Rebuilding a Law Firm Around the Right People with Jimmy Evans

Jimmy Evans: What I realized was, we don't have a business problem. We don't have a client problem. We don't have a reputation problem. We had a people problem. We had a drive problem. We had a, we had a qualitative work problem. We had a mission problem, and we needed to address that.

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Melissa: Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. I am thrilled today to have a very special guest, Jimmy Evans. Welcome.

Jimmy: Thank you.

Melissa: I'm so glad you're here.

Jimmy: We've been talking about this for a while.

Melissa: We have. And you wanted to wait until certain things happened before we got on to talk about. 

Jimmy: I felt like we had to make our metrics. We had to, you know, we put a plan in place obviously, and you know about all that. And I felt like before we came on, we wanted to make sure we could meet those metrics and check those boxes. 

Melissa: No, I totally admire that. And that gives you something to talk about because there's a hero's journey involved with getting there. So. 

Jimmy: 100%. 

Melissa: And so maybe that's what we'll talk about today. So, okay, first, do you want to just say who you are, where you are, and what you do? 

Jimmy: My name is Jimmy Evans. I own a sort of, I'd call it a boutique family law litigation practice in Austin, Texas. I'm a board-certified family law attorney since 2015. I started out as a prosecutor a long time ago and so came to family law with a lot, probably 90 jury trials to my name. And started in family law with a lot of courtroom experience, but no family law experience. And so my teacher was the courtroom.

And eventually built that into a practice that's really just exclusively all things family law. So it's complex property litigation, family law stuff, custody litigation. We deal in a lot of mental health and kind of messy situations like that, complex property situations, high-net earners. And it makes for, with all that litigation experience, it makes for good settlement strategy. It helps to have attorneys who are very good in the courtroom. 

And so I always describe our firm as one that is as amicable as people need, but we can scale to be as aggressive as the case needs. So we're, we have that kind of scope of experience. And everything to prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. In fact, we get a lot of people from Colorado who call or are moving to Texas or whatever, and they're wanting to do, pre- and post-nuptial agreements. So it's a lot of that kind of stuff. 

Melissa: Okay. So that's a little bit of context for you. 

Jimmy: So exclusively family law, that's what we do. And our motto is protecting what matters most. 

Melissa: Okay. That's a really good motto. Okay. I have other thoughts, but I think I'm going to wait 'til later in the podcast to say those. Let's start with the comical story of how you first learned about Velocity Work.

Jimmy: Well, I guess we probably should do a little bit of context because I start, I've been licensed since 1995, believe it or not. And started the family law practice right at 2015. So I've been doing family law now for about 20 years. So it's been a lot of evolution of running a firm, trying to build a firm. And I'm an entrepreneur at heart in addition to courtroom and litigation, and being already being pretty skilled at that. And I wanted to build a firm. 

And as work was coming in and available, I was hiring people and trying to make that work. And COVID screwed that up. That's a wild story that, you know, we can talk about another day. But I thought I had a pretty good team coming through COVID. COVID definitely messed that up, and so the team sort of imploded and you rebuild and you rehire. And eventually you start to go, "This just isn't working." And even though we're good at what we do, it was an issue of trying to find the right plan, the right context, the right mission. And just never could tap into that. We were always right on the edge of finding all the right tools and building that. But entrepreneurship only takes you so far. 

So, my wife, who's been working with me, her name's Jenni, you've come to know her very well. She's basically our chief operations person. And she, she sees my life and the business kind of like The Matrix is probably what I would call it. And she knew better than myself that we needed help. And but she also knew that I wouldn't do it. That I didn't, I felt like I had it all under control, right? That classic litigation kind of personality and I'm like, "I got this. I don't need to hear any of that." 

So, Jenni and I, we have a hot tub. You and I met in my hot tub, is how we met. 

Melissa: Is the joke, yeah.

Yeah, it's a joke, but it is true because what happened was, Jenni and I sit in the hot tub, typically most mornings just to kind of kick off our day. And she was playing your podcast in the hot tub. And she would strategically play it so that I could hear it and make me listen to it. And eventually I started, your voice remarkably sounds very similar to that of my cousin. Her name is Tara, who you've now met. And I was like, "Golly, who is that?" I started listening and thinking that was my cousin. And she started talking about you and Velocity and what she was listening to.

And so, thus the story was, we started listening to some of the podcasts in my hot tub, and we got interested that way. And then eventually, I was voluntold that we had set a conference or a retreat with you in July of last year. In fact, this very same time, July 24th or 23rd of last year. 

And I fully intended, as you know the story now, of going and just honoring my wife's, being respectful to my wife's wishes that we were going to come meet you and hear it out. And that I was going to leave there, saying, "We don't need this."

Little did I know, as I was telling you yesterday, how life-changing that retreat would be. It's been business-changing, it's been foundational-changing, it's been marriage-changing, it's been life-changing meeting you and Velocity. And I'm not just saying that because we pay you to do what you do, but it is just the truth. I mean, and it's very easy to talk about that. And because the timing was just perfect, how it all came together. And we can talk about all those reasons, but that's how we met. We met in my hot tub. 

Melissa: Yeah, exactly. Well, okay, I have a question because I think some of the listeners who are in court a lot and litigating a lot, you appear to me, my view of you prior to meeting you is that you just, I know that you run fast and you run hard at everything you do. That's kind of just your MO. But you were focused on the legal work until probably about a year before I met you.

You lifted your head, and you were like, "Wait a minute, we need to make some changes in the firm." You started realizing that because you were putting so much into your employees to help them get board certified, to you were giving them all the opportunities, and it was, you were just focused in the work. It feels like at some point there was a shift where you realized that's not going to be the thing that makes your firm great. 

Jimmy: I'm kind of proud. I mean, coming out of my office, I've got a couple of judges. I've got, I think, four super, four or five super Texas lawyers who are super lawyers now. I think three are board-certified, two paralegals who are board-certified. And your listeners are all probably wondering, "Wow, that's a lot of turnover." And it's true. But I was investing in people and giving them that and believing that was enough. And it wasn't. That was what was interesting. It wasn't. I thought if I was investing in them, they would invest back. 

And something was missing. And that year before I, we came and met you, I had made a decision because Jenni, frankly, brought me the data, and we realized that something needed to change. And so that was a very hard decision because what the reality was, we needed to build a culture and a firm around, I hate to say it, this sounds egotistical, but around my identity, my way of doing it. In other words, this is what got our reputation. This is what built our brand. This is what built the courtroom success. We need a team who will buy into that. And we need to start hiring people and build a team around that core philosophy. 

And the only way to do that, Melissa, was to purge. And I call that "the year of the purge." And anybody who wasn't bought into that, I had to ask them to leave. And I mean, for your listeners who, at the time I had a fairly small firm, we've grown since then, but it was a very scary moment because you're taking, you're telling all of your producers, "Here's what's happening over the next year. Here's the new core values," which I didn't really have defined until we met you, but we were trying to define them. And I basically told everybody, "We all need to kind of get on board with this or find some other place to go." 

Melissa: Was it that their performance in the legal work wasn't up to snuff and up to your standards? I know that the hours they were hitting weren't up to your standards, which I so I think there's two things here was the qualitative substance good and the quantitative wasn't, or did they both weren't up to par?

Jimmy: How do I answer that question? Because it's a multi-layer question. It's the Russian doll for sure topic because there was a lack of drive, there was a lack of professionalism, there was a, and when I say drive, I mean motivation to be really good. Like, you know, I mean, I think I have a reputation now that I can say, I mean, I drove myself to be really good in court and created an edge in court that gave a lot of client success.

And what I was noticing was no matter how I tried to give that knowledge and transfer that to others that I was that were on the team at the time, it's like they didn't want to take that and run with it. They just wanted to be good enough. You know, and they wanted to make a paycheck, they wanted to go on vacation a lot. They wanted to work remote a lot. And they, it was like they needed a paycheck to just go live their lives as opposed to build a career and a reputation, and a name for yourself. 

And it was, it was that decision that I realized I needed to make because I didn't want to just pay people to just do that. And sometimes that showed in the results, you know, because sometimes you got to go the extra mile for somebody. This is their life. In family law, it is their life. We're not chasing a dollar. It's not a car wreck. We're not trying to get a check to compensate somebody. This is their kids or their life is on the line. And sometimes you've got to go the extra mile. And sometimes it requires a lot of creativity and creative thought. And even though I was trying to share that and transfer that, it's like it just wasn't taking.

And it was a hard decision to make, you know, because you're basically asking those producers to not produce anymore. And because when you're in a litigation firm, you work off of trusts, right? And if you're not billing, then you don't, you're not able to earn a living. And so if those people aren't there producing and whatnot, you can't make money. 

So, but it came down to a decision about that and culture like meaning, do you really value this team? Are you on board with what Evans Family Law Group is about? And we're a different firm. I don't know if I told you that story at one point, but it hit me.

Your listeners, I don't know if I can talk about Riley Green, but he's a country artist. If you listen to country music at all, but one day we were, this is after we met you and we were thinking about all this and we were, somehow Riley Green's songs came on. And that song he has, just "Different 'Round Here," if you've ever heard that song, and I started listening to it and I was like, "That's it. Like that's us."

Because we just do things different. And we don't care if you don't like how we do it because it is successful for clients. Now, the key is as a team, are you on board with that? And it just wasn't happening. And all the way down to things like that others have to deal with, gossipy cultures or, you know, people who are sort of one foot in, one foot out, they're not all in. And we just had to make a decision to purge that. 

And that was the year before I met you, before we had that first retreat. So I had made that decision. I just didn't, I didn't know how to go from there. And that's cued up to when we met you. 

Melissa: I will say just listening to the stories of that time, you had a little bit of everything going on. I mean, you mentioned the gossip, you had people who were not, I mean, like 70, 80 hours a month and that was that was it. And you pay people well at your firm and you invest in people. It's like, there's a lot of generosity from you. You do have high expectations, but there's a lot of generosity. There wasn't much accountability until you started purging. 

Jimmy: That's an honest assessment that the lack of accountability, and that falls on me. I mean, you know, for listeners listening to what if my experience resonates with them at all, accountability is a huge factor. You really have to put that in early. 

Melissa: Yeah. And there's a way to do it in a healthy way, which you've totally, you figured out now. And it's clear that you figured that out. 

Jimmy: But it's scary when you're the guy that's raising your kids and you're having to pay the mortgage and you're paying all that rent and your owners who are listening know that pressure. And it's really scary to go up to your lead producer who, you know, even if it's only 90 hours or whatever it is, and go, "I need you to increase your workload." You know, it's because if they don't produce, you can't pay your bills

And I was sort of flying with that fear factor. I was being held, I hate to say hostage, but that's what it felt like. I was being held hostage at the time by a business manager and financially, and those financial forecasts weren't accurate at all.

Thanks to Jenni, we can talk about that too. And you just have to make that decision. You and I were joking yesterday, where you just have to grab your nuts and just decide that this is, we're going to go in this direction. And that's what happened. But I didn't know how to do it. And that's where you guys came in. 

Melissa: The also, you're mentioning the business manager, all you kept hearing from her is, "We don't have any money. We don't have any," like scarcity around money. And you're like, "Why don't we have money?" 

Jimmy: Well, again, for your listeners, because I listen to your podcasts about every two or three episodes, but I do listen. And you've got to know your numbers. That was a lesson that just hit me in the face when Jenni, my wife, put all that together. Because the business manager that I had at the time was making me feel like the sky was falling constantly. And I kept going, but I was looking at our trust accounts. I was like, "We have plenty of clients." I was working 180 hours a month. I'm like, "What's going on?"

Now, I don't mind, you know me, I don't mind working because I love it. I actually love it. I mean, I'm addicted to it, and it actually brings me calm to put in the hours, and I know that sounds weird, but that's just how I'm wired because I deeply care about my clients and I care about those results. And I know that my creative input makes a difference. That brings me a lot of happiness and satisfaction knowing that I made a difference in that person's life that way. And I know sometimes I do things different and it makes a difference. 

But I didn't know the data. I mean, back to the point. And I just was so focused, like you're saying, my head was down, working those hours, and I just felt like if I, as the owner, was doing that, it would lead by example and just transmit or transmute to the team. And it just wasn't happening.

But finally, Jenni, to her credit, spent about three months behind my back. Thank God, now. And put all this data together, which was nowhere near like you guys do, but think about how good that was at the time to me. And I was, and it was eye-opening, like, and what I realized was we don't have a business problem. We don't have a client problem. We don't have a reputation problem. We had a people problem. We had a drive problem. We had a, we had a qualitative work problem. We had a mission problem. And we needed to address that. And so that was again, that was the year before we met. 

Melissa: Yeah. I mean, you know, we do all this, we get historical data when as a part of discovery and putting things together when we're first, that first engagement with a client. But yours, and I've seen this before, but it's it was one of those instances and it doesn't happen very often where because you purged, it's like all the data was…

Jimmy: Bad.

Melissa: None of it… it was bad. And none of those people were here anymore. So you really had somewhat of a clean slate. You had a couple new attorneys that had started just before I met you. And they were at that time kind of being thrown into the ring of fire and learning that way. And so then, so we didn't have a lot of data on the current team, but we could tell what needed to happen.

So it was just it was almost like clean slate. It didn't matter what your profit margins were the year before. They weren't what they should have been. They sucked. And now you have a new opportunity. So let's go.

Jimmy: Yeah, that data was totally useless. Well, it wasn't useless in the sense that we knew we had a strong business. I mean, the business was there. The bones was there, the, as we just talked about, the mission wasn't. The right people wasn't there. And I've heard you say, I probably am not quoting it right, but "build the people and they will build the business." And I heard that on one of your podcasts. And when we met in July of last year, that just hit me like between the eyes. I was like, with where we were in that year before leading up to it, that is a profound statement.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jimmy: I mean, find the people, build the people and they will build the business. But you've got to find the right people.

Melissa: Yes.

Jimmy: And you've got to find the people and you've got to discipline yourself to find the people around your core mission. That's the key. You know, because for too many years, I mean, I built this business over the last 21 years, and all of those years, I can't say I made a mistake because I didn't know. I was just trying to pay my mortgage. I was just trying to pay the rent. I mean, all I knew was to build business and go to court because that's how we made money.

But I was just hiring people just to hire. You know, and I have great relationships with 98% of the people who've come through my office. I mean, we're still friends today. That's a mission of mine. I don't like to burn bridges and I want to continue to mentor those people and all that. So no hard feelings, but it just, when you're hiring people just to hire, and you're not hiring around a mission and core values, it's ultimately going to fail. You're going to have a lot of turnover, which I experienced, and you're not going to be able to keep those people. And then turnover's real. It's a very real cost. And so again, that led up all to this one year before we met where we had to figure out how to change that. 

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, for people who might be thinking, "Maybe I need to purge." Talk about how, like really what was it like? Because it's, it's how painful was it and how did you get through it? What do you do? Like no one, no one will do that because of the fear that they have of what that will be like and that they can't handle it, that they can't do it. And so I just, I want to hear you talk about really what it was like and if would you do it again? I know the answer is yes, but I just for people who are just afraid to do that. And you said, you know…

Jimmy: Well, I'm telling you, I was right. I was held hostage by that fear factor, and you just get to a point where you just have to make that decision that's not how you want to run your business. I don't want to treat clients that way. I don't want clients to feel that experience. And I want to do it my way. And so it was a very scary decision to make.

But if you want to know the truth, the truth is, I knew that there were two or three core of us, our team, that I knew we would always make a good living. I mean, we would always have enough business. Of course, if I had a team, I could do more and do better and whatever. But I always knew the core business was there and that we could pay our bills and we'd make an okay living. So through, and Jenni gets a lot of credit for putting all that data in front of me and forcing me to sit down and look at it. And once I realized that and made that decision that even if I couldn't find the right people, that I knew that there was three or four of us that we're ride or die kind of a team, that it'd be okay. 

Melissa: What about the case load, though? 

Jimmy: Well, I knew I could manage that. I mean, I could either transfer cases or whatever, you know, I mean, that's not the hard part in making that decision, because most of those people wanted to stay with me anyway, most of those clients. And so, but I'm of the philosophy that I always let, almost always, almost always, if an attorney's leaving the office, they if the client wants to go with them, that's fine. I don't fight over that kind of stuff typically.

Melissa: Well, no, I mean, like what if what if the load was too great for the few of you that were left behind? 

Jimmy: Well, we just don't let that happen. I mean, and the team that would have been left behind in this hypothetical, we would have managed that. I mean, I'm smiling as I say that because we would have met the moment. I mean, the three or four of us core group would have met that moment, and all of us are hard workers, and we would have just done it. 

Melissa: Did you have to bill more hours because of the load after the attorneys walked? Or you let them walk. 

Jimmy: Yeah, because you know, I'm picking up their slack and whatnot, but I care so much that it's probably my Achilles heel. I mean, because I care so much and so do these other core people on my team, that we just jumped on everything and made sure that it was fine. You know, and sometimes you issue refunds, you give people credits or whatever, and you know, even if they don't quote, “have it coming”, it's just the right thing to do. So we made a lot of, you know, and we had a lot of success actually coming out of that for people, you know, and so it was a, it was a great bonding time for that core group of, you know, the these three to four, five of us.

And so, but it's a really hard decision to make. But once you make that decision and you start to then, then it all starts to work. You know, but you have to commit to that. And once you commit to it, then you can really start to build what you, the entrepreneurs out there are listening, then you can build what you really are trying to build. 

Melissa: One of those key team members was, is still a paralegal.

Jimmy: Correct. She's a board-certified paralegal. 

Melissa: She is your right hand. 

Jimmy: A hundred… She's what we call our Donna from Suits. Yes. I mean, she is, she's, I'd put her up against any paralegal in the state of Texas. 

Melissa: I will tell you, I have never met a paralegal like her. Ever. I haven't. I mean, I know I'm not in the work, but you can tell. You can tell. Well, and that's what we'll get to some of the things that she's been leading and doing in the firm. It's like, man, I mean, you can just tell how good she is.

Jimmy: The combination of caring and strategy and skill, I mean, you just don't find that. She's special.

Melissa: She really is. So that was one of the core team members. And then an office admin? 

Jimmy: Yes. And she's what I call my day wife. Her name is Dina. We can talk about Dina. And Dina's been with me since my Spanish law firm days, and we've been working together for gosh, 20 plus years. And then Jenni, my wife. So that was really the core team, yeah.

Melissa: Okay, there's two elements that when I met you guys and when you came for your retreat, because I really didn't meet you much. I had a couple calls with you prior to getting into a room with you. Most of my conversation was with Jenni. 

Jimmy: That's a story, too, that first Zoom conference you and I had. Yeah. I had as you know, I was having a bad day with one of those team members. And I did not want to meet you. Let's just be honest. I mean, I didn't want to have anything to do with Velocity and all my wife was putting me, voluntelling me to do it. And you were so gracious in that first call because that was a therapy session.

I mean, you know, because it, I had at that point, I'd lost a key member that I thought was going to be really important. And it turned out to work out really well and for that attorney and for us and everybody. But that was a hard day and you took what was probably supposed to be a 20-minute hi, I'm Melissa, and an introductory call. And I think you stayed on that with me for about an hour and a half. And you really listened, and that made a difference. I mean, it really did.

Melissa: I mean, well, it was good for me to hear that because then you start learning, I really learning what is going on. And you were, you were an open book.

Jimmy: I didn't know who you were. I was just like, okay. But you just hit me at the right moment. 

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. Well, there, so once we got to spend time together in the room for two days. First of all, I must say this because it left such an impression on Mika and myself, my team and I, when you, we always, often we will do a history. We'll sort of write out your history. We'll go year by year. We'll ask you questions, what changed and it's good for the owner to see the whole story on a timeline because you just been doing what you do, you know? And telling that story can be really powerful. 

Your timeline, I mean, first of all, it took a while because there's so much, there's a lot of weight all along the way. It's not, a lot of times I'm leading these and it's like, "Well, in 2014, we moved to a new office space. 2015, I hired a paralegal." Like that's kind of how this will go. And it's my job to pull more out of them. But you guys had incredible story after story after story. And some of them were client-related, but it was important. It's like a mark in your history. And that was, it was incredible. It felt like listening to a movie. 

Jimmy: Well, to put that into context, as I don't always talk about me, but just to talk about me for a second, as I started out in this conversation initially, I came to family law with a significant amount of jury trial experience, not just courtroom experience. I had, at that point, 89 jury trials to my credit. I mean, the courtroom was my living room. I mean, I was extremely comfortable in the courtroom. And to say that I valued being creative was an understatement.

I, you know, I used to train prosecutors. I got to the point where, you've seen my boxing gloves in my office, and it has that used to be the award that I would give to the prosecutors that I was training to be the scrappiest and the most creative in trial. And that just became my, you know, my reputation. 

I brought that to family law, and it is a true statement in 2015, I didn't know anything about family law. And so I started taking every opportunity to go to court. And that's where that journey sort of began. Now it started in Spanish. That's a whole side rail conversation. But when I came to the quote "English market" in 2015, because I was 11 years before that, I was a bilingual Spanish-speaking attorney doing a Spanish bilingual law firm, whereas where I got introduced to family law.

And in 2015 then  I say I jumped into the English market. I was probably one of the most experienced trial litigators in the family law market without direct experience in family law. So, similar to when I was a prosecutor, I wanted to try the biggest, baddest criminal defense names. I just wanted to see if you could beat me. And that's what I started doing. I mean, you know, those clients initially, that became my incubator. That became my teacher because I wanted to see what you could do.

And I took everything to trial. I mean, I did not make friends. I frustrated a lot of those attorneys and because I came from the Spanish-speaking world, those attorneys in the quote "English market" had no idea who I was. But I was scrappy and, you know, and I learned very fast. And, you know, and I was voraciously studying family law and the statutes and the codes and listening to whatever there wasn't such a thing back then as podcasts, but I mean, I, you know, I was grabbing anything and everything voraciously and consuming family law. I was going and watching trials. I was observing and anything I could.

So, that's why that journey got to be so interesting, because I started getting hired on interesting things. And honestly, back in the day, I didn't care what I got paid. If you were that name on the other side, I was like, "I'm in."

And I told you about that period of time in my career where I started seeing super lawyers. You know, this concept of a Texas super lawyer on the other side of a case, and I was like, "What's that?" And I was like, "I'm pretty good in trial. I mean, I can handle trial." I started winning by that, you know, I started having success for clients in trial, and I was like, "What are those?"

And so I started intentionally hunting out, and I'm going to say that word, I started intentionally hunting for cases where on the other side, that was a Texas super lawyer, because I wanted to see what they could do. And we ended up in some interesting situations like that, which made for some great stories that you're talking about. I don't know if we can talk about those on air. But it made for some really interesting stories, and I can talk about this.

I called that my "scalp years." There was a period of about three to four years where definitively all I wanted to do was try cases against Texas super lawyers. And turns out they weren't that great. Some of them just, you know, and I then I went on a mission to become one. I was like, "I wanted to change and embody what a Texas super lawyer really was." 

And eventually, I was able to accomplish that goal, and that there were two credentials, probably professional recognitions over the course of time, that really meant something to me. One was getting board-certified, and that matters. That's hard. Getting board-certified in Texas is a credential that people should not underemphasize. It requires a lot of experience, which that's another story, but I was able to get that in the jury trials that I needed because now I've got 116 jury trials to my credit, and I think 14 of those in family law. And then the super lawyers, because it meant so much to me to go litigate against those super lawyers, becoming one, and sort of carrying that banner into the courtroom invisibly, like, meant something to me. You know, so that's why there was all those interesting stories. 

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, you've said you were just collecting scalps. 

Jimmy: I just wanted to scalp the other lawyers, yeah.

Melissa: And then, and then there was a point, I don't, if you don't want this in here, we don't have to say it, but somebody put their arm around you at some point. I was like, "Okay, man, we get it." 

Jimmy: There's a good friend and mentor of mine. I wish I could say his name, but yeah, one day he literally put his arm around me. And he's known for humor. And, you know, and he tells jokes all the time, and his way of settling and working cases, and let's just call it what it is, getting for his clients what they need, is through being funny and building relationships and being transparent about that, because at that point, he could carry a case in the courtroom too. You know, and everybody knew that. 

And he pulled me aside and basically quietly told me, "We all see that you can do what you can do in the courtroom. You need to stop being an asshole. You know, and try it this way." Because he was telling me like, "I can see like, you're a good person." Like privately, he and I got along really, really well. And I just didn't know any other way but to just hard charge and just go into court and be aggressive.

And that was a professional game-changing moment when he pulled me aside like that. And then I started focusing on building relationships with other attorneys, the collegiality of it all, you know, and working cases, because now I know I can carry it in the courtroom. So then it became more about combining both about getting along with other attorneys and building that rapport. And I can honestly say now, I think I've got a lot of really good relationships with our bar. 

Melissa: Did it take a long time for people to warm up to you? 

Jimmy: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Melissa: So, okay, so yeah, the whole history timeline that we did at your retreat. And then, there's two things that really seemed to come out of that. One, obviously, you were very focused on creating the culture that you wanted to see in your firm and building that. And yeah, you say you didn't know how to do it, but my job is to pull out of your head like how do you do that? What do you care about? And we, there's some good ideas came out of you and Jenni that day. But also the data, you mentioned. So I think it's good to give people some insight that there's a spreadsheet that we have that plans production.

Jimmy: It's not just a spreadsheet. Come on, you're not giving yourself credit. 

Melissa: Well, it is a spreadsheet. So we had it on the TV. And as you're looking at it, it felt like all of a sudden things crystallized for you. 

Jimmy: Yeah, you know, I was trying to think of how to, because I knew we were going to talk about this. And yesterday, the best way I could think about it is working, that retreat and seeing that data, it's kind of like if you get a full body scan and the most amazing full body scan you can get, right? And it tells you what's wrong with your body. That's where I was. Like, I had analyzed my systems, my self, the business. But what you did was you added an element. Imagine if you could do that body scan and then it gives you the following instructions to just fix it. Right?

Like so, you were the next level. Like you and the data and putting all that together, not only showed us the body scan and data form, like it came to life, but then we were able to develop the plan. You know, from, you talk about on your podcast all the time, from rocks and, you know, and all the systems that you helped us actually put into place, that made all the difference in the world.

It makes an entrepreneur like myself who was already ready to launch, it went from being scary to, "Well, this is a no-brainer." Like, "Okay, so if we do this, like this is." The level of data just made it easy to start making those decisions. I mean, it took the risk out of it. 

Melissa: That's a great way to say that. It de-risks it. And I'd say often, facts not feelings, because I don't know how people move forward without seeing that. I think I don't, it's hard to move forward in the best ways if you don't have a crystal clear view of what you're walking or what you're intending as you walk forward. 

Jimmy: Yeah, and we need to give Mika credit. Because you guys…

Melissa: Oh, Mika is amazing.

Jimmy: You guys were so, at that first retreat, you had taken so much information, and it felt like you truly knew us. 

Melissa: Yeah. 

Jimmy: And I don't know how much work was involved behind the scenes for y'all to do that, but I mean, it made a difference because when we sat with you guys, and I'll say it again, I fully intended to walk out of there saying, "Thank you, but no thanks." And I had no idea we were going to continue working together. But y'all really, y'all knew us. I mean, you knew the history. I mean, it was fun telling the whole arc story. You didn't know that, but I mean, but you knew so much about us, and you knew where we were, and you knew the numbers. I mean, it just felt like you knew us. And you knew me. And that was the first day we'd met, other than that Zoom conference, and being in my hot tub. And it just made a difference. 

And watching how in sync you and Mika were and her command of the Excel and the spreadsheet, because for your listeners, if you sit down and do that, it starts to become, "Well, what if we move this here or what if we go here?" Or "What if we pay this person that?" Or "What if we put this in the budget?" I mean, it was at such a micro level. And then she had the ability through your presentation to put it at the macro level, that it just became zero risk to make those decisions when we left there to start putting this plan in place. 

Melissa: Yeah. I mean, and for those of you who don't know, Mika is our client services director. We have a client services team, but at the time, in her role, she was really in the, she was my right hand in retreats. And she still is for some clients, but she's amazing. Our whole team. I love our team so much. They're so good at what they do. And she is, back then it was just her and I doing client services. Yeah. I mean, in the room.   

Jimmy: It was in such sync that it made a difference. You know, because it wasn't clunky, it wasn't, I mean, whenever we were asking something, she was already ahead of it. Like, I mean, it was just an amazing synchronization and alignment between the two of you. And the command of our data, like it just made such a difference. So that, it was so it made the, those day and a half or those two days very productive. 

Melissa: I could not deliver what the client needs without Mika. There's no way. She's a rockstar, total rockstar. The other thing, there was data. So there was something that crystallized for you with the data. I saw it too. There was like a light bulb where you were like. 

Jimmy: A switch just totally went on. I mean, I was like, 

Melissa: And you said, "What if we do X?" And we would plug in what you were asking, and it would show you the result, and you were like, "That's what we're doing." 

Jimmy: I was like, "We're doing it." 

Melissa: That's it. Yeah. Which I will say again, I we talked about this a little bit yesterday and what I'm I'm hopeful that certain people will hear will hear on this podcast is you feel the fear and do it anyway. Name your thing. You feel the fear and you do it anyway.

And there is fear when people see those numbers. There's all kinds of doubt that creeps in for a normal human. That's a that is a normal human occurrence, which is, you know, "There's no way I'm going to be able to get people to hit those the number of hours. There's no way I could pay people more. There's no way I don't see a path forward with training them to where they need to be," which we're about to move into because you developed something pretty cool for that.

It's like the thoughts that cross their mind crush the possibility. Even though they're looking at the numbers and this is what need to be done, in their head, there's too many barriers to actually making that a reality. I don't know. I mean, I think it's how you're built. I think it's how you're wired. But I don't know if you have anything that you can share to people who they feel stuck, even though they can see the writing on the wall. They just have all kinds of reasons in their head why that's a pipe dream. 

Jimmy: Well, my dad raised us on a saying that "can't never did nothing." And when you hold yourself hostage by coming up with every excuse to not move forward, can't never did nothing. And so, you know, there's that famous Bob Newhart video on YouTube, "Stop It," if you've never seen it. I use it in my practice all the time where, you know, it basically is a funny way of that definition of insanity, doing things the same way and expecting a different result. And if your listeners who are entrepreneurs are stuck in that cycle, that's what's going to happen. And they need to watch that Bob Newhart video. Just stop it. 

But here's the key, is the data, the way that y'all gave the data, and you weren't just pitching us. I mean, let's be clear. You weren't just pitching us. You were giving us real raw, I'm telling you, it was like an MRI. I mean, and it was, and from that, we were able to use that because the data was so good. And that we were able to pivot from that, and because we were already trying to launch and figure out the next path, we were able to define core values, core missions, our mission statement. We had hired an attorney like that very day based on that data that you had given us. I was like, "All right, we're going to make an offer. Let's hire him." 

Melissa: Yeah, day one, you saw that. Day two, you came back, and you're like, "He accepted the position." 

Jimmy: He accepted the offer, and you know, and so we plugged him into the matrix of the data, and we're like, "We're going to make this work." And also from that day, we were able to come up with this training idea because you hit it on it, based on the history, turnover was just a key. And we had to address that.

And so, and that's where this whole new training stuff came in because we realized in our self-assessment that we were missing something. We were just hiring people and the mistake that I was making was expecting them to just read my mind. And why aren't you doing it my way? And I'm off in my office, they're in their offices, you've hired two or three people, and you just expect them to know.

And it and through our retreat and the self, honest self-assessment, you've got to do a raw self-assessment. And if you're able to do that and realize where you're failing, right, and not contributing in the right way or doing it in a not successful way, maybe that's the way to say it, and you've got to be willing to change that. And that's where we came up with the incubator idea.

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