How One Attorney Doubled Profits Without Increasing Costs
Are you tired of feeling stuck in your law practice? Ready to finally build a thriving law firm that works for you, not the other way around?
Attorney Jeff Kelly shares his powerful journey to becoming a finalist for the Entrepreneurial Attorney of the Year (EAY). Discover the actionable strategies he implemented to turn his small law firm into a profitable, sustainable powerhouse.
You’ll learn how he was able to double his net income without increasing staff or marketing costs!
By laser-focusing on improving his sales team’s close rate by 49%, he unlocked massive growth. Pairing that with data-driven marketing decisions, Jeff also doubled his net income, proving that execution is everything.
If you’re a law firm owner dreaming of freedom, growth, and genuine financial success, you can't afford to miss this episode.
And if you want more support, visit: https://www.TheLawFirmSecret.com
Transcript
YPM POD EP100 - EAY - Jeff Kelly - How One Attorney Doubled Profits Without Increasing Costs
===
[:Mps: Hey, law firm owner. Welcome to the Your Practice Master Podcast. In fact, episode 100, featuring another EAY finalist this year. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.
you. Get to the next level in: to compare where they were in: In: [:He's a volunteer captain in our world, which means he leads other members, and we've watched him grow from where he was to where he is today.
And over the last couple of years, he applied because he's taken massive action.
Mps: Jeff didn't just know what to do. He took action by laser focusing on improving his sales team's close rate by 49%.
He unlocked massive growth, pairing that with data-driven marketing decisions. Jeff also increased new leads by 46%, proving that execution is everything.
Jeff: We doubled the net income without increasing staff or marketing costs.
Audio RJ: it doesn't get much better than
Mps: No, it doesn't.
Audio RJ: welcome, Jeff Kelly, thanks for being here with us
Jeff: Thank you.
things in the firm over the [:But I'm curious last year. What was one key strategy or lesson From Partners Club that you took and implemented that really led to some of the growth that you did have last year?
Jeff: Okay. Okay, here we go.
Probably the number one thing that I did was implement this daily planning strategy. not too long ago. James Jones gave his, EAY speech and he had a. A PDF where he planned out his day and I thought, man, I am stealing this.
This is good stuff. And so I'm hoping I can get with author to market and get them to print out a booklet I'd like to give everybody. I tweaked it a little bit, added some of blame stuff in there and that that has been like huge for me. Planning out the day and going through my eight minute workout where I, do two minutes of prayer, two minutes of gratitudes, two minutes.
in. So I would definitely say:2024 was probably. the year that automation really made the difference, and I've gotten really into, Zapier programming and mail parser. I counted 'em up. We have 96 processes that are automated and I'm estimating this is saving us at least 50 hours a week for my caseworkers.
In the past, whenever we had a notification come in from the court, it would have a 3 41 date, confirmation date, and a bar date. These are very key to every single chapter 13 case.
And I would have two people
go through these, These notifications from the court and make sure that these dates were perfect in our computer system. They would both have to initial them and they would still, even though there was two people doing it, every now and then, we would have a mistake made, no big deal. We would figure it out and cover it, but.
at a partner's club meeting, [:And so while absolutely I learned a ton of stuff from the speakers on stage, I also learned stuff from these little side conversations.
And it is amazing how a little hinge can swing such a big door. Like automation. And so I dove in, implemented this. So now when the notification comes in, Gmail will filter out the three dates.
It'll send the pertinent information to mail, parer mail, parer then sends it to Zapier, which then puts it into all of my calendars, notifies all the caseworkers,
automatically starts the workflow for each process inside of practice Panther.
And there's no mistakes. None. Zero. That has been probably one of the biggest game changers. Another huge, big game changer we've had this year was implementing smart routing.
my office from old clients, [:They don't have access to the cases, and they would have to transfer it to the other side of the office. Now, we did try very hard to say, listen, your case has been filed.
This is the only number you should call from now on. But inevitably they wouldn't do it. They would they, you know, if they didn't get an answer fast enough over here, they would call every number.
We have over 117 tracking phone numbers, and now with smart routing, it doesn't matter what phone number they call. If you're an existing client, you're going to this side of the office.
If you are a new client, you're going to this side of the office. Smart Routing has enabled us. To grow.
Between:And we did that with the exact same number of staff. Didn't increase anybody. Because of that efficiency that was created with smart routing, it also gives the client a much better experience because the new people are able to get their answers faster.
And overall, the staff is less. Stress is just, it's definitely brought order from chaos. But a third thing we did with this flow thing, I love the flow system I love this program and, flow, let it flow.
1, 2, 3, watch, progress, grow. Man. It's so true. And so we, for years I have been banging my head against the brick wall trying to figure out this closing process. we've learned a lot from the closing room with Michael. Probably gonna need to start doing it again when we hire another closer. The getting them to stick with a script was good.
s that there's certain types [: bably the big game changer in:Those people are also less likely to provide other stuff we need to move the case forward.
So I made a radical decision and said, you know what? If you haven't filed your tax returns in the past four years, you're not moving forward with us. You gotta call us back later when you get it done.
But long story short, we were able to spend more time on the people that really do need us. We've honed in on the script, we've honed in on the pain points. We created a section in call tracking metrics that says Pain point.
So it's right there on every single call. they're now well trained to press that pain point. Anytime they start getting objections Hey, what happens if they take 25% of your check? Oh yeah, no, I can't have that. And so they have done so much better in closing. So
[: In:Audio RJ: Wow.
Jeff: And so this has doubled my net income.
Do you want me to talk about the lifestyle stuff we did as well?
Audio RJ: Hang on. Jeff. this is a record moment. First time ever, I've had to open up my iPad and take notes
because I've, these, on these calls, I can usually remember the conversation, but I go, wait, I gotta take notes. ' cause he is, drawing, so many gold nuggets out there.
Let me try to summarize it for everybody who's listening.
Here's what basically happened in a nutshell. So Jeff went through as a bankruptcy firm. He went through the covid period where bankruptcies were really hit hard. there was 20, 30, 40, 50% decreases in bankruptcy counts across the country in different areas.
ses so that he could weather [:But he had to figure out how to do without just automatically adding back in all of this overhead. And so the first thing that he did that he mentioned is.
He had to become a better leader. So he rewired his own brain by doing this morning exercise that he talked about. The second thing that he did was he leveraged automation so that he wouldn't have to actually have team members do things that automation could do.
That third thing that he did is he reduced mistakes by again. Leveraging email automation through the parser to make sure that they were getting things done correctly.
all of his team through that [:And because of that, they were able to close at a higher rate and get more clients to retain the firm. All of that without adding a huge number of new team members. Jeff, is that an accurate summary
Jeff: We did not increase marketing at all. same marketing, same staff. Doubled net income.
Now this year in:Audio RJ: So NPS, I mean, it doesn't get too much better.
Mps: it doesn't, and that's a headline right there, by the way. same marketing, same staff. Doubled my net income. that's pretty fantastic. now, Jeff, I'm curious,
you're in a community of other entrepreneurial attorneys through Partners Club. what's been the biggest benefit of having the community around you?
ning about things like smart [:for many years I was very much against, financing some of these chapter sevens. I remember having a conversation with Robert Geller and he was like, just do it man. You're leaving too much on the table.
And he was right. He was absolutely right. it's made a huge difference in our bottom line. I can remember talking with Todd Farmer about, You know, we used to pay best case, like $50 every time we wanted to download a credit report. And he was like, man, you just hire somebody in Mexico. Do it.
Audio RJ: make them pull the free credit report and you're gonna save a lot of money for the large number of cases that we do. And he is right. We did. so it is, great to be surrounded, by a group of people where you can run ideas by, being surrounded by a team of people who don't want you to fail.
You hit the nail on the head [:Audio RJ: I would say maybe we could make an argument that there's a lot of the opposite going on and when you come into a community like Partners Club, everybody there actually wants to see you win. It's. Unbelievable. And I love that you've name dropped several of the old EAY finalists and EEO I winners and there's these guys are like, you are all willing to share.
And so that's what makes this whole peer group community so important. I mean, NPS we look for this for us, don't we?
want us to succeed too, and [:And yeah, it's important to us.
Jeff, out of all the things you did last year, what would you say was the scariest decision of them all you made to grow the firm and what motivated that action to do it?
Jeff: Those flow meanings we had where we identified the bottleneck of the certain type of client, the people that aren't filing their tax returns.
The whole idea of, no, I'm not gonna file their case, was absolutely mortifying. It was like. Wait a minute, I've paid money to advertise to these people.
I've spent time collecting their information to get them this far in the process, and now I'm just going to throw them away and probably lose the vast majority of them forever.
That was scary, but that was the best move ever. we are able to file more cases. We're able to get more cases confirmed.
Our trustee checks have gone every month ever since we did that.
So getting rid of the [:Audio RJ: Who would've thought that if we would just let the wrong clients go? We
would be able to do more revenue, hold more income, and make life easier on the team, that it is counterintuitive, right?
I would give Mike Mcit a shout out for his book, the Pumpkin Plan. He talks a lot about that in his book.
Even though you hear it. It is scary to say no to the wrong client. We have a certain type of client that always comes through our funnel and every time we try to sell them, nine times out of 10 it fails.
It makes our life miserable. It makes our team's life miserable. It ultimately makes their life miserable.
these guys and gals anymore. [:Would you agree?
Mps: Yeah, a few months ago, we actually recorded a video talking about the power of saying no. obviously to not the right fit from a client perspective and also just saying no and having the power to say no to certain things. like ideas that can take your focus away.
I think it's extremely powerful and flow, helps the accountability portion of it.
So here you are, EAY finalist, first and foremost, How's it feel to be an EAY finalist?
Jeff: It feels really good. I've really enjoyed, looking back and going through these numbers and seeing the progress and feeling it. And seeing wow. We really have had a lot of fun.
we did get Barbie that yellow Z car that she loves, that's exciting.
ds have a nice place to run. [:We, put retaining walls in next to the pool and expanded the area and covered that area with sod. we've got a sprinkler system to keep the grass from dying, hopefully.
Audio RJ: By the way, Jeff, nobody's gonna believe that you and Barbie are old enough to have grandkids. They're looking at you right now going, there's no way.
Jeff: Sawyer is six years old and he is a pistol. Let me tell you nothing but energy.
Audio RJ: so on top of all this, Jeff, what you're saying is you are also able to build a lifestyle.
Jeff: Absolutely. Way better.
Audio RJ: is that because more money, is that because more systematized? what is it?
Jeff: Definitely systems.
And trying to look at every single thing in the firm systematically. What is the system that's going to run this process? What is the outcome we're shooting for? Man, 10 years ago when I first came in here, you may not know this, but I was in a very bad, dark place.
suicidal and, I prayed hard, [:I was missing the big picture. I knew I was, you wouldn't talk about miserable working a hundred hour weeks coming home every night. People were yelling at me all day long and then yelling at me as soon as I got home. It was not a fun life. And, the day Ramsey thing came to me and I'm like, hallelujah, this is it. And I went to that event. Thinking, this is it.
And I had a great event and I learned a lot but it wasn't, it, and I remember I was kinda like.
Crying to, Jamie Miller. Such a nice guy. What a nice guy Jamie Miller is.
And he listened to me, moan and groan, and he was like, Jeff, there is a better way. I gotta introduce you to my friend Richard James. And then when I went to that meeting the next morning, it was a breakfast meeting. The room was so crowded you could hardly fit.
, nobody's keeping me out of [:And then, you got that ending where everything comes together and you start talking about systems and you start moving From chaos to order and it's sign me up. Sign me up.
Scott, David Stewart asked me, I guess about a year ago, he's man, what's your problem, Jeff? You've been in here a long time. You should have this stuff down by now. And I'm like, Scott. life happens. Life happens.
I've hit some bumps along the way, and I, fortunately, through all these bumps, I have been surrounded by good people, good merciful, wonderful people that have helped me get through it. Not just professionally, but like personally,
You know the [:It's a good thing. You can change patterns. You can change outlooks. Yeah, you can get hit hard and knock to the ground, but you can get right back up and keep. Moving forward
and that is, something I think is a core value of this group. And you were talking about downturns.
Lemme tell you how bad that downturn was when Covid hit our market went from 50,000 cases a year in Georgia to 10,000.
We had an 80% reduction. You want to talk about nervous breakdown? I was on the verge and I can remember Ron Kohler. Bless his heart, having to listen to me moan and groan in our PIP meetings and he was so steady, Jeff. It's gonna get better. Ron, are you sure? How do you know that, Ron? Trust me.
We'll get through it. we always do. And he was right.
Audio RJ: It's hard to [:Yeah, it better look like I'm working out. I'm putting the time in. And Jeff, I feel like for you. congratulations on EAY,
Jeff: yeah, and I, I can't leave this out. The most important person in my life, Barbie. Barbie was a game changer for me. Not just because she quit her job and has volunteered to help look after the staff and help run things, You sometimes you gotta hear some tough questions.
And I used to take a lot of bad cases because I felt sorry for people and she was good about coming to me and saying, Hey look, here's case number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Why'd you do it? I felt sorry for 'em. I wanna help people.
Well, Why don't you feel sorry for yourself?
your staff? They know for a [:I had to make changes like that. But, also like when you love somebody and you care about 'em and you want to do nice things, you gotta want it and you gotta want it bad. And that's what that whole daily implementation thing really helps get your mind set, help figuring out what is it do I want, what do I wanna do? What is the goal? And how bad do I want it real bad.
m and I'm excited to see what:Congratulations on being an EAY finalist. I'm excited to hear you present in May here in Charlotte.
Jeff: I am looking forward to it.
Audio RJ: Jeff just wanna say congratulations.
erving our community. You've [:It's been an honor to watch you take this journey so far, and I can't wait to see what's next. So congratulations to both you and your beautiful bride Barbie.
Jeff: All right. Thank you.
