Skyrocket Your Law Firm Profits with the FLOW Method | YPM Podcast

Bert Diener: [: 00:00:00

The money comes in, the clients are happier, the staff's jobs get easier because they're not fighting with the clients.

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Introduction and Guest Introduction

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MPS: Hey, Law Firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS. and

Richard James: I'm Richard James.

Attorney Bert Diener's Journey and Success

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Richard James: And Today Michael, we've got a good friend, our partner Bert Diener, who is, we've watched grow from a multi million dollar firm that didn't have profit to now a multi million dollar firm with massive profit and massive growth, but also tremendous character and a heart of giving.

by your overall giving. You [: 00:01:00

Bert Diener: No, thank you guys. You have helped us do it all, So, we really appreciate it.

Richard James: Let's

kick it off. Right, you want to get

the,

MPS: Let's break

the ice. Break the ice. Let's break the ice. What's something that maybe not everyone knows about you?

Bert Diener: That I take all the credit for everything, and I really do nothing. so

Richard James: Did we not know that about him?

Bert Diener: Maybe I thought I had y'all fooled, but the joke's on me.

At the end of the day,

Richard James: I appreciate that, but That you are the general and the firm needs a general, and you are the visionary, and you've, I mean, you did it all. right? So everything you're asking everybody to do, you've actually done yourself, correct?

Bert Diener: Simultaneously.

Richard James: Simultaneously.

Bert Diener: Yeah.

Richard James: Even though you didn't speak Spanish.

Bert Diener: That's right.

to figure out how to get all [: 00:02:00

Bert Diener: That's right, I'm not afraid of being bad at something. That doesn't bother me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

MPS: Just to draw a pattern there, everyone that has sat on that stage today has all done every role in the firm and made sure they understood it before they placed someone else there to do it.

owner's benefit look like in: 2023

The Business Model and Profit Sharing

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Bert Diener: So for us, owner's benefit is a little bit different. right? So I have to factor in like all the bonuses that we do because I have certain owner's benefit that comes at the firm kind of benefits us.

And then we do kind of a profit first model where we push everything over of the profit. So we have a firm rule that Stephanie and I, we get 25% of profit and 75% is distributed to everybody who's involved. Okay, so,

nd you give that away to the [: 00:03:00

Bert Diener: You know, Whatever we have, the way we believe, is anything over expenses is profit. So that all, every single penny goes into the profit pool, and 75% of that is distributed to everyone else.

Richard James: Everybody, did that hit everybody correctly?

Bert Diener: So we're an eight-figure firm, these numbers are big, so, but when we look at it, as we've done stuff right now, considering everything right now, even in our growth cycle, cause we've built literally built three offices this year. We still are at a 40% profit margin at that being factored.

Richard James: That's with reinvestment of capitol?

everything has been built to [: 00:04:00

So I can handle, with the exception of appointment slots. you know, We can handle a 50% growth in one month and we don't miss a beat. So that's how we've planned.

Richard James: Just to give everybody scope, I know we've talked about this before, but just to make sure we give them scope, how many new cases did you open in January?

Bert Diener: Yeah, January we opened 680.

Richard James: 680 new cases in January. How many open cases do you have at any one given time right now? Yeah,

Bert Diener: It's you know, 11,000 ish right now and it will go higher.

Attorney Bert Diener's Growth Strategy and Market Expansion

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Bert Diener: My goal is by: 2030

Richard James: But yet you share so freely. Right. You don't seem concerned that somebody might swipe and deploy your material and compete with you in your market. That doesn't ever seem to be a factor in your radar?

Attorney Bert Diener's Perspective on Competition and Market Saturation

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Bert Diener: No,

Not at all,

I mean, [: 00:05:00

there are certain things that if you were trying to go into a market and be the biggest one, you put a target on your back.

There's a sweet spot in terms of a client acquisition cost. That we know we want to get into it. The bigger you get, the more your client acquisition cost increases. So it's easier for me to open another office and stay within that sweet spot. you know, Continue to expand that way. You keep the target off of your back. You diversify by markets. And so It's a strategy that's working for us. And

We just got to stay a couple jurisdictions ahead every year. So we're already licensed and everything prepared. So I can go to opening offices and we just keep it going.

Importance of Flow in Business

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is a key to profitability in: 2020

er. There's a natural way to [: 00:06:00

oal that I had. It's probably: 2030

Richard James: Okay, for those that are listening in a pod, or even here that don't know what the heck flow is.

Bert Diener: Yes.

Richard James: It is a bit of a Frankenstein monster of a combination of a couple of theories out there that you've put together to make sense for law firm production, correct?

Bert Diener: Yes, 100%.

Richard James: So Where does the foundation of that come from?

Bert Diener: Right,

So there's basic five methodologies that exist out there in different industries.

y created by Toyota. One was [: 00:07:00

And then we have the Theory of Constraints. Which basically helps us make sure that our priorities are always in alignment. Because everybody has too much to do. Your ability to prioritize and execute on that is the biggest one. And then there's the 6th one actually, which is Six Sigma. Which is basically identifying these points that you can get continuous improvement over time.

oals, everybody win, and any [: 00:08:00

So it's very logical, but you have to do it, and it starts blowing your mind. It really, right now, it's still blowing my mind. I'm a different firm than I was a week ago as a result.

Richard James: You made a off handed statement to me last night for us while we're sitting at the table. I don't know if you caught this.

Attorney Bert Diener's Business Growth and Scaling

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Richard James: Where he said, honestly I don't think we've been able to get where we are had it not been for coming down to Mexico with staff because we wouldn't have been able to afford to scale. Is that accurate?

Bert Diener: Yeah, I was broke before then. I mean, We came down here originally. I was pretty new into the program. We were like the McCraneys. We had an issue from a staffing perspective. But all of us, as every business in America, has the issue that because payroll and inflation, but it's done. No matter what you do.

to pay you more, but you're [: 00:09:00

There is margin there. People do want to grow. So you do have a responsibility down here to keep them engaged, to help them grow, find a win

win. But we would not. I would be trapped like George was. I'm not that smart, I needed to cheat And I found a shortcut, but it would take some work. But I will tell you 75% of my firm is in Mexico.

Mexico We are a Mexican Law Firm doing business in United States.

Richard James: So, interesting question,

how do you handle the, and you answered this to me, and I think it's a good answer to everybody else and to anybody who's listening from Mexico. Because sometimes I hear from the folks in Mexico, well, yeah, but that's not what they make in the US to do this job, right? and I think your answer was spot on.

which was,

Bert Diener: Yeah,

this,

if everything was equal, we wouldn't be here. right?

Right. [: 00:10:00

win, right? So if you think things are going to be equal, what you're thinking right now is win-lose, and you either have to be mature enough to work with us.

And if you're mature, you're going to benefit. But if you're selfish, you're going to lose and we can find somebody else. But if you trust me and let's go down this path together. We can do a lot of good together and you will be exceptionally well taken care of. But, let's not play this game because that's a game you can't win.

Richard James: Got it. Good.

Introduction to Flow Methodology

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MPS: So, I'm going to loop back to Flow. Sure. Okay. And so, For a lot of this room, they've heard of you know, the boot camp of Workflow and, you've gone through Flow. Many of them could look at it and say it's a little overwhelming. Sure. So,

Implementing Flow in Business

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MPS: Did you implement everything right off the bat in Diener Law?

eally crazy. We started with [: 00:11:00

I mean, it's stupid, it's, I'm a data company is what I am. But I will tell you that when we fix that, the morale, as it switched around. You run, you identify how much money you have in inventory. Like you don't have, it's not, sometimes you don't have to raise prices. Sometimes you just have to free up the inventory and let things start flowing.

The money comes in, the clients are happier, the staff's jobs get easier because they're not fighting with the clients. They're not fighting with spinning their wheels with the amount of work on their case. And I heard something last week because we had such a big month. We beat our previous high by 155 cases.

ted doing stress checks, and [: 00:12:00

Richard James: Wow. I need,

Bert Diener: We need more work. And The second thing, the feedback I got on the case managers, so the ones that we had applied flow through, this blew my mind. They said, we no longer are sending work back. They've taken all the feedback we get them, and they're actually doing it. We have no rework.

Richard James: What?

Bert Diener: So, we, what, The byproduct that was is obviously revenues went up through the roof. The morale of the team, they're relaxed. And The feedback I got from the Attorneys of my life is easier, I have more bandwidth, we don't need another Attorney right now. I got two Attorneys that were going, I'm Attorney to leave at the same time.

I'm like, you guys are killing me. right? I mean, We're growing right now, I'm going to blow up some other stuff. And they're like, no, actually we're okay right now.

So we're going to subtract two. We're doing that. This is real time feedback. This is people who generally are optimizing for easy.

They're [: 00:13:00

Richard James: Let's unpack it a little bit.

Flow in Different Business Areas

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Richard James: So what are the ingredients of Flow?

Bert Diener: Alright, so, Flow, there's, so there's three print, there's three, fundamental components.

You have the, there's a perspective to Flow, okay? You have to look at things fundamentally differently. There's a process to Flow, to basically implement it. And Then there's a people component to Flow. and This was borrowed from Toyota. So this isn't Bert's genius, this is just I'm smart enough to rip off people who are really smart.

of people who participate in [: 00:14:00

You have the team, you have the process leader, then you have the process owner. So the natural byproduct when you're looking at flow and you establish your priorities, the number one lens we look through is first is profitability. Okay. You better make sure that what we are doing is basically generating more profit.

That's the oxygen. If you have the oxygen, we can go to the second tier of priorities, which is making sure we're making life better for everybody else. This is why you have to mash some of these other methodologies together. Because some of them believe, like with Lean or Agile, our whole purpose is to bring value to the client.

roblems go out the door, but [: 00:15:00

Richard James: But it sounds to me like you've eliminated the traditional way of doing things. So let me take you back. Yes, sir. At one point in your journey here, what you thought you needed was, like C level team members. That you thought you were going to bring outside managers in and that they were going to help replace you, and they were going to be able to run the ship.

And then there was a point when you thought that, just having people work the farm system, like bringing them up through the farm system. So some of that still exists, but how has that evolved? How has that thinking evolved and how have you gotten to here? Cause this is a culmination of many different things you've been working on. Amen, brother.

Bert Diener: You're right, And you always bring me back down to reality and say, Bert, remember this part? I'm like, Oh, I conveniently forgot that Rich. Thanks.

Um,

But there was a point in time, a number of years ago, I thought I could hire COO and replace myself. And We brought them in, paid more money than I'd ever paid from anybody else, brought them from a bigger company.

I had somebody from a large [: 00:16:00

Richard James: He was EOS trained.

or bought into the

Bert Diener: EOS trained, absolutely. Right. He was EOS trained. He was actually a CFO. Also by previous. This guy was top shelf by everybody's definition if they looked at it. I even had people do the personality training on him. They gave me the stuff beforehand. I did all the checklists, and it failed. It wasn't so much as his fault, it's that we all have a culture within our organizations.

When you bring in an outside person, I think even in good to great, they talk about the majority of leaders for the good to great companies came from within, not from outside. Correct. So, From our standpoint, the farm system of bringing people from the, whatever position like Vicente. most of,

a lot of y'all know Vicente, Vicente started as a collections agent.

And so now he basically helps run the firm and helps run a lot of y'all's influences how you all do stuff here in Mexico.

Richard James: What is your ladder?

Attorney Bert Diener's Staffing Strategy and Career Ladder

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basically here in Mexico, we [: 00:17:00

So basically it's the first touch with a client or a potential client. The second tier on top of that is what we call the relationship managers, the individuals that would be above customer service. They have a more, they have a stronger familiarity with the cases and can coach the clients, whether it's documents and making sure they continue to pay.

The other side of the equation, if you take the sales track, those are our phone agents. The next tier above that, that we have, are our case managers. And A lot of these guys are just as good as paralegals, if you had that designation. But they rise from relationship manager to the case manager component.

And if you are in the phone sales. Those guys, the great ones, we move them up and test them to become consultants. Right. And, The fourth tier are the leaders. The leaders can step, can actually jump out at any given time, out of that equation, if you're a natural leader. And For the natural leader, you have to, number one, in my opinion, is you have to be intellectual.

see, the numbers, instead of [: 00:18:00

It's one to just be focused on the team. If you can do both simultaneously, You can come beside us and we can do this together.

Richard James: You know what we just did?

MPS: What'd we do?

Richard James: We created the outline for the flow book.

MPS: Thank you, Bert. Right?

Richard James: That's what just happened. There you go. Did you guys catch that? Did you,

did you see how that just I mean You've been thinking about this for a minute. By the way, you've been saying all these things to me in our meetings, little by little.

and then the idea of how to [: 00:19:00

And then the four levels of customer service and social selling. So you've got the customer development and the, and the selling side. Tier one, tier two, relationship manager, phone agent, tier three, case manager, and consultants, tier four leaders that can go in both directions and they have to be both have an intellectual ability to access and dive.

Diagnose and prescribe from the data as well as lead the team in the soft skills that they need to lead them in. And Those are the ones who lead through your process leaders and your process owners. Is that an accurate description?

Bert Diener: A 100%.

Richard James: Did you see that? Did or did I go too fast?

Bert Diener: Now, Blaine has been helping me. Blaine and I have been working through this together.

I've talked to you all religiously about this stuff. I even drove one time to Charlotte, like, guys, we've got to go to lunch, let's talk through this stuff. And so we were talking, we were comparing notes.

keep up with his pace? Like [: 00:20:00

Bert Diener: Blaine, because there is a personal, there's a company perspective to this and then there's an individual perspective to this in order to have individuals participate and do well, I believe that to learn how to lead themselves first, you can't lead others unless you can lead yourselves.

Richard James: You know what I noticed when I did the walkthrough at Floor 4? Almost everybody had like White Taba stickers on their computers and, his self fluence languaging all around their stuff.

Bert Diener: Absolutely. It's like, you know, everybody we all share a victim mentality at some point in our lives, and it's no different down here.

e that it doesn't have to be [: 00:21:00

So, For us to add 8 offices a year, this is fundamental. Identifying and clarifying this methodology that we borrowed and testing it and refining it and then executing on the metrics that are in alignment. And The methodology from that step, so I have to teach it and then we have to use it and make sure those numbers are going there.

you know, This applies to any business and it's and obviously nothing we say is unique other than the fact of we're putting it together and we're testing it out and we're sharing with other people and we're seeing the lessons at each stage. Like, Let me just say this, Don and I, we were talking yesterday with Jessica, which is his office manager.

everybody else, because not [: 00:22:00

And He did, he went out there and told them and Jessica wasn't as, you know, she's not as I mean, Don's a brilliant person. He really, he is a very, very, very sharp person. She didn't catch it at the same point, but a little, a couple weeks later, she caught it. They saw the process of what they were doing.

And We talked on Wednesday evening. She said, I'm ready to go home right now and go do one of these meetings right now. She was so excited. Don wasn't pushing her to go do it. She was ready to run through the wall herself because she sees how much energy and emotion and potential it releases for everything.

Yeah. So that's why like right now we talk about what is freedom for me now? Freedom is the ability to do what I feel like I'm meant to do or where I get the most enjoyment.

Attorney Bert Diener's Future Plans and Final Thoughts

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Bert Diener: That's freedom for me. Some people may want to buy time and not do stuff. Freedom for me is like, let me pour all of my energy into flow and see where this can take the firm.

g for the ride as well. That [: 00:23:00

Richard James: I think we just got the

Bert Diener: uh,

Richard James: what's got him fired up next.

MPS: It didn't even have to ask. It came out naturally.

Bert Diener: I mean, you seeing people recognizing things that they didn't even think were possible, and I had one staff member up here when we were doing initially, he fought me. I'm like, okay Bert, you cannot be Marine right now. You have everybody watching you. And If I go ahead and destroy this person in front of everybody else, I'm gonna destroy any chance of success.

So I did my best to bite my tongue and let the process do it for me. He is our biggest cheerleader now.

Richard James: Really?

Bert Diener: I told him at the end, after the 8 week cycle. I was going to punch you at the beginning. I said, now, every time I see you, I want to hug you. And I said, So you going through the process has made me a better leader.

olution of this teaching was [: 00:24:00

Richard James: I want to make one distinction before we have to run because we're out of clocks, but no, you don't be sorry. This was good.

Yes. Okay. So one distinction, just so nobody's missing the point. Flow is not limited to workflow, true or false?

Bert Diener: you know, Flow is everything. Okay.

Richard James: Flow is everything. Meaning flow is, you should have flow in your marketing team. You should have flow in your sales team. You should have flow in your workflow, in your collections team. You should have flow in your workflow. You should have flow in your leadership team.

, to their ability to create [: 00:25:00

There is a flow to it. And When you recognize it, and you see what's basically the primary obstacle, it's the same process every single time.

MPS: We've personally implemented flow and we,

Richard James: we see it.

MPS: It's amazing.

Richard James: What,

What I would say we ran versions, of, we ran EOS for a while.

MPS: Yeah, and we had a hybrid for that.

Richard James: We had a hybrid for a while.

Bert Diener: And

Richard James: Now we, after hearing Bert's layout, we fully bought into this idea.

Bert Diener: And

Richard James: We are personally seeing the fruits of this labor or effort in our results. Now we have our team coming up with their own solutions.

Bert Diener: And it's not requiring,

Richard James: We're not all the way there yet, but we're getting to the point where it doesn't just require our brain work to figure things out.

of this is that you have to [: 00:26:00

Because every single one of us have a tendency at some point in time to whatever you do new to start working your way back to how you did things beforehand. And It's because you don't have a true north. They did those studies where people don't have a compass and they say walk in a straight line in the forest and every single time they walk a circle. They come back around. And So if you do not have your primary focus to begin with and you don't continue to recalibrate. You're gonna end up right back where you started. And That's why everybody gets frustrated.

Richard James: The person sitting in the audience going, I got this.

Bert Diener: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

ha. Yeah, that, I'm glad you said that, Rich. Even for myself, like, you know, I spent six years watching software programmers do this on a daily basis through Agile. That was my boot camp in terms of singing, this could work someplace else. That's what 4Eyes, the biggest value of our guy at 4Eyes is seeing how software does this and how could we modify it.

u, if you think you know how [: 00:27:00

And that is a never ending process.

MPS: And another mic drop.

Conclusion and Closing Remarks

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MPS: So, To the Law Firm owners listening to this, thank you for taking the time to listen. If this isn't your first time listening or watching around here, we ask that you make sure you hit that subscribe button, depending on where you're listening or watching.

Make sure to show Bert some love in the comments down below. Let us know if Flow is of interest to you, and hit that like button. Bert, thank you very much as always, for being so gracious and sharing with everybody.

Richard James: Your heart is what I love most about you, sir.

Bert Diener: Yeah, absolutely.

Richard James: A little bit of love. 1, 2, 3.