Tyson Mutrux

Kevin Daisey (00:31)
What's up everyone. Welcome to the Managing Partners Podcast. I have a, maybe a familiar face here today. Get Tyson on the show. We're going to be talking about really a shift from being a practicing managing attorney, to a CEO mindset. And I'm excited to kind of dive into that. And, Tyson's here to share and Tyson has a firm.

He also has Max Law, Maximum Lawyer, if you're familiar and, he's got some exciting stuff to share. So Tyson man, welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:58)
Thanks for having me, Kevin. It's kind of fun. You and I were just kind of shooting the shit a little bit beforehand and I was like, we're wasting some good content here. I know that maybe, I don't know, maybe you think that people may not have benefited from where you grew up, but I thought it was, can't, you told me how to pronounce it, Chincoteague or something like that island. I think it's pretty cool. That's pretty awesome.

Kevin Daisey (01:19)
Shinko

Chincoteague Island. Yeah, Chincoteague Island is the Indian name. Chincoteague. It is an island off the East coast of Virginia and a cool place to grow up. I mean, a couple thousand people surrounded by water, kind like a waterman kind of town. Not as glamorous as you would think, like, uh, the Hamptons or something like that, but, uh, a cool place to grow up and, I own a rental property there now. And my whole family lives there. So it's,

So cool place to take the kids, do some fun stuff.

Tyson Mutrux (01:45)
Yeah.

I mean, rental property to me seems like it would be really, really valuable on an island like that. But maybe not, but it seems like that would be like really valuable land. So hopefully, hopefully that's a really good thing for you.

Kevin Daisey (01:58)
Yeah, me and my wife, you know, it's a side business for us and, you know, she's always been an employee and, and just worked her kind of, in that kind of role. And I've always been an entrepreneur and training businesses and real estate was something I'm passionate about and wanted to get into. And me and her have always done good at it. Buying rental properties made sense. something I like to do, look at real estate all the time. So yeah, bought a house there.

2020, 2019 for like a hundred grand. It's now worth close to half a million in just a few years. COVID thanks a lot.

Tyson Mutrux (02:25)
Nice.

Yeah.

How many businesses do you own at this point? mean, holy crap, you have so many businesses.

Kevin Daisey (02:33)
Four, technically, I guess. So.

Yeah, and this is what we're not here to talk about me, but.

Tyson Mutrux (02:38)
I know, but I'm it's all interesting stuff. I've got my, all my list of things about you that I've got. So I think it's cool.

Kevin Daisey (02:43)
How,

how this started is cause I was asking him, what city he was in and he's in Missouri. And I said, yeah, like Kansas city, Missouri. And then it was like, well, it's not in, not in Kansas. And then I said, well, I'm from Virginia beach, which people ask me where, what state that's in. So I was like Virginia, duh. So that's how the conversation started. So.

Tyson Mutrux (03:01)
You

That's right. I went on a rant about people thinking that Kansas City is in Kansas. So, that led from there.

Kevin Daisey (03:11)
Well, I

was blaming Kansas city, Missouri for the confusion with Virginia beach, Virginia, because I don't think people trust the state name in the city name because of that. Well, Tyson man, tell me, you know, a little bit about yourself, your firm and then, Maximum Lawyer. Like what's that all about?

Tyson Mutrux (03:21)
We'll take the blame. That's fine. I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I

run a personal injury firm. Been running it since 2010, 2010-ish, 2011 actually, 2011. Have a couple offices, one in St. Louis, one in Columbia. So all we do is personal injury. Early on I did criminal defense. Fortunately got out of that around 20, about 2006, 2007. So that was great. Been doing that just, I mean, enjoyed.

being an injury attorney, it's not what I thought it was going to be. I thought whenever I went to law school that injury attorneys were just ambulance chasers and I had this completely different view. Fortunately, I got an internship early on that really kind of shook that out of me, which was good. And then in 2015-ish, Jim Hacking and I, we started Maximum Lawyer and it really just kind of started with

couple of guys just having conversations about marketing and business and all that. And we started recording it. And then next thing know, it led to a conference and a Facebook group and now we've got the Gilded. And so it's been a cool journey. This is our ninth year. We just celebrated, actually just last Friday, our ninth year of Maximum Lawyer, which is just kind of incredible to think. I ⁓ don't know if when we started, if I thought it was going to go nine years, I really don't.

Kevin Daisey (04:42)
It's awesome.

you

Tyson Mutrux (04:47)
But

the fact that we just celebrated nine years is just insane.

Kevin Daisey (04:51)
I mean, you know, there's not many groups around that have been around that long, um, and, and stood strong. I, you know, through clients and through lawyers, I know I've heard about Maximum Lawyer, um, but I'm not a lawyer, of course. Um, so I heard the buzz about it, I the talk about it, um, but I didn't really know much about, know, about the group itself. And so, um, yeah, nine years, obviously people value it and they're getting a lot out of it. So they want to concede, see it continue. And.

Tyson Mutrux (05:19)
It's really

kind of interesting because the way just like podcasting, just strictly podcasting, not talking about anything else, because in between we had COVID and everything, but when it comes to podcasting alone, how different it was back in 2015 compared to now or 2016 compared to now. It is so different. I mean, the data that you have is way better than what we started with. so just that alone, even the data is not great compared to...

Kevin Daisey (05:37)
Ha

Tyson Mutrux (05:45)
Things like SEO, like SEO, I feel like you can get a lot more data. They're way more restrictive when it comes to, but it's way better than what it was when we started. We started with, I always forget the name of this dang app. Remember the video app, the first one that just went out of business recently? I can't think of the name of it.

Kevin Daisey (05:46)
Yeah.

like to, publish video.

Tyson Mutrux (06:05)
No, no, was actually like the, it was kind of like a zoom. It was before zoom was, it was, I just can't think of it. Skype. Yeah. So we started, we, bought this, um, there was an app that went with Skype that we used to record. And so we started with that and it was garbage. It was just absolute garbage. And then we, at some point we had, we went to, uh, we were recording on a conference line when the audio was not fantastic, but it was, the microphones were not as good. The microphones are.

Kevin Daisey (06:08)
⁓ Skype.

Tyson Mutrux (06:33)
You know, they're, they were decent, but the microphones, mean, we have now are way better microphones. just night and day, but video recording, just, it's a different, it's a different world. It's kind of, it's really cool to look back and see how things have changed so much.

Kevin Daisey (06:40)
things awesome.

Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, when I first started, I mean, I've been in podcasts for five or six years, I guess. this podcast is probably almost four years, that we're on right now, but I feel like, yeah, it feels like you're almost in the back of the day, like talking into nothing, right? And then you don't really have a lot of data on like who or how many people and what's my audience. So I, it's definitely coming better, but the video aspect of it.

helps a lot to be able to see the video and put it on YouTube and do clips and reels and LinkedIn and all that stuff makes you feel more of a, an experience, I guess, than like, you're just audio only going into, to you don't know where, you know what mean?

Tyson Mutrux (07:25)
Yeah, I'm very curious what your habits are because I am someone that I like to listen to podcasts on YouTube. so, because I've got YouTube premium. And the reason why I like that is I like to be able to, if they're mentioning something that I want to look at, I want to actually pull it up and look at it. So are you that kind of, are you more of like listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts or something like that? Because I think there's a definite split on what people do.

Kevin Daisey (07:35)
There was.

I have YouTube premium. So if I'm going to listen to a podcast, I'm using that, just cause I use it for music. And then, for me, if I'm driving to the office, I'll pop in maybe a podcast, and listen to it on the way. I tend to just go to music cause I'm like, okay, I got 30 minutes to not think about work or learning something for a second. But if I really want to learn something or like take it in, I want to watch the video where they're, they're, they're explaining.

where they're showing things, whatever it was, financial or stocks or crypto or whatever. To me, I like watching the video if I can.

Tyson Mutrux (08:18)
Yeah,

Absolutely. I'm the same way, but there's definitely a split. think a lot of people, I still think the majority of people, they listen, they don't watch, having YouTube premium, I always recommend people to get YouTube premium because to me, it's such a good deal. It's not that expensive.

Kevin Daisey (08:33)
It's I give my wife crap all the time. Cause she's got SiriusXM and her new car and like, it's always going in and out. And there's like little commercials in between. like, what are you doing? Like, no, yeah. YouTube premium. And I, if, if you go out of signal, it goes to my downloads automatically, and then it pulls from my download library, which is huge. and then you can pick any song you want anytime you want versus satellite where it's like, you don't know what's coming up next. So I was like, I don't know how they're still in business, but.

Tyson Mutrux (08:58)
I don't either. Doesn't make sense.

Kevin Daisey (08:58)
Yeah. And then

you can watch a video or listen to it and there's a video version of it. It'll flip right to the video version of the artist or in this case podcast version too. yeah, YouTube's great. And then YouTube is, you know, the biggest, one of the biggest searchers in the world. So your content for publishing there is searchable. and you're to get a lot more out of it. So

Tyson Mutrux (09:19)
Well, can I ask you an SEO question about YouTube? Yeah. Well, I'm curious, how important is YouTube and having the YouTube link to, let's say your website or whatever, how important is it when it comes to the overall algorithm? Is it, or should they be looked at completely separately?

Kevin Daisey (09:21)
Yeah, of course.

No, they're definitely, uh, definitely tied together. So when you want to think about stuff, change the mindset, we're going to, we're going to be talking about CEO mindset, right? Think about search, change your mindset. Search engine optimization. Like I'm, kind of throwing that out the window at this point, cause it's, it's really search everywhere. You got meta search, YouTube search, Google, chatGPT, Perplexity, all these other platforms.

And so we always think about Google as being like the search engine and really it's like, how are you being found everywhere? And they all tie it together to some degree on how you're affected by that, like what affects it. So where Google owns Google and YouTube, obviously YouTube is very closely tied to that. If you look at search results right now on Google, you'll have videos, you know, you'll have your paid results, organic results,

videos, people always ask, Reddit, LinkedIn, all this other stuff. So they're constantly changing how that's laid out and they're pulling from other resources. And so what that means is if it's pulling videos in there, it, feels as important. If it pulls Reddit posts in there, it feels people opinion on trusted resources is important. So you got to look at from a law firm perspective, where am I putting my content out?

What's my distribution look like and what's the strategy? YouTube is

by itself a searchable platform that law firms can harness for localized search, which can lead to tons of cases, clicks to your website, all that stuff. I would say don't worry about as much as linking to your website and trying to make that cross. Like embed the videos on your website, use it there. But think about people can find you right on YouTube instead of like having to go to YouTube and then clicking to your website.

Like you can convert them right there on the YouTube video page with a number, with a track, call real number, call the office. If you got questions about XYZ, we can help you out. So just try to convert them right there. Google's going to give you reward for having the video content and then embedded on your website. And there's multiple ways they can, they can find you. So, but I would just say change your mindset completely because people are going on ChatGPT You know, what's the, what's the best personal injury firm

in Columbia, Missouri? And it's going to look at all kinds of the resources outside of Google's algorithm to draw its inclusion. So you need to start thinking about that.

Tyson Mutrux (11:47)
It's funny you say that because what we'll do is we'll test out things like that because we're trying to make sure that we're providing content that's fed into the LLMs. I can't search in my own account because it knows so much about me. The last time I did it, said, and I was doing it via voice and it said, well, I might be a little bit biased, it even said that to me. I am very curious.

Kevin Daisey (12:01)
I'm just pull you up.

Tyson Mutrux (12:14)
what it would say if we did that. we've been trying to target that. Because it is important. I think your thought about search everywhere is so important. Because it is one of those things where that's something that's changed over the last 15 years is just where is search? If you really think all the way back to like the 90s, like the three channels and then went to cable and now where we are today is where there's just so many different channels. It's crazy.

Kevin Daisey (12:36)
Yeah, you know, and I've, man, I mean, we do SEO and that's a big part of what we do. But again, that the E we're changing the E and so it's, it's really, um, you know, if we talked to like a law firm, it's like, where are they and where are they trying to go? And then what's the, what's the landscape look like from competition level? And then a newer firm may in cases outperform in areas, some of these firms that have been around because

If they built all this content out, that's really SEO content for in this old school tactics, they're getting beat up and hit hard and they have to fix and change all that years of buildup, which is going to take a lot of time to do, or it's going to have a bad impact if they just delete it. So there's opportunities to come in and say, okay, with a clean strategy built right, we can potentially outperform some of the people that have deeper pockets.

And then there's, you know, with ChatGPT or other kinds of search. You know, maybe you can't compete on Google and you want to look at these other channels that you maybe can compete on. So it comes down to a lot of things for one law firms have to do a lot. And it comes out of brand. If you have no brand, you're not recognized. All these things become harder. If you don't have hundreds of reviews and good star ratings, it's harder. if you're not on traditional listings.

ChatGPT doesn't, it can't look at Google reviews because there's no API integration because Google won't allow it. So it's using AB, it's using BBB and like AVO and these things that we used to talk trash about. Those are now being slated in reasons why you would call XYZ firm. So, you you got to take a step back and say,

What should I be doing and how does my strategy change? Because it's changing pretty rapidly.

Tyson Mutrux (14:11)
Yeah, it of annoys me that these ones that we did used to make fun of are now becoming more important. Just drives me nuts.

Kevin Daisey (14:15)
you

Well, again, you know, ChatGPT can't, if Google's like, Nope, you can't access our reviews. Then they're going to go find other ways to get it done. so it's, it's interesting to see where that's going now. Jim and I is out and that has tons of capability as well, but ChatGPT is still like widely the most used and it was adopted first. So I think it's gonna be hard to, to kind of put them

out of their place, but so, you know, just think about again, search everywhere and  social media is important. Brands important. If your firm's not putting stuff out to the world consistently, telling the story about who you are and why you're good at what you, you know, you're good at, then these programs have nothing to, they're not going to show you cause they don't have anything to go on. So YouTube is important. LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora.

Instagram is not indexable. So a lot of these programs are switching to being indexable content versus like Facebook, where if you're not my friend, you can't see my content. ⁓ so yeah, I just think, you know, look at the whole strategy and areas that you're falling short or you're not contributing to. And then just look at like a Google search page and like, do like a informational query. It's just

Tyson Mutrux (15:11)
Right.

Kevin Daisey (15:24)
all kinds of different results that are coming. And there's pulling from all these other sources. So yeah, just writing a blog and doing content every month, that's not SEO.

Tyson Mutrux (15:32)
Not anymore. Used to be at one point.

Kevin Daisey (15:34)
Used to be at one point. It's still important. There's still places for it. think it's, you know, you don't want to cut that stuff, but it's, it's so much less important. AI is answering the question. So if you want to write a blog about, you know, the statute of limitations in Missouri, or what's the car seat or seatbelt laws in Missouri, AI answers that instantaneously at the top of Google or ChatGPT And it doesn't need your law firm to, to tell them the answer for that. So.

Tyson Mutrux (15:58)
Yeah,

that is what's interesting to me is that you rarely will need to go to Google anymore. it's going to change the way people find lawyers. It's already happening. I think YouTube is going be something where you're going to go, okay, how do you do something? Or if you just want some sort of entertainment, I think that's kind of where that's headed. But when it comes to actual search, if it's just a very specific question,

Like there's a lot of lawyer videos that like, that's answering a very specific question that are on YouTube. I think those views are going to start to go away to a certain extent. mean, not immediately, in the future, why not just go into ChatGPT ask a simple question, get the answer right away, as opposed to having to listen to a five minute video about X, Y, and Z. It just doesn't make sense from a time standpoint. I can get the question in 10 seconds as opposed to watching five minute video.

Kevin Daisey (16:50)
Yeah. Now the reality is ChatGPT is just getting its original information, information from those kinds of sources. So it's still using, websites and content that people have put out as its source to answer those questions. But at some point it won't need more of the answers. It's already got the answers. So, again, there's still a place, but it's, it's much smaller. And, if you're listening and you

do SEO and I'm sure you spend a lot of money in it. The strategy should be focused on high intent, not questions and top funnel stuff. That's, that's being answered by AI. So when someone does go, I need a lawyer in Columbia, Missouri. Like your effort should be focused on that and nothing else. And so you want the high intent that are what we call commercial intent to hire. So just like if you do it on ChatGPT

What's the best personal injury attorney in XYZ town? That's a pretty high intent. Like you're, you're seeking some referrals, right? The answer. so who comes up at some point and ChatGPT usually gives about three to four. Like there's the only ones that they're going to reach out to because why would they go through the effort to say, well, give me, give me six more. No, they're not going to do that. ⁓ and so, and just like Google with a three pack for maps, they give you three and then you can click more. No one's clicking more.

Tyson Mutrux (17:49)
That's it.

No, not at all.

Kevin Daisey (17:58)
so it's going to be a fight, you know, it's going to be interesting, but, know, who's pivoting. I see tactics out there that are five, six years old by eight, my competitors that is just sickening. and, some of these firms are going to start to, to feel a lot of pain at some point.

Tyson Mutrux (18:12)
Don't you, at some point we'll get to our topic, I think this is a fun conversation. So, but don't you think this is a prime opportunity for the right firm to topple the big firms? Like, so Morgan & Morgan, they're the big 800 pound gorilla, right? I feel like this is the right time for some upstart, young upstart to come in because the tools are there to just dominate.

Because what kind of what you're talking about too, with you got like Morgan & Morgan is got, and we're in St. Louis, we got Brown & Crouppen. They've got a bunch of that old content on their site, right? That's not necessarily targeted for the LLMs. You have these LLMs, maybe some of these new firms that they can create their websites and they can pick off a bunch of those leads. I do think this is a really good time for moderately young firms to really take on those big firms.

Kevin Daisey (18:48)
Mm-hmm.

No, a hundred percent, a hundred percent agree with you. think it's easier than ever. The opportunity is there. and I think, and then, you know, you have social too, which is, like lawyers are getting cases from TikTok and Instagram and they're building followings and creating a brand identity in a year to be like millions of followers. Where it would take a firm two decades to do TV and radio and build like a

just a presence in one city or region, and they can never stop spinning. They got to keep it going. So it's, it's no, there should be no complaints for anyone out there. It's like, their tools are there. The opportunities are there. Google is losing some market share. These other tools have come about. You can streamline, automate, and double down on everything. So I think it's just, yeah, who takes advantage of it? Omnipresence, right? It's very possible.

Tyson Mutrux (19:30)
100%.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (19:50)
In, what we in, and YouTube is still massive. got, there's a lawyer that had on here a few months back, but he was making like $2 million a year from YouTube views and getting 50% of his cases from his videos, which are criminal defense videos talking about what if you got, you know, a gun charge, what do you do in Texas? And they're location based. So they're very localized. And so people find it.

they call the number and they sign up from the video. But to your point earlier, is that, are those informational videos gonna remain popular or is that gonna be answered by ChatGPT in two seconds?

Tyson Mutrux (20:25)
Well, if it's who I'm thinking of that you had on, then probably yes for that individual because his videos are really, really entertaining. It's funny because I've had guests on before where I had seen their actual videos because I watched them because I was just interested in their content, not because I was looking for some lawyer. I actually saw their content. I thought it was interesting. And so I think it's going to be more of that.

Kevin Daisey (20:35)
Mm-hmm

Tyson Mutrux (20:49)
that the content has to be interesting, not just educational. It's got to have that entertainment value because if it doesn't have the entertainment value, then it's, I wouldn't say it's worthless, but it will at some point become almost worthless.

Kevin Daisey (20:59)
Yeah, you can probably find, you know, a hundred videos of the same answer by a hundred different lawyers. That sounds pretty much the same. So it's, yeah, there's, there's tons of basic, not unique stuff out there, but I will say this, sad part of it is there's so many firms that haven't even done any video or barely have an updated website at all. Like I've seen this site the other day. It was like 10 years old. Like it was insane. So it's like,

And I don't think that's my audience, but it's literally like, you don't have zero video. I've never done it before. You don't have Instagram or TikTok and trying to get them to even think about it. So while I think we're on the cutting edge of things and there's opportunity, I also see people are so far behind, that it's going to take a while to come around. It's crazy. I'm surprised every day. So.

Tyson Mutrux (21:40)
So true. So true.

Kevin Daisey (21:44)
But that's why they need to, be in masterminds and get in the groups and talk to the lawyers and change their mindset and start running a business instead of trying to be a better lawyer. you know, you're not going to be the best lawyer in the world. You're not going to be the best at everything. And I think, you know, having, having that decision point where am I running a business or am going to be a better lawyer? Maybe I have a partner

Tyson Mutrux (21:48)
100%.

Kevin Daisey (22:05)
and they want to be the lawyer and I can be the business owner.

Tyson Mutrux (22:07)
It reminds me of that Sally Hogshead quote, different is better than better. And most likely you are not going to be the best lawyer. Now, I do still think it's really, really important that you are a good lawyer and you're good at what you do. when it comes to actually getting more cases and getting more clients, a lot of times it has to do with being the whole different is better than better, is being different. so people, they complain all the time because,

So this new lawyer is getting all these new cases. It's well, you know what? They're different. They're doing something different and it has a lot of times it doesn't have to do with whether or you are better. It's did you focus on that potential client's needs or did you focus on yourself? Because a lot of it has to do with attorneys running ego advertising where they make it all about themselves. okay, that doesn't tell them what the potential client, what you could do for them. That just says, okay, great. You're good. We all know that.

That should be the bottom threshold. You're good at your job. Now, how are you different and how are you able to attract that client and tell them, explain to them how you are going to benefit them? And that's the part where I think a lot of lawyers, miss out on.

Kevin Daisey (23:11)
Yeah. If I had a nickel for here in, um, cause I have a lot, I have a lot of firms that reached out and they, they want to figure out what we do, if we can help them. And I'm saying, you know, there's a lot we can't, or we don't, we don't help. but yeah, I don't know how many times, yeah. The solo lawyer in a town, not a big market register in a town where like, I know everyone, I got the experience. They, this other firm.

They just popped up and they shouldn't be getting these cases. They shouldn't be getting this and that. I'm the best at DUI cases. I can settle them every single time. And you know, they're just telling you this and you're like, yeah, okay. Okay. Whatever. They're getting the clients because those clients are finding them and they're conveying why they're different. And they're speaking to that client. This is the client's needs, right? And you have done nothing to market yourself or stand out. So why you might be the best in the world.

No one knows about you. So it doesn't matter. And then it comes down to all the stuff you're just saying. It's the whole thing. It's not a piece here and there is everything. Your people are your, your, marketing, your culture is your marketing. your processes is your marketing, how you do business, how good a lawyer you are, all that stuff is your marketing. And so when someone calls your firm, interacts with your firm, signs up for your firm, all the way through to give me a referral or leave and review.

You have to map all that out and you have to get it, you know, improve it over time, but you just being a good lawyer is not good enough.

Tyson Mutrux (24:29)
100%. Could have said it better myself. To me, that's like the bottom threshold. Okay, you're a good lawyer. I do think people, when they're looking for a lawyer and whatever it is, let's say it's a personal injury, they are going to automatically assume that you know what you're doing. So that's the bottom threshold. And hopefully you are really good at your job. And that's something that I...

Kevin Daisey (24:31)
you

Tyson Mutrux (24:48)
I think we need to probably stress a little bit more as a profession is yeah, you need to be great at your job. But again, from a marketing standpoint, that's the bottom threshold. You got to know what you're doing, but you have to be able to communicate that to these people so that they know why you're the better lawyer and why they should hire you over someone else. You've got to be able to convey that to them in the right way.

Kevin Daisey (25:08)
a hundred percent. I think, you could be the best lawyer. Tyson's like, he's the best PI attorney in the State of Missouri. ⁓ But he hasn't taken time to put processes in place. He hasn't taken time to, handle his schedule or have automation or have followups or hire staff to take care of the clients when he's not there, he's in court. And so it's a big mess.

Tyson Mutrux (25:14)
Best, absolutely.

Kevin Daisey (25:31)
And so there's bad communication. The client doesn't know what's going on. and they're scared, they're worried. They don't know what's going on with the case, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he's the best lawyer. Right. So all those things lead to your client having a bad experience. Bar complaints, all kinds of other stuff, issues with his staff, all these things. Right. So if you're not fixing those things and growing your firm, you're doing a disservice to all these people.

Regardless if you're a good lawyer, because those are things they shouldn't have to experience, right?

Tyson Mutrux (25:57)
This makes me think of this experience I had like 12 years ago. And I did a favor, was one of the three family law cases I ever did. And I did a favor for a friend of mine. And I remember when we left, the truth of the matter is I probably got completely hosed on the deal. I probably got completely hosed. My client probably got completely hosed because I know injury, I don't know family law.

I remember leaving and their client was screaming at them as we left, like outside the courtroom. And my client was like hugging me and gave me a five-star Google review. And it was one of those things where it has to do with like all the other stuff. A lot of it has to do with all the other stuff, right? And not necessarily what you did in the courtroom. A lot of it has to do with the, how did your people interact with them? Like you were saying.

Kevin Daisey (26:26)
Hmm.

Tyson Mutrux (26:43)
How did you make them feel? You talk about the whole no-like trust factor. How were they left feeling? If they left feeling sour and upset and mad, well, then you're most likely going to get a one-star Google review. It's not always whether or you did good job. Sometimes it doesn't have to do with that, but it still doesn't change the fact that you should at least know what you're doing.

Kevin Daisey (27:07)
Yeah, it's like you could, you go to restaurant, right? and the food's not good, but the server was over the top. Amazing. Super nice catered to you, try to make it right. We apologize for it, but do whatever they could. Are you going to not give them a tip? You might be upset with a, maybe the back of the house or the restaurant, the chef, but if the waitress blew you away.

Tyson Mutrux (27:08)
at the bottom level.

Kevin Daisey (27:28)
the whole time with the experience, you know, you're probably more or less feel bad for her. Uh, and she did everything that you possibly could. So you're gonna leave a a good tip anyway. Um, and so that's kind of way to think about it. Like the food wasn't great, but the experience and the service was, was top notch. Right. And so just the best way, one of the ways to think about it, I guess, but, a lawyer the section next door to us. I won't say his name.

But he had an assistant, I think he's been 25 years, had an assistant for 15. She left. So now it's him, no assistant. And she knew everything. And I walked over to see him one night. He's like scrambling late night. He's still there. He's like, I can't find anyone to do this work. And no one wants to do the work and no one wants to have a job. And it's like, you know, the knowledge that she had and took with her, he's going to, he's had to hire three or four people probably.

Tyson Mutrux (28:02)
Cool.

Kevin Daisey (28:18)
Um, and, uh, and he's, you know, there's an older guy, he's been doing it for a long time. Didn't build, didn't get processes in place, relied on one person and expected them to never leave. And they probably had no real growth in their career because he wasn't growing. So he did hurt his service and now he's left right back where he was when he started.

Tyson Mutrux (28:38)
For those of you listening, I'm just shaking my head because that is, what a scary situation to be in. Like just going from like the person that has all that knowledge just gone and it's gone forever. You're never going to get it back unless you can talk her into documenting those processes, which she's probably not going to do. I mean, that's terrifying to me.

Kevin Daisey (28:56)
Yeah. Unfortunately right now, you know, hear that story sometimes, of course. And, I have a lot of people that reached out that want us to help them with marketing and they're in that kind of spot. I'm down to one person, not to people off. Can you help me? You know, get car accident cases in X Y Z market. It's like, know, how much your budget? Well, I used to have a big budget, but not anymore. It's like they're, they're, they're stuck. They're screwed. there's nothing they can do.

because it is very competitive, obviously in car accidents. and they always don't understand because they used to rank and they used to get all these leads and they used to this and they used to that. and they rested on the laurels at some point. And now they're, I have a lot of older attorney folks that I know that basically have to hang it up, retire early and hopefully they have some, some money set aside, but this is every week.

I'm talking to these folks about this stuff.

Tyson Mutrux (29:45)
Yeah, that

is interesting to me. I don't know if I'd call it a trend, but there is a select few that they've had success and then they just kind of get comfortable and they don't do anything to change it all. then next thing you know, when they start to see their revenue slide, but it's almost like that's too late because the slide happens pretty quickly and to correct it can take...

can take a lot of work depending on what they have and haven't done. But, it's got to be a terrifying, because it's like the top of the roller coaster, only it's not a roller coaster. It's not entertaining. It's worse. It's bad. And so you're going downhill pretty quickly and you're trying to, so your revenues are going down. You're, I mean, maybe at the layoff staff. I think it gets real bad whenever at home you're having to pay yourself less money, even though you've got a lot of...

you know, maybe your kids are going to college. So it's just one of those things where you've, I mean, I've seen quite a bit and it's got to be a scary time, really scary.

Kevin Daisey (30:42)
No,

it's terrible. I mean, and I want to help as many people as I can with that situation. Um, and it's sometimes just, it does, there's no, math doesn't make sense, but, uh, so you can try to guide them, tell them what they need to do, what they can do. No, lots of going to be on them to like hustle, automate, put in time, you know, whether they're making videos or content, whatever they're going to do, but they, they can't hire an agency or someone like us to, do it at the scale they would need to. They're going to have to.

Tyson Mutrux (31:08)
Well,

the problem you mentioned is a real problem because they've got a high overhead, right? And so they don't have that extra money because the revenues are down. So they don't have the extra money to hire a company like you. They just don't. they probably haven't hustled in 10 years or more, like the hustle hustle like you did early in the career. And so you're in a real bad spot where now you've picked your hours have increased substantially. You feel like you're making less money.

Kevin Daisey (31:09)
Go back to work.

Tyson Mutrux (31:36)
And okay, what do you do from this point? Because you're going to have to make some really, really tough decisions. that's not everybody has the chutzpah to make some of those decisions.

Kevin Daisey (31:47)
Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of them are, they're grasping for like a magic bullet or, something that's going to save the day or whatever. I think, you know, back in the mindset, a lot of it comes down to that because a lot of these same folks will be like, well, you know, well, you know, that's kind of starts a lot of conversations. I got these bad reviews, but these people didn't know what they were talking about. or

You know, this new firm came around and they got all these reviews and I don't believe any of them are real. And, and so I taught a firm and resolve that get it. they have acquisition processes for reviews, they have intake, they have sales, they have, you know, customer journey, or client journey. and they measure all this stuff, right? Difference than the ones I'm talking about, but they like to blame. Well, that lady that left me that one star.

She didn't know what she's talking about, whatever, you know? And so, and I go, listen, it doesn't matter. Like you got to get that up or you're never going to win. And so you can do something about it or you can bitch about, you know, why you got it. Like, but you can't change this public is you're going to be screwed by that. And they're like, well, I can never get a sort of a five star. My clients, I ask them, they didn't, they don't do it. yeah, these are the firms have

hundreds or thousands in a very short amount of time. it's, you just, can't hide behind all that crap. You got to figure it out. There's ways to get this stuff done. And I saw some of these like, Hey, do people call and they're not the right fit? Yeah. All the time I get the wrong leads. Did you help them out? Did you tell them what they could do or that they don't have a case and they could, they could try to do this instead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the time, all day. They can give you a review. They interact with your law firm. You gave them advice. You pointed them in a different direction, ask them for a review.

You have to find a way to build your reputation back up and get some edge, but you're going to put the work in. No one's going to do it for you.

Tyson Mutrux (33:23)
Well, let's stay on the mindset part of it. You've got a lot of attorneys, what they'll do is they've got their team, but they won't rely on their team. They've got to do everything themselves. They won't trust their team to make mistakes. If the team does make a mistake, they're on their back, they're down their throat about it. When you do that, you do a lot of harm.

So instead of you asking for those Google reviews, your team can do it. They can easily do it. You just got to let them do it. You've got to actually let them go out, ask those questions, train them to ask those questions and let them do it. And really delegate a lot of those tasks as opposed to you doing them. Cause every time you don't do it, you've now, you don't lower their confidence. They feel like they can't do it because only you can do it. Or if you're, I I completely understand whenever you want to get onto someone, if they've made a mistake, I get it.

But the reality is that you have to almost encourage mistakes so that they can build the confidence and knowing that you trust that they can do it. Otherwise, if they're afraid to pull that trigger, they're always going to come back to you. They're always going to come back to you and ask you questions and you're going to get stuck in this whole loop where every time something comes up, they come back to you. And every time they come back to you, you have to answer a question, now you've lowered their confidence because you never trusted them as opposed to you just saying, well, what do you want to do about it? And you know what?

Kevin Daisey (34:16)
Mm-hmm.

Tyson Mutrux (34:38)
The decision you made on that was a really good decision. Good job. Keep it up. But like from a mindset standpoint, there's a lot of harm that law firm owners do by not trusting their team to do certain things. You've to let go. You've got to let go of a lot of those things and trust in your team to do it. Because that is how you're going to get out of that rut if you're in that rut. Or let's say your things are going well for you right now, the way you're going to throw gasoline on that and really just explode and do a great job is by letting your team

make those decisions and get out of their way. Let them make those decisions and you just get out of the way.

Kevin Daisey (35:10)
Yeah. I think that's hard for any business owner in the beginning to, especially if you're like in your passionate and lawyers specifically, like this is what you do. You are a lawyer. Which is a lot different than a lot of other crafts, I think in positions. So, I think it's a lot harder for lawyers to let go than other types of business owners. plus they're still practicing. Like I don't do marketing. I don't do any SEO. I don't write content. I don't do any of it.

But in the case of like a lawyer, like you're still a lawyer in most cases. Now I know plenty of that. I know some that don't do it at all. They just run the business, but.

Tyson Mutrux (35:36)
We don't.

Yeah. Well,

okay. So I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately, because that's the excuse I hear quite a bit. Or you hear people saying that you have to, you you've got to have someone that is like running the firm and then someone that is actually like running the cases. I think there is a lot of truth to that. But if I was thinking about Steve Jobs recently, Steve Jobs, until the day he died, was involved very, in all the details of how

the iPhone was made, everything when it comes to all the, like all the design, was, he stayed up to speed on all the new technology and all that. I don't think that that's really any different than being a law firm owner and a practicing lawyer. Really don't. He sure, he was running a massive company. I don't think it was the biggest company in the world, but it was one of the top, what, 15 companies in the world. Very, very, huge company, but he also knew.

Kevin Daisey (36:28)
real close.

Tyson Mutrux (36:31)
all the intricacies of how the iPhone worked, how the iPod worked, how the iMac worked, the MacBook, the iPad, all of these different things he knew, he was super involved in all that. So the people that tell me that, you know, give those excuses to me, I think just look at Steve Jobs. I think that is absolutely crazy. You can certainly do both. You can run a massive company and still get into all the details. The other thing too is like, also, to

to run a really successful law firm. I also think you really need to know really well what it's like to be a good lawyer. So I'll use Morgan & Morgan again, because I do think they're a really good model. I bet John Morgan actually really does know a lot of the high-end top techniques when it comes to personal injury. I bet he really does. He also has some really good lawyers. He understands the business part of it, like the legal side of the business.

I think he truly does probably really understand that side because I've seen him speak a lot about just personal injury law in general. So I think you do have to be really successful. do think a part of it, even if you are like the CEO type, the type that's running the firm, yeah, I think you still really do need to understand how the cases work. Because if you don't, you're going to, the techniques change over time. I really do. Like personal injury techniques over the last 15 years have changed.

to me, in my opinion, substantially. And if you don't understand that, you're not going to understand the business.

Kevin Daisey (37:55)
No, I totally agree. like for me, I'm again, I don't know, do the work, but I'm constantly educating myself or talking to my team. I mean, made eight videos this morning on different SEO stuff and all the changes, all new stuff, AI and platform stuff we were talking about in the beginning. Like it's constantly new stuff. If we just stuck with what we were doing, we'd be dead in the water. so yeah, I think it's, you need to be in the weeds a little bit. You need to understand. and as the leader, you know, your team needs to know that.

You know, you're down, you can get down there with them and like, and be there and do the same work if you had to. Right. So I definitely think it's important. It's, know,

Some of the things I see, it's like the delegation is hard. Kind of back to that. and I have a, a younger, two younger attorneys that are clients of ours. They do criminal defense. and they're all pretty good. They're growing pretty good, but they still, yeah, they delegate a lot and hire people. And, he was, I had a mastermind call not too long ago and he was like, Hey, what does everyone using for, like for assistance or like.

You know, he's like, spent three hours this morning calling a court just to let them know that I could be there if I was needed because my client was there that turned himself in for like a criminal case. And they were like, you spent three hours doing what? It's like. And so, you know, the whole room went around the table, you know, having like assistance, A's and like, you know, South America or and they were just kind of like, wait, what you can do? I can have them call.

the court for me and they're like, yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff like that. And so they just haven't delegated anything. They're doing it all themselves. And so.

You know, to me and you, we like, that's insane, but it's just, these are newer firms that are still kind of falling into this trap, if you will. so.

It's you think something that, know, has been taught enough, it's that's what the podcast is all about. That's what your group's all about. You know, it's just constant. Like who doesn't know all these things yet? We got to get the word out.

Tyson Mutrux (39:36)
right.

Yeah,

that is kind how I feel sometimes like, man, I want to help you so badly. But there's all these things you've got to do and that's part of it too. You got to figure out what your priorities are. I think that's something I've learned over the years is that, okay, there's always a lot to do. There's always going be a lot to do. Okay, what is the thing right now that's the most important? Where are the spots we're weak on right now? Okay, let's focus on that. let's really, over the next quarter, let's work on that thing. Let's get that thing done.

then move on to the next thing. And that's, I think a really valuable lesson is just figuring out what the most important thing is right now for you to get done, focus on that one thing, get it done, and then move on to the next thing. Instead of working on 20 different things at the same time, you won't get any of them done. Focus on that one thing, get it done, and then move on to the next thing.

Kevin Daisey (40:26)
Yeah, there's a-

book somewhere, but it's like, it's a book, I think it's called like The Next Thing or something like that. Anyway, yeah. So anyone listening, the success of me and my partner, we've read books, we've been in groups and everyone's looking for that one thing. What's the secret to skip everything? And the secret is doing a lot of things. Good. And continuing constantly, right? So it's a lot of things, you know, you have, you like the book traction, you follow that book.

or EOS, like, you know, so you, you know, have admin and, and billing and things like that. You have your people, you have your marketing and sales, like then you're, uh, all those things, you have to do good at all those things. It's overwhelming to think about all those things and you can't operate that way. So you have to look what's in front of me. What's the most important thing to work on right now? Let's make that our quarterly goal. Let's address that thing. Then we can move on to the next thing. And so I think.

I think that's the biggest challenge is if you go tell someone all the things they got to do, they're going to go and do nothing because they're going to be completely overwhelmed. And so I think that's the power of like conferences, books, your group is if you can pick up one thing for a session or a conference and you come back and apply that and you're winning right there. Right. So just come back and do the work.

Tyson Mutrux (41:24)
clearly.

Yes. So something I

always try to tell people whenever we're at one of our masterminds, like we just got done in New York City a couple of weeks ago. I always tell people you're going take a bunch of notes, right? But when you're done, pick one or two things that you want to accomplish, just circle them in your notebooks. Do just one or two, nothing more than that. And focus on those things before you do anything else. Because what a lot of people will do, they'll go to a conference or go to a mastermind, write down a

a billion different things and won't do anything with them. just instead, just pick one or two things, focus on those, get those things done, and you'll be making a lot of progress. You'll be making a lot more progress than 90% of the people.

Kevin Daisey (42:12)
Yeah. Also, if you come back from a conference, I've done this plenty of times and you go, Hey team, I'm back from a conference. And then you're like blowing everything up and you're like, we got to change all this stuff. They get frustrated. They get pissed. and they're like, crap. You know, Kevin went to a conference. What's he going to come back with? So, you know, think about that too, but give it to like your team or assistant. Hey, what out of this stuff should we focus on? We need to pick two. Let's get them involved. Like say, and they might go, wow.

That would be amazing if we could do that. Okay, cool. Let's, let's put that on the list and then have someone that's responsible to maybe go through that list for the next, you know, the next priority things to do. versus like sticking it in your drawer and then you forget all about it. until you go to a conference next time. So yeah, we get your team involved. think, you know, they're usually more concerned when you go to a conference because they know the owner is going to come back or the leader with a whole bunch of stuff.

Tyson Mutrux (42:51)
Yep, exactly. That's exactly right.

Kevin Daisey (43:01)
to implement, but they should be more excited to see what you came back with. The other thing I'll add too, just real quick is if you don't delegate and you're just constantly coming back in and trying to do things yourself, you're not going to have a team because they're going to leave. They're not going to stick around. People want the place they want to be. They want someone that they want to follow and grow with. They want to know that they have a career and an

Tyson Mutrux (43:07)
Absolutely.

Kevin Daisey (43:23)
opportunity to grow in that career. So if you're not delegating, you're not growing, then what's in it for them. So.

Tyson Mutrux (43:29)
Well said. Well said.

Kevin Daisey (43:30)
You're going to end up with the guy over there that lost his assistant after 15 years. know, what was her, what was her, you know, what was her career path? You know, assistant for 25 years.

Tyson Mutrux (43:34)
Sure.

He's lucky she stuck around that long, it sounds like.

Kevin Daisey (43:42)
Yeah, nice guy. Doesn't matter. You don't, you don't set them up for, for opportunity. You know, for us here, we're always growing. And one of our things is, you know, to grow to a hundred million dollar, you know, company so that we can provide unlimited opportunities. It's not a monetary goal as much as is. No one can grow and lead and build teams if, if we're just stagnant. So, you know, if you're a

If you're an intern today, you could be the CEO in five years. We got plenty of people here that have moved up in positions and built teams and huge opportunities. So that's kind of the mindset we have for sure.

Tyson Mutrux (44:17)
It's always a good feeling. I was like, whenever people are promoted, it's such a cool feeling. I love it so much. It's just such a really cool thing to see people be able to advance. It's awesome.

Kevin Daisey (44:26)
And everyone has different wants and needs in this. Uh, it could be money security, right? Uh, it could be that you just like to do what they do. They don't, they don't necessarily want to lead people. I've had that before where I'm like, I can't wait to promote you and we're going to build a team under you. And they're like, I don't want to do that. I just want to do my thing. Okay, cool. Well, let's make you the best of that thing possible. Uh, so I think the other thing is understanding what their individual goals are.

And actually having that conversation, like, what is your monetary goal? Like money wise, what is, you know, your professional goal? What's your personal goals? And like, okay, can we align with those goals and help you meet those goals? And if you can't, then maybe they should be doing something else. And that's totally fine.

Tyson Mutrux (45:07)
Yeah, think that that's something, luckily we have a really good office administrator, Kristen, where she reaches out on a regular basis to make sure that people see how they're doing and she's great about keeping track of what's going on in their personal lives and everything. She's fantastic at that. think that's a really, it's an overlooked part and she does a really good job of reporting back to the team. Such and such has happened to a really tough week. You might want to reach out to them or this is such and such as, know,

Like we talk about anniversaries, birthdays coming up, all kinds of stuff. just celebrate things like that. just checking out on them, see how they're like actually caring how they're doing is, I think that's really important.

Kevin Daisey (45:42)
Well, you know, it's just easy to get caught up in the fricking day, right? And, ⁓ the work, the work in front of you and that that's priority usually. So that's, that's easy to be like, well, everything's cool. And, where, where'd that person go? Why'd they leave? You know, it's like, well, because, you know, there was all these things that we never addressed or taught them about. okay. Didn't know that. So yeah, it's. We're all in company's heart. There's a lot of responsibilities and things you got to do. And I think a lot of it comes down to.

Tyson Mutrux (45:45)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (46:05)
process, right? If you had a process for that versus you're just winging it and like, well, let me check in with Tyson randomly, see how he's doing. Just build a process around it. Check-ins, one-on-ones, you know.

Tyson Mutrux (46:15)
Well, those are actually, those are built into her KPIs too, where she's required to reach out to so many per month. so that's, you're right. You got to build in the process. And so that's one of ways we do it to make sure that it's, because it is one of those things that's really important. So it's built in something she has to do.

Kevin Daisey (46:24)
Dude, that's awesome.

Then that I love that we don't have someone like like a position like that. That's awesome We have people that probably could take that responsibility though That's I've never even heard that before But yeah, if it's built in the process just like how a client comes into your firm and their whole journey That can be processed out. It's intentional Yeah, it's intentional and that's how you get all the results so the firms that are Yeah, they're not winging nothing they have a plan

Tyson Mutrux (46:48)
Bake it in. Yeah, always bake it in.

Nothing at all.

Kevin Daisey (46:57)
And then you can tweak the plan and find out areas that it's not working.

Tyson Mutrux (47:02)
By the way, I do have to run in a minute or so. We've been chatting for a long time. It's been a good combo.

Kevin Daisey (47:05)
That's silly. Cool. ⁓ you know,

this would be a good long episode for everyone to listen to. We'll make, we'll split it up into episodes, but, well, Tyson, I know you got to go. I appreciate the chat. We covered a lot of things, which are all important. It's all important stuff and, I appreciate the, candor and, and conversation. What's the best way for people to check you out, find you, and also you have an event coming up, in the fall.

Tyson Mutrux (47:17)
Yes, we did. It's been fun though. I enjoyed it.

Yeah, probably the best way @lawyertyson on all of the socials, you reach them out there or you maxlawcon.com. The conference is coming up in October, so I'd love to have you all out there. I think you're going to try to make it out there, which would be awesome to hang out with you. yeah, maxlawcon.com, it's going be in Nashville in October, so it's going be a great place to have it. The weather is going to be beautiful. But otherwise, if you want to reach out and have any questions,

You can listen to the podcast, Maximum Lawyer or reach out to me @LawyerTyson.

Kevin Daisey (47:59)
Man, I appreciate you being on. I'll be the conference. That's the plan. Never been to Nashville. I'm looking forward to it. So, everyone out there join me. Come on out. if you've got questions about it, we'll pop a link, for registration and get you hooked up. So Tyson, thank you so much, man.

Tyson Mutrux (48:12)
Thanks for having me, Kevin. I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. I think you and I could have gone three hours. So if I didn't have a hard out, then I would definitely would do it. but ⁓ yeah, love chatting with you,

Kevin Daisey (48:21)
I thought I'm 25 minutes. Yeah, it was a...

All right. I'll see you soon. Stick on just so it uploads. Everyone, thank you so much as always. See you soon.