Vanessa Shaw

Vanessa (00:47)
Yeah, the whole working hard isn't the pathway to profit, right? So this is an elder law attorney, name is Susie, amazing woman out of Colorado. And she came to me a couple of years ago, very, very stressed out, close to tears with her own words, like, I'm burning out, I'm losing the plot, I heard you speak. I really now, I now know I need your help.

And so as you know, with those initial conversations, it's kind of like, okay, tell me what's going on. And typically somebody is ready to at that point, kind of dump it all on the table because they've finally pulled the plug on, I'm going to get some help. She was running a million dollar firm, right? Seven figure firm. So, you know, look by all intents and purposes, doing great work, looked like she had it all together. She had a lot of part-time team members. And I share that because that was actually one of the problems.

but kind of lot of fractional part-time team members. She was spending most of her days babysitting team, trying to pull it all together, you know, not getting her own legal work done until pretty much, you know, five o'clock in the afternoon when everybody's gone home and finally she's catching up. She's working weekends, evenings. When I said, you know, how many hours are you working a week? I was like, it sounds like you're doing at least 60 plus. And she laughed and she was like, if only I was doing 60.

like that would be a really good thing. okay. Financials, she have time to look at the financials. And then she also had a team member that was holding her hostage. This is when I, you know, I use that term a lot with our clients, but they're really holding the owner hostage. And it can be many things. Either they've got just a really bad attitude and they're kind of like upsetting other people, but they're typically a really good producer.

So there's something there, perhaps they're responsible for a whole book of business or a whole area of the practice. And so that only gets held hostage, even though there's a lot of negativity, a lot of having to clean up messes, there's often the money piece linked. And she had that going on as well. And this particular team member was on their way out the door, walking out with a big part of the business. So whole lot of things going on.

And it, know, really Susie's words were at the time. And this is, I want to share this because I think it's the real warning signals. Like it really is like, don't go down this path. It starts with, if only I could work harder and get ahead of this, everything would be okay again. It's kind of like, if only I could find the energy to kind of sit down on the weekend and work through this, I'll be on the other side. I can figure it out.

Kevin Daisey (03:25)
Hmm.

Vanessa (03:30)
if only, and it always starts with that. And my words to Susie was A, like really warning flags here. My background was in stress management, emotional intelligence burnout. I'm like, you are on a very slippery slope. So that's the one thing that you've got to stop right now. And secondly, this wishful thinking or delusional thinking that if you could only do something, it'll all fall back into place doesn't work.

your firm actually needs a complete reset. We've got to kind of reestablish like the foundation and the ground rules and the values and everything like reset so that you can put yourself onto a different path. Good news, I'm sure we'll jump into some of the how-to's, but probably within a year and possibly even less than that frankly, Susie had, the team member went, we did a little bit of cleaning up a mitigation risk around the business that also

Kevin Daisey (04:10)
Let's do it.

Vanessa (04:25)
went out the door. Suzie's down to working four and a half day work weeks. The whole team is now, they closed their doors, I think at one o'clock on a Friday. So it's a team perk as well. She actually added another 200,000 in revenue in that same year. Her profitability is now increasing. And I think the one thing that she would say is like her stress level, I mean, she just looks different. She shed actually about 50 pounds.

when all of this went on. So she's kind of getting her body back in check, her health back in check, and she just looks physically different. And she's absolutely loving her firm now, but she's loving the new firm that she's running.

Kevin Daisey (05:07)
That's amazing. That's, that's awesome story. yeah, that employee you're talking about, through some other things, I think maybe the book Tracks and some other areas that I've learned it, but it basically called that a terrorist. You know, they're high performer, but they're not a cultural fit and they can cause all kinds of problems and cause other people to leave and, and damage the culture of the firm. and it's, but it's easy to want to keep those people because

Vanessa (05:21)
Yep.

Kevin Daisey (05:32)
of their performance or the book of business or whatever it is. And you got a lot of them, yeah, you gotta get them out there.

Vanessa (05:35)
Yeah.

Totally.

And it's hard, right? It's something, unfortunately, we deal with a lot. Sometimes in firms, it's been partners. I mean, this was more of an employee associate, so somewhat easier. But sometimes it's been partners, right? They've formed it together. And then there's one that's frankly become toxic, ⁓ not wanting to do what they do. But yes, there typically is no way forwards through this because somebody doesn't want to make the changes. And as you said, not a cultural fit.

Kevin Daisey (05:57)
Yeah.

Vanessa (06:08)
But on the other side of it, the good news is, my, it gets so good on the other side of this.

Kevin Daisey (06:14)
Yeah, sometimes we made hard decisions, but they're the ones we got to make. So, well, awesome story. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to jump into more about that, but thank you for sharing that and go Susie. Keep at it. So good to hear that. Well, I wanted to make sure everyone listening, tuning in on the show here, you get to know our guests and what we're going to be talking about today. But Vanessa Saul here is with us and

She has the Business Growth Academy. And also, I love this, is the Get Rich Without Being a Bitch podcast. So make sure you go check that out and check out her company as well. And at the end here, we'll share how you can best connect with her. And of course, as always, if you want an introduction and connection, I can make that by email, LinkedIn, whatever. So.

Tell me a little bit more about your business and how you work with attorneys and just your story, how you got started in this.

Vanessa (07:06)
Yeah.

So big, quick backstory was I kind of just fell into attorneys, like 18 years ago now. So it's a long time ago. In fact, I say 18, I think it's getting closer to 20, but you know how those years go by so quickly. And I was health coaching, actually the wife of a managing partner of a regional section of a billion dollar law firm in Europe. It's very well known.

Kevin Daisey (07:12)
you

Vanessa (07:33)
And he heard me, kind of overheard me and said, hey, could you help me? I've got a lot of stress. I want to be like really in peak performance and kind of love your energy and everything. I was like, I guess so, sure. So this was very much in a health coaching kind of lane as I was in at the time. Worked with him for six months. He was loving the results that he was getting and then said, you know, hey,

I don't know if you know, but I'm responsible for a lot of people in this firm and we're growing and the partners have a lot of stress. They're burning out that we've had some health challenges. I'd like to bring you in and basically pitch a concept of a coaching program. So I believe that my claim to fame is that I probably pioneered the very first ever virtual coaching program in a major law firm because this was in the day of

Skype was too advanced for them. of course, as we say this, know, Skype is closing its doors. But was coaching back then, Kevin, I never saw my clients, they never saw me. I pitched it as virtual because I had young kids at the time. And I was like, I don't want to be running all around Europe. I know it sounds glamorous, but I knew full well that it would get old very quickly. And so that was, you know, really helping the partners be at their best. And then the partners would, of course,

Kevin Daisey (08:28)
Yeah, right now.

Vanessa (08:49)
We'd start with kind of health and wellbeing and just what was going on. was like, I was like their personal perk, if you like, was like safe space to speak, this person to speak to. But of course it morphed into business after a while. They kind of like sort some things out and then it was, I got this team member or we've got this, you know, we've got this great opportunity. We've got a, you know, there's an opportunity to set up an office in China or Russia or all these places.

So I ended up being their executive coach for quite a few years. And after that kind of ended, I was like, I don't want to do big law again. Everybody said, should go, you should find another big law firm, launch this again. And frankly, I didn't want to. I felt like I was a very small cog in a very big system. And I was honestly a secret weapon for many of them as well. So they didn't want to tell, they didn't want to...

Kevin Daisey (09:28)
you

Vanessa (09:44)
refer me to other people. Sometimes, sometimes they'd even say, you can't come into the office. I want to meet you in another place. So it was, I don't know, there was an energy around it. was fun. I was really well paid. certainly had some golden handcuffs at one point because I knew my heart was kind of leaving it, but you the money was really good. And so I went into, you know, coaching small business owners and I actually went specifically women because the women

in the big law firm were the ones that I really bonded with the most. I felt like they had so many challenges and I was trying to avoid attorneys, it's really the truth. And then I think people just found me through connections and they kind of knew that I had this thing in the past. And so women attorneys kept showing up and I've now had to take the advice that I give my own clients, which is really in specializing and niching down. And I'll be honest, I resisted it as well.

Kevin Daisey (10:21)
you

Vanessa (10:39)
Because I was like, no, but I love writing. All the things that my clients say to me, was using the same excuses. But we just discovered that we really know the law firm model. 20 years is a lot of experience and expertise. And it's also bringing some of the really good stuff from big law into small law firms. Women attorneys are a ton of fun to work with. They're sharp as heck.

The women that we work with as well are really, and this is probably the edge where it's become so fun for me, they're wanting to disrupt and do things differently. They've been in the male dominated firms. They've come from that space. They've gone into their own firms because as we were saying at the beginning, they want to create a different culture. ⁓ They want to have the freedom, frankly, to take their kids to a ballet class or, you know,

Kevin Daisey (11:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Vanessa (11:31)
take off in the middle of the week, you know, and go skiing with their son or whatever it is. So I'm loving that we're kind of building firms in very different ways and frankly, you know, really disrupting that pattern of you don't have to keep working so hard. You can actually turn a law firm into a business, which is really what we help with. And so that the owners have a lot more freedom, lifestyle, profit, and they're frankly doing the work that only they should be doing.

Kevin Daisey (11:56)
Okay, I love it. Yeah, yeah, lot of my guests on the show and clients of mine, women have done some of the most unique things I've seen in the legal space and are some of the hardest charters I know. So, but they tend to do things different and find a way to be, again, completely different than the firms in their space. So that's interesting.

What brought you, so you're now in Arizona in the US, so you're from the UK. What happened there? When did that transition happen?

Vanessa (12:21)
Thank you.

Yeah, it's actually... No, I know, because

it's probably the number one question I get asked. How? Why? So actually going back to my days with the big law firm, and I'm telling you, I was really getting into coaching around some really big meaty topics like, yeah, we're going to open up a new region. One of the guys I loved working with him, he was one of the partners, one of the younger partners, wanted to... It was actually out in the Far East and he did do this.

Kevin Daisey (12:31)
Ha

Vanessa (12:52)
But he had young kids, he wanted to take his wife and his young kids out to the Far East and really live this sort of expat lifestyle, like, and setting up a whole new part of the business. And so I find myself coaching these guys. And again, on the whole, was, you my practice was 90 % men at the time, guys to do these big things. And I honestly had to look at myself and kind of go, you know, a couple of years in like, wow, I'm coaching them to do big things and pursue their dreams. What am I doing?

Like I was all of a sudden starting to feel out of integrity and it really sparked something in me. I've been coming to the States as I was skilling up myself and going down many different paths with like my coaching skills and credentials and everything. I found myself coming to California, which of course is always kind of, you know, always out there and like on the cutting edge of things and especially personal developments.

And my husband is also American, so that helped, but he had a big career back in Geneva, Switzerland. And I started to get the bug to come to the States. So I was sitting with this for about two years saying, there's no way, there's no way I can get my kids out of schools in Switzerland. My husband had a big career. He'd actually told me never to, the one thing he said, don't ever ask me is to leave Switzerland or Europe.

He loved it there. That was his dream. And here I am kind of going, no, this is really, I felt such a calling to come to the States. So long story short, I did get him on board. I present the business case and why it made sense. And it was going to be a three year plan for us to move and move the family. And it was going to coincide with the end of his career in the UN.

Kevin Daisey (14:26)
He's like, don't ever ask me. You're like, well.

Vanessa (14:42)
and I ended up making it all happen within 11 months. So it was less than a year. Now he actually did stay behind in Europe, so he had to stay behind. kind of commuted Switzerland to Phoenix for nearly two years. And I came over here in 2012. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (14:48)
Less than a year. Love it.

Awesome.

That's great. Okay, cool. Cool story. And you saw something you wanted and you made it happen. Whether he was on board or not. It's like, I love it.

Vanessa (15:12)
Yeah. Well, he was on board,

thankfully. know, listen, we're celebrating 30 years of marriage next month. So in June, whenever this goes live. So yeah, we made it through there and it's part of the, you know, fun story of think life together. And frankly, just doing things differently. That time then we think we can't do something, yet we feel such a pull towards doing it. Right. I'm a firm believer in, and frankly, that's a lot of where our coaching starts.

That desire and that pull from within is what we need to heed, particularly when it starts to get louder and it's just not going away.

Kevin Daisey (15:49)
Yeah, and you need to be in position to act on that, right? If you're working 80 hours a week and running around like crazy and your firm owns you, you know, it's going to be hard to have those moments and to act on them, right? So, yeah. Well, cool story. I'm glad you're here. I wanted to, we're going to dive a little bit deeper into

Vanessa (16:03)
Absolutely.

Kevin Daisey (16:10)
You know, the topic about, uh, you know, why working harder is not the path to more profit. And I can be a testament to that as well. But I had some fun kind of quick fire questions. My team threw her to my desk. So we're going to get through them. We're going to have a little fun. We're going to mix it up a little bit. I'm just going see the answers. mean, uh, it'll be fun. And everyone listening, Vanessa does have, has no clue what I'm going to ask her. Oh, and these are softball. These are softball fun questions, but.

Vanessa (16:25)
⁓ okay. Let's go. ⁓

I don't. No I do.

Kevin Daisey (16:40)
This is a good one, this is actually in line with like kind of our topic a little bit. If you had one extra hour every day, how would you spend it?

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Kevin Daisey (18:00)
you

Vanessa (18:00)
That is an interesting question because I actually have a lot of free time. So it really isn't it, you know, an interesting question. I mean, my love is tennis. So that would probably be like, you know, working with a tennis pro or something like real luck. I I play a lot of tennis. ⁓ But yeah, like if that had the hour and I could like work with a pro. Yeah, that would be cool every single day. I like that. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (18:04)
Ha ha.

Nice.

That's cool. I've never been good at golf and I've always wanted to get better. And I don't really have time usually to go play because it's like all day thing. but I did a pro lesson this past week in Palm beach and, it was very eye opening and helped me, it helped me a lot, but that's just like one lesson for one hour, you know? So it was, it was pretty cool. So yeah, I liked that. All right. Awesome. All right. what's your go-to coffee order?

Vanessa (18:40)
Yeah. ⁓

Yes.

I'm very boring with coffee because I'm not a big coffee drinker. I'm a tea drinker because I'm a Brit, you know. But of course, but my go-to really boring Starbucks is a tall almond milk latte. There you go. Nothing fancy.

Kevin Daisey (18:54)
So, bye.

Okay, pretty straightforward.

I'm black coffee. Done.

Vanessa (19:08)
Yeah, I have admiration.

I kind of admire people. I've always thought people that sit down and drink a black coffee is actually really cool. And particularly like in Europe, you see them with these little, like really little espressos and it's like the Italians and they've put it together and it's just that little couple of sips. I've looked at that and I admire it from afar, but the thought of me drinking that is like, no, it's not happening.

Kevin Daisey (19:32)
It's funny because then I order a coffee and they're like, okay, room for cream. No, you want sugar in there? No. Like they're like confused. Like what? There's anything else in there? No. It took me a while. used to do cream and all this stuff and sugar and I was so used to it. And then one day I just, I was just like, I don't, don't take, I don't want all this stuff in there. And I just kind of switched to black coffee. So I don't know. Weird. But that's me.

Vanessa (19:42)
That comes easy.

Kevin Daisey (20:00)
Okay, here's another cool one and then we'll get back to our normal talk. If you got a billboard in your town, so Phoenix or where in what would it say? A billboard for yourself for 24 hours.

Vanessa (20:12)
that's a really good question.

Kevin Daisey (20:13)
I dunno, right?

Vanessa (20:14)
Gosh. Yeah, this is a really good question.

Kevin Daisey (20:17)
I don't know what I would say either.

Vanessa (20:21)
I'd probably want it to be quite provocative. My mind's going into lots of different things. I think it comes back to, I wouldn't want it necessarily for me, but it could be representing the Business Growth Academy, for example. But I think it would probably say something like women's financial empowerment is the next level of freedom.

something like that, because that's really the core of what, I think that comes down to the core of why we do what we do, because I deeply, deeply believe that when women are empowered financially and have more financial resources, the world generally will be a better place.

Kevin Daisey (20:58)
Well, awesome. Good answer. All right, cool. Well, let's, let's kind of dive into a little bit more to, and when I was talking to Vanessa before, I was always meet with my guests prior. and she speaks on lots of topics and she's got our podcast and, know, again, go check her out and her website, for the business, growth Academy. But one of the topics she, she sent over to me was, you know, while working harder.

doesn't lead to more profit. And so I was like, that's, like that one. That's an interesting one because we're all wired to, well, actually had this conversation today with, with my president here and sometimes outworking people, you know, it could be a way to, to get ahead. But I liked the fact that it was like, doesn't lead to more profit. And at some point you can't work harder. You're going to burn yourself out. And if you're not putting things in place and delegating

Vanessa (21:44)
Mm.

Kevin Daisey (21:50)
you're not going to just see more profit out it. Eventually you're just, you're going to run out of time. So I was just interested to kind of know the nature of kind of that topic, unless I just wanted to kind of dive into, you know, how you use that. And when you're talking with your women clients, you know, what does that look like for you?

Vanessa (22:00)
Yes.

Totally, and there's lots of aspects to it, right? But I want to give like some really good practical takeaways. I think, Kevin, you just touched on it, right? We are so programmed that, you know, working busy is like a badge of honor. The busier you are, kind of the better you are, the more successful you're deemed to be. And like that's something that's very prevalent. That's probably one of the big, big differences I've seen moving to the States. That is very, very prevalent in America.

Kevin Daisey (22:10)
Yeah

Vanessa (22:33)
Europeans definitely have a different relationship to work and free time and leisure time and lifestyle. Whereas Americans definitely are banging that drum of the work harder. Now, and again, I love like effort and yes, putting in the hours and when you've really got to put your head down, there's a time and place. What often happens though is it tips the balance. And as you said, there's a point where you can't work any harder. You can't put any more hours in.

And for me, I look at this through the lens of energy. It's like, really, how are you spending your energy? We've only got so much of it. If we're spending a lot of that time in energy draining tasks, which is one of the places I kind of start with my women, it's like, you just haven't got the good quality energy for the good stuff. And again, practically, if you are...

chasing payments, doing admin, you this constant babysitting perhaps of team members, right? The stuff that is really not the best and highest use of your time, that your energy is drained, which means we don't have the energy for the strategic visionary, the dreaming, like you even mentioned it, right? You get so busy, you don't even have the moments to tap into, what do I want? And of course, outside of business, I'm a firm believer, especially in

Why are we doing this anyway? In small business and being business owner, mean, it's pretty risky. There's a lot involved in it. It's certainly not the easiest thing to be doing. So why are we doing it? Well, most people will say that they're doing it for their loved ones, for the freedom to do things on their own terms, that they're kids, they want to set an example, like all of these good things. And yet those are typically the very things that are suffering.

right, because they're going home and like kids and spouses are certainly not getting the best parts of them. we won't even talk about friends because that's often a heck Vanessa, if I had time for friends, like, I don't even have time for my, you know. So I think that's where we kind of start with it. We've got to start to rethink this, but like tap back into why did you go into business in the first place? And now let's reconnect with that. Probably changed and evolved.

Kevin Daisey (24:31)
Yeah.

Vanessa (24:46)
and start to re-engineer, kind of reverse engineer what you're doing. So one of my favorite questions in this kind of like the work harder is, and I always say this to my business owners, you won't get what you want, you get what you tolerate. Like, you will get what, you know, where your standards are and what you tolerate. So we can all say, you know, yeah, I wanna have a, you know, a shredded ripped body.

Kevin Daisey (25:02)
Ha ha ha.

Vanessa (25:11)
But if I'm tolerating drinking soda and eating fast food all day long, right, we can see that it's just gonna be a mismatch. So one of the first places that we suggest starting is just doing literally a list, a brain dump, it's not a very glamorous term, of all the tolerations. Because starting there, and it is not uncommon that my women are like,

Like, long have you got, Vanessa? How many am I supposed to find? You know, I've found 70. I'm like, great. Because now you understand why energetically you're feeling so burned out and burdened. And some of those things, you know, again, we've got a lot of stories attached to them. We tolerate things because we think we have to. We tolerate things because this is way it's always been done. You know, we tolerate things because we've never even stopped to question it.

Kevin Daisey (25:41)
Thank

Vanessa (26:04)
But I'm all around like, let's raise standards and you've got to be now the business leader, not the attorney anymore. We're to shift into being like the business leader and the visionary that is no longer tolerating certain things. Right? So again, like we're raising standards, we're raising, you know, improving like discipline and consistency. And it means that, you know, if my clients go through that process, just that one thing alone, every quarter.

Like they're constantly upleveling.

Kevin Daisey (26:35)
I can see that.

Yeah. I mean, a lot things you said in beginning there too. like, yeah, you're doing it for this or that or money or family or yeah. It's almost like those are future promise things, right? In your mind, you're like, I'm doing this because I get to do all this. And when you start a company and I started mom when I was 23, um, things definitely don't go the way you expected. And now you're, you're on this journey and you're stuck in this journey, if you will, of trying to

Vanessa (26:47)
Yes.

Kevin Daisey (27:05)
Be profitable and then pay for bills. then now you got to deal with clients and then you got to, and then you're just 10 years go by or 20 years go by. Right. And those things are no longer, or they're neglected or they're not, they're not things that you're focused on. and you're just now stuck in the, work, you know, and I see a lot of vendors like that.

Vanessa (27:24)
And that's the piece, right?

And that that stuckness like there, that's the grind. That's the piece that is really the, that's the piece that often needs to burn out, right? It's just doing the same old same old, not being able to really shift. Your role doesn't evolve. I mean, you know, the people, let's face it, that you and I working with, they're really smart people, really smart. And you spent a lot of money and a lot of time going to law school and keeping up with, you know, continuing education and everything.

That's what I would say is like, you're evolving. You've evolved a lot since going to law school, but like your business and your practice, well, typically it's more of a practice when they come to us. It's not a business, right? Which is the whole point. It's like, it hasn't evolved. You're still taking on all the, every client that walks through the door because you think you have to, because you don't have a system or you don't have a sales process. You, you know, you're aspiring to every single woman that I speak to is aspiring to better clients.

Kevin Daisey (28:04)
Yeah.

Vanessa (28:23)
better clients, better cases. they're confident about the work that they do. They've got a lot of experience and they're like, yeah, I want meatier things. You don't want to be doing this stuff that is just, could do blindfolded. Where's the challenge and the intellectual stimulation in that? right? it's like, business has got to evolve. Your client work has got to evolve. Oftentimes,

Kevin Daisey (28:40)
100 spot on.

Vanessa (28:49)
It's also back to, and this is back to the not working harder, right? It's the smarter piece. When you give yourself permission for that to evolve and like start to embrace that, guess what? You can be working with far less clients and earning far more money, right? So now all of a sudden we've freed up some time. You could, know, or we can be charging, like charging the fees that you actually want to be charging, but you haven't dared to, right? Up until this point.

You know, we can quickly run the math on that and it's not uncommon that, you know, even if it shaves off 10 hours a week, I mean, 10 hours a week, I find it easy for me to find 10 hours a week in a law firm. it's easy. like where it's just being spent in the wrong place, but it's like, that's 40 hours a month. And you know, think how that can be put back into frankly, family, kids, free time, strategic time, business development. mean, there's.

Kevin Daisey (29:24)
That's huge.

Vanessa (29:43)
There's so many things, but that for me is the, let's work really smarter and not harder. Bragging about having a hundred cases sitting on your desk is not the badge of honor for, you know, that it needs to be, but that if you've got 30, what we call kind of champagne clients that are really paying you well, that respect your work expertise and refer you to other clients, now you're working a lot smarter and life becomes fun again.

Kevin Daisey (30:09)
Yeah, plus, know, sorry, if you grow focused on the business side of things, and I know a lot of lawyers that they barely, they don't even practice law. They decided to be a business owner more than, and they enjoy that more. But if you put the right people in place and you grow the right way and you focus on things, you know, you can scale and have lots of cases, but maybe you cherry pick a few that you want to work on, you know.

Vanessa (30:20)
Mm-hmm.

Totally.

Kevin Daisey (30:33)
You grow a

team that to handle the workload. And, um, you know, so I think that's another kind of like decision point that I see often is, you know, do they want to be a better lawyer or do they want to like be more of a business owner and maybe be a lawyer when they want to be a lawyer. And I got some that are just like, I'm not a lawyer at all anymore. You know, I just keep my license and I'm a CEO. So I think, you know, making that, that decision I think is, uh, is important one too.

Vanessa (31:00)
It's key.

Yeah. And I would say the majority of our women, fall into that category, right? They're like, as you said, the cherry picked, I'd like to do, you know, a handful. You know, when I keep my hand in, sometimes that's the initial, you know, and that could be a stepping stone. Some of them are just like, get me out of this. Yeah. I want to be the CEO. I'm going to be the CEO of my little firm. I'm like, okay, let's go. But interestingly enough, know, women are a lot more hesitant to hire than men are.

Kevin Daisey (31:29)
⁓ I see.

Vanessa (31:29)
So statistically,

I don't know exactly why that is. I can hazard a guess. I do think women, again, kind of societally, we've been programmed to do it all. And again, kind of rewarded for that in an unhealthy way. Look after your aging patient, patient's parents, kids. You kind of do it all. You do the work thing. So there is something that women tend to be

hesitant about hiring. And yet we also know that women make really good leaders. They've got some just natural skill sets where they can build really great teams. So that's again, that's something else that we see as well that once our women kind of go over that, no, I don't want to be doing this all myself. I want to be building a team. And again, it kind of typically comes back to culture.

Kevin Daisey (32:06)
A hundred percent.

Vanessa (32:20)
I had a, she's actually a new prospect yesterday and it was like, I'm excited to have our follow up conversation because I was like, gosh, you're definitely in our sweet spot. And you know, when you speak to those people, but she was speaking, she was speaking about culture. She's grown very quickly. She wants to be less lawyering, a few strategic cases. And she's like, but I want to build a team. want it very women focused. I want to build a team that's happy. I want a different law firm. And then she's saying,

What I really want to do, what I'm passionate about is coaching and mentoring. That's what I want to be doing. I'm like, yeah, we have to, this is like, yeah, you totally can do that. But as you said, you've now got to work out and make sure you've got good systems in place for what is that culture that you want to build, who is the right fit, who is the next hire, and make sure that you've got some pretty robust practices in place for.

hiring, screening and good onboarding. And good people are out there. Everybody was always like, yeah, there's no big, like most of the firm sizes that we're speaking with, you're not looking to hire a hundred people.

Kevin Daisey (33:18)
Yeah, I mean, that's...

Yeah, yeah. Well, as the leader, you need to put those things in place and you don't want to accidentally kind of build a firm with an accidental culture. You need to put out your vision, what you stand for, your core values. And the thing is, once you build a good firm and you have some great people and you have a good culture, you attract way more A players and the right people for your firm. First is having to go find

Vanessa (33:52)
so true.

Kevin Daisey (33:55)
people or do job boards and listings and stuff like that. You know, for me now at this point, you know, I got to my, we got to our team. Who else do you know that's like you? And they're like, Oh, I got like three people that would love to work here because they talk about it all the time. Talk about us and our teams. And so it's very easy to find people if you have a good culture and, and you've built a good business. So, you know, put yourself out there and if you're leading your firm, whether it's just you by yourself or

Vanessa (34:08)
in

Kevin Daisey (34:23)
you have a few folks like start to lay that groundwork and get with your team and say, here's where we're going. I mean, the folks that want to go that direction will continue and support you. And the ones that don't will, you know, self-select themselves out the door. So.

Vanessa (34:37)
Yep,

totally. You just use exactly the term that I use. It's like they'll self-select out. And that's a good thing. It's actually a good thing. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (34:43)
Yeah,

the bad employee, the bad apple, right? They're going to not feel comfortable to be around and they'll find something else to do. so I think nothing, a good culture, nothing beats it because the people that are there protect it more than you do. And because they found a place that they want to be at and grow. so if someone's not doing something right, they'll come to you right away and say, hey, this isn't, something's not right here.

or I wasn't happy about what happened over here. So, you your team will protect the whole company as a unit, you know, if you've got a good culture going. So that's super important. That's interesting about the one prospect you have there is I had a young lady on the show recently and she was like 10 months into starting her new firm and

She wasn't paying herself anything. She kind of saved up, left the firm. Already had a bunch of clients coming in the door. Already made her first hire. Was working on a second hire. Was already documenting processes. Was, you know, awesome website. Was doing some marketing. Was on videos, on like TikTok and Instagram. like, I was like, how long you been in business? And she's like, 10 months. And I was like, blown away. Just blown away. And,

Vanessa (35:53)
Yes.

Kevin Daisey (35:56)
And she joined a mastermind group and she joined like a local networking group and like just doing all the things that usually takes people years to kind of like, you know.

Vanessa (36:04)
Yeah, it doesn't

have to take a long time. And I think, you know, one of the things that you've said there as well, like she joined a mastermind group, right? And it's like, that's the piece if you want to, if you want to, you know, really cut through some things and get there faster, that the path, the fastest path is never alone, guaranteed. You know, whether that's masterminding, coaching, know, peer networks, mean, peer networks, people that are that are in that growth mindset.

Kevin Daisey (36:24)
Absolutely.

Vanessa (36:33)
because you learn so much that way and you can apply it and as you say you can like really take things to the next level rapidly.

Kevin Daisey (36:43)
Yeah, to me, to me, that's the only shortcut because you you read books and they'll have some answers, but then you have to go figure out how to do it and apply it. And it's foreign to you in lot of cases. So, or if you go to a conference, you learn a ton, it's like a fire hose and then you got to come back and then you have to execute. And I think a lot of people fail to do that. Um, I like it's like, go to a conference to come back and do one thing, you know, it'd be worth it. Um, but yeah, the mastermind.

It's a good time to plug myself. so I had the managing partners podcast, which you're listening to. I had the managing partners mastermind, which is starting here in June coming up. And, I already have like a dozen. Phenomenal attorneys, owners that, that are signed up to be in the group. So, the power of match of mine is just, it's helped me, without a doubt. We've been in masterminds for, for quite a lot of years at this point and different ones, you know,

Vanessa (37:35)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (37:35)
Some

are people that don't do anything I do. You learn a lot. Some are people that only do what I do and you learn a lot. So when I have a mastermind group of attorneys, I'm gonna learn a lot and it's gonna be my group. But everyone, I'll send out more stuff about that, but it's coming soon. And I'm excited about that. So, but yeah, so spot on. Yeah, join a mastermind. That's just your shortcut. It doesn't have to be mine. It could be, there's...

Vanessa (37:58)
It is shortcut.

Kevin Daisey (38:02)
For the lawyers out there, there's like a eight figure firm, there's law firm Alchemy. There's how to manage a small law firm. There's fireproof. I mean, there's so many groups out there and I recommend a ton of them. got Ben Glass, Brian Glass with their great legal marketing group. And then of course you have Vanessa or her growth academy for women. So I would say, you know, take a look at.

what's out there and there's so much good information and people that are willing to help.

Vanessa (38:28)
Yeah, totally. And the one piece

I would say, because there are, you know, there's, again, lots of different things, different stages, is coming back to culture. Anybody that is thinking about that is like, check out the culture, because every mastermind does have a culture, right? Some of them are, you know, we call it in the women's world, a little bro-ish, you know, and it might be, right, some of them might be too masculine, right, or like the bro-ish for you, but you know.

Kevin Daisey (38:44)
Absolutely.

Vanessa (38:56)
frankly, some of the other ones might be just too light and, you know, have too much of an area of, I don't know, spirituality or whatever it is, right? But they can run the gamut, but it's really important to just tap into kind of the culture of those masterminds because you are gonna spend a lot of time with people. I've certainly known, I mean, I invest heavily in myself and I've been in places where I've thought, I'm in the wrong room.

Kevin Daisey (39:22)
You

Vanessa (39:23)
or

I'm the furthest along in the room, which is also not good, right? And equally so, know, don't always be the furthest behind by a long place. There are some masterminds that you kind of hand over your credit card and you get in, but there's no qualifier. I'm not a fan of that for those people that are more advanced or some things don't make sense. So I think there's, again, there's...

Kevin Daisey (39:42)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa (39:50)
such a variety and coming back to what you said earlier, Kevin, I think looking into just culture of these things, because there is definitely something for everybody.

Kevin Daisey (39:59)
That's awesome point. I appreciate that. I never thought about it like that. Yeah, because I just mentioned a ton of groups in the legal space and they're all so different. And now that I'm thinking about it, like, okay, yeah, that one's like this. And so, yeah, I think that's a great point. Like if you're talking about, know, mastermind or coaching or whatever, it's like, what is it like? What's the culture like? Because the...

you know, kind of what Vanessa teaches and helps law firm owners, women owners with, you know, stress and time and all that stuff. You could join a mastermind that's full of go hard, work hard folks. And there's, there's plenty of those law firm owners that I know, that just, no matter what, you're not going to talk them out of just working 80 hours a week and just that's their deal. And there's masterminds that are like, you know, full of people like that. So I think really.

taken that consideration. I never thought about that that way before. I've been on quite a few masterminds and you know, how do you pick the right one and which one's gonna work for you? I've always been like, one's better than nothing. Get in a group with people. But yeah, then find your way. You know, it might not be the perfect group. Yeah.

Vanessa (41:02)
out the approach. You know, Kevin,

I'm tempted to coach you now. Because just a thought, right? But this is kind of like, and it comes back to a really, you know, the topic of our conversation. But it's even for you, right, you're launching this, which is super exciting. And you've already got, you know, a good bunch of interest. But now for you to think about, yeah, how is yours different, right?

Kevin Daisey (41:24)
Sure, yeah, 100%.

Vanessa (41:26)
We all have to think about that in business. It's like, as you said, like, what are those angles, right? Where what we're doing is different, what we stand for is different, what we stand against.

Kevin Daisey (41:36)
Hey, I mean, you got to

think about the content and like how you're going to do it and what's going to be different about the structure and the meetings and stuff like that. But, you know, not really thinking about, yeah, what's the culture of my group? Who would want to be in my group? Who's not a good fit for my group? You know, maybe more leaning into that. Who's not a good fit might be a good way to figure out, you know, what, and I know a lot of lawyers right now. I got a client of mine. He's starting his own mastermind. He's a lawyer, very respected, very successful.

Vanessa (41:53)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (42:05)
And his is kind of niched in technology because he's big into like cyber and tech and AI. And he's going to really focus down on lawyers that really want to get geek out and, you know, kind of grow their firms with technology. So it's a unique kind of little niche he has there. But that's a phenomenal question to ask yourself. If you're joining one or if you're starting one, what's the culture of the group?

Vanessa (42:08)
Mm-hmm.

So can I share something that I'm up to?

Kevin Daisey (42:31)
Sure,

yeah, so I want you to share that and how we can connect with you and everyone that's listening. So yeah, go share away.

Vanessa (42:35)
Yeah!

I know at the beginning I was like, hey, Kevin, we've launched this thing since you and I spoke, which was only about 10 days ago. So it all happened very quickly. We'll make sure we'll get you the link for the show notes as well. But back to community, which is really what we're talking about, right? And places to learn and grow and all the rest of it. So we've launched the, or launching, because it's going live today, the Legal Collective.

Kevin Daisey (42:45)
Please share.

Vanessa (43:00)
And it's going to be a community for ambitious women owned law firms. It's a free community as well. This is not paid. So it's monthly. I love building community. I've done a ton of events as part of my business model. This one's going to be virtual monthly where I'm going to be teaching for free core concepts around business growth and mindset, which is key. And we're to have opportunities as well for networking peer to peer to build like referral partners.

Kevin Daisey (43:29)
That's awesome.

Vanessa (43:29)
And

it's gonna be like a, know, like a real power hour once a month. So the legal collective, it's gonna be linked to our website as well. And I'm just super excited about it. It was one of those moments of like, this is really what I wanna do and I'm not gonna think about all the reasons why not and everything else I've got going. we're just launching it with whatever fabulous women we launch it with.

Kevin Daisey (43:53)
That's excellent. Awesome. right. So it's called the legal collective. Awesome. All right. All my women that are listening, law lawyer owners, you know, definitely check this out. connect with Vanessa, Vanessa and, go to the website. Of course we'll get a link to, we can drop it in the comments or whatever, or always just reach out to me on LinkedIn or wherever you're watching this. Leave a comment. you can tag Vanessa, and we'll make sure you, you get the right information to check it out. So, so once a month, this is going to be.

Vanessa (43:56)
The Legal Collective.

Kevin Daisey (44:22)
a certain day of the week or

Vanessa (44:24)
It looks like it's Mondays for now. That's kind of a Monday afternoon my time, because you know, it's like across the country, it'll be later in the day, you you know how that goes. But I figured Mondays because Mondays are typically the day that I always recommend to my clients that that should be their kind of CEO day or working on the firm, not in it. So.

Kevin Daisey (44:31)
Yeah.

Versus

waking up Monday and getting stuck in the grind. And I like that.

Vanessa (44:48)
Exactly. then you don't get your

head back up again until Friday afternoon. yeah, Mondays at two, that's 1pm Arizona time.

Kevin Daisey (44:57)
Okay, and that's, is that specific?

Vanessa (45:00)
That's the same as Pacific right now and it will be 4pm right now Eastern time.

Kevin Daisey (45:05)
Awesome. Well, that's thanks for sharing and she hasn't mentioned it until this show. So first time hearing about it. Too bad we're not live right now, but it's all good. So, um, well, thank you so much for sharing that and your, and your, your story and, um, you know, how you're helping women lawyers and, and little great tips here that I'm learning as, which is the awesome part about having the podcast.

Vanessa (45:13)
First time, first time announcing it. ⁓

Kevin Daisey (45:34)
is I get to pick things up and learn on myself. And as I'm about to launch to my mastermind, I got some questions to answer. So I appreciate that. what is the most the best way for folks other than the link will drop to connect with you.

Vanessa (45:48)
Yeah, podcast, sorry, main podcast, main website is Business Growth Academy. It doesn't have a the in it, businessgrowthacademy.com. You'll be able to find the Legal Collective on there as well. I'm also on LinkedIn. We've got newsletters going out on LinkedIn, Get Which Without Being a Bitch podcast. I'm actually just about to record as well a series that's going to be specifically for law firm.

but everything that's on the podcast already is relevant across the board. yeah, and again, same thing. I love it when people reach out and say, hey, I heard you on this podcast. And so yeah, reach out. We're real people and we love, I love connecting and love making new connections.

Kevin Daisey (46:30)
Same here, I do too. Yeah, so yeah, if you reach out to her, mention the Managing Partners podcast, and I just appreciate everyone tuning in to listen to me. Hopefully not to me, but my guest. And so I thank everyone for being dedicated to the show and listening. And to the show too, something I never really mentioned before, but if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple or whatever, if you would, leave us a review.

Be helpful for us to get some reviews never really asked for or push that before but we'd appreciate that so All right, Vanessa We'll say goodbye to everyone. Thank you so much. You stay on with me Sometimes the the files take a second to upload so We'll say bye. Goodbye everyone else. Have a great day. Check out Vanessa connect with her and check out her new monthly group We'll see you soon

Vanessa (47:00)
Thank you.