How To Become More Financially Successful as a Law Firm Owner: Darren’s Interview on the Green Cardigan Marketing YouTube Channel
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In an insightful episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, Darren Wurz, the owner of Wurz Financial Services, takes us on a journey through the financial landscape of law firm owners. A seasoned financial advisor with a background in education, Darren recognizes the intricate financial challenges faced by law firm owners and has developed a unique approach, the “Lawyer Millionaire Method,” to help them achieve their full financial potential.
The episode delves into the story of Darren’s transition from teaching to financial advising and his dedicated focus on working with law firm owners. With a keen understanding of the distinctive opportunities and challenges prevalent within the legal industry, Darren has honed his expertise to cater specifically to the needs of entrepreneurial, growth-minded law firm owners seeking to augment their wealth and net worth.
One of the key insights shared in the episode is the convergence of personal and business finances for law firm owners. Darren’s approach emphasizes a holistic financial coaching model, entailing a sequence of twelve comprehensive steps that guide law firm owners through personalized financial planning, cash flow management, tax planning, investment management, and more. Moreover, to ensure ongoing support and effective communication, Darren facilitates monthly meetings and weekly cash flow monitoring, establishing a collaborative and hands-on approach to financial planning.
What sets the “Lawyer Millionaire Method” apart is its pioneering flat fee arrangement, which obviates the dependency of financial advisory services on asset portfolios. This paradigm shift ensures that law firm owners receive consistent, predictable financial planning and undivided attention, accentuating transparency and instilling confidence in their financial journey.
For law firm owners seeking financial empowerment and seamless alignment of their business and personal aspirations with their financial strategies, Darren’s approach offers a comprehensive solution. His dedication to law firm owners’ financial success, coupled with the removal of conflicts of interest, marks a transformative step in the financial advisory landscape.
If you’re a law firm owner looking to optimize your financial future and garner strategic growth, consider reaching out to Darren Wurz through thelawyermillionaire.com. Whether you discover his expertise through engaging presentations, the informative podcast, or specialized appearances, Darren stands ready to help law firm owners thrive and unlock their full financial potential through the “Lawyer Millionaire Method.
Transcript:
Ashley Robinson [00:00:05]:
What’s up, law firm owners? Thank you for joining us today. My name is Ashley, and I am the owner of Green Cardigan Marketing. We are a marketing agency who works exclusively in the legal space, helping law firm owners grow and achieve their financial goals through digital marketing strategies. So in today’s video, I’m excited to meet with Darren Wirtz. Darren is an independent financial advisor who specializes in financial planning and investment management, specifically for the legal industry. So in today’s video, Darren is going to share with us some common challenges he sees that law firm owners face. And then he’s also going to share with us a unique way that he’s created for partnering with law firms and helping them grow their net worth. So, without further delay, let’s get into my conversation with Darren Wurz. So what’s up, Darren? Thanks for joining me today.
Darren Wurz [00:00:55]:
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here and talk with you a little bit about law firm owners and then how we can help them become more successful.
Ashley Robinson [00:01:04]:
Yeah. So just tell everyone watching, give us a little bit about who you are. What do you do? What’s the name of your company?
Darren Wurz [00:01:09]:
Absolutely. My name is Darren Wurz. My company is Wirts Financial Services. It’s a small family business. My part of the business is the lawyers millionaire. And we’ve developed a system of working with law firm owners specifically on their financial planning and helping them to be more successful in managing their finances and helping them to really amp up and build their wealth and take their wealth to the next level. So we do personal financial planning, cash flow management, tax planning, investment management, all the bells and whistles. I’m a certified financial planner, got a master’s degree in financial planning from Golden Gate University. Wasn’t always in the world of law firm owners.
Ashley Robinson [00:01:59]:
How did you stumble into that world?
Darren Wurz [00:02:02]:
Yeah, well, if you want the whole long history in a former life, I was a teacher. I spent five years in the public school system, but I realized that wasn’t the long term plan for me. So I joined the family business as a financial advisor, kind of a generalist, working with a lot of different folks, and started working more with people transitioning into retirement. But I knew that I really needed to focus on serving a specific group of people. A lot of people today, they’re looking for a financial advisor or financial planner who really understands them, who knows their circumstances. Not everybody is the same. Everybody has different unique challenges. And that’s what I have learned about lawyers and law firm owners. They do have some very unique opportunities, challenges, ways of looking at the world. And when you become a part of that world and you understand where they’re coming from and their goals and desires, then you become a lot better at serving them and designing a financial planning process that really meets their needs and speaks to them specifically. So I started working with attorneys in 2019, and it was really the pandemic that kind of catalyzed my movement into completely focusing on the legal world. But what I discovered, Ashley, is that the legal world is extremely broad, and there’s lots know, unique niches within that broader niche. And I really enjoy working with entrepreneurial, growth minded law firm owners who are really driven, high achievers and looking to really expand their wealth and their net worth.
Ashley Robinson [00:03:59]:
So tell me, you’re working with the law firm owner individually. Is there any part of what you do where you’re also looking at the actual firm’s books? Are you working alongside the firm’s CPA? Are you just working with the owner? What if they have split partnership? What does that look like?
Darren Wurz [00:04:17]:
Absolutely. Well, that’s one of the fun and interesting parts of what I do with law firm owners is that there is often a lot of overlap between the personal financial and the business finance. And so we are having a lot of conversations about how do we design the law firm in such a way that supports our personal goals. And we always start with the personal goals. We start there. What do you really want out of life? What is all of this for? Where do you really want to be in 20 years? Do you want to be grinding away like you are now? Do you want to have a different lifestyle at that point in time? And then, I’m not a business coach, but I do have some knowledge about how to effectively run a business and create some systems and processes for yourself that are going to help you align that business structure with your own personal ambitions. And so those are the types of conversations that we have. I’ll just give you one thing. For example, probably the biggest, foremost thing we deal with is how you’re paying yourself from your law practice. When are you taking your draw? What does that look like? So we have conversations about that, and of course, that ties in to how you have your business set up. But we want to create a system for how you’re paying yourself, because if you have stability there and you can plan from that perspective, then you can create stability for yourself personally and your personal finances. So that’s one way that things are.
Ashley Robinson [00:06:01]:
Really, you know, you and I, we’ve talked, and Darren and I met in a similar networking group with a lot of the same clients we, our clients, a large portion of our clients are looking to get out of production, right? So they’re looking to be managers of their firm. So they come to us to say, hey, grow my firm. So I have enough money to now hire other lawyers and other support staff to manage my firm. And then, ideally, then they come to you and say, sometime in that process of help me establish this transition. So it’s a similar client, right, that we’re both serving of help me get out of the day to day. I don’t want to be 65 and still going to court, grinding out, making sure our bills are being paid. I want to be more of a management position. Tell me, Darren, how do you meet your average client?
Darren Wurz [00:06:59]:
Where do they come know, it’s very interesting. That has definitely evolved over time. I see more and more people are finding me online. They’re just going to Google and they’re looking for a financial advisor for attorneys. I’ve had people who have found me that way, and one of the things that they’ve told me is the reason they came to work with me is there’s not a lot of people out there, there’s not a lot of financial advisors out there who specialize in working with attorneys. And those that do, those that are out there tend to be more focused on big law associates. While they do need help in their own special way, my own expertise is really in working with those entrepreneurial law firm owners that are trying to build a business and how that interrelates with their personal financial planning. So that’s one way. Another way is our podcast. So we’ve got the Lawyer millionaire podcast that we do, and we have law firm owners and people who work with law firm owners on to tell their stories and give insight and wisdom on how law firm owners can become more successful. And then we’re taking snippets from that and putting that out there for people. So people are finding me that way. I do a lot of guest appearances and webinars CLE programs with different bar associations, and that tends to be a good way for folks to find me as well.
Ashley Robinson [00:08:28]:
Okay, so what would you say? I’m a marketer, right? So I want to know what marketing channel has worked the best, what has produced the highest ROI in terms of marketing, and you can even clump in networking into marketing. I know that’s a fine line. Right? So what has been the most successful in your marketing efforts to grow your business?
Darren Wurz [00:08:48]:
I think probably the most. I mean, to date to this point in time, the most successful thing has been doing actual live presentations for organizations. So I have a couple of presentations. I do retirement planning for law firm owners, some on succession planning and tax planning, and I get connected with different bar associations to go. Usually they’re on Zoom these days, which is kind of nice, and appear on Zoom and do a presentation. And that tends to be a really effective way for people to get introduced to me, the podcast, I got to be honest, it’s only about, well, it’s less than two years old. It’s a year, almost two years old. It’ll be two years old coming up in March. So I know that that is more of a long game and that will continue to build itself and hopefully gain following and stuff like that. The truth of the matter is, gaining clients in my world is a long game. People want to get to know you, they want to trust you. They want to make sure that you’re going to be around for a while. That’s one of the benefits of working with me. It’s my name on the door, it’s my company. I’ve been at this for almost ten years. So you can trust and believe that I’m not going anywhere.
Ashley Robinson [00:10:07]:
What does your ideal law firm owners look like? We call it a client avatar, right? So we talk to our law firm owners and we say, hey, what is your ideal client avatar? You’re a family lawyer in Kansas. How much do they make? What do they drive? What do they do? We don’t have to get that specific right. But tell me, just ballpark. I’m a lawyer listening to this. Who is your ideal client?
Darren Wurz [00:10:35]:
I have a very specific vision of who that ideal client is because we’ve very carefully tailored our financial planning process to helping those folks. And so typically they’re a law firm owner of a small firm where they usually have a few associates. They might have a partner or a couple of partners, or they might just be the sole 100% owner of their practice. They’ve reached a point of success where they are making good money, they’re hitting their stride, things are going well for them, but they’re having some issues. The biggest issue for them is their own personal net worth doesn’t quite yet reflect the success that they’re experiencing in their business. And while they’ve become successful, they’re at a stage where they’re like, okay, what’s next? How do I go to the next level of success? How do I take my wealth up a notch? What are some more sophisticated strategies that I can start employing and the struggle that they have had is their income has fluctuated. They’ve dealt with issues where they’re not getting paid on time, or they have really great months where income is great. They have really poor months where income is low.
Darren Wurz [00:11:59]:
And as a result, they’ve had a hard time saving. And so while they’re making great money high, six to seven figures, they’re not really saving like they know they should be. And part of the reason for that is they’re super busy running their law practice and being a law firm owner, that they just have no idea where the money is going. It’s like, okay, I’m making all this money now. Where on earth is it all disappearing to? They’re not tracking their expenses. They’re not budgeting. And for some of them, many of them, that’s kind of a scary thing. They don’t really want to track their expenses. They know they need to, but it’s like, I don’t really want to look at it and see all of that stuff. So that’s a thing. And they need an infrastructure, right? They need a system for their personal money that’s going to allow them to have confidence in where they can spend, where they can have some enjoyment, but also know that they’re saving enough to reach those goals that they have for themselves.
Ashley Robinson [00:13:06]:
What would you say is a common misconception about your average client avatar, your ideal client avatar? I think that’s a very unique. Probably not unique is maybe the wrong word, but I would imagine a lot of lawyers are relating to that. The saving component of what you just mentioned, what is maybe a misconception about the saving component or just budgeting in general for a law firm owner?
Darren Wurz [00:13:31]:
I think the misconception is you’re making $600,000 a year, you’re obviously already a multimillionaire, and you’re saving $100,000 a year or more easily. And that’s not the case. Maybe it’s the case for some people, but for the ones that tend to seek me out and look for my advice and help, they’re basically living paycheck to paycheck. Even though they’re making great money, they don’t have any room. They’re having trouble finding some room in the budget to actually put money away and save. So I think that’s the biggest misconception. It’s like, oh, you have a wonderful law firm. Things must be just fantastic for you. You are just swimming in cash, and we’re all human. And no matter how much money you make, saving can be challenging, and you need to have a clear vision of where you’re going and a clear plan to support that vision.
Ashley Robinson [00:14:37]:
Tell me what’s next for Darren, the business owner? Right. So that’s another commonality amongst who’s watching this and law firm owners Darren and Ashley. We’re all small business owners as well, and we all face very similar struggles and probably have a lot in common. Tell me, what is next for you, the business owner? Maybe next one to five years. What does that look like?
Darren Wurz [00:15:04]:
I’m so glad you asked this question because it’s what I think about all the time. I’m listening to some great books right now. I’m listening to ten x is better than two x. I just finished buyback your time by Dan Martel. I really understand, yes, it’s fantastic. So I really get and understand the entrepreneurial law firm owner who’s trying to scale because I’m trying to do the same thing. I brought on a virtual assistant and a marketing assistant this year and it’s been life changing. Absolutely life changing. And so I can speak to that and I understand the power that that has. So my goals for the next one to five years are to grow my team so that I can have other professionals assist me in some of the administrative tasks and even some of the consulting tasks and provide even greater services to some of my clients. So bringing on some other planning professionals and building a whole team of people that can support my clients, that is kind of the vision of where I’m going and where I’d like to get to.
Ashley Robinson [00:16:16]:
So one last question. Actually thinking about just putting myself in your clients shoes, right. Of just like some common questions of working with you, are they actually meeting with you? As you continue to grow, are they going to continue to meet with you? What does the conversation look like? If they’re not there in your market, how are you meeting with them? What are just some of those common, the basics, right. Of if they were to hire you and then as you continue to grow, what does that look like?
Darren Wurz [00:16:48]:
Yeah, well, like I mentioned, we’ve built a very specific planning process that is tailored to law firm owners, and it’s a sequence of twelve different steps that we go through to help them set up a plan and then make sure that plan is being implemented, ongoing and adjusted as needed as time goes on. So we work very closely in very close partnership with our clients. We’re not the kind of financial advisor that you talk to once or twice a year.
Ashley Robinson [00:17:23]:
Okay.
Darren Wurz [00:17:24]:
I meet with my clients on a monthly basis to review things, to take next steps and then I’m communicating with my clients on a weekly basis about their cash flow. So the process that we go through, we start with visioning and goal setting, really clarifying what exactly you want out of life, where you want to go. We create a personal financial mission statement with you so that you have a foundation that’s going to guide your decision making. From there, we talk about long term planning. What are your ideas about retirement? Where do you want to be in 20 years? Create that long term financial plan. And then we bring it back to the present day. Right. And so the next piece is cash flow. So we help clients set up programs to monitor their expenses. And then one of the services that we provide is we actually will help you in maintaining that. So I don’t know if you’ve ever used any kind of, like, expense tracking software or something like that. Mint is a popular one. The problem with these things is they have to be maintained.
Ashley Robinson [00:18:32]:
Right.
Darren Wurz [00:18:33]:
You have to actually spend time to go in and make sure you’re doing it and looking at it and keeping it up to date. Otherwise, it becomes this big, hairy beast that you never want to look at.
Ashley Robinson [00:18:43]:
Sure.
Darren Wurz [00:18:44]:
So I go in. Yeah, I go in and I actually categorize. I categorize your transactions for you. Make sure everything is staying up to date, and then I’ll send you a weekly summary. There’s a program that we use with clients called Monarch, and we get them set up on the program. There’s an app for their phone so they can stay up to date with it, too, but we help you in actually keeping it up to date. And that’s one of the biggest things that we do. And then from there, we deal with everything else. Tax planning, insurance, investments, estate planning. And because we’re meeting on a monthly basis, we’re constantly reviewing those things and seeing how things need to change and helping you to try and make sure you’re keeping things up to date. So it’s much like financial planning and almost financial coaching. My role is really almost like your personal CFO or wealth strategist to kind of help you make sure you’re keeping all of the pieces of the puzzle up to date and connected the way they need to be.
Ashley Robinson [00:19:49]:
Yeah. It sounds like you’re really providing a hands on where customer services is top priority.
Darren Wurz [00:19:56]:
Yeah. And there is another innovation that we came up with, and that is the typical financial advisor will charge, like, a percentage of assets to work with them. That didn’t really work for our clients. Their finances are complicated. While they have investments, most of it’s maybe in a 401 or they have businesses that they’re investing in. It’s a very complex picture. So instead, what we came up with was a flat fee arrangement. And the way our clients, the way we have set up this process, we call it the lawyer millionaire method, is that the way you pay for it is simply a flat monthly fee. That way it doesn’t depend on how much money you have. A lot of my clients, they don’t have the assets built yet. That’s what they’re trying to get to, right? So you don’t have to have a million dollar portfolio to get my full, undivided attention. You pay the flat monthly fee and you get my full, undivided attention. And another really attractive thing about that is my fee is not going to grow exorbitantly large as your portfolio grows, it’s going to stay consistent. It’s going to stay predictable. You know what you’re paying for, and it aligns our interests so that I can truly operate in your best interest and there’s no conflicts of interest.
Ashley Robinson [00:21:16]:
Very cool. Well, Darren, tell us the name of your book, your website where folks can find you. Give us how we can contact you.
Darren Wurz [00:21:27]:
Well, it’s all extremely easy to remember. The book is the lawyer millionaire. The podcast is the Lawyers Millionaire podcast. It’s available wherever you get your podcast guests, and you can learn more about me or schedule a meeting with me, even by going to thelawyermillionaire.com.
Ashley Robinson [00:21:48]:
Easy enough. Well, Darren, thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We really appreciate you and for everyone watching. Thanks for your time, and we will see you in the next video.