Personal Injury Mastermind -164. Jefferson Fisher, Fisher Firm

[Music] in my gut in my spirit that I this was the right path for me and I had a real peace about it an excited piece about it a solid foundation of values and vision encourages accelerated growth and so I came up with the vision of be the most authentic law firm in Texas the values that line up with that that way any decision that we have in the future there's no guessing because we know it doesn't match with our values or it doesn't same with who we hire does it match with our values or

do they not not to be attracted to the money because if you stick to your principles the money will come welcome to personal and your Mastermind I'm your host Chris Dryer founder and CEO of rankings.io the preeminent personal injury marketing agency before we get started if you like what you hear head on over to Apple or Spotify and give us a five star review and if you don't like what you hear tell me about it in a one star review I got a big hug for all my haters too each week we talk to the

best in the legal industry ready to dominate your Market let's go [Music] Jefferson Fisher might be a fifth generation lawyer but his approach to the business of law is anything but traditional he struck out on his own just over a year ago he takes client meetings and coffee shops and films his very successful social media videos in his car but that's where the Homegrown feel of Fisher firm ends he employs eight Attorneys at a firm which is run like a business and he has no plan of stopping learn what worked for Jefferson and get expired

by his Drive here's Jefferson Fisher CEO at Fisher firm actually fifth generation attorney don't ever hire me to build you a birdhouse so it's just like how we all we know so I grew up hearing stories about the courtroom I just kind of grew up around it now I went to school for business but I just slowly fell into law and I felt way more comfortable at Law School than I ever did in in college it just naturally fell into my personality and it kind of just fell into my fell into my zone and you

didn't just start slowly you hit the ground running right so by the time this airs I believe you'll have officially been in business for one year and just massive growth in a year so you know walk us through this first year of growth in just the early days of the firm yeah so I was at a big defense firm uh in 2021 at the December of that year I left the firm and that was a a big deal to the firm and a big shock to them I felt like I was running with a parachute

on like I just wasn't at my full potential of what I wanted to do so I told the firm and my dad was actually at that firm and there was of course a lot of conversations about that he did not want me to leave and so January comes this is a year ago today I am hopping coffee shop the coffee shop with my laptop and just signing up clients and you couldn't wipe the grin off my face Chris I just I was I was pumped I just not gonna run and so I started signing up

clients and within four months I had done better for myself monetarily than I had done in almost the past two years it was so much fun and then come April I may my dad came to me and said hey I think I'd like to I think I like to practice a lot with you again that's how that's how I want to end my career and I was like yeah absolutely this is amazing what I wanted the whole entire time and then it turned out okay well I think some other people want to join and I'm

thinking okay well how many well all of a sudden it went from me to a team of eight and then within about two months that grew into ten and then 12 and right now I just made our 16th higher and so it's been it's been fantastic what I mean that's that's super fast yeah we got to break that down we have to break that down so you know you said you signed these clients you're in the in the coffee shop like yes is it your Spear of influence is it like you know working kind of

that sphere in your database and like referrals or was it just out of the gate because I know we're gonna talk about social where you're just crushing it on social media you know how did you approach Business Development well um I'm not from a big town I had enough of a sphere of influence that when I announced that I left people new so I go to different events and oh I heard about this or I heard about that and that that just kind of had a ripple effect of where I was going and so that

that definitely led to the first time I was getting clients getting corporate clients commercial clients and then for plain of cases and then personal injury cases and that just started turning over and I was just I couldn't send docusigns out fast enough but nobody cared about if I had an office nobody cared right uh in after coven nobody cares about coming to see the big grandiose thing they just want to know you and they want to know how you're going to treat them and they trust you that you got their case and you got their

back they don't they don't need the fancy furniture you it's no problem at all for me to just be in coffee shops and it was great I was going after it and I thought I was just going to do personal injury only that's all I was going to do and still like 80 90 of what we do but um that's that's how that that got started that's incredible and I gotta imagine you know keeping your overhead down and being able to do these experiment and do these different manners um you know the the boots on

the ground to get the the the cases of what it's all about and you just took that momentum and just continued with it how did that feel like your dad coming to you because there's probably that moment where he doesn't want you to leave yeah and then it's it's like comes in full circle like so tell us about that moment um it was nothing against my prior firm it's just a very old traditional lockstep defense firm I'm like look we need to be doing this I'm investing myself in books I'm trying to learn this this

is where we need to go and it was just a stone wall and so I try to start having these conversations with my father about it and he wasn't against it he was like I I appreciate it I understand I understand but you need to be you know come on back to the come on back into the fold and I was like no I can't I just I'm I'm too too energized and he did not want me to leave Chris it was we had several discussions it was not a surprise to him when I did

but it was definitely definitely tough conversations uh and so when I did announce it was of course everybody just went to him like what's what's going on obviously I was sad about it but I knew like this is just just in my gut in my spirit that I this was the right path for me and I had a real piece about it an excited piece about it and then when he came to me man I just can't explain the feeling uh when it was very much a hey I I'm gonna be practicing x amount of

years I want to do it with you and we're going to figure it out and I'm gonna let you run I'm gonna let you take off with it and I'm just gonna watch you it's just been killer and so he gets to do exactly what he wants to do and my dad is a a legal scholar he loves the law I like the law I also like the business and so like what when my you know that thought of only do what you want to do man I love developing the client experience that that whole

marketing removing the friction that stuff I nerd out about he nerds out about all of the the you know I just found this case law precedent that's gonna you know just rip the other side that's what he gets he gets jazzed about so uh it's it's a good Yin and Yang but it's it's an incredible blessing it really is well thank you for sharing that I was uh I'm trying not to be a big baby but sometimes I get emotional myself here and stuff like that you're trying if I if I think about it just

I mean yeah he's been in that firm for 35 years Chris yeah 35 years and then he sees me just incredible so he took the leap too so it was hard for him yeah yeah he did too and he was like all right we're you gonna we're gonna do this because if I do this we're gonna do it I was like we're gonna do it come on say we have a look back we haven't looked back so I think we have I have a eight eight attorneys now so wow and I want to talk about

the the values in the vision right and start with that vision and it centers around authenticity and I want to want you to kind of explain this you know what is your vision and how did that come about I listened to your podcast before I even left my firm uh I had like a handful of them that I just liked listening to and I'd get encouraged by hearing these other attorneys you know go off and do their thing um and then I developed a real Obsession for digging into books not just books about law and

those are books I stayed away from instead I had studied the books on business of just any business because I think I've heard it either on your podcast or many others you're not competing against the next Law Firm you're competing against Amazon Apple Coca-Cola you're competing against anybody who's competing for your clients time and attention and so that's exactly where I went and I knew it was very important to first structure the values of our firm and to me the closest Value to me is authenticity just be who you say you're going to be and

mean what you say and so I came up with the vision of be the most authentic law firm in Texas and I truly believe that we are and set up the the values that align up with that that they know who we are who we represent and what we're about that way any decision that we have in the future there's no guessing because we know it doesn't match with our values or it doesn't same with who we hire does it match with our values or do they not not to be attracted to the money because

if you stick to your principles it the money will come you know there's different ways to Market and some firms will hire like um like actors to do their commercials and things right it's nice that you have this clear projection this clear path I want to just read a couple of these because a lot of times guys when we talk about core values it's like team player yeah and things like in integrity and things like that a lot of those are table Stakes if you don't have that that's not core value so you have feed

his sheep creativity doesn't wait and the second best time is now so maybe let's start with feed his sheep because that's a different one yeah so that's that's based up on one of our our core principles of being christ-like and Christianity and feeding his sheep in other words our number one goal is just taking care of people being a Shepherd to people at the end of the day who cares about money are we taking care of them are we not this is this is not a a net profit analysis it is feeding who we set

out the feed and um that's that's number one the second being creativity doesn't wait I love that one just because I came from a firm well everything had to be done by a committee you had to have a proposal and you had to have a committee and that committee had to go for a vote in Partnership and it would take months to me if you've got a creative idea throw it out then now the moment you wake up whatever it is just send it there's no there's no time frame for creativity I can feel the

the meaning behind those and I imagine it's easier to spot people that don't align and you can actually create questions that kind of uncover that in your hiring process yeah it's just more of where their where their heart is I mean regardless of any religion past job I just you really just need people who have a good heart I mean this is a a profession that unlike any other deals with so many matters of the heart whether it's family law criminal law I mean personal injury law I mean in Immigration you name it you're dealing

with humans real lives on the line at stake Big Time affecting their life and so if you can't have a a heart for that then you're just not in the right you're not in the right profession to me the second best time is now and um man I love that one just because it's this I got into this rut of man I wish I had done this man I wish I had done that and instead of thinking about I wish it's just well hey let's start let's start today um and that's that's the second best

time it's to do it right then and that's better than any other time right right you know do it then fix it and improve it yeah yeah it's not have that kind of analysis paralysis be be perfect you just just go just do it love it you know I'm gonna switch trajectories over to social because you got to talk about social you're at you know 550 000 followers on Instagram or more right um yeah tick tocks got over 300 000. I've got a bunch of bullet questions bullet points here but it's just like how how

yeah like what what's what's the big picture yeah you know let's talk strategy here because you don't see that often yeah especially in the legal space Hey Nobody's more surprised than me Chris nobody's more surprised than me all right yeah the uh Instagram is now like but pretty good ways past six hundred thousand and it's just continuing to go I didn't make my first what's today the 27th tomorrow would be year to the day of the first video I made for social media so that's all within a year and the biggest thing I would say

to anybody listening is just do it I mean that you they want to go I need to make sure that my you know I need to structure it the right way I wrap my head around this right it needs to be laid out in any format it needs to be no it doesn't need to be anything he just they just it needs to be from you that's it that's all it needs to be and there's going to be a period of time where you're not going to get anybody seeing it I mean I had a

good while where nobody saw anything but I just kept doing it because you have to have some type of History you know content for them to see you don't expect you're just going to make your first video your first 10 videos and everybody's gonna go hey check this out this this guy's great they're not that's not gonna happen you need to have almost like a portfolio for the algorithm to pull from if they like what you're doing so that way it just continues to continues to go and you have these people that and I was

one of them I thought I had to have like the best camera the best lighting um best microphone and I just got frustrated because I got too overwhelmed about it because I I I'll nitpick to make sure is it the best is it that quality camera even though I don't know anything about microphones I'm like oh this one has a better you know a better sound results or whatever I've never used a microphone I don't know um so I'll get hung up on that instead I just grab my phone and did it in my vehicle

and I did it in my vehicle because I didn't have an office right and that made it easy second of all I had two little kids at the time uh my son was four my daughter was two I can't make a video at the house what do you I'm not like a not a homemaker where I can make a video while I'm doing laundry or something like I I'm I'm working and so I make the videos when I have about 30 minutes in the day in the truck that's about it all right [Music] you don't

need the fancy gear to see returns when you look at lead gen Jefferson's approach to social media knocks it out of the park and it's it's insane I mean it automatically just boost your credibility times a thousand I mean it's um all of a sudden not only am I getting asked of hey how are you doing this from other social media folks then LinkedIn finds my content hey Jefferson we want you to develop a course go out to California be part of our LinkedIn learning where I'm doing that I'm like y'all know I just make

these from my phone right you know and and then it leads into people calling my firm people messaging me about you name it on any case anywhere and I just I funnel it all I either refer it or funnel it or take it and so it is a full thing I mean if you cannot sell you just provide value for free and that does the selling for you and then once you build a community if you want to sell something then they want to support you because now you got them you've been giving them a

whole year worth of free information free value that they can use in their life without you asking for anything and I just I think too many attorneys go about it the wrong way these firms spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of thousands of dollars on marketing that's giving them zero engagement because they're just selling I agree a thousand percent but it's important you have distribution you have massive distribution right so when you put a piece of content out it's being seen by a ton of people that's a huge asset that you can use as

leverage against your competitors uh you know to move that lever and I just there's so many doubters and yeah if you're just posting just generic um you know reviews and there's just no personality then no it's not gonna work but but if you're providing value I guess that I guess you would agree that the attention is a value exchange yeah you can read everything you want I mean attention is the asset everybody knows that but it's where is it where is it being throttled because you have this okay I made a video early on this

is when I was just trying to figure out how in the world to do it I thought I had to be like these other fancy firms and this video that I paid a guy to come help me with a friend of mine like have you been injured there's three things that you need to do in an accident you know if you've been in an accident do these three things what personal injury attorney hasn't done that they've all done that you know how many people need that message at that given time zero none of them are

getting hurt in that moment and go oh my God I just watched this this guy on Tick Tock I know exactly what to do um it just it's just not the not the way to go about it but leverages humongous I mean I can let's say on Instagram I can take a picture of this water bottle and within about 15 minutes I'll have about 20 000 people see it and those are all people that live I I know where they live and what country they're in I know what the distribution is of my demographics I

know when they watch it I know for how long they watch it it's just the data the data is is is insane to be able to pull it be able to use it and I truly care about them um because I'm I'm in comments I'm in messages I'm I'm encouraging them in different topics so and that falls right with your with your core value aligns with it yeah for free I'm helping them just to help them that's it yeah I'm not saying well hey if you need help why don't you call my call my office

if it's something you know if you need time with me no it's it's me answering your message now if it's a legal case yeah then we need to go through the proper channel of of getting that all in the in the vein but breaking this down just to kind of you know every everyone's different but there's something to be said about sticking with it and consistency and you you alluded to hey at the very beginning you didn't have many followers and Impressions you know let's talk about these you know these quantities when was there that

Tipping Point was it a hundred videos 200 videos was it so I first started making videos on Instagram and I was making videos really anything just to figure out how it worked and so I was kind of telling them like at the time it was really popular to have these this music or overdubbing and people would like dance or mouth words to it to go with whatever was going on and I try to make those and relate those to law just either to have something funny something relatable whatever I didn't know I was just experimenting

um and that's you got to be willing to just look dumb all right nobody cares okay we think they do but they they don't they really don't they're busy doing their own thing um but it took me probably about maybe six seven videos before I came up with the thought of this and this isn't the right thing I need to this was after I made that video of you've been in an accident one two three it's like what what can I what can I actually give them value of what what do they think attorneys do

and I think well they always say well you must argue really well okay well if I give them communication advice just about relationships about work about uh conflict how they argue there it is how to argue like a lawyer and so I did my first one on how to argue like a lawyer part one just don't know tried it tried it out and then I would take that video and then repost it on tick tock uh and that got I had zero views on Tick Tock until then zero wow all right the more like years

ago I suck uh you know I I got like maybe 100 views on Tick Tock nope I was like I don't know this app's broken I can't I always Google like how to how to not have zero views on your videos I made that first video and then got like a thousand of you so I was like I made it I'm done wow and then uh I made another and another and then on part four it hit to like four million it just took off and then uh wow and then they started cross referencing on

my Instagram and then it just started to kind of become its own flywheel of content of capturing people on both platforms and so I just kept on from there so it was probably less than 10 videos but it was not how many it was it was not the quantity it was the quality of of what I was putting the the age-old debate of quantity versus quality and I appreciate you kind of sharing under the hood kind of the strategy and your experience is what works for you your team's grown have they now kind of jumped

on board and and they're starting to do some social or what's kind of the team composition look like and and how are how is a new firm kind of lifting everyone to to continue with this momentum once I knew that there was a small group coming and wanting to be a part of my vision and they're like hey we like where you're going we like your ideas and I made it very clear that I would be the one running the business end of everything y'all focus on the law I would help set up the system

for that but I'm going to set up the overall system so right out of the gate I went right to an org chart who's in what who's in what category and who did I ever want to hire I still have that work chart and I wrote names of who is going to be and what and I would write my name in everywhere where everything else wasn't so I knew we didn't have somebody in sales Jefferson's in that somebody marketing Jefferson's in that so I developed a whole legal department within the company and so all the

attorneys paralegals managers they're in the legal department I have a whole different system of what I'm doing with Finance sales marketing and I mean I I set it out like a company I firmly believe in that and so rather than just going okay I'll just we'll just figure it out you know would it no right out of the gate I set up certain programs to make sure that we set up a system so I there's a app called notion it's fantastic it's a Wiki and immediately created employee handbook right in notion this is all of

our policy right out of the gate uh you know slack that's that was unheard of in my prior firm any internal communication this is where it happens you have issues this is where it happens anything external don't send me an email on so it's just very basic ways of slowly having the building blocks of what's the what's the role so we had some attorneys we had some paralegals and that was it well then we've uh continue to get more attorneys and I'm just running the business I know in the e-myth right e-myth books those who

who like and nerd out on business books like I do I knew exactly where I was I was wearing my hats and I knew that I needed to eventually get out of that to work on not in but I just had to be the one who's setting up the system so I just lived I knew that was going to happen every company forming that's what's going to happen and um have a receptionist she's she does amazing all of our case managers are awesome everybody who has this kind of this buy-in to the vision that we

do feel um that support those those values who know those values make it very clear this is where we stand on issues meaning that you have to match the values to really what you do remember authenticity so if I say I'm going to take care of feed his sheep I'm also going to Feed My People so that means I'm going to give them full medical that means I'm going to have unlimited PTO so they can take care of their family and their kids medical appointments I'm not going to make things more difficult I'm going to

make them less difficult so if I'm not taking care of my people then I'm not sticking true to my values and my vision so that follows not only how I handle outside cases and you know people it all the more it takes care of my inside my inside my home you know what am I what am I protecting um because there's very much it's just as you would protect the piece of your home you have to protect the piece of your business and then it's this idea that as we continue to grow my last my

most recent hire was last Tuesday this past Tuesday three days ago uh chief of operations uh who's just wonderful he's he's uh he's fantastic he's a power law enforcement officer and uh got his MBA in finance and he's going to be if anybody keeps up with the what is the book it's a traction fireproof yes thank you yeah integrator and so very much a taking eighty percent of the admin that I'm doing and pulling that off so it's uh we're right in the middle of of that transition and it's just a lot of fun uh

when you when you are taking the steps it's just a lot of fun there's nothing better than being that Visionary and have someone to integrate and then cat you know to take your vision and run with it yeah we still got a lot of time to to kind of become one-minded but it's it's been a blast before you know so I went to the website and we've talked on the side on the phone about this too and you've hinted around at a new book I mean do you want to give the audience a preview of

the book um and what's going on there yeah well it's um I'm very excited about it it's there's no title yet but it's all gonna be around the same topics of my content and how that is is breaking down different types of personalities and how to deal with them in conflict because I get a lot of questions on I I'm somebody who's more introverted I have a hard time speaking up and getting my point across how do I do that I'm really emotional as soon as I get into an argument I cry I'm I get

run over I don't know what I'm doing or three I'm I'm really aggressive I don't mean to be my anger shoots up really really quickly and I say a lot of things I don't mean to say and so it's navigating one what's the behavioral science behind that individual for yourself and for you you might be dealing with and then strategic ways of dealing with that in an argument a conversation and then looking boiling down of what makes attorneys good at that what makes Debaters good what makes you know negotiators do really well and that's fear

so it's just kind of a heightened view of how to deal with with conflict and I'm honestly just serving my my followers and they ask for a book you know do you have a book where's your book so a lot of that is it's good because I have data right to know exactly what topics they like what they don't like and what they find useful and what they need help with which is all you want in a book positioning it to know who's who's going to read your book you know Sally who works at Dillard's

who has a problem with you know her her manager you know what I mean so it gives a lot of good data that way so I'm really excited about it hopefully it'll be done in the next uh probably 12 to 14 months you know how difficult that is it's a long process I I definitely do and fantastic I love the the topic of the book The theme it makes me think I always say this I like the podcast and we have like a schedule and I've researched my guest and it's like easy for me but

like if I have to go to somewhere where there's you know like a conference I really struggle there so I'm sure there's some tips yeah you know for the introverted in those live situations and uh so I'll definitely want to check that out what's next for the firm and how can people get in touch with you um what's next to the firm is continue to grow uh so we have two office locations now I'll probably we'll go for a third because we're already at at full capacity and just continue to improve now that I'm gonna

have more that admin off of me I now can continue to grow on our our marketing and and really just improving the client experience if anybody wants to get a hold of me so we have Fisher firm That's the Law Firm we have is Fisher firm we're in Beaumont Texas in Lumberton Texas and I guess if anybody wants to reach out to me you can find me on Instagram or Tick Tock I just search Jefferson Fisher and I'll be around thanks so much to Jefferson Fisher at Fisher firm for everything you share today let's hit

the pinpoints here we go people buy from people not from fancy offices old leather-bound books or Dart stained Furniture hey if that traditional appearance is you great lean into it but don't be someone you're not after covid people care less about what kind of office you have and more about who you are they just want to know you and they want to know how you're going to treat them and they trust you that you got their case and you got their back they don't they don't need the fancy furniture pinpoint number two be you on

social media I know that you heard Jefferson talk about authenticity this whole time this is how you do it show up as yourself own it and social media and in real life don't have an office take your meeting at a coffee shop or over Zoom our kids run around a home film social in your car you don't need the best mic or camera to share who you are just keep showing up and there's going to be a period of time where you're not going to get anybody seeing it I mean I had a good while

where nobody saw anything but I just kept doing it because you have to have some type of History you know content for them to see you don't expect you're just going to make your first video your first 10 videos and everybody's gonna go hey check this out this this guy's great they're not that's not gonna happen you need to have almost like a portfolio for the algorithm to pull from if they like what you're doing pinpoint number three know that you yourself cannot do everything over a sustained period of time delegate as soon as you

can set up systems and teams from the beginning set it up like a business I made it very clear that I would be the one running the business I'll focus on the law I went right to an org chart who's in what who's in what category and who did I ever want to hire and I wrote names of who is going to be and what and I would write my name in everywhere where everything else was it so I developed a whole legal department within the company I have a whole different system of what I'm

doing with Finance sales marketing and I mean I I set it out like a company and so rather than just going okay I'll just we'll just figure it out you know would it you know ride the gate I set up certain programs to make sure that we set up a system [Music] thanks for listening to personal into your Mastermind if you made it this far it's time to pay the tax no I'm not talking about taking your cash like big G I'm asking you for a five star review on Apple or Spotify leave me a

review and I'll forever be grateful if this is your first episode welcome and thanks for hanging out come back each week for fresh interviews where you can hear from those making it rain and remember guys shh do not share this episode with anyone [Music]