Chrissy Hagen

Kevin Daisey (00:31)
All right, we are recording. Chrissy Hagen, welcome to the show.

Chrissy Hagen (00:34)
Thanks for having me.

Kevin Daisey (00:35)
Well, thanks for being here. I appreciate you sharing what you have with me already. I’m excited to have the audience listen today. We got some cool stuff for today. Chrissy has got a lot of interesting background and different approach to things, which I hope a lot of you will find interesting. I wanted to ask right off the bat though, you got a younger attorneys or, know, even attorneys that are looking to go start their own business or maybe they’re inside a firm

right now. Maybe they’re not sure if they want to do their own thing or not. From your lessons and things that you’ve learned, what’s a piece of advice you’d give them listening right now.

Chrissy Hagen (01:10)
Yeah, I think the biggest piece of advice that I would have is that you don’t have to wait until you have your own law firm to market yourself or to start thinking about having your own personal brand. You know, while you’re even at a firm, you can be marketing yourself within a firm and there’s benefits to both yourself because you’re making your presence known, you’re making your expertise known, and there’s a lot of benefit to a firm having someone like that because everyone wants to hire someone they know, like and trust.

and you become that person that’s trustworthy and the person that people think of when they think of that law firm you’re associated with. So I think that’s something I definitely wish I knew sooner was the importance of having a personal brand.

Kevin Daisey (01:50)
I love that. I mean, you know, we were talking a minute ago about a few folks that we know that have done that successfully. And it’s so true. I mean, any of my employees, even at my firm, it’s like, you know, just establish yourself and stand out, you know, speak loudly and proudly. And so whatever it is, you know, establish your own brand and don’t be afraid or think that you have to own your own firm to be able to do that.

We all have a personal brand whether we like it or not. So, you know, have influence on that and you tell the story of what, you know, you want people to think about you and know you for.

Chrissy Hagen (02:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if you think about social media, for example, I bet we could both name tons of attorneys we follow. I probably couldn’t name one law firm that I follow because people hire the person, not necessarily the firm, right? So that’s something big that went into the consideration of how important it is to have that on your own personal brand.

Kevin Daisey (02:39)
Converse it.

Yeah, I have, uh, law firms all the time. Like, yeah, we need to have like our law firm LinkedIn page with con like, no, you need to have the lawyers bought in and have a process and be individually, uh, building their own LinkedIn, uh, file ends and content. And, uh, you know, it might sound like undertaking. Well, you mean every single lawyer. Well, you know, don’t pick one if you want to have the face, but it has to be a person.

Chrissy Hagen (02:54)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Kevin Daisey (03:12)
It cannot be the company brand in this case. Um, you know, unless you’re Nike or some big, uh, kind of apparel brand that’s different, but at the end of the day, comes down to a person they want to follow, listen to, get advice from and do business with. so yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. love it. So yeah, if you’re in a firm right now and you’re listening and you don’t ever want to start your own firm, you know, I feel like this show, she’ll bring some value in. Uh, you can be applying a lot of things.

marketing brand, social media, all that to your own personal brand. You’ll just be that much more valuable within the firm you’re at. and maybe, building a firm or running your firm is not the way for you. Maybe not the right path and that’s okay.

Chrissy Hagen (03:49)
Yeah, absolutely. And another tip I’d have is thinking about what attracts you on social media and doing more of that. Because when I was when I had my own firm, I was constantly posting stuff about like, here’s what to do if you’re in a crash. And here’s why this is so important. Crash, crash, crash. And then it’s like, when I see that content, I skip right by it. But it’s the content from lawyers who are golfing or out with their kids or doing funny things that I’m like,

Chrissy Hagen (04:18)
I want more of that content because you can relate to that person. And someone you can relate to becomes more trustworthy and you tend to feel like you really know that person. And so if or when you’re in that time of need, that’s the person you think about. It’s not the salesy, call me, call me, call me, I’m the best attorney. It’s the person who you can relate to and who seems most trustworthy.

Kevin Daisey (04:39)
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think anything you’re forcing in this content, you don’t really care about yourself and you’re not authentic and it’s, it’s not going to come across that way. And people are not, they’re just going to sniff it out. I know, Attorney Ryan, I’ve talked with him before. He’s got a huge following. And, one of the things he was telling me was like, one tip he had was like, instead of him trying to be like, I want to be known as the, the car accident lawyer.

Like he doesn’t talk about that kind of stuff. He just wants them to be known as your lawyer. And if they’re not, if they don’t have a case that’s fit for him, he’s fine. I’ll refer it to someone else or whatever. But instead of trying to get too granular on like, well, what kind of law does he do? Well, don’t care. I just want them to know that I’m a lawyer and I’m trusted and bring your, bring your, your issue to me. And then they’ll, they’ll get that to the right person and refer it out. But instead of trying to be like, well, I am just.

your car accident or you’re just your truck lawyer and that’s all you should ever think about. So, and the content gets really repetitive. So, Well, without further ado, I wanted to have you introduce yourself. Christie’s actually in, outside of Detroit and Michigan and,

Chrissy Hagen (05:35)
Yeah, I love that approach.

Kevin Daisey (05:45)
Tell us about yourself, quickly your story and we’re going to dive into as well here folks, how she started the multi-million dollar practice of her own. Tell that story just a little bit, but also kind of what she’s doing now and kind of that transitions that she’s made. So introduce yourself, tell us your background and we’ll go from there.

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Chrissy Hagen (07:04)
Yeah, so I am practicing in Metro Detroit currently. I wasn’t always in Michigan. Even though I grew up here, I decided to move out to Colorado right after law school. I got an opportunity to intern with the Denver District Attorney’s Office and it was my last semester of law school. I was thinking, you know, I’ll just go out here and do this semester-long internship, see if I like it, but the plan was always to move back at some point because my whole family is in Michigan.

But I didn’t realize how much I was going to love Colorado. You shocking. It was the most amazing place. And I got a ton of experience in the courtroom. So in your last semester of law school, you can practice actually in a courtroom under what’s called the Certified Student Practice Act in Colorado. So I was literally up there in the courtroom with a supervising attorney just sitting at the table and handling DUI cases.

Kevin Daisey (07:36)
It’s awesome, Blaze.

Chrissy Hagen (07:56)
And it was the most bizarre experience and the most amazing experience because I got to get trial experience even before I was a lawyer. While it was an amazing experience, it was also something where I knew I didn’t want to do criminal law long term. I always had a passion for doing the civil side and negligence law in particular, personal injury. But I did get a lot of good experience.

Ultimately landed at a personal injury law firm in Colorado and was out there practicing for about 10 years. I was with a couple of different firms, some of the larger firms in Denver. And then I met my husband out there. He’s also from Michigan, coincidentally. We found out we were pregnant and, you know, we were like, okay, we can do this without any family. It’ll be fine. We found out it was twins and we were like, ⁓ we should probably move back to Michigan.

Kevin Daisey (08:32)
⁓

Chrissy Hagen (08:44)
you know, the family help would be nice. So that’s what we did. And, you know, this was all during COVID times. So it became really easy to practice remotely. I still practice remotely handling some Colorado cases, mostly Colorado trucking cases. It’s my specialty areas, truck accidents. But, you know, it was, that’s when I also started my own firm. You know, we have twins at home. Luckily we had additional family support being in Michigan.

But I decided to start a law firm because I wanted to see what it was like to do things with complete autonomy and had this whole vision of how I wanted to approach the practice of law and what specific clients I wanted to serve, being truck accident and brain injured clients, because that was really my specialty area. That’s the specialization I really honed in on when I was at those larger firms practicing. Got a lot of experience there.

Kevin Daisey (09:32)
Nice.

Chrissy Hagen (09:33)
And it was a really, really great opportunity and a really great thing to run a law firm. It’s very challenging. I think I underestimated how much work it was. And no one really prepares you for that in law school right now and prepares you to be a business owner in law school. So took a lot of going to courses, reading books, hiring a coach. So lots of people to help, hiring a bunch of staff.

and then ultimately, yeah, yeah.

Kevin Daisey (09:58)
You built this up, I mean, over those couple of years and

exited that firm. So tell us a little bit more about that kind of process, which I mean, was, we’re in 2025 now. So that was not too long ago.

Chrissy Hagen (10:06)
Sure. Not too long ago.
No, so started the firm with zero clients. So quickly had to learn how to market myself and how to use my personal brand and what client, how to really hone in on which clients I wanted to serve. And initially started out how I think a lot of personal injury solo attorneys start out, which is, we’ll take any and every personal injury case. Slip and fall, trip and fall, dog bite, car crash. Well, the problem is,

specific things are what people remember. When you’re that general, it’s not gonna stand out in anyone’s mind. So me saying I do personal injury, it just falls flat on anyone I’m talking to. And it wasn’t until I started working with a coach and she said, you know, well, how do people know that you specialize in truck accident law? How do they know that you’re the go-to? What are you doing to market yourself as this truck accident expert? And I was like, well, honestly, not a whole lot, because I just say I’m personal injury lawyer.

And I know it seems counterintuitive, but it wasn’t until I started telling people, you know, I handled truck accidents, that I started getting the truck accident cases because it was the specific things that stuck in people’s minds. So they hear truck, they think of me, they hear personal injury, they think of billboard attorneys and a million others and doesn’t ever get to me. But once I really developed that niche area, that’s when the practice really took off.

Kevin Daisey (11:33)
It’s funny how that works. You know, I tell the story all the time that, you know, we’re niched into legal marketing, but we used to handle stuff for everybody. And it, it always seems so, like a bad move to niche. Like, well, we cut ourselves off from anyone else that needs marketing. And, you know, just the opposite happens of course, but yeah, I think, I think lawyers are afraid like, well,

But I could handle that case and I could maybe do some estate planning work. I mean, I’ve, I’ve heard lawyers telling me all kinds of stuff, mostly clients like, well, why is this on your website? Well, was this one time, you know, we got this one case and it went okay. So we just put it on our website. Well, no, that’s confusing to Google and it’s confusing to AI and it’s confusing to people that read your website. So, when you can hone that in, that’s, that’s the way to go.

Chrissy Hagen (11:58)
Right.

Right, absolutely. And I used to think that… Yeah, and you know, it’s funny because the opposite also happens in the sense that people think of me as the truck accident attorney. Kind of going back to what you said about attorney Ryan, now I’m their attorney and I’m getting all these referrals and you still have people call you saying, hey, I know you do truck accidents, but do you also handle dog bites? Well, yes, they do, you know, because they just remember you as, you’re their attorney, you’re the attorney that they refer all their friends and family to now.

Kevin Daisey (12:17)
So great. So that’ll help you establish yourself. You start getting leads.

Chrissy Hagen (12:45)
And that’s how our business really took off. And we developed that strong client base.

Kevin Daisey (12:49)
I love that and that does work their way, because it happens to me too. And on the flip side, I have, we’re mostly known for doing marketing for firms that have a decent budget, a couple thousand, 5,000 a month or more. And I used to establish that really strongly. Like, we’re looking for clients that can spend at least 5,000 or more on web and SEO.

But then you, I still get a lot of going, Hey, this is probably too small for you, but let me, here’s a referral. And sometimes it’s a great fit and we can take it. On the flip side, you know, I had a comp, I got a competitor that only does small, small and solo. Like super small, but sometimes it’s like you take them a referral and say, well, I got one that’s a little bit bigger. It’s not that they won’t, they can’t do that or they won’t do that. But I think it messes people saying, Hey, I know you, you want to do truck and that’s what you specialize in, but.

I had a friend that got in a car accident. Would you be able to take that on? ⁓ so I think it puts you up here and it still allows them to think about you, for other cases. so you’re not just pigeon held into trucks only, which is interesting. That’s super. So you’ve kind of nosedown, you’re building your firm. and.

Chrissy Hagen (13:36)
Yep, exactly.

under percent.

Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Daisey (13:52)
Yeah, I guess tell us what that process was like and, and where you’re at now, actually, obviously you exited that. So what was kind of like the life cycle there of starting that firm, building up, growing it to where you came to a point where you’re like, Hey, I want to, I want to make this other decision to go this direction.

Chrissy Hagen (14:10)
Yeah, for sure. it was really just, know, while you can practice remotely, while I could still and still do practice in Michigan, but take Colorado cases, I lost that human connection. I’m a very social person. I love being around people. And it just got to a point where it wasn’t making sense anymore that I’m living in Michigan, but I’m marketing only to Colorado clients. So I was like, you know, it’s time to bite the bullet. I’ve been licensed in Michigan for a while.

Michigan and I have a great network of attorney colleagues in Michigan already. So I was talking to some, they were actually looking to add a trucking attorney to their practice. It’s the firm I’m at right now. So it’s Olsman MacKenzie Peacock and they have a really, really strong brand. They’re known really well for doing nursing home neglect and medical malpractice. And I came in and partnered with them and I really had up the auto and trucking department now of our firm.

And it’s just been a really great partnership. There are amazing people to work with, extremely talented attorneys. One of my partners is in trial today, you know, this week on a Med Mal case. And it was just a perfect opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. And it also allowed me to practice where I’m living and be around people, you know, who are around me physically, who could really use my help when it comes to trucking expertise.

Kevin Daisey (15:28)
Yeah, that’s awesome. So, so you’re running your own firm. and yeah, I think one of the things that you’re telling me there is like, you know, thinking back, you know, talking, you know, positioning yourself and, value in the firm and, and exiting the firm is something that you, you know, we kind of talked about the other day when we, when we spoke. so I’d like to hit on that point just a little bit. And then also a great point you made when we were chatting prior to recording, was.

The, your personal brand with inside the firm, I think is a huge talking point right there. that would be great for, for the audience here, but, tell me a little bit more about, you know, kind of that positioning and building that firm and kind of how that went down and, you know, maybe some lessons learned there.

Chrissy Hagen (16:07)
Yeah, absolutely. So I think a lot of people probably haven’t been in the position I’ve been in, which is I worked for a large firm, I owned a law firm, and now I partnered with a law firm. I think there’s a lot of people who, you know, maybe start by owning their own firm and don’t get that big law experience. Or even if they do, they end up retiring at a point where they don’t then go and join another firm. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that

I’d hate for it to be more of an afterthought of what does it look, what does my exit strategy look like? And so that’s something that I wish I would have started thinking about sooner is what drives value of a law firm? Well, you know, it’s certainly something that I knew something about. It wasn’t something that I was really focused on until it got to be, my gosh, I’m trying to exit, now what? And so looking back, you know, it’s nice to know now what drives value of a law firm because

I have lot of autonomy where I’m at and I can be implementing these things on a daily basis. know, so things like having written policies and procedures, making sure you have really tight standard operating procedures, the importance of client to customer satisfaction and brand recognition. All of these things really drive the value of a business and of a law firm. So eventually, you know, if you want to position the firm for sale or

whatever your exit strategy is, you wanna be thinking about these things much earlier on. We were talking earlier about, you know, even something as small as, you name the law firm with your last names, with the partner’s last names, or do you do a DBA? You know, something I’ve seen a lot of law firms transitioning to. Are you, you know, the Chrissy Hagan law firm, or are you the interstate truck accident law firm? So which one has…

more value to a potential buyer in the future, depending on if that’s the end goal is to sell the law firm.

Kevin Daisey (17:58)
Yeah, I hear about that one a lot. I have a client right now that’s, you know, trying to decide on what to do. And they were going multi-state. And in some states, they can’t use the name, like DBA name. So it’s like, well, I wanted to grow into this. They, well, now like, so, so there’s some challenges there, I think, and you look into as well, as far as like future growth and what’s the plans and, but yeah, I think that’s a good question, you know, people sell and exit their firms with their name on it.

All the time. Is it more valuable to have a branded name like a DBA? you’re saying. I’m not sure what the answer is to that, but something that, that I get asked a lot. And I know some of my clients are always looking at that. I know this, get your domain. Don’t have all your partner’s names in the domain. If you can help it. Because we’ve helped, I don’t know how many firms, switch domains and all the SEO and brand value and all that stuff. That’s.

Chrissy Hagen (18:39)
Yes.

Kevin Daisey (18:46)
pointed to that domain and if you know, Hagen leaves and you’re in the .com and that has to be removed, then that’s, that’s a nightmare. So go with, you can go with a generic domain.

Chrissy Hagen (18:54)
you

Yeah, and it’s

also easier for potential clients to remember, right? How hard is it to remember, you know, all of these multiple partner names back to back to back versus something that’s simple, concrete, and explains exactly what you do? I think that’s really the benefit of it. And then you brought up another point that really goes into the valuation of a law firm, which is growth potential.

And whether you’re looking at expanding geographically, there’s lots of other ways to grow, right? That’s geographically, are you looking to get into more states and what goes along with that? Are you looking to add services or different practice areas? So kind of growing more horizontally and those potentials, know, that potential really drives value as well as having systems and processes and how easy would it be to essentially hand your law firm over to a potential buyer?

Or another thing that we talked a lot about when I was going through this was how dependent is the law firm on the owner? So if the owner had to be unexpectedly out for three months, could the law firm still run without them or would everything fail? Because if it’s reliant on one person and that person ultimately wants to leave, that’s not going to be that appealing to a buyer.

Kevin Daisey (19:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. have the put golden handcuffs on them or make them stay for a period of time or something, right? Um, it’s typically what you see. But no, there’s all huge things to think about and planning ahead of time years and years in advance. Most like private equity people I know and something that they say three to five years, um, to really get everything in order to be as valuable as possible. Um, there’s all kinds of changes in your accounting structure. There’s all kinds of things that you can get into, but.

and also I’ll, I’ll add just cause I’m in marketing and SEO, that’s important to tell your agency partner. So if you go, Hey, I’m going to go multi more practices are coming soon. That’s a good thing to know. If you’re going to go multi-state, that’s a good thing to know versus, just growing within maybe your region. So, quick tip I’ll say, say if you were, you wanted to just be a Detroit, Michigan truck accident attorney.

Chrissy Hagen (20:50)
Yep.

Kevin Daisey (20:57)
Because you’re thinking focus niche. Let’s just focus from SEO strategy. You’re going to want to actually have your website focused on Michigan. And then you’re going to drill that down and maybe you just only focus on Detroit. But if your whole website, like the homepage says Detroit truck accidents, and then you want to go into other cities in the state.

Chrissy Hagen (21:11)
and

Kevin Daisey (21:16)
Google and everything doesn’t recognize, like it’s very difficult to hop around like that because you’ve just told Google Detroit is, is what I want to be known for. So if you want to get multi-state in the near future, you got to also think about, well, are you going from a state level? If you’re to go multi-state now, we have to have a whole different kind of architecture to the website. So things to think about as you’re planning, are you going to grow rapidly? Are you kind of like,

Chrissy Hagen (21:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (21:43)
you know, lifestyle, business style. but just have those conversations with whoever’s doing your marketing, as well, because you can make a switch like that, just like the domain name change. And then you’re, you’re really destroying a lot of, work that’s been done in the wrong direction.

Chrissy Hagen (21:55)
Yeah, that’s a great point.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (21:57)
So personal brand, that’s another big thing that we touched on. And so you went from being like your own brand, personal brand of yourself, but your firm brand too was also you. You developed the clients in, you know, in Colorado, and then you’re, you wanted to switch over to Michigan where you’re from. And you go from that to now being inside a firm that you’ve partnered with. And you know, you brought up a great point, which is no matter you own a firm or you work in a firm, whatever.

focus on that personal brand. So tell me a little bit about what you’ve done in transition and stand out within the firm you’re in.

Chrissy Hagen (22:29)
Yeah, sure. So it was really important to me when I joined the firm that I didn’t dilute the brand that already existed. Because like I said, they’re known across the community, across the state of Michigan, for having this really strong brand. And instead, I have been able to keep my brand, which is the truck accident brain injury lawyer, and just work with that. So in doing that, what I’ve done is growth.

I’ve helped grow the firm’s social presence by posting on my own social media platforms because I’m still associated with the firm and it has more of a reach instead of just doing, you know, kind of what we were talking about before, pushing out things from a law firm’s page on LinkedIn or on Instagram. You know, there’s not a ton of following there, unfortunately. It’s the individual lawyers that people want to see updates about and want to see what they’re doing and how they’re impacting their communities,

Kevin Daisey (23:10)
Yeah

Chrissy Hagen (23:21)
what they’re interested in and how you can relate to that person. So that has been what I’ve continued to be able to do is to maintain my personal brand and it also builds that trust publicly. And then it helps the firm because when I bring in clients, I bring clients into the firm. So there’s that joint representation, but it’s ultimately, like we talked about, people are gonna hire the person, not necessarily the law firm.

Kevin Daisey (23:47)
No, a hundred percent. That’s awesome. Yeah. So, so you, you know, I would assume with them wanting to partner with you, that’s, that’s a value add for you. Like why they would consider bringing you in. You had that personal brand, you had that following, you had that reach. That’s, that’s, we were bringing that value to this firm and makes you more valuable.

Chrissy Hagen (23:58)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, everyone always likes to talk about authenticity and how it comes across as fake if you try to be someone you’re not on social media, especially. And I wholeheartedly believe that. And so it’s another reason why having a brand is important because you still get to be yourself. You get to put out their content of things that you’re interested in. You know, I’ve heard so many people say, you know, I follow you on social media.

Your kids are adorable. I have twins too. That’s why I reached out. It’s like, okay, so nothing related to law, but you somehow were like, hey, she has twins, I have twins, you know, and I kind of know she’s an attorney. So let me ask her this question.

Kevin Daisey (24:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. They know you’re an attorney.

So they, they turn to you because they like trust, um, and you know, see your content. So, um, no, I love that. I think if, I own a law firm, right, I would want every lawyer to do as much as they possibly could and support them as much as you could to have them do their own thing, do their own brands, build that up. It’s just going to benefit the firm as a whole. Um, and, um, versus the firm having

a kind of small cap marketing budget and, you know, does a poor job of even marketing themselves. Get behind the lawyer individual or, you know, sometimes they’ll say, Hey, who is the lawyer that’s going to be the face that we can get this behind and stand up? Not every lawyer wants to do this stuff because I got plenty of clients that are not interested. Most of the lawyers. And so there’s usually one of the partners or one of the, you know, the group that

becomes the guinea pig, if you will. But making that decision, I think is important. But it’d be great if you have multiple, yeah, like Sweet James out there, I was talking about that earlier, like they have multiple influencers that have their own strong personal brands underneath that brand. So.

Chrissy Hagen (25:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Daisey (25:50)
One of the things you could do as a pro tip, um, you can use Google analytics or like a H refs or S SEM rush or one of those kinds of like tools, but you can look at the website analytics and search history, what keywords you rank for and how often people search for that. And you can see names. And so, um, I do this sometimes it’s like just for fun, but you can see which attorneys get searched more. Um, and who brings in most of the traffic from a brand search.

with their personal name and you can kind of do like a fun contest, like, you know, um, you know, who, who has more basic brand reach, uh, because people are looking for them by name. And so it’s, sometimes it’s very clear who the breadwinners are. Uh, the rainmakers, if you will, um, in the firm, because they’ll be above everyone else by, by a large margin. So, and typically they have done social, they’ve invested time and energy, they’re doing videos or.

They’re getting themselves out there. So that’s a good way to recognize the partners or the other attorneys that are really doing a good job is looking at that brand reach through search. Doesn’t lie.

Chrissy Hagen (26:57)
Yeah,

exactly. And while of course it takes time to do social media, it’s generally low cost or no cost. So it’s hard to pass up. And if you think about how often people are already on their phones, just give them some more content to look at. They’re already looking. You have this huge platform that you can work with. So just be posting as much as possible. I think Bob Simon does a great job at this. He’s just like posting, posting, posting, right?

Kevin Daisey (27:21)
Thank

Chrissy Hagen (27:21)
But he keeps you engaged and it’s funny content. It’s relatable content. It’s intermixed with some lawyer content. So you know he’s a lawyer, but that’s, you know, his personal brand is so much more than that.

Kevin Daisey (27:32)
Bob does an amazing job and he literally just, he’s all, most of time he’s just sitting in one spot in his house at a table, just like, you know, like this. it’s, and he’ll be like personal stuff. It’ll be news type of stuff. It’ll be laws. It’ll be his kids and them like going on the beach. So very well, a good example of just a mix of like, just nothing’s made up. It’s all just him going through his day and just documenting that. think Gary Fee said, don’t create content, just

Chrissy Hagen (27:38)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (27:58)
document because we’re already like me and you were filming right in this second, right? So, you know, as you’re going through your day, you can just capture those moments, speak your mind. You know, it could be fun, it could be family, it could be whatever. So, don’t think about it too much. I think most people just say like, I got a plan and I got to have equipment and I got to have, you don’t need anything. Like just, just be natural. Right.

Chrissy Hagen (28:12)
Yeah.

100%.

And as lawyers, I think we all get questions every single day, probably multiple questions a day, use that as an opportunity to create a post. That’s what I started doing. And I never have a shortage of content to post because I get these questions like, well, if I file a lawsuit, is it against the person individually or insurance? OK, create a post. Who pays for a dog bite? Attack. Homeowners, create the post. Because so many people out there

aren’t lawyers so they don’t know what we think is like common knowledge. And so use that as an opportunity to create posts, create reels, do a quick story. If there’s an update on a crucial law in your state, do an update so people know about it.

Kevin Daisey (29:00)
Yeah. Yeah. There’s anyone listening like there’s no shortage of content. don’t overthink it. Just start doing stuff. Cause you’re, I tell those people with podcasts all the time. I’m in like a podcast mastermind with a bunch of folks. And, some of us have established podcasts for many years and some are trying to start one. And the biggest thing is they don’t start. It’s like, but you’re, you’re not going to the way you look or sound until you get comfortable with it. Jen Gore, like she can jump on a camera and.

two seconds or Bob or anybody, no worries at all. Right. They’re just, but you just don’t get there overnight. It’s you’re just, you’ve done it enough. It becomes easy. So, um, you just got to start doing it and you’re going to hate it. Keep it up anyway. Um, just be yourself and, publish. And it’s yeah, I just put a video up just an hour or so ago, just right here. Boom. Recorded a couple of things about our mastermind that we started.

I just threw it up on LinkedIn and it was one time take, no scripted, no editing, Right. So just start getting stuff out and then you kind of figure out, you know, what’s working and what you like or what you don’t like, I guess at the same time. So yeah, as well, you’ve had just a really cool journey and going from starting your own firm. Yeah. COVID, having twins, moving back home and, and having a, you know,

Chrissy Hagen (30:02)
you

Kevin Daisey (30:11)
an exit and, and now partnered with a firm, where you compliment each other and you’re still able to have your own personal brand. I think that’s huge. I don’t know if all firms like you to have your own personal brand or not. Cause most of the firms I work with are the owners themselves, but

Chrissy Hagen (30:24)
Yeah, for sure. And I just think there’s so many benefits to the firm that it would be hard not to appreciate if someone wants to be out there marketing themselves and bringing in cases and bringing in clients. But yeah, you never know. I guess you have to have that trust with your partners and be able to understand each other as to how they complement each other and the importance of having those really strong brands to attract a whole wider variety of clients.

Kevin Daisey (30:48)
Yeah, no, I think it’s a good strategy that firms should be talking about internally and putting a plan together and encouraging the lawyers, even down the associates, you know, like how are they moving up and how are they creating their own brand and how are they going to be able to be producers as they become partners or whatever they might be. So it’s, and not everyone’s always going to stay. You can’t, you know, it’s just like you train someone they can leave.

Right. But, but you got to go all in anyway and say, we’re going to give you everything we can and we’re going to do our part. You know, but, you know, someone could leave, their infirmness that can happen, but, there’s no need to not allow it to happen because of that fear of, of that. So, and good on them, right? They leave, they have a good brand and they get started on thing referral partner for life. If, if it was a good, you know,

Chrissy Hagen (31:13)
Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Daisey (31:34)
Good parting, so.

Chrissy Hagen (31:34)
Yeah,

exactly.

Kevin Daisey (31:36)
Well, I appreciate you sharing a unique story of just your path through in this journey. Any big tip, anything else that you haven’t covered, that you could share or anything lessons learned?

Chrissy Hagen (31:48)
No, mean, just again, just going back to the importance of marketing yourself and how invaluable that is, whether you’re on your own or with a firm and how easy it is to do. And also, you know, I’m always here. I’m happy to talk to people who are have any questions about how to do this themselves. I frequently present on this topic to new and young lawyers. It’s something I’m really passionate about is creating content and making yourself known in the community because

people need attorneys who are really passionate about what they do and who are experts in their field. And no one’s gonna be able to find you unless you market yourself like that. So I’m always here to help and it’s something that I enjoy doing and I had a lot of mentors on the way, so I’m always happy to pay it forward.

Kevin Daisey (32:30)
Excellent, I love that, I appreciate that. So everyone listen to her, connect with her, reach out, ask her questions. Chrissy, what’s the best way for folks to find you, connect with you? Is there a preferred platform or the website itself?

Chrissy Hagen (32:42)
Yeah, so email is probably the best. My email is chagen, c-h-a-g-e-n at olsmanlaw.com, and that’s O-L-S-M-A-N, law. I’m also on social media, so Lawyer Chrissy, C-H-R-I-S-S-Y is my handle. I’m also on LinkedIn. So either of those, any of those social media platforms, feel free to direct message me or send me an email.

Kevin Daisey (33:03)
Excellent. Well, I appreciate that. Everyone, as always, you can reach out to me, leave a comment if you’re watching this on LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook. And if you want to make a connection, I’ll make sure that happens. If you’ve got any questions during this recording too, drop them in the comments. I’ll tag her. We’ll answer any questions you have in regards to what we talked about today. And then, yeah. But reach out and connect.

Chrissy, congrats on the success and excited to see where you go and I’ll be following your socials as well. So we appreciate you coming on today to share your story. We’ll see you all soon. Just a couple of quick things. We have the Managing Partners Podcast, which you’re listening to. Appreciate you listening. I have so many awesome lawyers that tune in and I hear feedback from. But we also just started the Managing Partners Mastermind.

We have about eight members right now of law firm owners in the group and it’s a little quicker than I expected. We had a first meet and greet last week and it was just amazing. We have our second one coming up here soon, but any questions about that? Let me know. We’re taking on a few different members, kind of hand selected, but right now looking for owners, any category in size, but, but that’s new. The Managing Partners Mastermind.

We’ll see where it goes. So excited to share more about that soon. So, Chrissy, thank you so much and everyone. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you on the next episode. Make sure you go follow her. We’ll see you soon. Yep. Absolutely.

Chrissy Hagen (34:20)
Thanks Kevin.