I did not know how to change the passwords. I didn't know how to run a credit card. I didn't know anything. And so I made. So I said it was kind of a compilation of mistakes. It's not wrong to delegate. But I had really just given everything away and had not built a system for how to do it. So I was really at a really bad spot and had to start over. Not only was I trying to keep the clients that were going out the door, but trying to figure out how to take payments from the ones that wanted to stay and try to recruit new staff. And so it was a real learning experience. I had to become a better leader and then start building more systems as an operator. And so it was a real learning, learning experience for me.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that and being so transparent and authentic because that is a powerful lesson right there. I mean, you know, and, and I, I would say many business owners have found themselves in this, in the similar situations where as, as things exponentially grow, you kind of lose your, your fingers not on the pulse anymore. Maybe. There's no centralized spot where all that data and information is kept. And I'm, I'm very glad that you're here today that you were able to, you know, turn things around and, and learn from that. That's a great mistake to share with us. Let's go on to the next book. Dave.

I know. No, it's great. Well, we often talk about, you get to write your own story and when you're in those moments, you decide what the end of it's going to look like and then you write your way out of it and you righted your way out of it. And I mean that righted R I G H T E D. You set the ship correct and got it back on course and that's the key in those.

Yeah. The benefit to losing your entire staff is your payroll goes away.

Yeah, I've been there. Yeah. Yeah.

And with a recurring. Since I had the recurring revenue model already started, I had revenue coming in and my payroll went down was, you know, like I said, it went to zero. And so I, that really helped me. And so I. One of the things I really preach to all of our legal coaching clients is that you need to find something in your business that can be a recurring revenue model, a subscription model, so that when things happen like COVID 19 some part of your business, you know, you can count on at least, you know, 90% of it day in, day out to come in every month. It just makes a huge difference in your ability to plan for your business.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Great advice. That's great. So, I mean, you've worked with so many small businesses over the years. I mean, do you see the same kind of legal situations just coming up over and over or, you know, or is everything unique depending on, you know, the different type of business?

You know, it's really pretty much the same. I, I really kind of specialize in what I would call kind of the low. The low hanging fruit. It's the, it's not really. It's not the big, the big complicated things that people are messing up. It's the, it's the easy things. It's the. We're not, they're not. They don't have contracts or if they have a contract, it doesn't have some of the standard things it should have in it. And so it's a real easy fix. Or they don't have a corporation or an LLC at all. Or they only have one and they're running five businesses out of it. And so you can separate those out real quickly and fix that. Or they've got a lot of assets like heavy equipment that they're using to run a construction company. And they have it all in their operating company company, not in a holding company. It's real simple things like that that can be tweaked very easily. And then it's just the things that come up day to day. How do I. This employee did this, what do I do? Or I want to fire this employee, how do I do it and make sure that they don't come back on me. It's that kind of stuff. It's not hard stuff. It's just the day to day stuff.

No, but that, like those are those, you know, like you said, firing someone the right way, that can bite you if you. If you don't get it right. So having someone like you, that they can just quickly call and say, all right, look, I'm in this scenario. I'm doing this in, you know, 30 minutes, coach me. And that's hugely valuable. That's great.

And I've even done it for clients where they're like, I just. I just. I can't do it. And so I've driven to their business, walked in, said, have them in the conference room. I've fired them. The client, the employee that just got fired, walks out, hugs the business owner and leaves because they were just. They emotionally couldn't do it. So I just went and took care of it. It's not fun, but there's a very simple system to doing it. And some personality types. It can be difficult.

Yeah, we talk a lot about hiring and firing and how difficult it is, especially as a small business owner, because you have the relationships with them and. And it's really tough. Well, there's so many good pieces of advice here today on the show, and I really applaud your business model. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about, too. We've been talking a lot about LinkedIn. So before we go looking at your LinkedIn profile, it looks like you have over 5,000 followers. And from a business perspective, can you explain why that's important for your business to have that kind of presence on LinkedIn? I just work out that way that everybody wants to be a dad, wants to follow you.

I'm just really popular. No. In 2015, I decided that it was important for me to have a presence on the social media platform for small business. If I was going to try to be. Be America's legal coach, then I needed to have a platform where I could publish information and people would see it, where they could interact with me on a free basis. And to do that, I had to get. I had to have. I had to have at least a thousand people that followed me. And so that became a goal in 2015, to get to a thousand. Then once you kind of get past that number, then it just kind of starts to grow. I've got a lot more followers than that on Facebook. It's, I think, easier to add people to your pages there. But LinkedIn is. It's where. If your market is the CEO of a small business on a business, then if that's who you need to talk to, that's who's on LinkedIn. They're not on Facebook. Right. So it's really hard to get your Ideas across to someone. Most advertising is disruptive, and you're not going to be able to disrupt a CEO on Facebook because they're not there on LinkedIn. Maybe if your headline is good enough, they might watch your video, they might read a little bit of your article. And if they see them enough, then there's some chance that they could reach out to you and in kind of an organic way. And so that's why I've chosen to make that a big platform. And we also do, you know, organic outreach using LinkedIn as well.

That's great. That's awesome, Scott. You know, thank you again for coming on and spending some time with us today. You know, I've learned a ton. I always say that I learned the most, and I've definitely learned the most on this one. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about reblaw?

We're going to set up a special webpage for your listeners. And so it will be reblaw.com r e I b L-A-W.com businessshow and if they'll go to that page, they can book a laser legal coaching session with me. It will be me and we can talk about your business and you will get some value out of that. And then you can also download my eBook, 5 Proven Strategies to shatter proof your business, all for free, just for the listeners of your show. And so that's the best way. I'm easy to find other places. If you just type in the Scott reeb on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram or Twitter, you can find me.

That's great. Thank you again. We really appreciate your time today. Really awesome stuff.

It was great. Thanks, guys.

Man. Well, I feel like I'm going to sign up with him before we publish the show just to make sure his client roster doesn't fill up. No, really, like, you know, he's in Texas. I got three companies organized in Texas.

Right.

This is the, like, this is what people like you and me and all of our listeners need, is something like that.

Exactly, exactly. I mean, that was the first thing when we came off, when we said goodbye to Scott, that both of us were like, hey, I think I need to go sign up for this guy.

Yeah.

And, you know, it just seems like so useful in all the types of decisions that come up day after day after day from how do I, you know, how do I do this and how do I manage this situation? And just that that advisory service.

Well, that, that proactive part where you're forced to meet with him once a month. I mean, you know, I'll be honest, sometimes when I sit down with my attorney or my accountant, like, I need to tell them about things that I know they're gonna yell at me about. Like, you, dude, you can't do that. Something especially.

Yeah, why did you, why did you do it?

Why did you do it that way? Like, oh, you know, but, but it, those conversations are important. You don't just want to stick your hand in the sand. Right? So being essentially forced to have those, you know, whatever you want to call it, advisory coaching, you know, just brain picking, brain meld. It's a mind meld once a month. So that when you call him in the middle of the month and say, I need help, he's already up to speed other than the stupid mistake I made yesterday, you know, and that's what I got to tell him about. But he knows, which is great.

And I like the fact that it sounds like you get connected to kind of a, you know, a mastermind community, if you will, of other small business owners that may, you know, be able to chime in and offer some, some, you know, feedback as well, which is really cool. Yeah, powerful man.

Yeah.

Great. I love it.

No, I'm, I love these. I love the idea. He seems, I mean, he's the right guy clearly to be doing this, otherwise he wouldn't be doing it. But. Yeah, and. Yeah, yeah, very cool.

Hey, I like to always ask this at the end of the show. What, what does it cost our listeners to, to hear this show? Dave?

Well, the, the cost is it doesn't cost you anything financially. We ask that you listen to us talk about our sponsors over this episode. As you know, that's PDF pen@smilesoftware.com podcast and, and we ask that you visit their URLs. Right, that's, that's one of the costs. Whether you buy something or not, that's up to you. That's between you and them. It's our job to, to introduce you to them and, and you guys take it from there. So, so that, that's, that's one of the costs.

That's great. The other thing we'd love to have you do, which just takes a little bit of your time, probably less than 90 seconds, is go, leave us a review on whatever platform you're listening to the show on. You know, the Apple podcast directory, you know, Google Play. Wherever you hear our voice, go leave us a five star review and then share it with us and we'll read it on the show and, you know, love to send some exposure your way if you're a small business owner as well.

Yeah.

Really appreciate your ongoing support.

Yeah. Cool. Well, that's what I got. We already told everybody about our book, so, you know, you already know if you haven't yet to go by. Mistakes are the foundation of your small business. And we'll go. And that link's already in the show notes for you, so that's all we got. Thanks for. Thanks for listening. Thanks for. Thanks to Scott Reeb for coming on the show. Thanks to you folks for the reviews and all that stuff. Keep living that charmed life.