Make $600k per Year in Just 10 Hours per Week Serving Business Owners Like This

Ali Katz:
Hello and welcome to the new law podcast where we guide entrepreneurial lawyers to build law practices into businesses they love. I'm Ali Katz. In today's episode, we're talking to two of our law business mentors who serve business owners, AJ and Denise, about how to break free from the billable hour and turn your practice serving business owners into a business that you absolutely love. And you're going to hear from Denise about how she is earning more than $500,000 a year in just 10 hours a week serving ten clients. If you are tired of the traditional model and ready to explore a new approach where you can make a real difference in your clients lives, specifically serving business owners, this episode is for you. You're going to hear about how we niche down to serve select clients at a high monthly retainer that provides tremendous amounts of value and allows you to really focus on providing the best possible service you can. Why business owners need this service and how this niche opens the door to you becoming a what we call lifted advisor, a coordinated advisor who's really quarterbacking all of your clients legal, insurance, financial and tax needs. Let's get into it.

Ali Katz:
This session is all about inspiration. It's all about the inspiration for those of you that serve business owners and want and really need, in my opinion, to get the vision of possibility for your own life and for the business owners that you serve. Because a lot of you serve business owners well, you're really playing too small and it's not good for them and it's not good for you. And I say that because I, as a business owner, have had a really hard time throughout my own career as an entrepreneur. I've had a really hard time getting great guidance from lawyers. And not just from lawyers, but really from the entire legal, insurance, financial and tax industry. It's one of the reasons that my next iteration is going to be something called lifted advisors. That's the future of where I'm taking things to support the whole legal, insurance, financial and tax industry, to learn to come together to serve our clients in a much deeper, much more impactful way.

Ali Katz:
And the reason I'm doing that is because of how many mistakes, expensive, painful mistakes I made, because I didn't know how to get the right support. And frankly, the right support wasn't even really out there because of our industry, not just the legal, but of course, the insurance, financial and tax industries as well. Well, we have suffered from commodification, hourly billing, and I want to introduce you to two lawyers today who are doing it differently. Denise, Gosnell and AJ Ulofsky. I've been working with and mentoring and in many respects being mentored by as well for a number of years. Denise and I came into connection together. I think, gosh, back in 2007, 2008, I think we had our first real in depth conversation in 2009 about Denise's practice. And that conversation led to what you're going to be hearing about today, which is how she serves.

Ali Katz:
It says 500,000 a year here on this bumper, but I think it's actually 600,000. We're going to hear from Denise that she made 600,000 in just 10 hours a week of client service. I think many of you are going to get inspired by that and we're going to hear from AJ and how he came into my world in 2016 about how he made the decision to focus his estate planning practice on serving business owners and why it's so important to serve business owners. We're going to be talking about that too. And then how you can do it in a way that is really at depth, really at depth where you're really making a difference in their lives. You're not just focusing on the documents, you're not just focusing on the transactions. You're certainly not billing on an hourly basis because when you do, they don't want to talk to you.

Ali Katz:
They don't call you when they really need to and what you can do instead. So with that, I want to welcome up Denise Gosnell. AJ Olofsky. Hello. Hello. Welcome and thank you for joining me today.

Denise Gosnell:
Hey, Ali, thanks for having us.

AJ Olofsky:
Yeah, thanks so much.

Ali Katz:
Yeah. So, so, so appreciate you being here. So I want to begin with Denise. Actually, first of all, is it true that it's 600,000 a year and 10 hours a week of client service?

Denise Gosnell:
Yeah, that actually is true. Now, I do have a paralegal that I'm not including in, you know, her time. She works about 15 hours a week for me, but 10 hours of my lawyer time. Yeah, just my time.

Ali Katz:
This is your time. Okay. So, wow. And so let's actually go way back before we do that, and AJ, just so you can get your voice in the space. AJ, why don't you start by telling us when you graduated law school, where you went to law school and how did your career start?

AJ Olofsky:
I'm a 2004 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law. Came down to Miami right after law school. I ended up in big law as a commercial litigator.

Ali Katz:
Okay. And how long were you in big law as a commercial litigator?

AJ Olofsky:

Ali Katz:
Okay. And when you say in and out. What else were you doing?

AJ Olofsky:
I was in boutique firms.I had opened up, briefly, opened up my own practice right before the 2008 financial crash. That was not a good move, but that was only in hindsight.

Ali Katz:
Well, it was not a good move because you didn't know me back then.

AJ Olofsky:
That's true. And unless you were. Unless you were doing transactions in Dubai, which was a very interesting opportunity that I had at that time. Nope. Yeah. So things changed a little bit back then.

Ali Katz:
Yeah. And then. And then how did you come to estate planning? And how did you come to me? How did you find me?

AJ Olofsky:
So, I'd been on your list for probably a year, year and a half before I actually took action. And what prompted me was, in July of 2016, my wife was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. She went from diagnosis to surgery in 16 days.

Ali Katz:
Wow.

AJ Olofsky:
The month of her recovery. I had my own practice at that time, and I shelved it because I was doing everything else. And I reverted back to my prior life, pre lawyer, so Marine Corps days, the type of work schedule that I had, we had very young. Our kids were very young at the time, and it was, be dad, husband, caregiver, gopher, family liaison, all these things. And then at night, once everybody went to bed, I had some free time to myself. And it was one of those nights in August 2016 that I was like, you know, there's this new business thing I keep getting. Let me find out what that is. I read everything on your website.

AJ Olofsky:
The old version. I read everything.

Ali Katz:
Terrible website.

AJ Olofsky:
It doesn't matter. I read it all. I probably still have the manifesto kicking around here somewhere. And it was. You know what? I've made a lot of people, a lot of money, which I did. Ali, you know this from coming from big law. I had a 98% collections rate as an associate, which is almost unheard of. And I said, it's time for me to invest in myself.

AJ Olofsky:
So I got on with one of the business advisors, and I said, I'm in. That was it. Well, what? Uh, they. They got thrown off their scrap? Off of all their talking points? No, I mean, I'm in. Like, here's my credit card. Take it, take it. I'm in. I'm in.

AJ Olofsky:
Just. Just tell me where to go, what to do. I want to get started. That was it.

Ali Katz:
Had you done estate planning back then?

AJ Olofsky:
Nope, not a bit. I litigated. I litigated some. Some trust disputes. I'd litigated some things. I think I covered a couple of probate hearings for some. For one of the other associates type stuff, but no, zero.

Ali Katz:
I really. I really love hearing that story, and I hope that those of you that are listening and are in a moment of struggle are hearing what AJ is saying, because he was in a moment of struggle. Deep struggle. A wife with serious breast cancer surgery. She's good now, right?

AJ Olofsky:
Yeah, she is good now.

Ali Katz:
Made it through.

Denise Gosnell:
But it's free.

AJ Olofsky:
Yep.

Ali Katz:
But back then, you didn't know.

AJ Olofsky:
Nope.

Ali Katz:
And you have little kids. You're the breadwinner.

AJ Olofsky:
She would dispute that.

Ali Katz:
Okay. But for sure, it sounds like facing being the breadwinner, at least. Oh, yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
We were. We were. We were facing down. Money was the. Was the least of our concerns at that moment.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
But it was realistic as to what. Cause she's a. She's an oral surgeon.

Ali Katz:
Uh huh.

AJ Olofsky:
So what could she do, right. We didn't know.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, you had. You really. You really needed to, like, dial in this money piece for yourself because you didn't know if you could count on her financially.

AJ Olofsky:
Yes.

Ali Katz:
And so, again, for. For all of you that are. That is in that moment of struggle, because a lot of you are. A lot of you right now are in that moment of struggle. And what I want to inspire you to know, because you're here for the inspiration in this session, what I want to inspire you to know is that if AJ could do it, so can you, wherever you are now. If AJ could do it, so can you, wherever you are now. It is the moment of struggle. That is the moment of the greatest opportunity because it removes all of the barriers from.

Ali Katz:
I can't do it either. I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do the thing that I haven't been willing or able to do before. Let me just check this thing out. I haven't been willing or able to do it before. Let me check it out and just see. Let me try it and see.

Ali Katz:
Let me do what I need to do. And so when we're in those moments of challenge, what I want you to recognize is that life is giving you a test. Life is giving you a test, and it is your opportunity to pass that test. And you can. You just need to keep your mind and your heart on where you want to go. What is it that you want to create? And the resources will show up for you to be able to do that, as long as you don't collapse and go back to something else that hasn't worked. Okay, so, AJ, thank you. Thank you for sharing.

Ali Katz:
Sharing that we're gonna get into what's happened since then? Cause there's been a lot that's happened since then. But first, Denise, I want to check in with you, because when we met, were you doing, like, government contracting? What were you doing when we met?

Denise Gosnell:
I was doing patent law at the time, and I remember we were connected by a mutual friend of ours that I had told. I was thinking about leaving the practice of law because I was just miserable. I was billing by the hour. I was doing work I hated, and I was like, there's got to be more to life than this life as a lawyer doing crap we hate. And I was just burned out and frustrated. And then he convicted us. And, you know, you changed my life in one conversation because I ran with the gold that you gave me in that 20 minute call. What was it about that, you know?

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

Denise Gosnell:
So when I was expressing my frustration to you, you said one thing. You're like, Denise, have you ever thought about designing legal packages for your clients and ditching the hourly model, ditching flat fee, and just having packages for the clients that you want to serve and showing up and serving them in a new way? So there were two phases of me implementing what you talked about. Phase one was me taking the stuff I still didn't like doing but putting it in packages. And I made half a million or more doing these packages, still doing work I didn't like, but at least I wasn't chasing the clients anymore. I had annual contracts, and that part was gone, but I was still doing work I didn't like. You helped me then reframe it and like, well, what if you were to actually do packages of things you enjoy doing? What would that be like?

Ali Katz:
And that got you to 600,000 a year and 10 hours of client service work. So we're gonna talk about that in a moment. What I want to get into next is, AJ, the next. The next part of your. Of your story that got you from. You're doing estate planning. You've learned the PFL way to serve clients with estate planning, but you weren't focused on business owners, I don't think, right from the beginning, were you?

AJ Olofsky:
A little bit. So there's that point in the training of figuring out who you want to work with. Yeah, I looked at my area, so I'm in Fort Lauderdale. Who do I have around here? What kind of families? What kind of practice can I create? Business owners were on my list, and one of the reasons was, there's something in the training about communicating, finding the affinity groups, or people you can communicate with easily. Well, my wife and I had just been through this miserable, horrible situation. There are so many people like us. How easy is it to say, I'm here to help, I'm you. And that was, and that was it.

Ali Katz:
And those people in the beginning were business owners or were they parents? Because you had a big range of affinity groups back then, your parents of young children, your wife had an illness. Was that the, I'm like you, I'm here to help, or what was that very specific to the business owner?

AJ Olofsky:
It was. I was focusing on. I was. I was still focusing on the business owners because that's just who I ran into. So business owners and professionals. Yeah, that was our, that's our social group. That's our community group. Being here in downtown Fort Lauderdale, that's who I'm going to run into when I see people at lunch or via the chamber of commerce, those kinds of things.

AJ Olofsky:
And it from there, um, it. I kept niching it down and leaving other things behind.

Denise Gosnell:
And now a little bit more about.

Ali Katz:
That in terms of the niching it down, because this is, I think, where a lot of lawyers get really afraid, and we're going to bust through that today, especially when you hear about how far down Denise has niched it and why niching it that far down has led to the 600,000 a year in the 10 hours a week of client service. But talk a little bit more about that niching it down for you, because that, by the way, was my biggest fear, too. I was afraid to niche it down. And it took me a bit to see, say, okay, I'm just going to focus my marketing on serving families with young children. That was my first niche. Eventually it became business owners as well, but that was my first niche. What did that process of niching it down look like? And where are you today with your niche?

AJ Olofsky:
So it was twofold. It was not only niching it down for me and identifying who the avatar client is. We know who they are on our marketing side, we know exactly who they are. It was also about niching it down in how I portrayed things to the community. Because too often as I was, I had a business practice, smaller one, before I became a PFL. What happened was that I didn't have the estate planning side, so I would refer the estate planning out. And what I found as I was, as I'm going through the PFL program, is that, oh, wait a second. Wealth is tied to the people I'm looking at.

AJ Olofsky:
Wealth is tied up in the business. I know the business side. How do I integrate business and estate planning? How do I solve for the client that they don't need two attorneys, they only need one. So it was two. It was a twofold niche.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
And the more I did it, the more I identified who my client was. It's had two effects. First, it's a lot easier to find clients because all of the marketing is designed to speak to them. And then the second is, as you've talked about many times about developing. It's the referrals, it's the tribe.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
As people say, I just had this. I have a client in California who's part of a larger networking group of business owners talking to a friend of his in another state, and the person in another state says, ah, it's AJ. I have to get it. If I want to be like, client in California who's mid eight figure wealth and who's a business owner. It just kind of happens that way. I sit down with this, with this new potential client, and they're like, oh, yeah, you're exactly who we need.

Ali Katz:
And the. You're exactly who we need. Now, I believe, especially with your new book that just came out. Can both of you both have new books that just came out? So. Yes. Let's see it. Hold it up there.

AJ Olofsky:
I'm excited. Kind of excited about this.

Ali Katz:
Yeah. Basic operations, estate planning for business owners. The right attorney can. Let me see the subtitles. The right attorney can protect your business and family's future. And so the focus now, I think, is on the business owners that are ready to look at what happens when they become incapacitated or when they die. They're ready to think about the exit. They're ready to think about the exit.

Ali Katz:
It's like they're at that point in their business career. So you haven't necessarily been niched to a specific business industry. You've niched to a specific stage of the business. I am a business owner who has had success. And are you niching it all to a specific revenue level in their business or just their stage?

AJ Olofsky:
We're starting to look at that because I was in a meeting with a private equity group before this call, and they asked me scope, because they're looking to hire me. And so it was, I said, I don't take people public.

Ali Katz:
Right.

AJ Olofsky:
That's it. That's where I, that's where I stop. As long as everything is private, I'll work with it. Got it. So I have one. I have one client. I have a couple of clients who turn 100 million a year in revenue, one at about 100, the other one at about 400. They're the outliers.

AJ Olofsky:
Most of my clients are sitting between five to 50 in revenue, 5 million.

Ali Katz:
To 50 million in revenue, and they're at the place where they're starting to think about, how am I going to exit this business, how am I going to sell? And what's going to happen when I die.

AJ Olofsky:
Exit is a perfect word because it's not only about the death scenario. And for anybody looking into this field, if you want to get your prospective clients, or clients thinking, the one that gets me the most deer in the headlights looks is when I ask a client some variation of, are you going to die at your desk? Are you going to die on the shop floor? Are you planning on wheeling yourself in because you're too infirm to walk? And all of a sudden, that's the moment the conversation changes. Yeah, they've not considered that.

Ali Katz:
And no one's asked them and nobody's asked them. That's it. That's what a. What a. What a big point to drive home. It's a simple question, but nobody's asked. Nobody's been confident, actually, enough to ask. And I think that's the key here, is that you've got now the confidence to ask that question, because you know that when you do, you can have a conversation with them about it that's going to lead to them, most likely hiring you.

Ali Katz:
Let me ask you this, AJ. How many clients a year can you work with?

AJ Olofsky:
On what basis? On a transactional basis, like on a one time.

Ali Katz:
On any basis. If you're looking at 2023, setting your 2023 goals, how many clients do you want to be serving in 2023?

AJ Olofsky:
I will probably work with 50 to 75 clients at various levels.

Ali Katz:
At various levels?

AJ Olofsky:
Various levels. So, because I do get the one off estate planning clients, you're still doing that? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's a great revenue stream.

Ali Katz:
Uh huh. Got it. Okay, great. So we're going to come back to you to hear a little bit about your team and your growth plans. So I want to pick this up then with, uh, now with Denise. And you have niched smaller. Much smaller. Um, I think that you are probably five.

Ali Katz:
I think. I think you're probably. Well, it depends what AJ decides. I think you're three to five years ahead of AJ. AJ could decide to do what you have already done because you only really have. I mean, I think you take on a little bit more, but you only have ten clients you serve?

Denise Gosnell:
Yeah, I have a max of ten recurring clients right now. I have nine. I had one client that was just acquired by a large entity and I only represent the entrepreneur. Like, while it's still entrepreneurial, once they're acquired by a larger company, I don't, I deal best with the entrepreneur business owner.

Ali Katz:
So, yeah, so tell us your, tell us your niche. Who do you serve?

Denise Gosnell:
Yeah, so 80% of my clients are seven and eight figure thought leaders. They're basically information publishers and influencers who speak on big stages like the Tony Robbins stages of the world. Like they're, they're thought leaders in their own respective industries. And, you know, I have all of them being, because they're all in a similar industry, they all have the same problems. If I solve a problem for one of them, they all have that same problem. So it's like every time I'm learning something or reading something new and innovative or coming up with an innovative solution, they all benefit from it. So I'm highly maximizing my time on what it is that I'm doing for them and I'm doing it proactively as well as working with them a couple times a month, their COO in some cases, the CEO, the entrepreneur. And each month we get on the call once or twice a month to talk about what's going on in their business.

Denise Gosnell:
I figure out what they need, proactively probing and we take care of it. And then I task it as soon as I get off the call, task things to my paralegal. I've got a vast library of templates. I tell her which template to use. I tell her where to get the data. She sends me a draft and on the next call I review it with the client. In many cases I'll have to take a quick peek at it before to make sure she was on the right track with it and see if it needs to be reworked or needs me to rework it. But in many cases they're just so well developed across all clients, I'm able to review it with them interactively on the next call and we go over it and see what we need to change.

Ali Katz:
And they're paying you just so we can help everybody see a vision for their own future. Possibly they're paying you each 5000 a month.

Denise Gosnell:
That's the average. My middle package is five to 5500 a month. The newest people are 5500. The ones that are grandfathered, they've been raised to 5000. I have one that's at 1801, that's at 10,000.

Ali Katz:
So I just want you all to take that in for a moment and start to consider what it might look like for you to have a practice. Do you want that? Do you want that kind of practice? Do you want practice? You're really intimate with your clients.

AJ Olofsky:
Right.

Ali Katz:
There's an intimacy level that Denise has with her clients where she really knows them. And it's ongoing. It is. She is. She's in their business consistently proactively speaking with them, speaking with their CFO. Speaking with their Coo on a monthly basis and or twice a month or weekly basis and really getting to know so that she can be proactive with them. Now most of you are far from ready for that right now. But if it's what you wanted to create for yourself you could become ready.

Ali Katz:
Right. Denise wasn't ready for that in 2009. Right. It might be even AJ maybe wouldn't even be ready for that right now. AJ. You're saying? Yeah. Right. It's a development process.

Ali Katz:
The question for you to begin to identify and the reason I'm bringing this session to you is so that you can begin to determine do you want to create this? Would that be a model that you would want for yourself? And we've brought this. We're bringing Denise back into the community as a regular law business mentor. Serving the community for those of you that want and have a vision of this kind of a model that want to be able to provide this kind of consulting support to your business owner clients. Because that's really what it is. It's really consulting support. And really in a way it is on the way to this vision of lifted advisors. It's in the way of vision to lift advisors. So again I just want you to.

Ali Katz:
You're seeing AJ's experience and you're seeing Denise's experience so that you can determine your own path from wherever you are now to where you want to go next. Okay. Good. I see somebody saying I've been trying it for Denise's model for years. But I haven't been able to reach the right clients. Denise is going to share with you or I'm going to ask Denise if she will share with you how she reached these clients. Because it's counterintuitive. It is counterintuitive.

Ali Katz:
Most of you are not willing to do what Denise has done. But perhaps if you hear what she has done then you will be willing to do it. You'll know what it is. And it's actually not only quite simple but it's quite fun the way that Denise has done it. The issue is that it's expensive, right? How much have you invested? Yeah. Yeah. To reach this market, let's talk a little bit about that. Would you love direct support? To help you grow your law practice into a business you love, go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and sign up for a call with one of our trusted law business advisors.

Ali Katz:
Each of our advisors has been trained directly by me over the past five years, plus to help you chart your path from wherever you are now to where you want to go as efficiently and effectively as possible. You're ready to grow. We are here to help. Yeah.

Denise Gosnell:
So basically, when I realized I wanted to serve, you know, business owner clients that I really admired, I mean, like, they were the dream client I thought up to myself. And back in the day, when I first started working with them, I was only doing intellectual property law. So that was the hat I was wearing then. How can I add value to them where everybody else always wants something from these highly successful business owners? You have to think about that. Most people want to go to them asking for a favor or asking them for their money or asking them for something like that. So how can I approach them from a giving perspective? So what I started doing was I identified a handful of thought leaders that I really wanted to serve, and I booked a ticket to attend their event. I went and I bought the vip where I could talk to them even for just five minutes to be able to have access to them. And I said, hey, thought leader.

Denise Gosnell:
Called him by name, of course. Said, I really admire you and the work that you're doing. And I noticed that you have done this amazing job at generating millions of dollars. You just shared how you generated millions of dollars from this brand. And I noticed that you don't have a registered trademark on it, much like you do with your deed to your house and the title to your car. Did you know you could register the trademark and protect this asset that you just shared in your case study generated millions of dollars? I'm like, what? And I'm like, you know, and I'm like, you know what? I just want to. I would love to just do that for you for no charge. Like, I literally, if you're willing to allow me to, I just so appreciate you, and I would like to just take care of that for you.

AJ Olofsky:
There's that.

Denise Gosnell:
Like, there's no charge for the attorney fees. The government filing fee is like $800. If you want me to do that, just tell me who on your team you want me to talk to. And they're like every 100% of them said yes.

Ali Katz:
Because I want to just pause. I want to pause there for a moment. So we'll break this down for you. First of all, Denise got in the room. How much did you pay to get in the room?

Denise Gosnell:
It depended on the event. $2000 to $10,000, okay. Depending. And I didn't start with the $10,000, but, you know.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, but Denise paid to get in the room. Yes, exactly. The person who's saying I do too much free stuff. Well, when you're saying, I hope that what you're saying is you don't pay enough, because notice that Denise paid. Now, if you mean that you give away too much free stuff, that's going to be the next part of what we're going to find from Denise is how did she make sure that that was going to pay? Right. Because it does make sense to pay two to $10,000 to get into a room and then give away a free thing if you don't know how you're going to convert that into a paying client. So that, of course, is the next step. It's what we talked about in the prior session.

Ali Katz:
You're not hiring a team until you know you can engage clients 80% to 100% of the time for an average fee that is high enough for you to deliver the service that you're going to deliver. So don't use this strategy until you know how to engage clients the way that we teach, minimum. Right. Okay. So Denise paid two to $10,000 to get into the room, to get next to the person, and then she gave away a free thing. How did you then know, or how did you ensure that that free thing led to them hiring you?

Denise Gosnell:
In the very beginning, I didn't know whether it would work or not, but I always knew that if you pick someone who's very successful and they're used to being taken advantage of, that if you lead from a giving heart that they won't take advantage of you, they will want to reciprocate. I didn't do it for that reason, and they knew that I wasn't doing it for that reason. But when I used to give away free stuff to startups, it never went anywhere. All they did was waste my time because they didn't have the money to reciprocate even if they wanted to. So I purposely picked people who I knew were already seven to eight figure business owners, but they were successful, almost like in the wild west of Internet marketing, where they didn't know the legal stuff that we know that we have the benefit of. So I really knew I could help them. And no one had just taken the time to ever get to know them before in the right way. Everybody just wanted something to ride on their coattails.

Denise Gosnell:
So I really didn't know it was going to work, but I just had a hunch that it would.

Ali Katz:
And I think I want to, I think it's the case. But let me check in with you. You had a package to offer them on the back end, right at that time.

Denise Gosnell:
I didn't.

Ali Katz:
You didn't? What did you offer them after the, after the patent or after the trademark?

Denise Gosnell:
I basically just offered them the trademark and here's what happened. They said, cool, thank you for helping us get that trademark on that particular brand, you know, the one they were famous for. I've got these other four products I just released. Could I hire you to do these other four for me? And then what happened was I then approached their best friend and I said, I just took care of these for x. And I went to that, their best friends' event and said, would you like me to do that for you? And they said yes as well. And then of course they checked with their buddy and their buddy said, yeah, she was awesome. Guess what happened? The same thing happened there. Did the free one.

Denise Gosnell:
They hired me to do their whole portfolio.

Ali Katz:
Now at that time you were doing trademarks.

Denise Gosnell:
Trademarks and patents and copyrights.

Ali Katz:
Right.

Denise Gosnell:
And licensing agreements like IP licenses.

Ali Katz:
And was that before you had your original packages of 750 to a few thousand a month?

Denise Gosnell:
Yeah, that was right around the time that you and I first started talking. I was already starting to do work for people, but I was still not happy because I was doing work I didn't like.

Ali Katz:
And. Yeah, and I think maybe you were doing it hourly.

Denise Gosnell:
It was flat. I think it was a flat fee, but.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, like low flat fees. And then your first iteration of your packages was 750 to 3000 a month.

Denise Gosnell:
A thousand to 3000 I think was mine.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, was my range for deliverables, specific deliverables, like a certain number of trademarks, a certain number of other deliverables. That was the first iteration. Right. And you did those for many years. Right. And then we had a conversation some years ago. How long ago would you say when you went to the current model?

Denise Gosnell:
Probably ten, 10 to 12 years ago I was like, great job. Your idea was amazing, transformed my life. Now I have a half a million dollars in annual revenue doing work I don't like. But thank you for helping me not taste science anymore. You're like, well, let's level this.

Ali Katz:
Yes, but that was actually an important stage, right? Learning to offer those recurring revenue packages at the one to $3,000 a month. But they were all based on deliverables. And that can be a first stage for those of you that have clear deliverables. Like, okay, I'm going to offer estate planning and then a maintenance of the plan and a review of the planet, or I'm going to offer a certain number of trademarks and a certain number of contract reviews and, you know, the things that you do for the business. And then the next leap up from that to this current stage where you're just at the ten and it's that average fee of 5000. What did it take from a mindset perspective to make that shift? And also from how you see your role perspective. Yeah.

Denise Gosnell:
That was something that you really helped me see. How do I focus on not the commodity deliverables and the value that I bring to the table? And now I'm more a legal concierge for those thought leaders where in a lot of cases I'm their general counsel. I've gotten licensed in multiple states and in a lot of cases I'm only, I'm working with clients on a lot of federal matters and I hire local counsel when I need to. But I literally realize that serving that niche, what I'm really good at is demystifying legal for that niche. I know what they need to do. In most cases, I can handle it for them. But when I can't, I know how to make things easy for them. They don't want to deal with a bunch of lawyers. They want to call Denise.

Denise Gosnell:
They want to text me. And I forgot to mention as part of the 10 hours that also includes them texting me my recurring clients, I'll get my private cell phone. You wouldn't have to do this. You could use a business texting line. But they value that so much to be able to send me a text message. Denise, I'm about to meet with Sir Richard Branson. Can you look at this release and tell me if it's okay or, Denise, I'm about to do this big deal. Can you hop on the phone with me now? And I'm not always available, but I'll always answer them.

Denise Gosnell:
Like, if one of them texted me right now and I saw if you see me glance down and they said, I'm about to do x, I'd be like, on call, can talk in 20 minutes, you know, like, that's what they're getting with me. And they value that so much that they're not micromanaging my deliverables. They just want the result. I'm incentivized to help them make multimillion dollar deals. I'm the lawyer that gets deals done fast and they love the fact that I get deals done fast. They're not thinking, did she spend 10 hours a month for me? They're thinking, I may have only sent her one thing, but she got it done in an hour and I just signed a seven figure contract. They're happy with that.

Ali Katz:
And if they are engaging in something that's outside of your scope, so they get a lawsuit, they are in a conflict with somebody. What do you do with that?

Denise Gosnell:
So I interview co counsel for them and I manage the co counsel.

Ali Katz:
Exactly, exactly. And they pay for the co counsel. They're not paying you that 5000 or whatever they're paying you a month. They're still paying other lawyers. There's some things it sounds like you do in house where they're not paying for other lawyers, but they're not paying for others. They're paying for other lawyers that things that are outside of your scope.

Denise Gosnell:
Right. They're basically paying me for my time on the strategy calls, solving problems for them, texting me, and some basic contract review. And if it requires hundreds of pages of documents to be created, we'll hire another lawyer to do that. Or I'll have a template that my paralegal will fill out per my direction that I'll then review and refine.

Ali Katz:
Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing this vision of possibility for everybody. And just note, you're probably not going to go from where you are now doing estate planning for business owners or doing trademarks for business owners to where Denise is in one fell swoop, it's going to take time. And there's stages. There's stages. And so one of those stages might be, for example, the stage where AJ is where he's really niched down to serving business owners. And for him, he's serving those business owners that are ready for exit.

Ali Katz:
Stage of their business that are ready for exit. And his next stage, he might decide to move in the direction of Denise, right? He might decide, okay, I'm at the place in my own career where I only want ten clients and that's where I want to be, but it's stages. So, AJ, I want to come back to you and ask you, first of all, hearing what Denise has said. What are you thinking about all that?

AJ Olofsky:
Um, I already have a bunch of those kinds of relationships, they're the most fun. I have a client that right now hired me in November, and he wanted. It's an existing business, close to 50 million a year in revenue. We were talking, and he said, we're doing our budget for the following year. This is weird. This is an exception. Let's just do hourly for the time being while I get this budget figured out. And I already gave him a number for an all in price.

AJ Olofsky:
He said to me three times I've been in his office, and he's says, some. Some months, I'm gonna use you all the time. Some months, I probably won't even talk to you. And he's gonna come in at a five figure monthly fee. Yeah, right. Right out of the box. I figured out, yeah, I have. I have other clients right now.

AJ Olofsky:
If I looked at a long time ago, I looked at the deliverable type plan. And for someone who's just getting into this, that can work. Except I've never met a client. I haven't had a client yet in 18 years that needed four contracts in one month. I just haven't had it. And that might just be me, but I do have clients who needed four, eight strategy calls in a month because we're getting a deal done. And so I've moved over to that. I'm on your team because I get FCC stuff done better than everybody else and more efficiently than anybody else.

AJ Olofsky:
So that's what people are paying me for. They're paying me to be on their team. I could walk out today, I would have the same revenue, same average revenue as what Denise is reporting on five or six clients.

Ali Katz:
If you didn't want to take the.

AJ Olofsky:
Other stuff, if I didn't want to take more stuff, if I just wanted to fold it all up, it's not what I want to do. I'm going in a different direction. There's something else I want to build. I like having the diversity of things, of stuff, of problems, of challenges.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
So that's why I keep it open.

Ali Katz:
Well, and that's so critically important, because you get to decide what you want, and that is the most important thing. I'm bringing AJ and Denise and many of the lawyers that I'm bringing here to show you a range of possibilities of what you can do with your life in law practice. So you don't just stay in one rut. So you don't just have a limited view of possibility because you've only seen a limited view of possibility. I want you to see this full range of possibilities that you get to choose from so that you can create the life and law practice that you love that is right for you. Because whatever you can envision today, you can create three to five years from now. You can create three to five years from now. The key is you being able to see it today.

Ali Katz:
You are able to see it today, and then make your decisions from that three to five year out version of you. You got to make those decisions today, even though you're not there yet, because that's how you become that. That is the path. So let me ask some questions here that have come in about both of these, really what both of you have shared. Let me start with you, AJ, on. I don't think you saw the session on Monday with Jim Carlisle of Dinsmore. Jim is at a big law firm, Dinsmoor, doing growth and exit. His clients are really the same as your clients.

Ali Katz:
And I think maybe the question that's being asked here is, what's different? And is there, you know, do you have different practices? I mean, I think one big difference is that Jim's at a big law firm and an employee of that law firm, maybe a partner at that law firm, AJ's on his own without having seen Jim's session, just knowing that Jim's a big law firm. Growth and exit lawyer. Tell us what's different.

AJ Olofsky:
What's different is going to be the types of matters he can take. Because in a large law firm, there's massive conflicts, and you don't know where those are going to sit or whether or not you would be excused from those conflicts. And then it's not only the ethical conflicts that exist. It can also be some of the personality conflicts that you might not know exist at all. And we had that. I was big, big international giant law firm associates couldn't open matters, but there was a big. There was a large rivalry of sorts because of origination. Who gets credit for the work done on that client? And we had it in our Miami office.

AJ Olofsky:
Corporate partner brought in a client that was going public, and that matter got stuck up to the headquarters in Cleveland, and the originating partner didn't get anything from it except a little pat on the back. There can be some real challenges, so it can be some of the types of clients that you see who you have to work with. What's happened in my practice is I get to be able to design not only the type of practice that I want with the clients I want to work with, but also the surrounding team I want to work with. So for example, one of the most popular questions I get right now is, can you recommend an accountant? Matter of fact, yes, I can. And that gets the next person on the client's team is already someone I know or someone who knows me how I do things. And we can start producing things. Another important one is the banks. Because the banks are the ones that make everything work.

AJ Olofsky:
If you've worked with giant banks before, it can be a real problem. Because of my network, I'm helping my clients get more efficient and higher quality banking by introducing them to the credit unions and the state chartered banks and even some community banks. True community banks. One office in Fort Lauderdale and Broward county kind of thing. And the clients are coming back and saying, oh, my God, thank you so much for introducing me to Mary. She just got everything done.

Ali Katz:
Huge contrast.

AJ Olofsky:
Contrasts, yeah, the relationships are different.

Ali Katz:
Yeah. Really important for those of you that are serving business owners. You're networking with your clients, like Denise said, getting real close to the clients that you want to be serving. And you also want to be making relationships with the other advisors that serve your clients. I want you to start to see yourself as the quarterback for all of their legal, insurance, financial and tax matters. Because when you can take yourself into the role of what I call lifted advisor. No person who has a complex business or a complex financial situation, from what I've seen so far, has the person that coordinates all of their legal, insurance, financial and tax advisors. I haven't come across it yet.

Ali Katz:
I've not come across it yet. And maybe if they're a billionaire and they have a family office, they've got that person because they've got a whole family office that does all that for them. But what about the hundred millionaire or the 80 millionaire or the 50 millionaire or the ten millionaire? They can't afford a family office, but they can afford 5000 a month. And in fact they need to because otherwise they're losing far more than 60,000 a year on bad tax decisions, on paying way too much on the wrong kind of insurance, on losing track of their financial reality completely because they just can't track everything. And that's why. So Rob, my CFO and I, we've been taking private clients these last two years in development of this model so that I could understand it. And it's just blown me away how people just. They're losing so much of their resources because nobody's tracking and nobody's keeping their lawyers talking to their insurance people, talking to their financial people, talking to their tax people.

Ali Katz:
And that gets to be you. That gets to be you. Great. We have another question here for AJ, which is, has becoming a SiPA helped your business? And I think, yes.

AJ Olofsky:
It has. Because it gets you more education.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
Money. My grandmother used to quote a fortune cookie that she found one day. Money spent on the brain is never in vain and it only makes you better. It only makes you more valuable to the people in the room with the business owners. It has changed the conversation with business owners. When I say I'm a business succession attorney, because there's no such thing, I just kind of made it up. I'm a business succession attorney. I've been specifically trained here, here, here.

AJ Olofsky:
And oh, by the way, certified exit planning advisor. Oh, and I wrote the book on it. So SEPA, very good education. They're still an organization and this feedback I would give to them anyway, they're still finding their way on some other stuff.

Ali Katz:
And you're putting together business succession foundational materials in our strategic business advisor upgrade and our lifted advisor training. So that is also. We're really glad that AJ went to SEPA and is bringing it back to our organization to help those of you that want to begin to integrate that into your practice. And I think that's the place to start. And then if you decide you see it through new law business model, you go through the boot camp and you're like, oh, yeah, I want to go deeper. Then that might make sense for you to go out to SEPA and go deeper with that. And yes, AJ, I'm going to volunteer him and say, yes, he will.

AJ Olofsky:
You're going to pay him. Yes, he will work with you. Is that true?

AJ Olofsky:
Yes. I actually. A word on that. I get a lot of co counsel requests and just for the benefit, because this is really something, this is my give back to the community. But in general, if you want to get a fish in that concept, I can help you there. If you want to be taught to fish, I'm happy to do that too. The numbers are staggering. It is.

AJ Olofsky:
At last count, it was only 23% of us business owners, privately held business owners have a written succession plan so we could co counsel on one and on the next transaction we might be adverse, but what a benefit it would be to help a group get it right.

Ali Katz:
Yeah.

AJ Olofsky:
There's so much opportunity here.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, so much. So, so much. Let me go back to Denise for a moment.

AJ Olofsky:
Denise, please.

Ali Katz:
Yeah, yeah. First of all, Denise also wrote a book that I think all of you should read as business owners. Yeah. As business owners, because it's for business owners as a whole. It's called the vacation effect for entrepreneurs. I can't see the subtitles. You read it for us.

Denise Gosnell:
Grow your business even faster by working less and having more fun.

Ali Katz:
Who doesn't want to do that? Who doesn't want to grow their business even faster by working less and having more fun? And this is Denise, not theory. Denise has a lot of fun, travels a tremendous amount. How much do you travel each year?

Denise Gosnell:
I travel one week a month and I spent six weeks abroad this summer. And I have three companies that I work an average of three days a week running those three companies, one of which is my law firm. So I'm a seven figure entrepreneur. One of them is my law firm.

Ali Katz:
So, yes. So if you want to leverage this vacation effect that allows you to be so much more effective, then you'll read Denise's book. And what do you think? Let me just get this question that I'm going to answer. Two of the questions that really aren't for Denise and AJ. I can. Maybe they are, but there was one about the general counsel work and. Okay, maybe it'll be this one. Can you talk about the prospect of developing a business around serving business owners for an attorney that doesn't have a pre existing network in this area? My background is in commercial and real estate litigation.

Ali Katz:
Maybe each of you can answer that. Okay, great. AJ, you want to answer?

AJ Olofsky:
Yeah, I'll take this one. Because I had very quickly, twelve years of being known as a commercial litigator. I got referrals when I opened my own practice in April of 2014 for commercial litigation for complex commercial litigation. International work I was doing and had an arbitration in London for an Iraqi construction company. Right. Against the US prime. That's what people knew me for. I go through this program and you are the person to ask when you decide that it's time for you to be the person to ask.

AJ Olofsky:
The mindset stuff that Ali talks about is gold, platinum, and then something else, because you have to decide that now. Today. We all know about lawyer awards. We all. We all know how those things work. Except I've now been chosen for every single one across the board. For what? Business law, estate planning, for transactional work. That's a flip.

AJ Olofsky:
In less than five years I started getting all of those. So I'm recognized as one of the authorities in Florida in this field that I got into five years ago. I didn't just magically do it. There's work. There's a lot of work that goes into this. Nevertheless, just because you're a real estate litigator right now doesn't mean you're not going to be known for something else tomorrow.

Ali Katz:
And you can choose that. You could choose that, right, AJ, in the middle of the night in August of 2016, joined new law business model and learned estate planning from the ground up and is where he is now. And that was, you know, five and a half years ago. So you can get to wherever you want to go in that three to five years if you start making the decisions today. Go ahead, Denise.

Denise Gosnell:
Yeah. So what I would say to that person is that you have an amazing background in real estate law. That if I were you, I would start the low hanging fruit and that would be going after real estate entrepreneurs like I have. One of my companies is a real estate company, and my entrepreneurial clients love that I have a real estate background as well. But because you could approach those clients with packages of being this trusted advisor as you build in the estate planning on the side, because you literally know what it takes to get them out of a lawsuit proactively before it even happens. You've seen what happens on the other side, and you can speak from your experience to say, hey, this is what I've been doing for 20 years, or however long it's been. I'd love to help you, represent you as your general counsel in these ways to keep you out of these lawsuits and then to help you expand, because I understand your industry so well, you could leverage that, as you already have such great expertise. So I would niche there first and see if you can get some traction.

Ali Katz:
I love that. I love that. Thank you all so much. Denise and AJ, thank you. Thank you for serving our community. Thank you for serving your business owner communities. And I just am so appreciative of both of you. Just fantastic representations of just the best kind of lawyers, really heart centered, soulful lawyers here to make an impact in the world.

Ali Katz:
That's what we're doing, y'all. This is why we went to law school. Thank you for being here. Please reach out to AJ and Denise and tell them how thankful you are for the work that they're doing for showing up here today. Get their books. Review their books on Amazon. Thank you. AJ and Denise.

Ali Katz:
Have a beautiful day. If you want to have these kinds of results in your own law practice, it takes time, energy, attention, money, and team resources to build the systems and the processes to serve clients in the way that Denise and AJ do. And you don't want to reinvent the wheel or go it alone. That'll just increase your costs so much more. So, if you would love to get the mentorship, the training, the systems, the automation, everything that you need to build your law practice into a business you love, like AJ and Denise, simply go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show.

Ali Katz:
That's newlawbusinessmodel.com/show. And start the process of talking with one of our law business advisors, who can help to map your path from wherever you are now to exactly where you want to go. Serving families and business owners in an entirely new way.

Ali Katz:
I look forward to seeing you on the inside.