Expert Tips for Financial and Succession Planning for Law Firm Owners

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Law firm owners looking to soar in financial success need more than just legal expertise; they require a keen understanding of financial planning and business management. In the episode of BLIP Podcast, hosts Jacob Tingen and Travis Richins, alongside esteemed guest Darren Wurz, delve into the pivotal strategies for transitioning from sole legal practitioners to savvy business owners who effectively manage their practice, scale their wealth, and prepare for a successful sale. Listen now to unravel the wealth of knowledge that can transform your practice into a legacy.

Strategize for the Long Game – Developing Your Financial Plan:

Darren Wurz discusses the larger-than-life benefits of specialized financial planning for law firm owners. From constructing investment portfolios to planning for a comfortable retirement, the insights shared in this episode are priceless. As a Certified Financial Planner with a rich background in aiding attorneys, Darren pinpoints the unique needs of entrepreneurs in the legal field and how to address them with targeted financial strategies.

Elevating Law Firm Value – Expert Insights on Practice Sales:

Darren brings to the table a crucial perspective on the sales process of a law practice. Whether it’s about the sale’s timing or handling the transition smoothly, this discussion underscores the significance of aligning with a buyer who fits the mold – respecting staff, clients, and the existing brand is key. Learn about the intricacies of what truly adds value to a law practice, including the non-negotiable elements like client relationships and internal systems.

Leveraging Technology and Outsourcing for Efficiency:

Automation and delegation are the silent heroes of today’s successful business. Darren emphasizes the role of tech tools like Easy Webinar and the power of virtual assistants to streamline workflows and enhance productivity. Grasp why offloading tasks can help you reclaim your time and focus on high-impact activities that foster growth.

The Podcast Resources That Can Catapult Your Success:

Darren directs listeners to a wealth of resources, from influential books like “The Small Law Firm Roadmap” to his own podcast, The Lawyer Millionaire, and website, thelawyermillionaire.com, to equip law firm owners with the knowledge needed for financial triumph. Additionally, the duo discusses the advantages of tapping into non-lawyer expertise, such as fractional CFOs and business management teams, to significantly bolster the firm’s value and readiness for sale.

Engage, Convert, Succeed – Mastering Virtual Webinars:

The digital transformation has made virtual webinars a goldmine for client acquisition. Darren shares how understanding your audience is the key to keep them hooked throughout your presentation. Our hosts also reveal how tools by EasyWebinar can spice up your webinars with engaging offers and interactive sessions, while effective marketing channels like LinkedIn events and strategic email cadences will drive your registrations through the roof.

Darren Wurz, Jacob Tingen, and Travis Richins dive deep into the essentials of climbing the ladder of financial success as a law firm owner. By embracing sound financial planning, valuing your practice, leveraging technology, and harvesting the wisdom shared throughout The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast series, you have the blueprint required for a prosperous future. Don’t miss out on the invaluable advice from this episode – tune in, take notes, and prepare to elevate your practice to millionaire status.

Transcript:

Jacob Tingen [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Blip, the business litigation and intellectual property podcast. We are very excited today to introduce you to Darren Wurz, who specializes in financial planning for law firm owners. He is a certified financial planner, and he specializes in helping the unique financial planning needs of those in the legal profession. He is the host of the Lawyer Millionaire podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts, and the author of the Lawyers Millionaire, the complete guide for attorneys on maximizing wealth, minimizing taxes, and retiring with confidence. We are so excited to talk with Darren. Darren, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for coming on.

Darren Wurz [00:00:41]:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Travis [00:00:44]:
We’re really excited to have a conversation with.

Jacob Tingen [00:00:47]:
Good, good. Let’s talk about law stuff and business stuff.

Travis [00:00:53]:
Okay, so, yeah, I mean, we read this from your bio, but tell me how it was, what the networking was like when you started throwing yourself into that. When I met you, you’re the package. You’ve written your own book. You’ve got your look. You’ve got your podcasting studio, a mic that’s better than ours. Well, at least bigger. Like everything, right? So what was it like at the beginning, and how was that journey?

Darren Wurz [00:01:21]:
Oh, man, it has been such a journey. And if you ask me back then, if I envisioned myself here and doing this, I would have had no idea. I had no idea at the time where things were going. But the biggest struggle for me, I was a teacher for five years, as we were talking about, and it was kind of crazy because I lived in this world of working with kids and education, and I really had no exposure to the business world at all. And when I decided to kind of go out and leave teaching and start my own financial planning business, it was like, wait a minute. There’s a whole nother world going on while I’m at school teaching. Like, people are doing business and selling things and doing deals. It was like kind of this amazing awakening, but it was really challenging because I did not learn how to network or sell or grow a business or run a business.

Darren Wurz [00:02:26]:
I mean, I was a science teacher, so I was reasonably good with numbers, at least. And then, of course, I had my master’s degree in financial planning. And that relates to the personal side of things. But as far as business and developing a business, I had no background or experience there at all. Now, the one thing I did have that was phenomenally helpful is I had my dad. And so dad started the family business. I came into the family business, but started my own office down in Cincinnati. We’re all from Toledo, Ohio.

Darren Wurz [00:03:00]:
And so he was able to lend a lot of his experience. However, the world that I was coming into was a lot different versus when he was starting in the business in the 1980s, where it was dialing for dollars. You can’t really do that anymore. We have this whole new digital world, and things have become even more digital from that point on. I made the mistake of kind of assuming and thinking that success would just come easy and naturally. I would just put my sign out. Actually, this is a funny story. My first office was my house.

Darren Wurz [00:03:37]:
I had this old historic house that I had bought, and I turned the front room into an office, and I bought a sign on vistaprint and put it out in the front yard. Wurz financial services and my phone number. And I’m like, people are just going to call me, and I’m going to get clients. And boom, bada bing.

Travis [00:03:56]:
Waited for the phone to ring.

Darren Wurz [00:03:58]:
Yeah, not at all. That didn’t work at all. So I quickly realized I have got to find a way to meet people, and I have no idea where to begin. I have no idea who to meet, where to go. And I was fortunate enough to stumble across rotary. I got involved in a rotary club. Through that, I found out about the local chamber, some local business organizations, and there was a time there where it was funny, because people would be like, I see you everywhere. You’re at all the lunches and all the dinners and all the networking groups, all the coffees.

Darren Wurz [00:04:35]:
I literally signed up for every single event and went to all of them. But again, no real experience in sales. So I did a lot of reading about sales and trying to kind of be self taught in that area and how to develop a sales process. But I tell you what, a lot of it just came naturally through getting to know people, and as people had needs or there were opportunities that identified that. I was like, oh, I think I could help you. Then. I was able to work with those people and to gain clients. But, yeah, it was very interesting.

Darren Wurz [00:05:14]:
I cut my teeth for sure, in those first few.

Travis [00:05:21]:
Uh, I have a question. Jacob, I don’t want to interrupt if you had a question, but what this made me wonder is, when you started to meet people, what were the main frustrations, concerns, or challenges that you saw people had that you could solve?

Darren Wurz [00:05:43]:
Well, that definitely has morphed over time, because my ideal client, Avatar, has changed pretty dramatically over time. But initially, some of the things that I identified were people had advisors. They had financial advisors they were working with who they never heard from. A lot of times, it was just a name on a statement. They didn’t have a personal relationship or connection with that person. Sometimes they hadn’t heard from their advisor in, like, three or four years, other than just getting their statements and reports and things. And so it kind of seemed like people were looking for something that was a bit more proactive, that was kind of a really big one for me. Investment performance is always something that people are interested in and concerned about.

Darren Wurz [00:06:33]:
I saw a lot of poorly constructed investment portfolios. I was able to help out in those situations. And one of the things I really enjoyed, because I’m a math and science person and I love numbers, was helping people solve the retirement puzzle, helping them figure out, okay, how do we put all these pieces together between Social Security and our retirement funds and the things we want to do in retirement and the timing of all those things and Medicare. And it was a complex picture. And I enjoy complexity. I enjoy a challenge. And so that was one of the biggest things I was able to help people with initially, was focusing on that transition into retirement and helping people figure out how to fit all the pieces together in a way that felt good and made sense to them and was going to be successful over the long term.

Travis [00:07:28]:
Okay. And you mentioned in your book that you didn’t set out initially to work exclusively or mostly with attorneys. What happened was you started meeting people, and then you looked up and saw, hey, a good portion of my clients are attorneys. And at that point, you asked yourself, what can I do to help my attorney clients specifically? Can you talk a little bit about that and then tell us, what did you conclude? Where could you specifically help attorneys?

Darren Wurz [00:08:04]:
Oh, for sure. And that is continually, even now, still a work in progress, as I try to refine and fine tune my process. But it was definitely a very long journey. In fact, my first thought was that my ideal client was going to be teachers because I was a teacher. And so I thought, well, I’ll create a financial planning business for teachers. I didn’t really have the, I mean, if I did it now, I could probably build something that would be successful because I have a lot more business experience at this point. But the only thing I really knew how to do was call teachers and say, hey, I was a teacher like you. I kind of know some things about what you’re dealing with.

Darren Wurz [00:08:42]:
I think we could work together that wasn’t really successful. Plus, I was a teacher. You were a teacher, Travis. Teachers don’t make great money. So in order to have that kind of a business, you have to really scale big. You have to have a large client base to be successful because you have to have enough revenue, so not really great fit clients for me. And I found out that the clients I really enjoyed working with the most were those that were closer to retirement. So I kind of shifted into focusing on that retirement transition.

Darren Wurz [00:09:15]:
But in the midst of all of that, I was continually learning about what I needed to do to build a successful business. And one of the great friend of mine who I met early on in my networking endeavors, her name is Betsy Kent, and she really helped me. Well, we established an elevator speech, and her whole specialization and expertise is in writing copy for websites, branding, and elevator speeches. And so she helped me come up with my initial 32nd commercial. I don’t remember the first one, so don’t ask me what it, um.

Travis [00:09:53]:
Hey, Darren, what’s your first elevator pitch again? No.

Darren Wurz [00:09:58]:
Oh, boy. It’s written down. Know. But really, the thing I learned from her was you need to have a really well defined, ideal client, and to be successful, you need to have a really well defined niche that you’re going to focus on. And one of the reasons I love talking about all of this with you guys and other attorneys is attorneys and law firm owners have a lot of these same issues that they’re dealing with. And so I can relate on many, many levels that way. Well, it was a challenge for me to identify that because I had no clue what niche I wanted to focus on, what niche I would be successful focusing on. It’s like, well, yeah, sure, I want to focus on billionaires, right? Well, okay, where do you begin with that? Anyway, as the business grew, I met a lot of attorneys through networking, because attorneys do a lot of networking, and it just happened naturally that many of them became clients.

Darren Wurz [00:11:04]:
And as the business was growing, I made a decision that I was going to try and focus. I thought, okay, this is a good idea, a good way to differentiate myself, because the truth of the matter is, there are so many financial advisors, and it is very hard to stand out in the crowd. In law, it’s the same thing. At least you have practice areas. That’s one way to differentiate yourself in financial advising, financial planning, a lot of things are the same for a lot of people. So it is very challenging to stand out. Well, anyway, I was looking through my list of clients, and I was like, okay, what are some commonalities? What are some groups that I could maybe focus on? And I was like, okay, I have a good representation of lawyers. Let’s focus on lawyers.

Darren Wurz [00:11:51]:
And so I started doing CLE presentations with the local bar association on different financial topics related to lawyers. And law firm owners, tax planning, retirement planning, and I teamed up with a business coach so that we created this series called business for breakfast. And we would alternate month by month. She would do some business topics, I would do some personal planning topics. And that was a really great experience. We had a lot of interest. And in fact, my number one attended presentation was retirement planning for lawyers. And I was like, okay, maybe there’s something here, right? There seems to be a lot of interest in this topic.

Darren Wurz [00:12:36]:
Well, this was like, 2018, 2019. And then I’m sure you remember what happened in 2020. We had a pandemic.

Jacob Tingen [00:12:46]:
Yeah.

Darren Wurz [00:12:48]:
And while it was a terrible thing for the whole world, of course there were some good things that came out of it. And one of those good things is it challenged many of us to rethink the way we do things. And it challenged me to rethink my whole business strategy and develop a new business strategy, because my whole strategy before had been built on networking, and of course, networking was dead. So I said, okay, I need to build a virtual business. So I started doing webinars. I was doing webinars on retirement planning for law firm owners, tax planning for law firm owners, different things. And really, it wasn’t yet law firm owners specifically. It was still kind know lawyers in general, but those went really well.

Darren Wurz [00:13:35]:
And I started getting clients all over the country, from the east coast to the west coast and everywhere in between. And it was very interesting. So that was just more evidence to me that there was a successful approach here. There was a business here to be created. And as I’ve developed beyond that, I’ve realized that I need to hone in even more specifically, and not just focusing on lawyers in general, but really focusing on law firm owners specifically, because law firm owners are a unique subset, and there are lots of different groups within lawyers. I mean, big law attorneys have different needs and challenges than law firm owners, and then there are other possible groups you could think of as well. But I really love working with law firm owners because there’s this entrepreneurial spirit, there’s this growth mindedness, and the traditional notions of, I want to retire at 65, get thrown out the window, because that’s not really how law firm owners are thinking. Some of them may be thinking that way, but a lot of times they’re more thinking, I want to scale my business, and then I want to maybe move into more of a leadership position where I can stay involved in the business but enjoy more of my free time while collecting some passive income.

Darren Wurz [00:14:59]:
And then at some point later down the road, perhaps sell my share of the business and exit completely. So it’s really a different way of thinking about future planning, and it’s just really exciting to work with those folks.

Jacob Tingen [00:15:15]:
So I have a question about the webinars because I’m really interested to the marketing that you did. Right. So what platform did you do the webinars on, and then what kind of tips and tricks did you learn as you did those?

Darren Wurz [00:15:30]:
Oh, great question. Easy. Webinar was the platform that I used, and it is really a great platform. One of the challenges with webinars is you want to be able to connect with your attendees. That is critical. And so you have to have a registration page, you have to have a way that people have to register for the event so that you can collect their information, and then you have a way to send them follow up information and stay in touch with them. The other thing about webinars is the follow up is critical. Typically with a webinar, I would send three follow up emails with an offer, like a free financial planning session or something like that.

Darren Wurz [00:16:16]:
And you’d be surprised the number of people that it took them until the third email to finally respond. I didn’t want to go more than three because I didn’t want to be a huge pest. But you’re going to get some people that are annoyed by those follow up emails, but you need to do those follow up emails because people are thinking about it. Sometimes they just need that gentle reminder that, hey, thanks for coming to the webinar. If you haven’t yet signed up for your free planning session, here’s the link. I’d love to chat with you. Something very simple like that. But that’s really the thing, is that follow up is really critical.

Jacob Tingen [00:16:57]:
And did you take a course to kind of figure out the webinar piece, or did you just kind of read about it yourself, dive into that one platform? Like, how did you pick the platform? Because as with everything, it’s a learning process. Like, you didn’t just wake up one day and suddenly know how to do a successful webinar. So I’m kind of curious what your mistakes were on the way and kind of like how you landed there.

Darren Wurz [00:17:19]:
Well, the program I used was easy webinar. I found out about them through a marketing agency I was using called Indigo marketing, which they were a marketing agency for financial advisors specifically. And they actually helped me create my first webinar, which was retirement planning for attorneys. Once I saw how they did it, I learned, yeah. And I was like, okay, now I can replicate this because I can see how they do it and kind of maybe how I want to tweak it, make it a little bit better. And easy webinar also had a great set of trainings that you could do, and so they taught you how to do things, and the platform is very intuitive in terms of how you set it up. They show you how to set up your follow up. They have kind of a whole system for doing it.

Darren Wurz [00:18:06]:
Now, I will add this caveat here. I think that webinars have, while I think they can still be successful, I think that they have become less successful over the last couple of years. I think Covid was a great time for them to be successful because people had free time and they weren’t going anywhere.

Jacob Tingen [00:18:30]:
Right.

Darren Wurz [00:18:31]:
So that helped. Yeah, but it’s hard to get people to sign up for and stay on a 30 minutes webinar. There are people that will do it, but you want to be clear about who those people are, really identify who they are and make sure that they’re going to stick around. There are some other kind of unique tips and tricks with it because you want to keep them engaged throughout the webinar. Right. So one of the cool things about easy webinar is you can have offers that go out during the webinar, or you can give them certain things during the webinar and you can interact with them during the webinar. So that engagement piece is really critical to kind of keep them around. There’s a lot of challenges.

Darren Wurz [00:19:20]:
You got to first get them to sign up, then you got to get them to show up.

Jacob Tingen [00:19:25]:
Right.

Darren Wurz [00:19:26]:
Then you got to do the follow up. There’s a lot of steps involved. Yeah, but it can be very successful.

Travis [00:19:32]:
Where did you market the webinar in the first place? Was that done through easy webinar, or did you market other places for the webinar?

Darren Wurz [00:19:40]:
I just blasted it out on my social media channels. LinkedIn, you can create an event and you can invite all your connections. So that’s one way to do it. The other thing that was tremendously successful was that I teamed up with somebody else, and that is always a recipe for. Well, not always, but that’s a great recipe for success. I teamed up with a CPA for tax planning, and so we were able to cross market each other’s audiences. The other thing I did is I blasted it out to my email list. So I have like a thousand people on my email list, and I was able to blast it out to them.

Darren Wurz [00:20:19]:
A series of invitations, like three invitations three weeks out two weeks out, one week out. And that was a great way to get people to show up. But teaming up with somebody else, either a company or a professional, that’s really smart, because you instantly gain exposure to a whole nother audience.

Jacob Tingen [00:20:39]:
I like that. That’s good advice. In terms of your presentation, one of the things I read about you is that you have a calming effect, and it’s true. I found this in your website, right. And I thought, that’s an interesting thing to say about yourself, but it’s true. And so my question is, is this just how you’ve always been, or is this a skill you developed, and how did you do that?

Darren Wurz [00:21:04]:
It is really interesting to hear you say that because I’ve never heard that said before, and I think I’m always curious how I come across to people. I’ve never really thought about what that is. It’s kind of like hearing your own voice. You hear your own voice and you’re like, ew, is that really how I sound? But other people have a totally different perspective, so I appreciate your compliment very much. I’m glad I have that effect, and maybe that is a good thing to have. You want to be exciting, but with financial services, with law, it’s really a business of trust, and you really have to convey that and give people confidence in you.

Travis [00:21:54]:
And I think retirement planning is emotional for a lot of people.

Darren Wurz [00:21:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Travis [00:22:00]:
So there’s a lot of anxiety already tied up in, oh, you’re going to talk to me. Even before this podcast, I was like, here comes the anxiety of retirement planning. I’m like, no, I want to work till I die, man. So I think having that calming effect probably helps also just let people settle into what can be a high anxiety topic.

Jacob Tingen [00:22:25]:
I didn’t make this up. I read it somewhere when I was hunting down information about you. It must be a client testimonial or something. Somebody else said, calming effect. And then listening to you. Maybe it’s because you were a teacher. I don’t know, but I have a tendency to talk too fast.

Travis [00:22:42]:
Financial planning, asmr with Darren words.

Darren Wurz [00:22:46]:
I think the microphone helped. You know what?

Jacob Tingen [00:22:48]:
Yeah, totally. Totally.

Travis [00:22:52]:
Hey, so, okay. I really enjoy the conversation about your journey in marketing, and if there’s more, let’s dive into it. But there’s a bunch of topics. So you have a book. It’s right there behind your shoulder. The lawyer. There it is. I have my own copy.

Travis [00:23:09]:
I like it. And one thing in here I wanted to ask you about, and this is not really financial planning for lawyers. But I guess it is. This is a retirement totally issue, which is how do you sell your law practice? So you have a section in here where you talk about, hey, there’s a lot of baby boomers getting ready, and they should get some value out of that practice they’ve built up. So what are your recommendations there? And then also, do you have recommendations or insights for people who are interested in buying a law firm?

Darren Wurz [00:23:41]:
Yeah, definitely. So how much time do you have? Because we could do a whole presentation on that.

Travis [00:23:47]:
Okay, maybe we have you back on to do that.

Darren Wurz [00:23:49]:
Yeah, absolutely. But to give you some high points, first of all, I think from the selling perspective is just the awareness that you can sell your practice. So many law firm owners do not sell their practices. They just kind of wrap up the business, and that’s it as far as their retirement goes. But you really can, and you deserve to be compensated for the hard work that you have created, that you’ve built. I love reading business books, and right now I’m reading the book ten x is easier than two x. And they said something very interesting in there, which is that wealth and money are different. And the reason that they’re different is that there is a finite supply of money, but wealth is infinite.

Darren Wurz [00:24:49]:
And let me explain. I’ll tell you how they explain that. Basically, they explain that in terms of, you can create wealth out of nothing, essentially out of your hard work, right? If you have a rusty old car sitting in your garage and it’s not working, you spend some time fixing it up, maybe you put a little bit of money into it, but for the most part, it’s your blood, sweat, and tears renewing and refurbishing that vehicle. You have created value out of thin air. And it’s the same thing with a business. When you create a business. What is a business? A business is just a collection of ideas. It’s just a message.

Darren Wurz [00:25:29]:
It’s just systems and processes. Then these are not tangible things that you can touch and taste and feel. These are ideas. And you can create these ideas, and you can create these messages, and you can build these audiences out of basically nothing. And you have created value and you have created wealth. And it’s phenomenal to think about.

Travis [00:25:52]:
I really like that idea. I want to just interject a second, because Jacob often talks about what’s called an abundance mindset. So, Jacob, come on, tell us about an abundance mindset, because I think it sounds a whole lot like this idea of. So money can be fighting over that pie can feel like a zero sum game, whereas creating wealth, I think, is an abundance mindset.

Darren Wurz [00:26:15]:
Yes.

Jacob Tingen [00:26:17]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of times when we talk, like even something like this, this blip podcast, some lawyers might think you’re going to invite other lawyers on and have them talk about their business. That’s completely insane. But it’s not. So we primarily do immigration. But if I would invite other immigration lawyers to talk with me about different issues, and it’s not a zero sum game where there are winners and losers. There’s enough out there where everyone can win. And there’s so much need for services and for things to be done.

Jacob Tingen [00:26:52]:
It’s kind of mind blowing that there aren’t more people starting businesses because there is so much work that can just, like you say, kind of generated out of thin air. But where there’s a need, there are so many needs for so many different services and things throughout the world that I think that there’s plenty of space for that. So the abundance mindset is kind of like that. And this is the thing, I guess, in a weird sense, on earth, there’s a finite amount of land, of arable land, right? And I think I read somewhere that we only use 2% of it, which is kind of insane. But the other thing is, though, when it comes to businesses and intellectual property and just creation, there’s no finite area of land. It is infinite. And so everybody can go out and work in those fields. It does not matter.

Jacob Tingen [00:27:44]:
And so that’s the abundance mindset to me.

Darren Wurz [00:27:47]:
Yeah, I love it. That’s really fantastic. And so true. You’re right. There is so much unmet need. There’s way more money being self managed than being managed by advisors. You know what I mean? There are so many people not getting legal services or trying to figure it out on their own who could be getting those legal services. So it’s not like, oh, my goodness, this attorney over here is going to steal my clients.

Darren Wurz [00:28:19]:
No, there are plenty more clients.

Jacob Tingen [00:28:23]:
Yeah. It’s always interesting when. Sorry, Travis. It’s always interesting when we meet. Sometimes clients will come and go. And in the immigration sector in particular, immigrants tend to, I mean, they’ll change lawyers, right? They’ll talk to their friend or their cousin and be like, oh, my lawyer is great. And they’ll just change for whatever reason. And I remember the first time it happened to me, I was a little surprised, maybe a little hurt, whatever, because as a young attorney, but then I remember talking to an older lawyer who’s like, oh, yeah, sometimes I’ll have clients bounce back around.

Jacob Tingen [00:28:57]:
Like, I just don’t make a big deal out of it, because like you said, there’s so many clients. People come, people go. You just keep doing great work and good things will happen.

Travis [00:29:07]:
Absolutely.

Darren Wurz [00:29:08]:
I applaud that 100%. We’ve had clients come and go. They want to do something different. Hey, you want to do something different? Great. Why not? Who am I to stop you? You know what I mean? Why not? But, Travis, we’re on a tangent here, but I’ll get back to what you wanted to talk about here, which is the succession planning. A few things that really are critical to think about. Number one, if you’re going to sell your practice, you want to start thinking about it early on. Ideally, start thinking about it at the beginning, when you actually begin your practice, when you set up that operating agreement.

Darren Wurz [00:29:45]:
Right? Oh, and by the way, do you have an operating agreement? Make sure you have one. Make sure, dust it off, find it, find out where it is and update it if you need to. Another critical aspect of selling your practice is you have to keep good financial records. So those business financials have got to be up to date. They’ve got to be cleaned up. You want to have a bookkeeper, you need to have somebody looking over those things, handling those things for you. If you have a credit card where you’re buying personal and business stuff on that same card, intermingled, cut that out. Get those things separated from the branding perspective, think about how you can brand your firm, because what you’re selling, what are you selling? Right.

Darren Wurz [00:30:37]:
You can’t sell client relationships, but you can encourage the transition of client relationships. Okay. So that’s the tricky thing about selling a practice, is the client relationships and the continuity of the practice and how good you are at that is going to determine how much value you can get for your practice. From the branding side of things, think about how you brand. Right. Are the clients tied to you? Oftentimes that’s the case. Clients are tied to you. Right.

Darren Wurz [00:31:15]:
What’s the name of your practice? If my practice is Darren Wurz, attorney at law, that is a very difficult practice to sell.

Travis [00:31:24]:
You got to find another Darren Wurz.

Darren Wurz [00:31:26]:
Yes. So how can we make it more marketable? There are places now, not every place. There are some places where you can’t have, what do they call, market names or something like that. But a lot of places, a lot of jurisdictions, you can have market names. So you could be Riverside divorce attorneys. Right. Or whatever it is, something generic like that, that’s going to be more marketable. Someone else can buy that and it can still be the same company.

Darren Wurz [00:31:59]:
If that’s not possible for you, think about just putting your last name in there, and maybe it’s Wurz. Attorneys at law or firms and associates or something like that, you know what I mean? So that it is more marketable. And then the branding, you got to think about the overall brand, cleaning up that brand, tying the clients and their work more to the firm. And if you’re a solo and you’re the only person doing all the work, it’s hard to sell your practice. But if you can bring on an associate, bring on a great paralegal, a couple of other attorneys who are kind of sharing the burden and sharing the workload, so that when I have a client, they’re not just meeting with me. Maybe some of their meetings are with me, but some of their meetings are also with Susan or George or the other attorneys in the firm are also involved. So that way when I go to sell the practice, there’s continuity there. And it’s not just keeping the clients and making sure that those relationships transfer is really important.

Darren Wurz [00:33:04]:
And that takes time. But also important is your people. So your brand is important? Yes, and that’s valuable. What is valuable about your practice? That’s a whole nother topic we could get on and talk about. But your goodwill in the community, your reputation, your connections, your network, your client relationships, obviously, and of course, your people. If you have a great paralegal who knows your systems and procedures, who knows your clients and knows your business, that’s extremely valuable, right? That person is extremely valuable. And making sure that they stay on through the transition is going to be key. Last thing I’ll say on selling a practice is that it is a slow transition.

Darren Wurz [00:33:51]:
It’s not a transaction. No matter how you do it, you have to have enough time. I suggest getting started three to five years before the actual handoff takes place so that you can start getting things prepared.

Travis [00:34:06]:
When you say that, you mean three to five years, even involved with the buyer, not necessarily.

Darren Wurz [00:34:14]:
The buyer could be less time. But from a seller’s perspective, there are things you need to start doing much earlier on to get the firm even ready to consider a buyer. Right. As far as working with the buyer, from people that I’ve talked with now, succession planning is not really my main thing I deal with. How does that impact your personal planning? But as far as actually, like, pulling off the actual succession, I have professionals that I refer people to and I’ve talked with those people, and it seems to be the time frame from the buyer’s perspective is usually like one to two years, somewhere in that range.

Travis [00:34:53]:
Okay.

Jacob Tingen [00:34:53]:
Right. Because there are a lot of pieces that need to be discussed in that transition.

Darren Wurz [00:34:57]:
Right.

Jacob Tingen [00:34:58]:
There’s just a lot that needs to be handed off because it’s not just buying a product that I now get to sell. It’s definitely client relationships.

Darren Wurz [00:35:07]:
Yes. And systems. And so that’s another thing. The more systematized your practice is, the more you have templates and processes and workflows in place, the easier that handoff is going to be.

Jacob Tingen [00:35:22]:
Yeah.

Travis [00:35:25]:
So if somebody’s running a solo practice and they’re hearing this and they’re interested in selling, I guess they can come to you and you can at least point them in the right direction and help them do the personal finance side of things that they need to do and then get them in the right hands so that they can start to take the steps necessary to make a succession plan.

Darren Wurz [00:35:47]:
Yeah. There are a lot of great places you can look. One of my favorite places to look is thelawpracticeexchange.com. My friend Tom Lenfesty runs that program, and he’s great at connecting buyers and sellers. I love that you’re asking the buyer question, because I think this is kind of a new concept in the small law firm world. But it could be a fantastic way to grow your business, to acquire another practice. And I have seen attorneys do it. An attorney law firm owner I know in Cincinnati, that was his main growth tactic, was to acquire smaller practices and just to kind of bring them in and grow kind of a larger organization.

Darren Wurz [00:36:34]:
It can be a fantastic way to grow your business. It can also be a great option for young attorneys that are starting out if you’re graduating law school. I think a lot of people are interested these days in being business owners versus climbing the corporate ladder. And if that’s the way you want to go, a great way to jumpstart your career would be to find an attorney who is closer to retirement and looking to maybe bring somebody on, make them a part of the business, and then hand the business off to that person.

Travis [00:37:08]:
Right. Have you seen this in specific practice areas? Have you seen it more often in certain practices areas than others?

Darren Wurz [00:37:19]:
I’m glad you asked this question, because it can happen, and it does happen in every practice area. Okay. Whether you are in personal injury or bankruptcy or estate planning. Right. And it’s funny because I’ll talk with attorneys, and personal injury attorneys sometimes feel I’ll hear this feedback from them. Like, I don’t really think this kind of law practice is sellable. Maybe something like bankruptcy is more sellable. And then I’ll talk with the bankruptcy attorneys and it’s the opposite.

Travis [00:37:56]:
And they’ll say, yeah, that is funny, funny.

Darren Wurz [00:38:00]:
There might be different tactics involved, but every practice area can be sold, can be transitioned.

Jacob Tingen [00:38:09]:
One of the things that blew my mind that you said was that, I mean, you implied rather that not all lawyers have an operating agreement. And that just sounds nuts to me. We went to law school, I took corporate law, and I have to admit, over the last couple of years at my firm, we have been standardizing a lot of things. So I have learned the lesson of documentation processes, systematizing everything. And it’s a wonderful lesson. It’s a powerful lesson. It gives you a lot of freedom, takes away a lot of stress. But I guess that’s part of why buying and selling can be so long.

Jacob Tingen [00:38:49]:
Is that why? Just because you have to agree on processes and mesh systems? And then I guess this is my other question, because I’ve talked to other business owners and generally if you’re selling like a software business, people are like one x, two x, five x, whatever. But from my understanding, and just limited research, because I haven’t dived into the topic a lot, but typically a law firm is one x, right. Because it’s tenuous, right. And because it’s based on the relationships and not on a product. And so what are your thoughts on that? Like how to get value, where the value is formed, how much a law practice usually sells for?

Darren Wurz [00:39:27]:
I think you’re right on. Somewhere around one to two times, two times being maybe the high end. So as far as maximizing the value and why it takes that amount of time is, number one, if your business is already set up in such a way that your branding is good, your systems are in place, you have a team in place. It may not take three to five years, but if you don’t have anything like that in place, you’re going to need some time because you’re going to need to build those things out. This is a funny thing, right? Most of the things you need to do to prepare your business to sell are just the things that you should be doing anyway, right?

Travis [00:40:16]:
So if you’re doing all those things, you may be set up and you listed some of those things, but what are they?

Darren Wurz [00:40:22]:
Having your systems documented in place, having a strong marketing plan, having your financials organized and well accounted for, having your trust account well accounted for, your Iolta accounts are up to date and everything, having that team that’s trained, that is going to stick around. Those are some of the key things. Now, as far as what has value, here are some things to think about. A lot of it comes down to your marketing and your message. That’s a piece that’s extremely valuable. Of course, your client base, right? Your client base is valuable, but also it’s your marketing. If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, that is a piece of real estate that actually has a tremendous amount of valuable. Your intellectual property has valuable, has value.

Darren Wurz [00:41:27]:
The way that you have set up your systems and processes has value. Okay. So any kind of intellectual property, if you have certain templates that you follow, that you’ve created ways of handling client cases that have really generated great results. I talked with law firm owner in New Jersey. I had him on the podcast a while back, and he had created this perfect client cycle, he called it, and it was a system for handling criminal cases, criminal defense cases that he was then able to pass on and to train and to teach his other attorneys how to use and how to do. So. All of those things are things that have value. To get the most amount of money for your practice, your marketing has to be really good.

Darren Wurz [00:42:22]:
You have to have a lead generation process that’s consistently bringing in cases and leads. Those things are going to be extremely attractive to a potential new buyer. And if you have long term relationships with clients, then the handling of those relationships is going to be key. Right. Introducing those clients to the new attorney, trying to build those connections and sticking around, that’s another thing. Sticking around after the sale to make sure that the transition is smooth is mean. What if you could retire? Basically, someone comes and buys your practice, you retire, you’re down on your yacht in the Caribbean, enjoying your time, but you’re available by phone for the new attorney for if he has a question or maybe one of your really big clients, they can call you just in case. And when they call you, you say, hey, so and so, thanks for calling.

Darren Wurz [00:43:31]:
But you know what? My new associate or the new owner, the new person who’s in charge, they’re even better than I am. And I’ve trained them on everything that I’ve done, and they actually have more experience and knowledge. And you’re in good hands. Right. If you could stick around and play that role in the practice for a couple of years, that’s very valuable.

Travis [00:43:57]:
Yeah. And then you keep some purpose in your life after you’re retiring.

Darren Wurz [00:44:00]:
Definitely. Yeah.

Travis [00:44:02]:
I mean, yachts are great, but I think people have worked hard, especially business owners and law firm owners. They’ve gotten used to a certain level of responsibility in life, and it’s nice.

Jacob Tingen [00:44:15]:
To and enjoy it.

Travis [00:44:17]:
As you talk about this, I think you’re really managing two sets of relationships. You’ve got to find an owner who can get along with the critical staff and who can get along with the clients and then has the expertise. So you’re not looking at somebody who just has the technical ability to do that type of work or who’s willing to buy your practice. You really need to get value out of it. Somebody who can really get along with all the players.

Darren Wurz [00:44:45]:
Absolutely. And it doesn’t have to be necessarily bowing out completely. Maybe instead of retiring, this is another option. You scale. You scale up and then eventually step out. You know what I mean? But you scale up to a point where you only have to come into the office once a week to shake hands, check on things, answer any questions, set the overall vision and mission for the organization. But your team is in place handling everything and taking care of everything else. Right? So maybe that’s the plan for you.

Darren Wurz [00:45:20]:
It’s not a complete sale, but then here’s the ironic thing. If you’ve achieved that and you’ve gotten to that step, that makes the sale even that easier because someone can so easily step into your role and serve as in that function. Now, one thing I want to add here, not every attorney wants to be an owner.

Jacob Tingen [00:45:40]:
It’s true.

Darren Wurz [00:45:42]:
And that is something to think about. Right. So you want to think in your organization, you might have a fantastic attorney, right? But they may want to have nothing to do with ownership. Maybe they love being in the courtroom. I have some clients who own a practice. It’s two partners. The one loves court, loves trial, loves working with clients. That’s all he wants to do.

Darren Wurz [00:46:06]:
He’s a part owner, but he wants nothing to do with the administrative work like marketing or anything like that. The other one, he loves marketing. He loves the business side of things, and so they make a great combination. So you want to start identifying within your organization. Who in here really wants to be an owner? And by the way, not everyone you bring into your firm needs to be an attorney. You can have a chief executive officer who’s not an attorney, who’s managing just the business side of things. Right? You can have a chief marketing officer. You can bring professionals into your firm to handle those non legal tasks that are going to free your attorney staff up to really focus on the billable hour stuff that’s going to drive revenue.

Jacob Tingen [00:46:58]:
We started at financial planning, and I love this topic. We could keep digging. But how did you find yourself learning this side of things? Because I’m nodding along as I think about a lot of this stuff. And in particular, when it comes to the administrative side of owning a law firm, we’ve got this model in our brains. We think of old school attorneys. I mean, it used to be, when I’ve talked to older judges, everybody graduated from law school, got their best buddy together, and then the two of them started a law firm together. Right. That was just how it was done.

Jacob Tingen [00:47:28]:
And I started a law firm right out of law school, and I remember mentioning that to a judge, like in my first year, and he said, oh, I did that, too. Worst idea I could ever do. Right? It’s just terrible idea. It was his opinion. And I got to say, when I started, it felt like, what am I doing? Right? Yeah. But as I’ve looked into the business side and as the firm has grown, that’s one of the questions is, well, lawyers don’t necessarily need to be in charge, which is, how do you get lawyers to wrap their minds around that if they haven’t been thinking that way?

Darren Wurz [00:48:03]:
It can be tough because there is a certain amount of hubris potentially, but I think it can be done very successfully. You want to work with professionals that are going to help you create that organization. But I think people will see the wisdom. Maybe at first they first hear about that. It’s kind of like, that doesn’t really make sense, but once you actually start to unpack it and start to think about it, it can make a lot of sense because let’s put people where they’re best suited and where they have the skill set. Right. Law school is not business school, unfortunately. Right.

Darren Wurz [00:48:42]:
So if somebody has an MBA, maybe that person should be the person who is handling the business side of things. Right. But you can have another way to do this also, is maybe you have a CEO and then you have a CLO, right. You have a chief legal officer, and that person is an attorney, and they can be kind of managing and supervising all of the legal work that’s going on. Right. While the CEO, maybe you call them your COO, maybe your chief operating officer, is working with the legal staff, supervising the legal work, and maybe that person is an attorney.

Travis [00:49:22]:
Right.

Darren Wurz [00:49:23]:
So you could set it up that way. But I think you really hit the nail on the head. I think a long term confusion in the whole legal world has been a confusion between roles of ownership and doing great legal work. And this happens in big law because you do great work as a big law associate. You’re great at client acquisition, you’re a rainmaker, and they make you an owner, and it’s like, okay, that sounds great, but you don’t have the requisite skills necessarily to be an owners and to actually run a business as a partner in a business, just because you’re great at client acquisition and you’re great at legal work as well. So that’s been kind of a long time. Confusion, I think, in the broader industry, and separating those roles can make a lot of sense because it can allow you to scale your business and free up time. And you can do this, by the way, if you’re a smaller practice and some people already do this right, maybe you outsource your bookkeeping.

Darren Wurz [00:50:35]:
Well, you’re already outsourcing a lot of the administrative work right there. You know what I mean? I think it’s really smart to think in those terms.

Travis [00:50:46]:
Have you seen any of your clients start to use fractional cfos, fractional ceos?

Darren Wurz [00:50:55]:
Yeah, absolutely. I have a client right now who’s working with a fractional CFO. I think once you reach a certain size, that definitely makes a lot of sense. You’re the owner. But once your business is reaching several million in revenue, you need someone else who’s going to be really smart with the numbers because they’re going to be able to come in and they’re going to be able to identify, okay, where are the weaknesses? Where are the opportunities for improved efficiency? And one of those for law firms is liquidity. Oftentimes, a lot of law firms are not operating with sufficient liquidity. They don’t know how to handle, necessarily, the cash flow systems. And so if you’re just kind of running down to zero frequently in your bank account and drawing on your line of credit, that’s a problem and something that a CFO is going to be able to come in and help you fix.

Darren Wurz [00:51:59]:
Another area of improvement is your accounts receivable. How quickly are you collecting on those accounts receivable? What’s the average length of accounts receivable? And if someone can come in and can help you shorten that length and get the money faster, all of a sudden you’ve dramatically improved profitability because the longer those accounts receivables sit out there, the harder it is to get them. And believe it or not, there are people who don’t pay.

Travis [00:52:29]:
We believe it.

Jacob Tingen [00:52:31]:
Yeah. You’re touching on a lot of pain points that some that I’ve solved, some that I’m still working on. Right. But I get it, and it’s interesting to consider just all of these business sites. There’s no law school course that I took that handles this. The local law school has been looking to have somebody teach some of these issues, but this is all very much on point. And what’s interesting is the more non lawyers you bring into your firm, then in a way, you make your firm more valuable.

Darren Wurz [00:53:03]:
You really do.

Jacob Tingen [00:53:05]:
Yeah, because they’re sticking around. They’re your management team. And like, a business needs a management team, and when you sell the business, you’re selling the management. It’s very attractive to have that management team in place, I imagine.

Darren Wurz [00:53:15]:
Yeah, it definitely is. And it comes down to skill set. And I’m guilty of this. I think a lot of business owners in general are guilty of this. We feel like we can do everything, or at least I can learn how to do that and then I can do it. Right. But even if I could learn how to do it and then do it, is that really the best use of my time? Is it really the best use of my time to schedule my social media posts? I could pay somebody much less than the client work that I need to do in terms of dollars per hour and really maximize my time in the more value oriented areas. So I think it’s not just law firm owners that’s a lot of business owners.

Darren Wurz [00:54:05]:
And then, of course, we have ways we like to do things. And so giving up control is often very challenging. I hired a virtual assistant last year. She manages my inbox and my calendar. I gave up complete control of my email inbox and I don’t touch an email until she has touched it and she has read it and categorized it for me. And I tell you what, that was kind of challenging. But once we got into it and once I saw how powerful this was, I was like, wow, she is faster at responding to urgent requests. I go in there and I don’t have to look at 400 emails.

Darren Wurz [00:54:46]:
I just have ten that are the critical ones I need to focus on. And she’s handled all the other ones. So if you haven’t done that yet, I highly recommend it.

Jacob Tingen [00:54:55]:
No, email is, for me, is one of the most stressful things. And so I think if I, we’ve been looking at that lately and it just sounds like that alone would reduce my stress level, I think, by like 30%.

Darren Wurz [00:55:08]:
I don’t know why.

Jacob Tingen [00:55:08]:
It’s just one of those things.

Travis [00:55:09]:
You’re speaking heresy. That is heresy to a litigator to turn over your email.

Darren Wurz [00:55:15]:
Right, there you go.

Jacob Tingen [00:55:18]:
I think you know which one is the litigator. And which one is the I’m like.

Travis [00:55:23]:
Oh my God, giving up control of my email.

Jacob Tingen [00:55:29]:
And like you said, these are all things. And the questions here started with the whole selling the practice or whatever. But this is stuff you should be doing anyways, right? Like it’s going to make your life better. You’re probably going to earn more money, right?

Darren Wurz [00:55:40]:
Yeah.

Jacob Tingen [00:55:41]:
For me, one of the biggest turning points was documenting exactly how I do things. Because you mentioned just now you have a specific way you like things done, but the solution is to write that specific way down. And then people just do it that way because you told them you gave them that information, not because you told them in a mean sense, but because I used to avoid doing it because I was worried about micromanaging. But most people prefer to have a very specific set of instructions and they know they’re doing their job well now. And so this is all excellent advice. I endorse everything you’re saying. I have not yet read the lawyer millionaire, but one of the questions I have is, in addition to your book, what other books should people be reading? Law firm owners and lawyers.

Travis [00:56:29]:
Just that book, Jacob that’s the one.

Darren Wurz [00:56:32]:
Pick it up today on Amazon. A few of my favorites. Let’s see. The small law firm Roadmap by lawyerist. I would highly recommend. Great book. As far as lawyer specific books go, that’s a really good one. Another one I read recently, I did mention this, 110 x is easier than two x.

Darren Wurz [00:56:55]:
I think it’s a fantastic read. The premise is simple, that it’s easier to target ten x than it is to target two x, and it’s very motivational. Great way to start your year. Another great one I’ve read recently is buy back your time by Dan Martel. That was actually the inspiration for me to hire my virtual assistant. It is packed with real actionable steps and it’s all about scaling out scaling out of your business. How do you do that? And he has a whole roadmap for how you do that. So those are three that I’ve read recently that have really been good and I’ve really enjoyed.

Jacob Tingen [00:57:35]:
What was the last one? That was buyback.

Darren Wurz [00:57:38]:
Buyback your time.

Jacob Tingen [00:57:40]:
Buy back your time.

Travis [00:57:43]:
People can find you on themillionairlawyer.com or the lawyermillionaire.com.

Darren Wurz [00:57:49]:
Yes, thelawyormillionaire. I don’t know where the millionaire lawyer will take you.

Travis [00:57:53]:
Right behind your shoulder. Thelawormillionaire.com and you’ve got your book. Anything else you want people to know about how to reach you or what you can offer.

Darren Wurz [00:58:05]:
Yeah, absolutely. So the book, of course, is out there, and I have my own podcast, the lawyer millionaire. We have lawyers on to talk about their stories in terms of how they built their business. And of course, we try to focus on the financial side of things, personal and business wise, what has been successful for them. So check it out. It’s on all of the different podcast platforms. And if you’re looking for someone to help you navigate the personal side of things. I know we talked a lot about the business side of things, but one of the things I found with clients I work with, my typical clients, are law firm owners.

Darren Wurz [00:58:45]:
They’re making high six to seven figures, but they’re struggling to save money. Okay. And the reason for that is, number one, they’re super busy, and so they don’t have time. They’re running a business and being lawyers at the same time, like, holy crap. And so they don’t have time to dig into the numbers. They don’t know where the money is going. They just know they have a whole lot of expenses, they have a whole lot of overhead on the personal side. And so what we do is we come in, we help our law firm owner clients get absolutely clear first about where they want to go.

Darren Wurz [00:59:21]:
Right? What is the vision? What is the plan? And then let’s create a plan to make that happen. Let’s get absolutely crystal clear about all the finances, and then let’s partner together to make that reality happen for you in terms of all different areas of your personal planning, from tax planning to investments to insurance, making sure you’re optimizing every aspect of your finances so that you can really exponentially start to grow your net worth.

Jacob Tingen [00:59:55]:
That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Darren Wurz [00:59:58]:
Yeah.

Travis [00:59:58]:
Probably have to have you come back some other time. We can talk all about the personal finances side of these things, but it was really fun to talk to you about the business side of it.

Darren Wurz [01:00:09]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s so much to unpack in both areas. And that’s one of the reasons I love working with law firm owners, is there really is a lot of overlap. And so I’ve learned all of these things. I didn’t go to business school, but I learned all these things in practice and in working with clients and understanding the types of struggles that they were having. And how you fix those things in your business has a direct correlation to how successful and wealthy and happy you are on the personal side.