#this first week is basically all hr and onboarding stuff

[emotionalsupportdman]

DAY ONE OF EMT TRAINING COMPLETE!!!!!!

[amberavaava]

Developing Comprehensive Onboarding and HR Policies: Laying the Foundation for Long-Term Success

Hiring someone new? That’s not just paperwork and a handshake—it’s basically the start of a whole new chapter (for them and you). And honestly, if you botch the onboarding, you could lose a rockstar before they even get their first mug. People want to feel like they landed somewhere that actually gives a damn. This is way more than a “Welcome to the team!” email and a logo sticker. It’s about building trust, showing people the ropes, and making sure no one’s left alone at the lunch table wondering what the heck is going on.

At SapientHR, we don’t mess around with onboarding. Clear chats, actual structure, and policies that aren’t just legal jargon—that’s our jam. We help companies build onboarding that’s more than a welcome email and a generic PowerPoint. We’re talking real engagement, fewer screw-ups, and, yeah, people sticking around for the long haul. Companies who don’t take this seriously? They end up with confused newbies, frustrated managers, and a revolving door of talent. Not exactly the “dream team” vibes you’re going for.

Why Bother With Onboarding?

Look, those first three months? Make-or-break time. Folks are sizing you up, figuring out if your “core values” are just wall art, and deciding if they’re gonna stick around or bail at the first LinkedIn message. Good onboarding? It’s magic. You get:

People who actually know what they’re doing (faster)

Less eye-rolling and more buy-in

Fewer “I quit” emails after lunch

A vibe that actually matches your culture

Way fewer early exits

But if onboarding’s a mess? Say hello to confusion, mistakes, and a whole lot of “who do I ask about this?” Not a good look. Seriously, a new hire wandering around lost is a total morale killer. Not to mention, it’s expensive to keep rehiring for the same role because nobody sticks around.

What Makes Onboarding Not Suck

Here’s how we roll at SapientHR—no cookie-cutter nonsense:

Preboarding Don’t wait till day one to drop the info bomb. Get them prepped with the basics early—contacts, logins, schedules, even where to park (or which Zoom link won’t explode). This is the stuff that makes people feel like they’re not just another butt in a seat. Ever show up to a new job and no one knows you’re coming? Awkward. We help you avoid that.

Culture Shock (The Good Kind) Mission, values, the unwritten rules—spill it all. We help you make those orientation sessions actually mean something, not just “here’s our org chart, try to stay awake.” People want to know what it’s really like to work here. Can I wear jeans? Do people actually take lunch breaks or is that just a myth? No one wants to feel like an outsider for weeks.

Job-Specific Training Don’t just throw people at a desk with a “figure it out” attitude. We help build training that actually covers what they’ll do, not just generic company stuff. New hires need the nitty gritty: what tools they’ll use, who they report to, how success is measured, and what NOT to do if they want to avoid rookie mistakes. The faster they’re up to speed, the faster they add real value.

Goals & Check-Ins Set up those 30-60-90 day goals, schedule some real check-ins (not just “how’s it going?”). Give people a reason to care. We even give your managers the playbook for it. Regular check-ins aren’t just to make sure people are “fine”—they’re about course-correcting early, giving props where it’s due, and making sure people aren’t quietly struggling. Plus, it shows you care, which is rare enough these days.

Feedback That Goes Both Ways Onboarding isn’t a monologue. We build in feedback loops so you can keep making it better, not just pat yourself on the back. New hires have a fresh perspective—if you actually listen, you can spot broken processes before they become full-blown disasters. Plus, it’s just good manners to ask how things are going, right?

Why HR Policies Matter (And Aren’t Just Red Tape)

Great onboarding dies fast without policies backing it up. Policies = clarity, fairness, and protection for everyone. We help you nail down the stuff that matters, like:

Employee Handbook Not just rules, but the basics: attendance, time off, what’s cool, what’s not. It keeps things transparent. And let’s be honest—nobody reads a 75-page PDF, so we help you make it accessible and actually helpful.

Code of Conduct People need to know how to act, how to deal with drama, and what “respectful” actually means at your company. No one likes guessing games with what’s okay and what’s going to get them in hot water.

Remote Work & Tech Rules If people are working from their couch or a coffee shop, you need rules for hours, security, and, yeah, Zoom etiquette. Otherwise, you’ll have someone “working” from the beach with a frozen screen and a drink in hand.

Time Off & Leave Nobody wants to guess how many sick days they get. Set it out, avoid the headaches later. This stuff is always a hot topic, so the clearer you are, the less drama you deal with down the road.

Compliance & Anti-Discrimination Don’t mess around here—this is about legal protection and treating people right. We make sure you’re not missing anything important (or illegal). No one wants to be the cautionary tale in an HR horror story.

Onboarding Fails—And How We Fix Them

Stuff that trips up even well-meaning companies:

Old, crusty HR docs nobody reads

Managers winging it instead of following a plan

Totally different experiences depending on who you talk to

Zero clarity on who to go to for what

Policies locked in some digital vault, unread

Our job? We come in, untangle the mess, and help you build onboarding and HR policies that don’t suck—and actually fit your company, not just “best practices.” We’ll help you spot the gaps, update what’s outdated, and roll out stuff people actually understand.

What You Get With SapientHR

We don’t do “one-size-fits-all.” Your company’s weird and wonderful in its own way, so your onboarding and policies should be too. Here’s what we’ll help with:

Review your current onboarding (and spot the cringy parts)

Build handbooks and manuals that people might actually use

Design orientation that doesn’t make people want to fake a WiFi outage

Set up digital tools to track who’s doing what

Train your managers so they don’t just nod and hope for the best

And look, whether you’re a scrappy startup or a massive company with layers of red tape, we meet you where you are. Maybe you need to totally overhaul your onboarding, or maybe you just need to tweak a few things to keep up with your growth. Either way, we’ve got your back. Our goal? Make sure your new hires don’t regret saying “yes” and your HR department doesn’t drown in chaos.

Bottom line: People remember how you made them feel those first few weeks. You can either be the company with the awkward silences and endless paperwork, or the one where new hires feel like they belong from day one. Up to you—but we know which one we’d pick.

[prorevenge]

1 & 20 Years Paying the Bitch Back

Buckle up. It’s a long ride with a pleasant finish.

Some time back I was hired to a company by a CEO I had previously worked for someplace else. He was a good friend so when his newest company wasn’t achieving sales, he headhunted me to join the new one.

The company hadn’t made a sale in two years. Year one the software product was in beta so it wasn’t ready to be sold. Year two they realized using the tech staff to make high end sales to C-level executives was the shittiest sales model one could conceptualize. In general, and there are exceptions of course, these two personality styles don’t speak the same language. Tech people talk tech. Buyers talk benefits and how the potential product fills needs. I bridge the gap well by translating tech-speak into natural conversational language so buyers better understand how their needs will be filled.

The job was an hour and a half drive one-way from my home so the CEO said I could work from home as long as I kept the sales management tool current (it’s where you keep the notes of each prospect’s status), came to important meetings and made sure the executive team had daily sales reports.

The first month I made the daily 3 hour commute because I needed to have solid, constant interaction with all the departments to rapidly form my sales strategy and develop a two-way confidence level with the section heads.

Once I had a handle on things, I was ready to launch my sales plan. In the meantime, the CEO hired a VP of Sales (bitchboss) who started 4 days before I hit the ground running to get in front of buyers.

She was a VP coming from the banking industry and had a long career in sales and marketing in finance products. I hated her from the moment she arrived. She knew fuck all about tech and I spent huge time trying to orient her which wasn’t ideal because I needed to work on my sales strategy. They brought her onboard because she had strong experience gaining financial investors.

Nevertheless, I forged ahead. Traveled to a target state and spent 19 days criss crossing it. When I came back I had 17 contracts from buyers totaling about $2M in sales. My CEO was overjoyed.

Fast forward six months and now working from home, I’m rocking and rolling. Sales are strong. CEO is happy. Good things are happening.

Bitchboss has landed an investor willing to drop $6M into the company, and they are coming into town for a discovery meeting. She asks me to drive up because they specifically want to meet the salesperson. Seconds before walking in the door for the big meeting, bitchboss pulls me aside and says she needs me to back her up on lie she has told them. Basically she doubled my sales numbers. I told her there was no way I was going to do that. She says the CEO has okayed the lie.

We get to the part in the talk where the investor is looking over my inflated sales numbers on the prospectus, then directly asks me how many sales I’m making a month. Bitchboss is behind him waving her arms but I was having none of it and answered truthfully. He looks askance staring at the document which has the false number listed, while she’s giving me the stink eye behind him.

No one says a word. Dead silence.

I ask to see the document and fates have aligned allowing me to solve the dilemma. I explain the first two numbers were transposed (they correlated well to my real sales versus inflated sales if you flip-flopped the first two digits.) Potential investor is satisfied and we move on.

Switch gears. About a week later I was meeting with the CIO in his office and he referred to my “big tits.” I’m no shrinking violet but it stunned me because it was so unexpected.

That night I was chatting with my BFF who happens to be a lawyer and told him about it in casual conversation. He said I should tell the CEO so he can address it. Thinking along smart business practices, I decide to tell bitchboss to whom I directly report as proper protocol since we don’t have a HR dept yet. Side note-I also reported directly to CIO as a boss since my role was a muddy mix of sales and tech.

The next day CEO calls me and I take him through it telling him it’s no big deal but to make sure he talked to CIO so it didn’t happen again. He says he’ll do it right away.

Two days later I check in with him and CEO still hadn’t talked to CIO because the investors were in town. I gently push him to get it done and casually mention my best friend who happened to be a lawyer was the one who urged me tell him because “any good CEO would want to know about it.” I reiterate I’m not mad or upset.

The only word he heard was “lawyer.”

He went apeshit that I was bringing a lawyer into the mix. Now this guy was my good friend. We’d worked together at two companies for years. I calmed him down (or so I thought,) explaining that I only wanted him to talk to CIO. I also told him I HADN’T brought a lawyer into it, that I had been innocently chatting with BFF who just happens to be a criminal defense attorney. He seemed okay and we hung up.

The next day I’m working as usual and I get a call from an attorney who explains the company has hired her regarding my sexual harassment claim. I’m flummoxed and adamantly told her that was not the case, that I had no claim against the company. She said otherwise.

And that’s when everything changed. Dramatically.

CEO was furious with me for bringing this on when investors were looking at us. His reaction set the tone which filtered down. The company began to retaliate against me. Bitchboss now made it her mission to make my life hell: “forgetting” to tell me about important meetings I was supposed to attend, freezing me out when I was in the office, telling me I could no longer even speak to CIO (a problem since I’m selling a multi-million dollar tech product needing his input AND I directly reported to him as my other boss), denying me a long planned, approved vacation, basically anything she could devise to screw me over-she was gleefully working it.

Coinciding with this was a serious health problem I developed ultimately requiring surgery. My illness had no impact on my work as I was able to work from home which made things easier on me health wise. Bitchboss then decided that I need to come to the office every day despite a 3 hour round trip commute.

Now I know you’re thinking why didn’t I just leave, get another job somewhere else...

I needed the health insurance. There was no way to turn around another job fast enough and I had a complex surgery scheduled requiring 3 surgeons for my procedure.

My doctor gave me a note for them which released me from having to make the daily commute so I could continue to work at home. As long as my work didn’t suffer, they legally couldn’t force me to commute especially since working from home was a part of my employment contract from the outset.

The night before my surgery, bitchboss calls to tell me they’ve cancelled my health insurance. After hanging up with bitchboss I collapsed on the floor in a faint. I was so, so, so sick, and mentally exhausted from all the stress.

The next morning the CEO frantically calls asking to talk to me. My mom refuses to let him. I’m on official leave as of that morning and we’re heading to the hospital. CEO had told their lawyer about canceling my health insurance and she chewed him a new asshole telling him it was illegal. They immediately reinstated my insurance.

In the two weeks I was out, my mom had found a lawyer for me as it was clear shenanigans were going on. I still needed them as an employer because I was in no shape to rigorously job hunt while recovering.

Turns out all the bullshit they were doing to me is illegal. Companies aren’t allowed to retaliate against employees when they report nefarious acts against them.

I met with my new lawyer who said I had an excellent claim for retaliation and took me on. He said I had to continue working there while he did his thing to stay within protocol while he filed the EEOC claim.

Now it’s time for me to return to work. The company had relocated (planned) during my absence and bitchboss refused to tell me where so I couldn’t come back to work. Company lawyer told them they HAD to tell me so bitchboss gives me wrong directions making me late on day one.

I walk in the new office and it looks like any other place except for one thing. There is a wide open area directly in front of the CEO’s glass office with a single desk in the middle of it. Welcome to my new desk.

Also, I wasn’t allowed to do sales anymore. In fact, I wasn’t allowed to do anything, at all, period.

They had hired a bunch of new people to the company and they treated me like a pariah. Turns out bitchboss had gone to them telling a pack of lies and if they know what’s good for them they’ll stay away.

Since I had nothing to do but couldn’t just sit there looking like a dope, I worked on documenting everything being done to me per my lawyer’s advice. I was meticulous in my note taking.

Bitchboss began writing me up. Stupid stuff like not answering my phone on the first ring and for asking questions during company wide meetings, asking to see my personnel file which employees are legally entitled to do although not entitled to photocopy any of it.

Each time she wrote me up, I had to sign the write up. There was a space for me to reply to it so I consistently wrote, “I do not agree with this assessment.” It infuriated her so much, she wrote me up again for writing the statement that I didn’t agree with it.

There were several instances where she called me into her office and literally began screaming at me loudly and enthusiastically. I wouldn’t engage though; my standard answer to everything was OK which made her apoplectic. At one point, she’s inches from my face screaming, her face beet red and I just sat there with a dreamy expression whilst envisioning her blowing a vein in her head stroking out. I infuriated her with my equanimity.

Still and all, I was in it to win it at this point. It didn’t matter what new humiliation they dished out. I took it all with a bland face, then went to my desk and documented it in my notebook.

She loathed my notebook, sure that I was doing exactly what I was doing. Documenting. Because it was my personal property though, she couldn’t take it from me. I had to carry all my belongings with me everywhere (company wide meetings, the bathroom, lunch) because I caught her one time going through my desk drawer....in my fucking purse!!!!! (Although it gave me great joy to write a note reading “fuck you” which I left in my backpack and jerry rigging it so I could tell if she went into it...which she did.)

I withstood it all with a brave face only breaking down once I left for the day. My attorney took a lot of sobbing phone calls during this period.

Finally the day comes that my attorney has what he needs and I can resign, better still, he advises I don’t have to give a two week notice. I come back from lunch and type up my letter with one sentence, “I resign immediately.” I take it into the HR guy (who also took part in their evil machinations) and hand it to him. His mouth forms an O shape and he half stands up from his chair as he reads it. He looks up and I give him a smile and say bye bye just as sweet as pie, walked out the door and drove home feeling mighty fine.

One month later, my lawyer and I are at the EEOC office along with the CEO, bitchboss and their lawyer so the EEOC can review my claim.

In my state, you can’t just bring a lawsuit against a company for things like harassment and retaliation. Claims must first be evaluated by the EEOC, and then if they determine you have enough grounds to file a lawsuit, they issue a Right to Sue document.

My lawyer presented my case logically and forthright detailing all the evidence. It took him 40 minutes to go through it all. Then they presented their side with allegations of my poor employment along with their “evidence” which were all the copious write ups bitchboss had written. EEOC asks about the timeline of the write ups inquiring if they before or after my claim occurred. Bitchboss wearing a smug self-satisfied smile states they were all prior to my claim as noted by the dates on each document.

EEOC Lady looks at my lawyer. My lawyer looks at me. I look at bitchboss then serenely pull out MY photocopies of the documents. Whilst handing them to EEOC lady, bitchboss barks “she’s not supposed to have those, they’re company property.” I show EEOC lady that the dates have clearly been altered by Bitchboss. (She had made copies with the dates blanked out then backdated them.)

You see whenever she wrote me up, I had to take the document personally to the CEO to put in my personnel file. Along the way though, I stopped at the copier and took copies. She never knew I was doing this.

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

EEOC Lady reviews the copies then slowly sets them on the table. She didn’t say a thing for a long time, then she spoke. I can remember her words exactly to this day.

“I’ve seen a lot of ill treatment and illegal undertakings by both employees and employers, including forged or altered documents, but I have never see someone so incredibly stupid to present documents this easily disproved. Not only are employees entitled to receive and keep a copy of formal write ups but reading these ridiculous allegations, it’s obvious you are trying to manufacture your case.”

She went on to say I had a clear case for a lawsuit, and moreover I would win it. She recommended their side go in another room and determine a settlement amount to pay me immediately or risk the lawsuit.

They went to a nearby office and I could hear the lawyer dressing them down. Words I heard included “lied to me” “lied to EEOC” “presenting false documents” “broke so many laws” “figure out a number big enough to pay her so this doesn’t go to court because you will lose.”

They came back with a $50k offer which we accepted. My lawyer and I left then did a football touchdown dance in the parking lot. Looking up at the EEOC window, I could see bitchboss in the window looking miserable and crying.

She had just been fired.

That was my year 1 revenge.

I’m not a hateful person. I get mad and get over it. But... for bitchboss, I nurtured hatred and vowed to one day get revenge, so I kept tabs on her, and discovered she opened a finance marketing company after she was fired. Then I waited a year before exacting my petty delight.

For the past 18 years, I’ve executed a wonderful, soul-refreshing project. Each year I go to her website and write down all the work email addresses and phone numbers for the employees. Then I subscribe them all to “get more information” from places like online schools, online insurance companies-all those bullshit aggressive organizations that keep your contact information longer than a gypsy fucking curse while trying to sell you stuff.

The last few years, I’ve subscribed them to an email bomb service where the service takes the address and instantly subscribes it to 1000s of newsletters, request for more information feeds and other online buyers of email addresses for marketing services. I tested it with a burner email and it wreaks havoc on your inbox with thousands of emails received within seconds, and they never.... fucking... stop....

You literally have to close down the email because it can’t be salvaged. Each year when I go to collect the contact information, all the emails have been changed to new ones.

Last year my cousin took a job in the same building. I enlisted her help and she made it a point to befriend a receptionist working for bitchboss. After executing my yearly plan, my cousin went to lunch with her. The receptionist was in a foul mood and explained the entire organization was in disarray because IT had to redo all the emails again. “It keeps happening over and over and nobody can figure out why.”

She said the owner (bitchboss) has had to get her cell phone number replaced 3 times because of all the texts and phone calls she gets whenever it happens again. (sometimes bitchboss would have her phone number on the website which I duly subscribed to everything under the sun.)

The best part for me was hearing how she lost a mega client because they felt the company was in too much turmoil so often.

The thought of this keeps me warm and cozy at night, and I sleep so very, very well.

(source) story by (/u/digitalgirlie)

[bettsfic]

life update i guess

ultimately things are not terrible but. there’s just a lot.

i’m working too much to get anything done at my house, which means it’s just sitting there, un-lived-in, while i continue paying the mortgage. it’s not even on the market yet. i had my realtor do a walkthru and start the paperwork, but we’re still maybe weeks out from putting it on the market, and potentially months and months out from sale. the houses in my area have all taken 6+ months to sell. 

my mom wants to get back with her alcoholic husband. i can’t even begin to dip in to this situation because it is so totally fucked, but tldr i am really tired of women prioritizing the shitty men in their lives over their female family/friends. i felt bad about eventually moving to mississippi and leaving my family, but now i don’t.

and now the job. 

yesterday i worked 9am to 10pm and friday i’ll be working 7am to 5pm. the frightening thing is that this is considered the “slow time” of the year, and i’m not even fully onboarded yet, meaning my duties aren’t all implemented yet. so, first problem: the work-life balance here is not reasonable.

the second problem is the disability accommodations issue. HR will not afford me temporary accommodations (like moving cubicles, working from home, etc -- things i think are perfectly reasonable but which they will not budge on without a doctor signing off on it), and i can’t find someone to assess me until mid-july. moreover, i don’t have time to be making calls and find someone who can get me in sooner, because the job packs my calendar every minute of every day. AND the day i have my appointment scheduled is a day i have a mandatory cybersecurity training. so it might be pushed back further. there’s also a chance it’ll take multiple sessions to sign off, so i’m looking at august/september before i get any accommodations, which is the “busy” season.

the question becomes -- can i last that long without accommodations? my cubicle is in the middle of major foot traffic, with my back to the room and a fuckton of noise. i have absolutely no privacy. but mostly i’m not in the office at all, so i don’t know how big of a deal it really is. i can stand it for a few hours at a time. 

those are really the only problems. my accommodations are delayed, and i am encouraged/forced to work 45+ hours a week, and it’s making me feel like i’m handing my entire life away. like last night was the first night fireflies were out, and i wanted to stop and look at them and take pictures, but i was with a group of volunteers and had to consider propriety, and moreover had to move things along so i could go home and sleep. i haven’t had the time or energy to keep revising baby, and i’ve stopped querying agents. everything feels like it’s on hold.

as for the neutralizing stuff -- it’s summer, which for me means depression, so there’s a chance if i didn’t have this job, i would be falling into terrible habits. sleeping in until noon, eating one big meal a day, not getting dressed, only getting a couple things finished in the afternoons, spending too much time on tumblr, getting overly (unhealthily) engaged in fandom. potentially working toward another breakdown. but also, i feel like i’m working toward a different kind of breakdown with this job. and it’s possible i wouldn’t do any of these things because i’m living in a better place now. 

now for the good things!! i do get to teach with this job (but rarely). i finished up a series on health and wellness, in which i taught a group of 11 to 14 year old girls about emotional validation and teamwork. it was so much fun and i really, really loved it. unfortunately i don’t know how frequent these opportunities are. 

i also get to hang out at camp, which is fun for now but i have a feeling it’s going to get old fast. the days are long and hot and there are just so many girls. on tuesday i had a big group of 7 to 9 year olds, which i’m much less familiar with as an age group (they are too young to have seen harry potter, and too old to baby talk at, so i’m lost). friday i’m going to a residential camp and i have no idea what that will be like.

i get to work with volunteers, who are generally amazing and kind and organized, and have the best intentions at heart. these are women who (like in fandom) prioritize community and the greater good, and put love into everything they do. unfortunately, my job is basically to deal with the few bad things peppered among the good -- volunteer disputes, mom entitlement, “my daughter’s cookie reward sleeping bag is broken and i need a new one RIGHT NOW,” etc. there are two moms i know who have a restraining order on a third mom, and i’m grateful i missed that whole thing, because dealing with it would have been my responsibility.

i am constantly driving into the sticks, which would be a negative for most people but is amazing for me. the places i serve are all out in the middle of nowhere, these tiny towns with only a couple roads apiece, and take an hour or more to get to. i get great mileage reimbursement and fabulous future writing fodder. moms and kids and small town drama -- this is all the stuff i love to write, and i’m getting a lot of great aesthetic from it, but no energy to write anything that isn’t fic (which is energy-filling for me rather than draining).

and my favorite thing is that i am doing Good Things. i really love this organization and believe in it, and working here is the first time i’ve really felt like i’m making the world better instead of worse. the more i learn about it and everything it does, the more i love its structure and purpose. the people who work there are such good and kind people, and the work they all do is genuinely, unequivocally amazing. 

there is just a lot of it, and it doesn’t pay well.

no matter what, i’ll only be there a year (i’m doing a phd in mississippi but deferred my acceptance), and they don’t know that, and i feel bad for deceiving them. i feel bad for joining these volunteer communities with the assumption i’ll be around a while and make friends. and as much as i need the health insurance, it’ll take a long time to find doctors and get appointments for all the specialists i need, and then i’ll be moving out of the state and having to find new doctors anyway.

so my options are thus:

stick with the job for a year

pros: no stress about paying mortgage while house is on the market, ability to buy stuff i need and pay off my car, save up for big move, structure/keeping busy over summer when i’m normally really depressed, ability to do meaningful work i believe in, really good health insurance

cons: no time/energy to write, guilt over deception of coworkers and volunteers, a potentially unmanageable amount of stress, poor work/life balance, not a lot of teaching

resign and return to alma mater to teach comp next semester

pros: summer off to work on my house/writing/freelance work, don’t dread waking up every day, may potentially be able to move to mississippi in winter and start the phd spring semester

cons: no income over summer, no health insurance for the rest of the year (and will have to re-apply for medicaid), lack of structure may make me more depressed, i hate teaching comp (and i would have 3 sections of it, god help me -- but at least i’d be teaching)

this is the pickle i am in. i know this is a lot to read but mostly i wrote it for myself, to see it all written out. half of me thinks it’ll get better and right now i’m only intimidated by the workload because i don’t have an expertise in the job yet, and once i do, it’ll be a breeze, or at least more good days than bad ones. this is also the part of me that wants a backup plan post-phd in case i can’t do academia anymore and my writing career tanks. the other part of me is like, this is useless, you’re a writer and a teacher, why are you bothering doing anything that’s not writing or teaching? and that is also the part of me that’s like, lol you are not a neurotypical person, you are always going to struggle in these types of environments, and you have an environment available to you in which you do not struggle, so go for that instead (even if the pay is shitty and has no benefits). 

i just don’t know.

[independencelogbook]

9.21.19

I’d like to share the steps that I went through as far as the hiring and onboarding process that have led to the crazy reality of myself being three days away from flying to Europe and living on a ship for 6.5 months. I can only speak for what getting on with Royal Caribbean is like; I have no idea how different the process is for other cruise lines. But from from what I’ve gathered from talking to friends, it’s all fairly similar, which is a comforting thing to know when you’re in the middle of it, because it does all seem like a big, confusing series of checklists from start to finish.

I applied to Royal in January of this year, knowing that I already had a seasonal gig lined up from June through mid August and hoping to aim my start date for somewhere around the middle of September. All that took to get things started was applying online through their portal: entering some personal info, answering a survey about some questions relating to my desired position, and attaching a resume.  I was expecting this to take a couple of months to process through their system, but they emailed me back I believe within two weeks of my application.  I had two very quick Skype/phone interviews with recruiters in February, and had received an offer letter by early March. This letter basically informs you that they’re interested in having you hired, and that you’ve made it through the interview process.  Your actual letter of employment and contract ensuring your acceptance into the company come much later, after passing the pre-employment onboarding tasks. They’re saving you a spot, but you’re not guaranteed yet.

The main items involved in the pre-employment screening were a medical clearance, background check, local police clearance, and seafarer training/certification course. A semi intensive process haha.  These things all have their varied timings and expiration dates so they have to be done the correct amount of time from your availability date.  So I sent in my background check info in April, finished up my time in New York, moved to Virginia for the summer, and otherwise waited around so that I was closer to my start date to complete the remaining tasks. Over the summer I drove out an hour and a half or so to the nearest approved medical facility for my tests, and when I got home in August, I finished the rest of my major pre-employment roadblocks (the seafarer training was done online).  After that came a bit of talking back and forth with my onboarding representative, who has been answering my questions diligently since I received my offer letter however many months ago, and we tried to pin down my availability for that rigging training as well as the final bits and pieces of my contract. Like I said in the last post, by the time I had gotten my stuff turned in, the rigging courses were full until the new year. The rep and I decided to have me start closer to my intended date, but as a less specialized position at first instead of waiting around a couple months to be trained for the rigging work.

So finally after all that, I got my ship assignment email at the beginning of this month. Yay!  That one certified that I had cleared all the necessary no man’s land tasks and that I could officially be considered hired by the company. It also let me know where I’d be starting my work, and on which day.  I’ve since been given various crew sites and apps to log into to check on travel information, I’ve done a bunch of online HR training modules, I’ve gotten a clearer checklist of what to bring on board, and its all juuuuuust starting to dawn on me that this is a real experience that I’m actually going to be partaking in. For seven months. Crazy. I have no concrete idea what to expect, but I do expect it to be a great experience and a lot of hard work. I just don’t have any clue what the day-to-day life is like...  Guess I’ll let you know lol.

Overall, this process was a lot of getting partial information and then having a million more questions about how to proceed.  It was never a single, clear checklist of the things I needed to get turned in to RC.  My rep has been very, incredibly helpful (despite the 15 hour time difference, as they’re located in Manila) but it’s definitely a confusing process.  It also involves putting some of your own money down for the medical clearance, which is done through a third party company. And that, a hundred million percent, feels like you’re being scammed when you’re writing that check.  But now that I’m not in the middle of being overwhelmed by all the startup things, I feel like the lack of one consistent guideline for being hired makes plenty of sense. People are hired from so many different countries and RC has to line all this stuff up through all of those separate governing bodies, and so that everything complies with maritime laws as well. I’m sure it’s incredibly complicated on their end.  Plus now that I’ve gone through all that, it’s comforting to know that everyone else working on board has been screened as thoroughly as I was haha.  

But just know that if you’re going through the pre-employment process: yes it’s very hectic and there’s a lot of back and forth to figure out how exactly you need to get everything completed.  And yes, it’s normal to get info fairly last minute. I got an offer letter back in March and had only just now (in early September), three weeks before my first day, been told which ship I would be on and exactly which day I would be starting.  It’s kinda just dropped upon you when you get everything lined up and turned in, and from what I’ve heard from every other person I know who has been on other cruise lines- that’s absolutely normal.  Just gotta roll with it, and be diligent about asking any questions you have. (Seriously, my onboarding rep has been my lifeline)  Maybe that’s just your first test to see if you can handle working on a cruise ship after all. Ha.

So there’s all of that, in case you were curious.  It has been an adventure already, full of paperwork and waiting rooms. Now it’s time for the fun part.

[followingliz]

Dry Dock Time!

This entire 19 day cruise to Singapore is all so that we can get into Dry Dock for two weeks. What is Dry Dock you ask? It is when we debark all the guests, go into a ship yard, drain all the water away and about 2,000 contractors come onboard and make changes/fixes to the ship.

Important things to know about dry dock:

1)      There is often no air conditioning because they are working on it or have to turn off the power

2)      Sometimes there are power outages with no warning

3)      There are select hours for water- 2 hrs in the morning. 2hrs in the evening. Probably. If nothing goes wrong- so stock up

4)      Hide all your important stuff (work and personal) cause contractors are often opportunists

5)      Protect all the floors and your work areas cause jackhammers, heavy equipment and all other nonsense will be going down the halls.

6)      You are basically living on a construction site now.

The first day in Singapore we just prepared for all the contractors by wrapping things up, covering things, protecting them as much as possible.

Then we sailed through the bay to get to the shipyard where we would spend the next two weeks.

And we started off with an Abandon Ship drill in case of emergency! Which means go outside and stand in the sun for 45min.  

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 041121

11 April, 2021

Dear Dad--

Firstly, thank you thank you thank you! I received the care package you sent with the DVDs and the doobies! That was thoughtful and generous and fun! I’ll start watching The Pacific today. The other DVD looks like a movie I’ve heard of but never seen, so I’ll watch that too. Thank you again! Fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff, heh heh.

Things have finally begun happening, so I shouldn’t suffer any shortage of newsworthy shit to tell you about in this week’s letter. I heard from the casino and I’m still hired. Turns out it was taking the background check company (called Orange Tree) a bit longer than usual to complete my background check. The HR woman, Gabby, emailed and said she’d already bitched to them about it, and she’d get back to me as soon as it was done. It got done! I passed the tests, by having nothing at all interesting in either my criminal background or my pee. (Apparently, if my sample had been so contaminated with reefer that seeds and roaches were floating in it, they wouldn’t care. Mind blown.) Gabby phoned and said everything was looking good and we’re ready to move onto the next steps. I love that the HR person, who has all kinds of responsibilities to protect employees’ privacy, is named Gabby.

The next step is: Tomorrow morning I’ll go in and do some “onboarding” shit. This will include giving them all the paperwork I filled out, including the 30-page gaming employee application, and my personal contacts. They’ll take my ID, including my driver’s license and social security card or birth certificate. They will fingerprint me! Never been fingerprinted before! And I plan on dressing immaculately for all of this, because they may also take my ID photo. I gave myself a haircut yesterday. Depending on the particular casino job, I might be filling out a “fitting card” for uniforms, except I won’t need to do that, because I get to dress like a normal person and work in a back office. I will give them my W-2, my I-9, and my emergency contact info. I’ll give them my bank info to directly deposit my paychecks.

Obviously, because of all this, I anticipated being a thin balloon skin of nonchalance, stretched over a Grand Canyon of anxiety, but it’s not that bad. First of all, it’s a cool place to work. And I won’t be starting at full time; I’ll be starting part time. That’ll help ease the transition back to worker bee. The workplace amenities are awesome, because it’s a hotel and casino, and the benefits are good. As business picks up again post-Covid 19, my job will transition to full time, and I assume I’ll be doing it well by then. And I’m not sure about this yet, but I think they want to give me a $500 signup bonus. (Mind blown AGAIN.) And I’m pretty sure it would be a $1,000 bonus if I were signing up for a full-time job. If I get the $500, I may buy something I’ve never owned: a dining table and some chairs. My steady march toward adulthood nears its completion, and it only took 52 years.

Thus have I gone from famine to feast, if only temporarily. I did my taxes, and found out I’d receive a refund big enough that it would easily support me until I start receiving paychecks. I immediately got caught up on bills, and went so far as to buy myself a new piece of furniture, kinda. I realized recently that I don’t own a dresser, and it’s making the storing of my clothes a bit of a pain in the ass. I then realized that most people probably do own a dresser, and put all their socks and underwear and sweaters in it, because not doing so was foolish, and I realized that my inability to do so was a growing source of bitterness. And I have a rule about furniture: whenever possible, I want it to be light enough that one person could easily lift it. So instead of a traditional dresser, I got this...shelving unit thing! It’s got a thick plastic frame that snaps together, and for drawers, it has 9 bins that have metal frames and fabric sides. It should be lightweight but quite sturdy. And, naturally, it’s going to usher in a bright new era of clothing storage for me, which I no longer really care about, because I’m starting my new job soon, and who cares where my socks are stored? The kitties should love it, though; it’ll give them access to a window that they couldn’t relax in front of before.

Don’t know if I mentioned it, but because Zach and I didn’t earn paychecks in Maine last year, we didn’t pay any of the usual state taxes, which means they’re all due now! On April 15th, they’re going to politely suck $855 out of my bank account to cover last year’s state taxes. Hopefully I’ll earn enough paychecks this year to have that covered, for when we do this year’s taxes next year. I can’t complain about the tax bill either, when you consider that Maine has paid for ALL of my health care and prescriptions since I got here. If they could keep all the potholes fixed, it would be heaven.

So this week will be, I assume, my last full week of freedom before the shackles of employment are clamped on for good. And I don’t get the full week of freedom, because I have to go in at 8:30 tomorrow for the onboarding shit, and I have to be there at 9:00 a.m. on both Thursday and Friday for orientation shit. I assume that will be a couple of days of them explaining how time cards work, and showing me videos about working in the gaming industry in Maine for our glorious parent company, Penn National Gaming. I assume there will be a video that tells me if I find a stack of money somewhere in the casino, it’s not like receiving misdelivered mail; it doesn’t become mine, and I am not allowed to take it home with me. I don’t need anyone to tell me that, but I assume they’ll find it necessary to say it out loud at least once, just so they can say they said it.

The cat just did something unnerving; we caught her playing with a type of candy we haven’t had around the house since Halloween. She just does that! Out of nowhere, we’ll find her playing with a Tootsie Roll, and we’ll realize, “We haven’t had any Tootsie Rolls in the house since Christmas 2019. Where the HELL did she find that?” And we don’t get too stressed about it, because she did the same thing with my wedding ring. I probably told you about that! Zach and I were expecting to lose our wedding rings, because we’d both lost weight, and they were too big, and you can’t resize titanium, and sure enough, I lost mine. We looked everywhere, never found it. So we bought a new pair of rings--properly sized--and put his old one in the fire safe. Then about six months went by, and one day I look down, and the fucking cat Horta had the fucking ring in her fucking mouth. We put it in the fire safe with Zach’s. Now we have four wedding rings between us. And when I say “fire safe,” that might sound more impressive than it is. It’s basically a lock box, little bigger than a shoe box, with thick walls that will supposedly protect your documents for up to a half hour in a fire.

Okay, so! Got my job shit all prepared, got my shirts ironed, got my car cleaned inside and out, got my shot--oh! I got my first vaccination shot! I went to my appointment at Wal-Mart and got a shot of Moderna vaccine in my left arm. It’ll be nice having some protection from the Rona, since I’m about to start going into an office every day.

I’ll definitely have more news about the job next week, after I’ve done the orientation days, so, updates to follow! All my love to you both!

[lukecmurray]

2016 Review

Last year I spent several days (and well over a dozen hours) reviewing 2015. This is a drastic improvement from 2006, when I spent several months reviewing the previous year. But still, the process could be improved. So, I spent about a half-dozen hours going over my process (see my previous post for lessons learned from that) and am going to hopefully finish reviewing 2016 in just a couple of hours. This will be a beast of a post, but should only be a single post. Here’s the structure I’ll use.

Why am I doing this?

Already did this last  year, will just revisit and revise it for this year.

What did i do?

The highlights of what happened in each month, plus how many total checkins I had that month and lessons learned.

Best and worst things that happened.

Will likely be pulled from the above list.

Habits analysis

How much progress did I make with each habit?

Is it still a good habit? (keep/toss/change?)

What are the biggest barriers to crushing it and ideas to overcome those barriers?

Themes analysis

Love

Unplug

Core values

How well did I live them?

Expected vs. Actual

What things did I want to get done, vs. what did I actually get done?

WHY AM I DOING THIS

Last year, I clarified the reasons I spend several hours (and even days) at the beginning of each year going over the previous year in nauseating detail:

Make new/different mistakes

Get more accurate w/goals vs. reality. Get my expectations closer to reality, without lowering my standards or ambitions.

Increase my ability to accomplish goals

To record things, so that I have a sense of having lived, of having “done things”, of having moved forward in my life.

I would still consider these to be accurate, but I would summarize the first three by saying this:

"I do these yearly reviews to tighten my 'wisdom feedback loop'."

I wrote about what the 'unlived life within us' means to me: Decreased clutter and increased clarity. This, I think, is the essence of what wisdom in action looks like. So if I'm a) always making new and mistakes instead of old ones b) shrinking the gap between my expectations/plans and my reality, while c) increasing the difficulty of tasks to which I aspire, then I'm increasing my velocity towards becoming my definition of 'wisdom in action'. Or, tightening the wisdom feedback loop.

I also want to add another reason for doing this: To help others accomplish the same things.

I don't mean that they will have the same goals, but if they have the same reasons, I can help them. I've done this process in increasingly less wrong ways every year since I was 18.  And each 'less wrong' process makes me that much more valuable to people that are trying to do the same.  

Also, I mean this in both a virtual and physical capacity. Nobody reads this blog, so I don't expect that I'll be able to help lots of folks virtually in January 2017, but perhaps months or years from now people may discover it and use it to improve their own process for self improvement.  I'm sitting next to my good friend Mike (pictured above) and he interrupts me every few minutes to ask about how I do x, y, or z and my advice to him is always based in personal experience...based on a lot of wrong ways that I've done these reviews over the years.  Hopefully I can help facilitate more of these in-person sessions and be valuable because of the work I've put in for the past 15 years.

WHAT DID I DO IN 2016?

tried to get into car flipping

got ATLS certified

almost got a job in Owenton ER

broke up a fight in the middle of the street

BL summit

failed to get an in-person personal assistant onboarded

lived in Vegas: iora, boosted board adventures, time w/cousin’s fam

INSIGHTS - this was one of my best months ever and i didn’t bring my cell phone to vegas at all and I stopped at 7pm sharp every day.

clinic, then chief on service

INSIGHTS 

I wrote about being worried to hit a burnout wall after my great January month, and this is what I wrote in the second week of feb "I did hit that wall (screwed around for 2 hrs on thursday PM)...but then recovered and have done okay since, and in the grand scheme of things, that's AMAZING for me (only screwing around for 2 hrs)."  That's how in the zone I was - I complained about 2 hrs.

i turned down a lot of things to stay in the zone - ski weekends, a wedding in Oregon

After one of my best weeks ever in the history of recording checkins: "Why?It wasn't trying harder. It was saying no, keeping my head clear, and getting up really early to knock out all the stuff that I'd usually put off until the end of the day. It feels like a miracle, like I'm a new person. It gives me an insane amount of confidence...So remarkable that the true answer to how to make such dramatic change is basically: do less, say no, cut out the BS...if you do that, all you should be left with is your own voice, and it's plenty wise enough."

chief on service, then clinic

called friends in the evening for awhile

Michelle got sick

Annabelle was born

AMSA speech: Med Students & Adversity

Fancy Nick engagement party #1

INSIGHTS - was getting up at 5am in feb, this got thrown off by a couple days worth of surprises and never recovered. 

Derm rotation, became great friends with Dr. Tobin

last night with Nick as roomate

Nick bachelor party

Nick getting married

took FM boards

delivered baby

South Africa...which included

time in the hospital

going to mosque, buying Quran, time with Uncle

cape point sunset

getting lost on table mountain

run through newlands forrest

robben island/nelson mandela jail cell

rondebosch garden

hiked lionshead

bungee jumped world’s highest

ostrich farm

snowboarded (indoors)

met some cool girls & camped at storms river

INSIGHTS

last year i spent a month abroad and totally fell off the wagon...did incredible by comparison this time. learned from last time.

recording what i did each day really added significantly to the richness of that experience it, because i get to re-experience those memories

Geriatrics, then clinic

Meacham

double date with Dr. Tobin

passed boards

did graduation roast speech, and tried to get drunk

started working out consistently b/c elevated BF % s/p Africa

got UK job

Florida trip to negotiate with landlord

Dale Hollow houseboat trip with Amy’s family

moved into RV, LOTS of time working on it & hosting friends in it

Samuel helped work on the RV, became my friend

family trip down in GA

marriages: Emily Wehrley. Stu Brenner.

INSIGHTS

friends went on a surfing trip to charleston and i turned it down, hard to do, glad i did

“#1 HAVING A MORNING ROUTINE THAT KNOCKS OUT A BIG CHUNK OF THESE <habits> GUARANTEED....I'M JUST TOO ANXIOUS TO INVEST THIS TIME IN THE AM...BUT THAT'S WHAT I SAID IN MEDICAL SCHOOL THAT KEPT ME OUT OF THE GYM FOR YEARS. Wow, i really need to work on controlling anxiety/pressure in the moment.”

went low carb

worked on RV, RV expo

trip to Charleston b/c friend got sick, surfed

started my autobiography

scanned all family photo albums

visited all my old friends

GA visit b/c Melissa back from deployment

Pa visit x 1 wk

INSIGHTS

While in Charleston “it's REALLY hard to steer when you feel pulled all over the place by circumstances. but the consequences of ignoring those circumstances and plowing through are mostly illusory...i could only stop by <the hospital> for one hour 3 times per day and that would be PLENTY of visiting time. i could then spend the rest of the day working by myself”

While scanning photos “why do i feel behind? b/c I am compared to the schedule i made for myself at the beginning of the year. pretty silly to be operating off of a plan you made 6 months ago.”

time with family/grandparents in OR + coast...SUPER quality time

surfing in OR

writing autobio

Spout Springs visit

credentialing for job

pendelton roundup, deck with dad, Bethany visit

garrett NYC proposal trip + Adeel + Chris Salotta visit

INSIGHT

time with gparents was some of the best & most important things I did all year

best month of checkins in ever (4 yrs!!)...not sure why

freaked out about every friend i have getting married/engaged. changed my priority to emotionally fulfilling hangouts instead of caring about ‘romantic relationships’

installed solar panels

autoB progress

started talking/helping Aalap with SignalHealth - DC conference

Such family camping trip

started Curt book

first shift at UK as employee

surf trip to SC with Raney’s

job apps

moved into jenna’s

comedy club with dr tobin

long weekend with DP & friends

ehof - board meeting, event

accomplished my NY resolution!

G life transition meetings

job apps

started Murray Medical, LLC

hurt myself w/flag football

confirmed BIAB project/EHOF book

global entrep week

alejandra x 1 wk, visited everywhere + beaufort

such appreciation dinner

started work at KDMC

INSIGHT

after an 80 checkin week “best week i've ever had in my life. a LOT of it was about saying no to the camping trip this weekend. that was hard, but i'm proud of myself for doing it. also got to practice not feeling sorry for myself by wishing i was somewhere else.”

worked every day at KDMC

Freeda adventures/challenges

brought back 2 people from codes

ski trip with friends at PNS

INSIGHT

Working 34 days in a row was awesome because it created a routine that allowed me to consistently do lots of things (besides work) and improve at a much faster pace in my medical skills & knowledge.

BEST AND WORST OF 2016

BEST

finishing residency & passing boards

not getting a job - was scary, but this provided me the freedom to do lots of other 'life list' important things

having one metric that mattered and tracking that only - doubled down on using coach.me and accomplished my NY resolution for the first time in my life

also...

gave med student adversity speech

Annabelle was born

nick marriage/end of a great roomate run

south africa month

RV - doing what i said

quality time - vegas, grandparents, parents, friends, surfing

WORST

I didn't grow in my romantic relationships as much as i did in 2015 - In 2015 i grew a lot by having the goal to be "terrifyingly honest" in relationships. I didn't push myself to that standard this year and stagnated as a result.

also...

things took longer than I thought - but that was good lesson to learn because it forced me to accept and live by realistic timelines, and because i didn't have a job I could follow all the way through on my plans

RV was more work than expected (example of above) - i first was glad that i spent time getting to know the RV and how to fix things, but i got to the point where i don't care to 'learn' more, i'd rather spend that time being a doctor and use the money made to pay a professional.

i got broke - i coasted on credit cards in the interim between residency and starting a job and got pretty close to 100% broke - but this was also a lesson that was important. things cost more money than you expect and if they are really priorities, then you've got to pay the price, in both time and money.

HABITS ANALYSIS

In my recent post “My Goals for 2017″ I said:

“Last year my goal was to check in to more daily habits on coach.me. And I crushed it. And it had the ripple effect of me crushing a bunch of other areas of my life...when using the 'total number of checkins metric’ I improved 107% since last year and 60% over my best year ever (2013).”

This was the only metric that I tracked week over week. And because of that, for the first time ever, I consistently did week reviews where I knew how far ahead or behind I was from my overall goal (eg on July 1, I should have 1,000 checkins for the year, if I had 1,100 at that point, I would note that I was 10% ahead of schedule). Making this the only metric that I tracked had a positive affect on lots of the parts of my life - most obviously, on each of the areas the specific habit addressed.

So, now I’m going to take each goal and ask:

How much progress did I make?

Is it still a good habit? (keep/toss/change?)

What are the biggest barriers to crushing it and ideas to overcome those barriers?

progress vs 2015: 272 checkins vs 117 checkins. 132% improvement.

I didn't feel like i was growing in this in 2015. I was doing it but didn't feel more calm/mindful throughout the day, which is the whole point. Late this year I downloaded several meditation apps and HeadSpace stood out as far and away the best one.  I've spent at least $100 total at this point and I really am growing in this super important area.  I catch myself (the most important part) getting anxious, frustrated, distracted, etc. and then use the techniques I've learned from this app to get back to calm. Probably the best money I spent all year in terms of its return on my health.

keep/toss/change: definitely keep, continue progress with headspace app

barriers: just making the time, but i'm at a point where i like this enough that it doesn't take discipline. sometimes i do it when i'm tired and don't get much out of it. On those days I should consider doing it twice - the second time when I'm not exhausted.

progress vs 2015: 233 checkins vs 111 checkins. 110% improvement

In 2015 wrote about wanting to feel clear-headed after walking away from a session of reviewing goals & 'visioncasting' and i didn't have a good process for it at the time. Surprising to see that this was still an issue as of the end of 2016. i came up with a system just a couple days ago that will hopefully help with this and i think the reason this will work is because of my improved mental condition/focusing of the mind that came from meditating. Glad to see how long this problem has existed. Should motivate me to solve it this year.

keep/toss/change: keep it as a goal, but changed it as noted above to have some structure

barriers: lack of clarity - which I have now

progress vs 2015: 138 checkins vs 77 checkins. 78% improvement

Posted 60+ things this year, (< 30 last year), did much better, big realization is that this was streaky. Another great example of being able to keep consistent tabs on something because you kept all your data collection in one place (I kept track of all my writing progress on coach.me, including using the notes section to keep track of  when I posted stuff). 

keep/toss/change: I would like to actually start sharing my content somehow. This probably means fiddling with marketing, setting some goals about viewership, but I feel like this might do two negative things: 1. scare me off from writing and 2. change what/how I write.  So will probably at least track viewership or something. 

barriers: none for posting on this blog. Barriers to working on larger projects (book, etc.) are the same that used to (and sometimes still do) keep me from publishing on this blog. Namely: fear. I think the answer for that is writing with friends. Going to try to schedule writing hangouts, even if only brief ones. 

progress vs 2015: 210 checkins vs 80 checkins. 163 % improvement

Goal last year was 200, actual was 80. this year i didn't have a goal but hit 210. Hell. Yes!  Big realization here was starting with one small thing at a time. I went on a streak from august where I added one new thing to my physical health regimen each month, and kept it going consistently until late november, when I got injured playing football, then had a friend visit from out of town for a week, then went on a 34-day straight work assignment away from home. I took January off (though I still had 4 checkins that month + 8 days of skiing, vs my monthly average of 6.7 in 2015) and have been on track 100% thus far this month.

keep/toss/change: change to one small thing I'm doing that month to improve my health. Keep track of it in the notes of exercise. 

barriers: injury (don't play football!).  Simplicity/low bar - adding one small thing per month put me on course to have the best 4 months of physical health progress in years...maybe ever.

progress vs 2015: 153 checkins vs 56 checkins. 173% improvement.

This is a keystone habit. If I do this then everything else goes better. I realized this last year and wrote about how important it was. This year I had the second highest amount of improvement of all my habits (except for eat the frog, which was 193% improvement). I’m super proud of myself for making such amazing progress on this...but it still is the 9th most checked into habit out of 12. As one of the most important habits it should be one of the most checked into. 

keep/toss/change: keep - and double down on it! again!

barriers:  Make sure to identify it when planning the day and checking it off when you do it, even if it’s not a specific action (e.g. if you stayed calm all day).

progress vs 2015: 51 checkins vs 82 checkins. -38 % decrease

I don't have this anymore....but the bigger lesson here is 'what's the thing that causes the background static/stress in your life and what's your process for getting rid of it or ignoring it?'

keep/toss/change: already tossed it, but getting out of my email inbox is my #1 goal for Q1 of 2017 and I'm well on my way. Also, to get rid of the static - my visioncasting format really is helpful in clearing my head to do this.

barriers: I'm addicted to my email inbox. Need to CREATE barriers (and an alternative outlet) to keep me out of it.

progress vs 2015:  113 checkins vs 83 checkins. 36% improvement

i crushed the boards, studying 37 days before taking it (about 83 times the year before total). Totally didn’t deserve that. So no clue what happened there. Then i got a bit lost on what 'studying' made sense. i started with reading a book summary every day, which felt like i was accomplishing something, but none of the content really stuck, even when i reviewed my highlights on the weekends. then changed to tax books, which was awesome bc i wanted to learn that stuff. i still need to nail down what this means and then pick a bite-sized way to chip at it.  I also expect this to change often. I kept track of actual studying vs expected for awhile, which was motivational, as was just hearing that another resident friend of mine was working her ass off. Just hearing her say that she studied 2 hrs per day in addition to her residency duties lit a fire under me.

keep/toss/change: change continually, should be part of planning my day

barriers: lack of clarity on what this means, get rid of it by deciding what it means when i plan my day

progress vs 2015: 348 checkins vs 183 checkins. 90% improvement

Went OFF on this. not sure why other than that it's something you can get away with skipping a day here and there and still check in later. also stopped rating the days - not sure why i did this, other than i couldn't put a number when i tried to think of it. hopefully this is a reflection of an improved attitude and a better acceptance of my life, along with less judgement, which I wrote about on my birthday. 

keep/toss/change: keep, might revitalize the 'today' project, because when I read through my summaries of each day they spark certain memories...but a photo does that so much better.

barriers: none...but might be if I start expecting myself to take a picture.

progress vs 2015: 252 checkins vs 145 checkins. 74% improvement

i've ended up doing this during my 'think about goals' time, which is not when it's supposed to happen. but everything i wrote about this goal last year, applies to this year 

“I’m afraid to do this sometimes, especially if i’m not in bed on time & am tired….because i have to come to terms with all the things i will not get to do tomorrow. But then i end up just feeling sad and like “damn, tomorrow’s going to really suck because i won’t be able to get everything done that i want, and i’m bummed that i didn’t get what i wanted to get done today, too.” Wow, writing that. What a crummy/unintelligent strategy for ending your day.  I HAVE to stop with energy/motivation in the tank so I’ll have the willpower left to accept what has happened that day & decide what i’m going to do the next day…because when I do do this, it really does feel mentally freeing & motivating for getting up in the morning…i literally don’t want to wake up in the morning when I haven’t done this because I just have this ball of vague stress to great me that I feel: “Well, not sure what all this stuff is that i need to do but i know that i’m not going to be able to get as much of it done as i want to and even what i decide to work on i probably won’t get finished which is going to give me a feeling of being even more 'behind’…so yeah - not pumped about this day”. What a terrible cycle of not-awesome!  Glad I articulated the concept of paying the opportunity cost of planning up front.”

 This even happened during my 6 months off, or on days i was truly supposed to be 'on vacation'. the idea of 'i don't want to wake up tomorrow'.  That was a big surprise because i thought it was because of my job. It turns out it was totally because of my attitude - which was affected by my expectations (pay opportunity cost up front) and my energy. I need to manage both of those.

keep/toss/change: keep, but try not to do it until AFTER you've meditated and taken a high level view of your life (visioncasting/reviewing goals) so that you have the right mindset when planning the day.

barriers: my attitude at the end of the day. not wanting to wake up, addressed above.

progress vs 2015: 126 checkins vs 43 checkins. 193% improvement

This was one of the top two most important things on my list to improve from last year...and I did it! This was the most improvement of any of my goals. However, I still have lots of room to get better at this, as it was only the 9th most checked into goal I had. 

keep/toss/change:  keep. duh.

barriers: just having the courage to identify it when planning the day, and then checking it off at the end of the day.

progress vs 2015: 45 checkins vs 18 checkins. 150% improvement 

These were too long and I didn’t have a central place to put them. I changed it and put EVERYTHING in my notes instead of on a spreadsheet or somewhere else and that 100% solved the problem. It kept me keeping track of my progress throughout the year. This little checkin session helped recalibrate me and actually fed my feedback loop. 

keep/toss/change: change to track my 4 goals for the year.

barriers: none. just keep the time expectation down at 10min.

progress vs 2015: 130 checkins vs 68 checkins. 91% improvement

This is a goal that sneaks up on you because the problem is pretty much never solved (my back hurts every day and every night). In retrospect I had an amazing year with it. I was able to sleep on my back for a couple nights in South Africa, was able to stand for significant amounts of time without significant pain, and even let myself be active (i.e. sprinting) to push the boundaries of what’s possible for my back.

keep/toss/change: change by continuing to try new methods and seeing what works

barriers: this is all about minimal time commitment (5-10 min) and building from there, because some of the stretches feel SO GOOD that once I do a few of them I get more into it.

THEMES ANALYSIS

Love

I didn't set the standard of being “terrifyingling honest” so I didn’t get out of (or into situations) fast enough, or at all. 

I also had a breakdown when a bunch of friends got married on the same weekend (felt like I was ‘alone’ or doing something wrong) & redefined what this meant. Ultimately, I’m not worried or ‘empty’ because I’m missing out on physical intimacy, what I’m missing is emotional connection, or interactions that fill my emotional tank. So now that’s what I’m doing - focusing on those kinds of interactions, and turning down ones that are anything less than 8/10 in this respect.

Also, part of this is giving/being selfless and it motivated my goal for this year.

Unplug

I spent time at the cabin and other time just alone, and it was good. Read Deep Work twice. Probably could have said 'no' a little bit more often, especially near the end of the year. Am realizing more and more that this is the ‘answer’ in so many ways. 

CORE VALUES

This is the third year I’ve tried to systematically focus on one core value per week. I didn't do this consistently. I want to give up on it...but so did Ben Franklin. I now have it in my daily visioncasting so I think I'm okay with that. 

EXPECTED VS ACTUAL

At the beginning of the year I listed out what I wanted to happen week to week all year long. It stressed me out once I fell behind this, and I wanted to somehow keep an updated sense of how many iterations happened and what changes were made. I quickly found that keeping track of the iterations was a huge hassle. So this year I’m just trying to book out my calendar really far in advance and chunk it at a high level (i.e. this week I had off and just blocked off “finances/admin” for the week). 

I’ll publish my ‘takeaways’ from this review, as well as things to do differently in 2017 in a later post. 

First Draft: 1/21/17

Published: 3/21/17

Time: 20+ hrs

Image Credit: me, and my buddy Mike Leek

[topicprinter]

Join for a chat with the master of SaaS and startup growth, Sujan Patel. Sujan is the co-founder of Mailshake, Pick, ContentMarketer, Narrow, Linktexting, Quuu, Ramp Ventures, Web Profits, … a never-ending list of companies 😲He is a serial, but even more so a parallel entrepreneur, who likes to keep pushing his own limits to the extreme.Sujan knows all about building startups and is an awesome guy to have a coffee with.As always, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and was glad we got this one on tape.You can read the transcript below or head to the podcast in the original post (the link is at the bottom) 👇---Jeroen: Hi Sujan, great to have you on Founder Coffee.Sujan: Hey, thanks for having me. Very, very excited to talk to you.Jeroen: Me too. You’re founder of a whole bunch of companies, can you give us the list?Sujan: Yeah, there’s a bunch. So to keep it simple, I’m a managing partner at Ramp Ventures.We own six SaaS companies and operate five. So I’m the founder of Mailshake or rather, the cofounder of Mailshake, Narrow.io, Pick.co, Voila Norbert. There’s probably a few I’m forgetting here! Yes, Linktexting.com.I run a couple of SaaS companies essentially, and I also run a digital marketing agency, called web profits.Ramp Ventures and the agency are two very different businesses. But yeah, I love helping people and working on their growth. I guess I’ve doubled down over and over to the point where I have six different things going on at the same time!Jeroen: How do you manage all of these things at once?Sujan: Yeah, so it’s quite difficult to be honest. But it’s also not as bad.The one thing I do to help myself manage multiple things is, focus on every single company in the same way. You’ll notice that all our SaaS companies have a common trend between them — not the products, but sometimes, the industry. But most importantly, you’ll see us using similar tactics, strategies and channels to grow.We basically try it once, master it, figure out a process and then identify a way to do it over and over again for the other companies.Sujan: I’ll give you an example. We’re working on onboarding improvements for our products and are also testing a referral program.We’re testing the referral program in the company that’s the least risky one, Narrow.io, to see how it works. Getting people to be active is a big challenge. I know the pitfalls because I’ve set up a lot of different referral programs. They usually don’t work as well as you want. So we’re going to test it out and if it works, we’ll know how to apply the same strategy to the other companies.Sujan: Mailshake has 12,000 customers right now. I definitely don’t want to do any tests on that one because there could be a lot of blowback.So when we do things like this, it improves our efficiency and it also our effectiveness because we’re not scaling things that are half-baked ideas. We’re scaling things that are proven and have metrics behind it. It helps us do our jobs better.The other thing is, I think working on multiple projects, businesses and switching gears all the time is something that I enjoy doing. I’ve worked on the agency side before this and I’ve worked with various companies as well where I was in charge of marketing multiple products. So I kind of got used to it.Sujan: I go into one business for a day, implement a bunch of things that may take a week or two to get data or even get developed, and then come back to it a week later to check on what’s happening, how it went.Jeroen: Is Mailshake the bigger one in the portfolio?Sujan: Yeah, Mailshake’s one of the bigger ones. At least the most successful one.Jeroen: Is there any bigger idea behind the portfolio?Sujan: Well, I think the bigger idea is to buy and grow SaaS companies.You’ll notice one thing about the portfolio. They’re kind of an evolution, especially over the last three years.We started Mailshake and Narrow in 2015. Our goal was to see if we can even do this. Can we even grow a business every year?Next year, we proved ourselves we could. It all worked and both the companies grew.But we also realised that it takes a while to build stuff, so we decided to buy what’s already out there. Our next goal was to see if we can grow a company that we didn’t build.Sujan: In 2017, we bought Norbert and we’re growing that. It’s grown over 2x in the seven months we’ve owned it. So the answer to our question was definitely a yes.We are not focused on working with a specific industry. Although I know sales and marketing the best, so obviously we get a lot more stuff in that space. But the thing is, we’re looking at even HR for that matter. We’re really looking at anything in the market that we can grow.Jeroen: So how did you get into building, growing and buying SaaS companies? How did that start?Sujan: You know I’ve always been infatuated with SaaS and software. When I was running my first agency called Single Grain, I worked with lots of different SaaS and software companies. We were helping them grow and it was then that I realised that I really wanted to do this.So while I was working on my first agency, I was also trying to build some stuff on the side. It always failed.I went to a startup weekend, found a developer, tried to build an idea but they were kind of crappy. Reality is, I was just kind of not that good at being a software guy.I was really good as a marketer, I was good as a top of the funnel guy. I knew how to grow businesses and so, I would always get hired to work on that aspect. For example, I’ve worked with Salesforce, helped Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics too. Seeing these companies grow the way they are, I’m like wow!Sujan: Meanwhile, I realised that agency margins are not the greatest.Jeroen: I agree, they’re not.Sujan: Running an agency is a grind, right?I mean, I love it. But selling hours and time is often difficult to keep up with. My point being that I was always envious of the software side.But since I tried and failed a couple of times, I decided to first educate myself in software. That’s when I sold my first agency, end of 2013 and got some pretty good runway. I told myself that I’m going to get my master’s and I’m going to do nothing else.Sujan: That’s when I got to see the mobile space, built some mobile apps and tried to grow those. Was even successful at it!Didn’t really make much money off it, got into a lawsuit due to a copyright as well. I had actually bought an app from somebody and they had a copyright issue on their main image, that they failed to mention during acquisition. I ended up paying a fat fee because of that.I killed all my profits.Anyhow, I ended up working and going to work for a company called WhenIwork.com as the Head of Marketing or say the VP of marketing. It was previously a client of mine. But my goal after SingleGrain, was to go and learn the software space.Sujan: And by learn, I didn’t just want to read it. I wanted to live it, breathe it. I gave myself 5 years there. I told myself that I’m going to go through an exit as an employee and I’m going to take a break from entrepreneurship.That lasted for just six to seven months.It is then that I ran into my Co-Founder from Narrow, Jared and hunted down my Co-Founder from Mailshake, Colin. I found two dovers that loved to work with me. And honestly, we worked well together.So I decided to go ahead with it again. One of these would definitely work, right? It was like I had two chances to succeed.I started moonlighting the software space. After a while, I felt like I got really comfortable on the marketing side, but what I didn’t know was customer support.Sujan: Like, I knew all the theories behind it from all the reading. But when you get in there yourself, it’s very different. The sales side, customer success, the operations, the development and everything else are very difficult to do. And they all hold equal parts in running a company, when compared to marketing.Jeroen: How did you actually get into marketing in the first place? Like, you worked for big companies and helped to grow them. How did this come about?Like, I knew all the theories behind it from all the reading. But when you get in there yourself, it’s very different. The sales side, customer success, the operations, the development and everything else are very difficult to do. And they all hold equal parts in running a company, when compared to marketing.Jeroen: How did you actually get into marketing in the first place? Like, you worked for big companies and helped to grow them. How did this come about?Sujan: So I got into marketing because of my cousin, Neil Patel. He was in high school and I think that was like my first year of college. He was like, “Sujan, you got to check out this this SEO thing.”And I was like, “What’s SEO?”So first of all he was like, “You got to check out the Internet, you can make a lot of money online.”I’m like, “That sounds like a scam.” Then he’s like, “No, no, seriously, check it out once.” That’s exactly what I did.I got into search engine optimization at that moment. He was like I’ll show you how to do it and then we could make something out of it. Back then, I didn’t know. We were young kids. It turns out that he told me about a lot of stuff around SEO, pointed me in the right direction, but didn’t really teach me much. Unfortunately, Neil’s style of training is putting you in the deep end.Sujan: Which is great, because I learned the hard way. So in college, I was just doing SEO consulting on part-time, instead of getting a part-time job or whatever. As SEO evolved, I kind of became more of a T-shaped marketer, learned other marketing channels like PPC, and social media.I got into SEO before social media even existed. That was the time when platforms like Digg had started. It was very early on and my role expanded to be more of a T-shaped all rounder in marketing.Jeroen: So you went straight from college to having your own agency?Sujan: Well, yes. I was in college when I started Single Grain. It worked well as a part-time college gig but not so well as a full-time job or making a living out of. So I ended up getting a job at an agency, putting mine on hold and just kind of working my way up from an entry-level SEO person to the Head of SEO in two years.I realized that this workforce thing is not for me. I need to go do my own stuff and so I restarted the Single Grain business and kept going.Jeroen: Why was the workforce thing not for you?Sujan: I went from an entry-level employee to the director-level in just two years. I kind of hacked my way up there. Every move I made, I took a leap and I was lucky at the time because a lot of people were investing into it.But ultimately, I felt like there was a cap on how much money I could make. I was 23 and making six figures already. With bonuses and revenue share, I was clearing almost 200k a month. In fact, a bit more.Sujan: I took a look at what the wages for the next two-three level would be and honestly, they weren’t much better than what I already had.I was like, okay, I have no college degree because I dropped out. So I could grind this out and kind of work my way up.I was 23 and knew that I could always go back to doing what I was doing if I failed. I wanted to make millions and at the time, I just knew it was marketing. I couldn’t be sitting in meetings, looking endlessly at PowerPoint presentations — which I believed was the life of an executive marketing person at any large company.Sujan: That’s what brought me into doing my own business. The company I was working with was downsizing and I was like, this seems like a good time to leave but also had an opportunity for me.So I convinced them to be my first client at the agency and I locked in an year’s contract with them. I also got them to pay me more than what my salary was.I was like, “Look, you guys are laying off people. You’ve just laid off like four or five people in the SEO team that I was running. There’s three people left on the team and I could do all the work myself. Not necessarily the people on the team, but the people you just let go of. So de-risk the position and move me to being a contractor. I want to start an agency anyways.”So yeah, that worked really well and I gave us an year to either fail or succeed. It ended up working out.Jeroen: So that was how you started off on your own. Was it with the intention to only grow your agency or were you already thinking about other products?Sujan: At that time I was not really thinking about products. I was thinking more about what businesses can I get into.What are the businesses that I can even start? What do I have the skill sets for?We even did some affiliates. So I was doing affiliate marketing and working on lead generation sites. I was also doing a lot of SEO and marketing for the travel space.That’s when I thought that we could work on lead generation for insurance in travel. So I built out some sites and it worked pretty well for some time. That was the extent of my product experience then. It was like working on and promoting someone else’s product.Jeroen: That’s really cool. Are any of your startups VC funded or are they all bootstrapped?Sujan: I’m a partner in Quuu.co and that is a funded startup. That’s the only one. For the others, we haven’t raised a Series A or anything like a seed funding yet. There’s also one that we don’t run through Ramp Ventures just because we’re a partner and there’s an awesome team behind it based in the UK.Jeroen: Is it a conscious choice not to raise money?Sujan: Yeah, absolutely.I’ve worked with lots of different VCs. They actually refer us quite a bit of business and I’ve seen the insides of a SaaS company, working with VCs. And realistically, I didn’t want to have a job that I was forced to do for 10 years.That’s how I look at getting an investment.The reason I say 10 years or failure really, is that if you’re taking $500, $1,000, $1 million, $20 million, $100 million, whatever it is, the bigger it is the longer the commitment.The VCs don’t want to see things do well, they want to see things explode or implode.So that means you have to hire fast, grow as a team and do so many other things that you otherwise, would consider irresponsible.Sujan: I wanted to build something sustainable. We could have easily raised money for Mailshake or any other venture. I could have also joined some firms as a ER, jumped on as a Co-Founder of a business. But I wanted to have my cake and eat it too.I wanted to make money ‘now’, but I also wanted to make a lot of money later on when something grew or at a potential exit. So, I figured I’ve got enough capital to kind of get things off the ground. For the last few years, I am running an agency because that’s how I make a living and I don’t need to take any money off the SaaS products I am working on.It kind of allows us to grow without anything else.One of the things I realized is that I don’t want to take a shot at making $1 billion or creating this crazy, big company. I don’t want to be restricted to taking one shot in 10 years and then look at my life like I did none of what I wanted to.I didn’t just want to give up and go do something like getting a job. I wanted to take more than just that and I wanted it quick. Doing things quicker meant not letting anyone tell me what to do.Obviously we’ve got some advisors. My partner in Ramp Ventures is an ex-VC and he’s very experienced in capital raising.Let’s just say, we’re meeting only 30% of our company goals. Now if someone offers us a ridiculous amount of money for it or even a reasonable amount, I want to be able to make my own decision. I never wanted to have a board tell me what I can or cannot do.Jeroen: Yeah, that’s definitely what happens when you have VCs onboard. When you buy a business, what is exactly the goal you have in mind? Like where do you see the business going?Sujan: My goal is to try to grow the business. Obviously, I won’t buy a business that I don’t think I can grow. I want to be able to understand who the customers are and see if we can make a better product for them, and identify where its strengths are.If I think I can grow the business by 10X, then I usually dig deeper. Like, taking a look at the competition, what’s out their, what their weaknesses are and talking to customers. Really, it’s awesome to get into the details to understand a business more. It’s even making me better at running my own business!Jeroen: For those with a small SaaS business out there that might be interested in selling, what kind of businesses are you looking for?Sujan: We’re looking for really businesses that are somewhere between 100K ARR to a million. They could be in any industry really, but are wanting to be or are already into SaaS. I just want to make sure that we’re able to grow them. So if anyone out there knows someone who is interested, let me know!Jeroen: What business do you spend most of your time on now?Sujan: Right now, in the last few months, I’ve been kind of serving as a customer success person for Mailshake. I’m kind of known for like going into different businesses to try something new.So for example, we want to test out if customer success is the right hire for us or should we just hire a salesperson.I want to see if we get hundreds of new customers signing up, will engaging them get us anything? I mean I know it will. Talking to customers is definitely very valuable, but do customers want to talk to us? What are the KPIs of this role? What are the goals that we’re meeting here?I want to serve as that role to be able to understand the nitty gritty of it.Sujan: You know, last year I was doing a lot of the marketing for Mailshake. But now for content marketing, we’ve hired a resource. So we’re pretty much serving as the roles that are potentially coming and then working on looking for somebody who could kind of manage it well.But I’m also doing onboarding and things with other businesses.For like example, Norbert. We’re expanding the product to add a few more things to what it already does. It has fallen way behind over the years and the competition has gotten way ahead.So we’re kind of expanding to try and catch-up with the market. I don’t really need to be in the day to day of those things, but that was something me and my partner, Bob, worked on three months ago.He’s kind of carrying that and once it is live, it will be my turn to do more of the marketing for it.I can go in and out of businesses fairly easily. I do that almost on a daily basis. For instance, I worked on Pick yesterday. We worked on all of the onboarding and some technical stuff to kind get the email marketing automation set up.That’s going to take two days for my developer team to execute. So now I’m going back to Mailshake to continue doing what I was doing.Jeroen: So if I understand it well, you focus very much on experimenting, improving and then delegating. Is that right?Sujan: Yeah. Delegating and in some cases, choosing not to do things.For example, we’re working on using the ICE framework — Impact, Confidence, Ease of Implementation, in rating all of our ideas.A lot of times we decide not to do things. Like I already have the product roadmap for the next year and a half for Mailshake. I know exactly what we’re going to do and build for Norbert.Some of these things we decided not to do immediately. We try to prioritize and that comes from extreme discipline. But it also comes from having limited resources and budget constraints.Those two things have leveled me up as a human being, as well as a marketer. Because having those constraints really forces you to think about what you want to do and what you should be doing.Sujan: I think, most marketers and also most Founders, get really carried away with the fact that they can do a lot of things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should do those things or those are the right things to do.I always go through the exercise of answering, is this the absolute right thing to do? We usually move at a slower pace than most and don’t do a lot of the things we’ve listed down. But that also means, we end up doing things better.Sujan: You know, one of the things I really believe in and am not an expert in but a part of, is great UX. I think like the end consumer when we’re working on Mailshake, Pick and some of our other companies. I like to think if the product is really easy to use and how we can get it right in the first go.Because a competitor may have more features and a better pricing, but if ours is the easiest to use, people will fall in love with it.Jeroen: Right. So when we look at the different tools you have in your portfolio, the common thread is probably their ease of use?Sujan: Yeah, exactly! They’re really simple and easy to use.I think that’s kind of our motto — especially for Mailshake. At Ramp Ventures too, we want to make things as easy to use as possible for our target demographic.And that often means saying no to building out features, saying no to doing things that make things complicated.We get feature requests all the time. I don’t want to say no immediately, so I take a note of it and make a list of things that our customers want. For example, a lot of our customers really want us to build a CRM. They want to be able to do everything inside of Mailshake. But if we did that, the dashboard’s going to become very confusing.So I know our customers want a certain functionality, but building it out right away isn’t really the best move. I’d rather go and integrate with you guys because that’s what your core functionality is and you’re already great at it. Honestly, I don’t know any tool that can do it all without compromising on the UX.If you look at HubSpot or Salesforce, you don’t hear people saying that they love the fact that they can do everything on one tool. They just say they use the tools because they are using them for something else as well. But they don’t love them because they do everything!Jeroen: I agree. It tends to make the solution very complicated, difficult to navigate. It obviously has some advantages but it doesn’t make it fun or like a joy to use it.Sujan: Yeah, exactly.I found that fun and enjoyable to use is actually the thing that is the marketing engine. So in the early days of Mailshake, I spoke to a few customers who were willing to have a conversation with me. We have three different use cases or personas for Mailshake and this customer fit none.We have marketers use the tool for link building content for instance, then it also sees some use cases in the recruiting side of things, HR and PR. Basically, for cold emailing.Now the person I am speaking to, is a salesperson. He runs an eight person sales team and they have just signed up. So I wanted to know who this guy was really and what potential did he see in Mailshake?I spoke to him and he said that he uses Mailshake for a few things and that even though it didn’t serve a lot of the functionality that he needs, it is a tool that his team can get started on immediately. He said that’s why he loved the tool. He told me that he didn’t care if the tool costed him 20 bucks or $5000 a month, because it made his team more productive and the net gain on efficiency is in the tens of thousands.Jeroen: Yeah, most people are not really tech savvy. You need to make it super easy for them to become productive. So what is it exactly that keeps you going?Sujan: You know, I get really excited about doing something, winning or seeing the results of hard work. I’ll give you an example and this is not even a monetary change or win.Past Monday, we implemented this form. We knew people were signing up on Mailshake and there were some active users too — for us, these are people who have sent out at least one campaign using the tool. So they went through the at least 5 or 6 steps of setting up their email, writing the email, figuring out who to contact and more.We wanted to survey the 12,000 customers that we have to know what do people really use Mailshake for.I’ve talked to hundreds of users, actually probably 1000 by now. But there are still 11,000 of them that I haven’t gotten a chance to interact with.There are literally dozens of use cases, but I wanted to hear it from our users. So we implemented this forced feedback form that pops up right after you send a campaign. It asks a simple question, “What are you using Mailshake for?” and says, “Tell us more so we can make the software better for you.”We literally forced every single customer to answer this for us — even those who haven’t sent out a campaign before. There’s no way to close or avoid the feedback form.In the first one hour of implementation, we got 500 people who answered it. Within the first day, we ended up getting 1,300 responses and now, we’re pacing at like 2,500. This was done just three days ago. It’s exciting to see all the quantitative as well as qualitative information from people who are using Mailshake. Some of them are sending us feature requests, while others are telling us how they integrate it with another tool to serve a workflow.Sujan: One of the metrics that we don’t really track, is the DAU (daily active users), because I really don’t care about that. I just like to look at the campaigns that have been sent. We also look at the number of emails that we’re sending out per day.But what got me the most excited, was the feedback we received. We found out that there are almost 2,000 people or at least over 1,000 that login to our product every single day. If I were to have a look at the data and tracked this, it doesn’t nearly show as that high.Sujan: Another thing that excites me, is what we’re doing for Norbert. We increased the conversion by 3x already. So it was exciting to see the movement, that needle go up from one percent to two percent to three percent; accounts moving from free trials to paid users. Those are not actual numbers, I’m just giving you an idea of what we’re seeing now.Sujan: But it was exciting to see all those things. Seeing those kind of numbers is exactly why I love working on multiple companies. Because while one is kind of struggling, the other one’s success keeps you going. I can keep poking around and getting my hands dirty with new tactics like. Like the referral program. It’s been seven months since I last executed one..For one company I’m working on creating in-app personalized workflows and for another, I’m working on customer success. And there’s one, where I’m gathering customer feedback. I get gratification in three different ways. I’m kind of addicted to this and it’s fun!Jeroen: Yeah, you are a really lucky Founder I think.Sujan: Yeah.Jeroen: In terms of balancing this with your personal life, how does that work?Sujan: That’s a good question. I think for the longest time, I was trying to find my work-life balance. So for the two and a half years that we had been working on Ramp Ventures, there was no work-life balance.Sujan: There was just work. It was my life and I was trying to survive. And I think a lot of this was also to do with me having fun doing this. I found it to be my true passion. But I think now that we’ve been able to stabilise in the last six months, hire and build out a team, outsource a few tasks including customer support, we’ve now finally been able to get some room on our plates.Sujan: So now I have a work-life balance and what I try to do with it, is exercise in the morning. I wake up early and by the time my true workday starts, I’m usually caught up on emails. In the evenings, I usually clock off around four o’clock. It’s something really different for me. Signing off or leaving work at 3 or 4 in the evening, feels a bit weird too.Maybe also because I see that in the last few hours or a typical workday, I’m being completely useless. I’m browsing Facebook or Amazon, texting my wife to ask what’s for dinner or where she’d like to go. I’m really not focused on anything. That’s why I just sign off early to come home or do something fun. Sometimes, I watch a movie and come home to spend time with my wife, and family.Later towards the evening, I still get one or two hours to get in my zone and I usually use it to do something that would have taken me longer during the workday. Simply because there’s absolutely no distraction at this time. Realistically, my best and my most productive days are Sunday mornings.Sujan: I wake up early on Sunday mornings. I usually knock out one of the biggest and the hardest thing I have on my plate. This helps me get organized better. During the weekends, my goal is to help my team remove hurdles and bottlenecks, and make sure that they have everything they need to be successful. So I’m not actually doing a whole lot as an individual contributor during the work hours.Jeroen: Yep. I saw it on Facebook that you really started working out. Is that working for you? Do you feel a difference in your energy levels?Sujan: Absolutely. I wake up earlier, I work harder and it’s all because I actually exercise.And this is not my first time doing this, this is actually my second time. For the last two years, I just got distracted and fell off the wagon of eating healthy and exercising regularly. I was doing it for five years before, but moving cities across different time zones, speaking at events and working on multiple companies, made it hard to keep up with. So I kind of decided to let go of it.But exercise has helped me a lot. Even just 20 minutes of running or like going to the gym, getting your heart rate up, has helped me be kind of happier. It might sounds like a little infomercial here, but it’s such a simple thing to do. You just have to get off the couch or your office hair and do it.Jeroen: Yeah, I totally agree. I also just started running again two weeks ago, makes me feel so much better.Sujan: Yeah.Jeroen: You just mentioned that you moved cities, where are you based now?Sujan: Austin, Texas. I’m from LA, lived in San Francisco for five years and then kind of made my way to Austin.Jeroen: Why did you move to Austin?Sujan: It’s like mini San Francisco — a mini tech area. Lots of good food, nightlife and I like it because it’s not always all tech focused.There’s probably a lot of non-tech things like music. I like the work-life balance of my surroundings and again, that kind of forces me to maintain the same.I think in San Francisco, it’s hard to achieve that. I love that place and have always said that I grew up there, learned my chots. But everyone’s a Founder there, they’re working on something cool and that nudges you to do more than what you’re doing too. Getting out of that environment to see what the rest of the world looks like, was very important for me.Sujan: And the funny thing is, I connected with more people in the six to nine months after I left San Francisco than I did the whole time I was there.Jeroen: With people in San Francisco or?Sujan: Yeah, with people in San Francisco. I met, I even went and hung out with people more. I had more meetings with people in San Francisco than I did the five years that I was there. And it was because I made a concentrated effort. When I am there for five or six days for a conference or something, I make sure that I connect with everybody that I wanted to.Whereas, when I was there I’d always be too busy to network and would stall it by another week or month, that turned into ‘never’. But now, I try to connect with someone new at least three to four times a week and have a meaningful conversation with them.Sujan: I remember a few weeks, a month ago now, we had a great conversation with absolutely no agenda. It was just to meet each other and get to know what we were each doing. I have those kind of conversations more often now because it opens my eyes to what’s happening around me. I can share what I have learnt so far, learn new things and it’s a whole lot of fun.Jeroen: Yep. I’m also learning a lot now doing these calls, it’s really amazing. You think Austin is a good place to have your startup? What other cool startups are based in Austin?Sujan: Yeah, I think Austin’s a pretty good place. There’s Book in a Box that is a good startup. Sumo.com and Noah Kagan and that group is here. There’s HomeAway, you know one of the older startups.Dell, which is not necessarily a startup anymore and some larger companies too. But yeah, there’s a decent amount of startups here. Not as much as you would think though and not always like a software business. There’s companies like Able or LawnStarter subscription lawn care business. Lots of different kinds of businesses.I think because it’s a smaller community, everyone likes to know each other. I have a monthly CMO breakfast where there are five to seven people that attend with the VPs or executive marketers in the area. So I think my network is much tighter here. While I don’t have too many relationships going, I certainly have more meaningful and stronger associations happening.Sujan: You know, it’s about really going after who you want to connect with and figuring out how to connect with them. You’ll find that it’s actually not the location that is the hindering factor, it’s either you or your lack of initiative to connect with that person.Jeroen: Totally agree. Wrapping up, what’s the latest good book you’ve read and why did you choose to read it?Sujan: I am reading the book, Sapiens. I don’t know why I’m reading it. I would say it’s an interesting book. I chose to read it because every one of my friends kept telling to check it out.Sometimes I blindly take recommendations for books from people I respect. But the book is like an interesting learning about humanity and human being in general.I would say the book I most recently read and absolutely loved, is, Principles by Ray Dalio. He’s the guy who kind of you can learn from. The book is about investing and talks about money management, and work-life. It’s one on my favourites now and I would totally recommend it.Jeroen: Yeah, I’ll definitely going to put it on my list. Is there anything you wish you had known when you started out?Sujan: No. You know why? It is because even if I knew it, I would still make another mistake and not know where exactly I went wrong. I would fast forward to this interview and wished I knew that mistake. So I learned all these lessons the hard way and it has gotten me where I am today. I’m fine with going on that route over and over again.Jeroen: Cool. Thanks for being on Founder Coffee, it was really interesting. I’ll send you a package of some actual Founder Coffee in the next few weeks. Thanks again!Sujan: My pleasure, thanks for having me.---Original post with links to the podcast here.

[maxwellyjordan]

Podcast #162: Designing Your Clients’ Experience, with Joey Coleman

In this episode with Joey Coleman, we talk about what client experience really is and why it’s important—especially during the first 100 days.

Joey Coleman

Joey Coleman helps companies keep their customers. An award-winning speaker, he shares his First 100 Days® methodology for improving customer experience and retention with organizations around the world (e.g., Whirlpool, NASA, and Zappos). His book Never Lose a Customer Again shows how to turn any sale into a lifelong customer.

You can follow Joey on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists and Clio for sponsoring this episode!

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Transcript

This transcript was prepared by Rev.com.

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lawyerist podcast with Sam Glover and Aaron Street. Each week, Lawyerist brings you advice and interviews to help you build a more successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. And now, here are Sam and Aaron.

Sam Glover: Hi, I’m Sam Glover.

Aaron Street: And I’m Aaron Street, and this is episode 162 of the Lawyerist podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, we’re talking with Joey Coleman about designing your client’s experience, especially during the first 100 days, so you never lose a client again.

Sam Glover: Today’s podcast is brought to you by LawPay, Freshbooks, and Ruby Receptionists. We appreciate their support and we will tell you more about them later in the show.

Aaron Street: So this episode launches on Wednesday, March 7th, and if you are listening to it on the day it comes out, then we are currently at a BA tech show in Chicago through the end of the week. And if you happen to be there, you should come find us and say, “Hi,” because we want to meet you. And if you either aren’t there, or are there and just not listening to podcasts for the first couple of days because you’re at a conference and not doing your normal morning commute, then you’re not going to hear this while were there. And so we won’t be able to hang out in Chicago unless you realize to come say, “Hi,” to us anyway.

Sam Glover: But if you are there, look for the Lawyerist t-shirts. Aaron and I will be there with Ashley, our operations director, Marshall, our new editor in chief, and Stephanie, our community director. So there will be five of us there, and all of us would love you to come and say, “Hi,” or hang out, whatever.

Aaron Street: And also, if you’re listening to this on Wednesday, March 7th, the day it comes out, today happens to be a giant day of huge announcement for us at Lawyerist that we’re really excited about, and so if you’re kind of in the Lawyerist crowd, you’re probably hearing about that on Twitter, or our website, or whatever. So today we are announcing the launch of project we’re super excited about. It’s called The Small Firm Scorecard. We’ve been putting tons of effort over the last kind of year or two in secret into this project. Basically, we’ve created a qualitative self-assessment for all small firm lawyers in the country to benchmark their law firm’s across a scale to determine whether you’re building a practice that will be successful and sustainable for the next 10 years, and we have questions about your finances, and your marketing, and your technology, and your HR practices et cetera, all to figure out whether your building what we think of as a successful firm.

Sam Glover: I think it’s going to be really helpful to everyone. And you can find it on the new home page.

Aaron Street: Yes. And so another big announcement today is that we’ve redesigned the Lawyerist home page, in part to focus on encouraging people to take the scorecard. Scorecard is free. It’s available at Lawyerist.com/scorecard, or now easily findable from the Lawyerist home page. There are no strings attached, you just get your score and some recommendations about what areas we think your firm could use to improve. Another exciting announcement that Sam has already foreshadowed is that we have three new team members joining Lawyerist this week, including a new editor in chief, Marshall Lichte. Marshall is a TBD Law alumni and a former podcast guest, and for the first time in 10 years, Sam will now no longer be in charge of overseeing the content on Lawyerist, which is a big deal for us. He’s not going anywhere, obviously, unless this is a really weird podcast episode.

Sam Glover: No, but I’m leaving the content side of Lawyerist.com in really, really, good hands. We’ve known Marshall for a long time, and it was really lucky that he was willing to come join us.

Aaron Street: And so our team as of this week is now more than 10 people, and we’re super excited about that. And then the other big announcement that is dropping today, which I actually can’t say now, because it isn’t concluded while I’m recording this, is that we now know the date and location of our TBD Law Four conference. And so you can go to Lawyerist and find out that data now.

Sam Glover: Yeah, so you’ll be able to see almost all the stuff on Lawyerist.com, or you can meet the new team at Lawyerist.com/about. But lots of cool stuff happening. And come check it out. Come see us in Chicago if you’re there. And stick with us through the next year.

Aaron Street: So lots of exciting stuff. None of which has really anything to do with our guest, Joey Coleman, who I’m super excited about. Joey is another, in what’s becoming a long line of guests who I’ve gotten to know through the mastermind talks group that I’m a part of. Joey is both a kind of former recovering lawyer, and one of the leading thought leaders on client experience, and I think he’s got some really cool stuff to talk with us about today.

Sam Glover: Yeah, so hear from Diana Stepleton from Ruby Receptionists, with a brief sponsored interview, and then we’ll hear from Joey.

Diana Stepleton: Hi, this is Diana Stepleton. I am the VP of partner engagement here at Ruby Receptionists. We are the only live remote receptionist service dedicated to creating real, meaningful connections with callers, building trust, and helping you in business.

Sam Glover: Hi, Diana.

Diana Stepleton: How are you, Sam?

Sam Glover: I’m great, thanks. I’m glad you’re with us again. So remote receptionists now. You used to be a virtual receptionist, what’s up with that?

Diana Stepleton: Yes. Well we’ve been in business almost 15 years, and we’ve always called ourself a virtual receptionist, but we’re finding more and more these days that people call and have a different idea in their head of what virtual means, and they think we are computers or robots or something. And they’re surprised when they find out that we are actually live people answering the phone. So we are somewhat rebranding that to be live, remote receptionist, instead of virtual receptionists. Nothing has changed other than really the definition of virtual in the world.

Sam Glover: I’m now a little bit amused by my mental picture of what people might be imagining when they think of virtual receptionist then.

Diana Stepleton: Yes.

Sam Glover: I feel like when I was considering Ruby years ago for the first time, it felt really like a big deal to get set up with a virtual receptionist, and I now know that maybe I was a little misguided in that, but what is it actually like to get set up with Ruby? Because I think people might be thinking that’s harder than it actually is.

Diana Stepleton: Yeah, it’s actually really quite simple, for us anyway. What our new customers do is they fill out a short form online that gives us some basic information. They have an onboarding call with one of our on-boarders to help figure out how they want their calls handled, just very customizable, and then they forward their phones to us and we answer them. If they don’t have a phone number already, we can actually just provide the phone number for them, and then they don’t even have to worry about the forwarding part. But it’s really very simple. Most of the energy is spent on making sure that we are setting ourselves up to handle the calls the way the new customer would like them handled.

Sam Glover: And you have advice about that too right? So I don’t have to come up with the script on my own?

Diana Stepleton: Correct. We do. So for example, for attorneys, we will often say, “You know, when someone calls a law firm, they expect the receptionist to know certain things, like to have a stated hourly rate? Or do you offer free consultations?” Or those types of things. So we will ask to get those pieces of information so our receptionists can really sound in-house. So when someone calls they, “Of course we know these things, because we’re their receptionist.” So we will guide the new customer through that process.

Sam Glover: And what if what I’m worried about is that it’s going to suck and people are going to call up and I’m going to lose clients? Yeah but I think people might be worried about that, so how do you alleviate that fear?

Diana Stepleton: Well, there are a number of things. One is people can try it out for themselves. We have something all over our website that’s called Experience Ruby. You can find it in a number of different places that call Ruby.com. And it enables someone to simply enter their first name and their last name, their company name or firm name, their email address, and their phone number. And an account will immediately be set up for no charge, it’s just a test account. It will work for about an hour, at least an hour, sometimes a little bit longer. And what it enables people to do is really just play with it.

So do you want to hear what it would sound like if a Ruby Receptionist answered your phone? Fill the little form out and then have someone call you. And Ruby Receptionists will answer the phone and we can transfer calls through to you live, we can take messages so you can see how messages are delivered. It’s not 100%, because a lot of people use our app, we have an iPhone or an Android app, and so a lot of people get their messages in the app as opposed to getting it via email or text, but it’ll be a basic view of it, so without the app.

Sam Glover: So I could actually like have a colleague or a friend call up Ruby as if they were calling me as a law firm and go through the entire process and get connected to me, and I could experience the whole thing?

Diana Stepleton: You can, absolutely. And in fact, you could even play with the receptionist a little bit. And when your friend or colleague calls and asks for you, and the receptionist offers you that call, you can say, “Find out who referred him.” And then the receptionist will go back and ask who referred them, and they’ll come back to you and give you that information, and you can say, “Okay, I’ll take the call.” They’ll transfer them through. Or you can say, “You know what? I won’t take the call. Take a message.”

Sam Glover: So does that really just go through the normal switchboard then?

Diana Stepleton: Uh-huh.

Sam Glover: Oh, cool.

Diana Stepleton: Oh, yeah. It just sets up a test account automatically. And it’s very slick.

Sam Glover: That is very cool. And you have a money back guarantee for the first 30 days. If people aren’t happy?

Diana Stepleton: Yeah. Exactly. So back to your question of what happens if we suck, I would say first of all, people can go out and look on the internet to see reviews of us. People rarely complain that we suck. Even our customers who leave us do so because it might not be a good fit. They’ve decided to hire someone in-house. They’ve merged with another firm who has a receptionist. Any number of reasons, maybe they feel that their call volume is too low to justify the cost. But typically, even when those people leave us, they include a little note that says, “You guys are the best thing since sliced bread. I’ll tell everyone about you. But I’m canceling for now.”

Sam Glover: That’s got to feel nice.

Diana Stepleton: It does. It really does.

Sam Glover: Well, if you’d like to learn more about working with a remote or virtual receptionist, you can get the attorney’s guide to remote receptionists at CallRuby.com/LawyeristPod. That’s CallRuby.com/LawyeristPod. Thanks, Diana.

Diana Stepleton: Thank you, Sam. Talk to you later.

Joey Coleman: Hey everyone. My name’s Joey Coleman. I’m actually a recovering attorney. The first step is admitting that you have a problem, and now I’m a professional speaker. I get the pleasure of traveling all over the world, delivering a message about the importance of creating a remarkable client experience. My expertise is helping companies keep their customers and clients. Companies like Whirlpool, NASA, and Zappos come to me when they want to enhance their client experience. And I’m super excited to get a chance to be on the Lawyerist today and have a conversation with Sam.

Sam Glover: Hi, Joey. Thanks for being on. I told somebody recently that I was a lawyer and that I got over it.

Joey Coleman: Nice. I like it.

Sam Glover: Which is sort of true. But I stayed in the area. So I’m curious though, how did you make that transition from being a practicing lawyer, and I checked out your bio, and you were a practicing lawyer doing criminal defense, working for national security agencies, in the White House, so you’ve been kind of all over the map in various levels of being a lawyer. How do you do that and then decide to focus on client experience? Where did that change happen?

Joey Coleman: Well, it’s interesting. It’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get. How does guy go from working for CIA and the White House and the Secret Service to being a criminal defense lawyer, to selling promotional products, to running an ad agency, to being a client experience guy? And the thread is easy for me to see in hindsight, looking back. It wasn’t as clear maybe when I was actually going through the process originally. But long story short, every job I’ve ever had, the real crux or goal of being successful at that job is figuring out why do people do the things that they do? And what can we do to make them do the things that we want them to do.

So as a lawyer, that was pretty easy. How do we convince the jury to find my guy not guilty? As a marketer, it’s how do we convince a consumer to buy this product? And now as a professional speaker, it’s how do I help an audience understand that adopting the methodologies and the frameworks that I’m presenting to them is something that will help their business and is something that they should do after my talk ends. So the common thread is really connecting all of the people aspect, and that’s really how it all ties together. And interestingly enough, obviously a lot of the things I learned as a practicing attorney have been incredibly useful to me as not only a business owner, but as a speaker.

Sam Glover: So programming note here, we may go back and forth between saying customer and client experience, because obviously when you’re working with a company like Zappos, they think about customers, not clients. And when you’re working with lawyers, you think about clients, not customers. Just so listeners understand, sometimes we’re going to bounce back and forth without really thinking about it. Why client experience? I mean, obviously, clients are at the core of everything that lawyers do, doesn’t that mean we’re already automatically focused on client experience and that’s what we do?

Joey Coleman: Well, that would be nice. And it’s beautiful in theory.

Sam Glover: [inaudible 00: 12: 25] trick question, obviously.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, but we both have been around the block enough to know that that’s just not the reality. And one of the fascinating things as somebody who practiced law and now is immersed in client experience all day, every day, to be incredibly blunt without hopefully being offensive, as a general rule in the industry of attorneys, the client experience is horrid. It’s absolutely horrid. And that’s mainly because most attorneys have never actually been a client. So it’s really tough to understand how to create a remarkable client experience when you’ve never been on the client side of the equation. Secondarily, the typical lawyer, depending on whose research you look at, has anywhere between 40 and 80 active cases at any given time. The problem is for your clients, they have one active case. And so for them, emotionally-

Sam Glover: And it consumes them.

Joey Coleman: And it consumes them, and rightfully it should. Because it’s their life on the line. Especially in the context of when I was doing criminal defense. If the person I was representing got found guilty, I didn’t go to prison, they did. And so it consumes every waking moment of their life, and the problem is I think as practicing attorneys, when the client leaves the room, and we’re done with that meeting, we don’t sit there and ponder on that client and worry about what just happened in the meeting for the next 48 hours. We immediately go to the next meeting. And usually, the interesting thing is we don’t really think about that client again until either the next time we see them, or maybe we’re working on their case, but when we are working on their case, they usually don’t know we’re working on their case.

So they’re left in this thought of, “Well, the only time I ever hear from them is when we’re face to face, having a meeting, or on the phone.” And it’s like, no, there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. And that’s where I say from a communication point of view, the experience is horrid, because we need to be informing our clients much more regularly about where they are in the process, and what we’ve been doing for them.

Sam Glover: Yeah, we’re too busy being annoyed because our clients are calling us to check in. I’m curious, do you have like a tool or a recommendation for how lawyers can put themselves in their client’s shoes and actually try and see something from their perspective?

Joey Coleman: Yeah. I mean, a general tool is just to really strengthen your empathy muscle and to practice kind of seeing it from their perspective. Additionally, make the time to actually spend the time with the client, and ask them questions about how this is impacting their life. So again, it depends on what kind of law you practice. I spent a lot of my time in criminal defense, so that’s an easy and obvious emotional connection. “What’s going on here?” “Oh my gosh, I’m worried that I’m going to go to jail. I’m worried about what’s going to happen to my wife and kids. I’m worried about if I’ll ever be able to get a job after that. I’m worried about how long I would go to jail if I go to jail.”

But the same applies if you’re doing contract law. “Hey, I’m worried that this deal that my lawyer is negotiating, that maybe they skip a point that is really important, and three years from now I get sued and I lose my company.” Family law. “I’m worried that if my lawyer doesn’t do a good job, I might not get to see my kids as much as I would like to on the other end of this divorce.” So part of the idea of stepping into the shoes is to really have the conversations with your clients to ask them, “What are your fears here? What are the things that you’re worried about? What are the things you’re anxious about?”

And they may be, and most likely will be worried about things there’s really not a lot of reason for them to worry. But if we don’t ever take the time to ask that question, and record the answer in the file, and then every time we’re getting ready to jump on a call with that client, or meet with them in person, go back and read what their fears are so that in the call, we can be keeping in mind, “I need to be addressing these, all day every day, in every communication I have with them.”

Sam Glover: I’m curious, how granular do you think about … And I know we’ll dig deeply into this, but when I think about the client experience, I also try to think about things like how will somebody with those fears, and hopes, and whatever, who walks into my office, how will they feel when they walk in? If I’m sitting behind a giant desk in a suit, what does that say to somebody who’s approaching their legal problems that they have in the way that they are? And sort of the non-verbal cues in the way that we communicate, the non-verbal communications that we have, the environment that I’m creating, all that kind of stuff. Is that stuff relevant too? Or are we thinking more about communication styles?

Joey Coleman: It’s 100% relevant. Absolutely. And I think it most … And again, sweeping stereotype here, most lawyers and most law firms have a perception about what they should look like, and then they try to present that without recognizing that that actually may be having the opposite of their intended effect in terms of their client’s emotional state. Let me explain that in the context of experience I had when I was practicing law. I did a lot of high-profile criminal defense cases, where if my clients were found guilty, they’d go to prison for hundreds of years. If they came to meet with me and I was wearing a suit, they would associate with me with the feds who usually had been the ones who had brought them into custody.

Sam Glover: Right, not their friends.

Joey Coleman: Exactly. So what I used to wear a lot in the office were jeans and a sweater. Now, some lawyers would look at that and say, “That’s not professional. That’s ridiculous.” But when I’m meeting with my client, I need my client to be at ease, to tell me everything that’s going on, to give me the full story, not feel that they need to hold back or be on guard.

And then what we would do is we would actually have a conversation before we would go to court where I would actually sit them down and say, “Now, here’s the thing. Tomorrow when you walk into court, you’re going to see me in a way you’ve never seen me before. You’re going to see me in a suit. You’re going to see me using words and phrases with the judge and with the other lawyers that you don’t know what they mean. That’s okay. I’m playing a game. I’m playing a role. And if I have conversations with them the way I have conversations with you in jeans and a sweater, we’re in trouble. You’re in trouble. So know that you’re going to be anxious, but know that it’s going to be okay, because we’re basically putting on a show, for lack of a better way of putting it, or putting in layman’s terms.”

But you’re absolutely right. Even the difference of instead of sitting behind your desk for the initial meeting, have a couch in your office and you sit on one side of the couch and put them on the other side. Sit across from them. Try to eliminate the number of physical barriers between them. Make your office welcoming. Most lawyer’s offices look like they’re one of two things, either a photo shoot for Architectural Digest of boring offices, 2018, or a complete train wreck of paper everywhere and colossal disorganization. Neither of those images is really going to present the best foot forward for a client in terms of what their perceptions of you are. And so I think it’s all about taking into consideration the communication, the environment, what you’re wearing, how you say it, the way you communicate with them.

Are you sending letters? Are you sending emails? Are you doing phone calls? Are you doing in person? What are the different types of communication conversations you’re having? And sometimes the tool and mechanism for doing that, again, either helps or hurts your cause.

Sam Glover: One thing that I see so many people doing, not even just lawyers, but people doing is you’re sitting across a desk from somebody, and you’re talking to them, and they’re taking notes on a laptop. And they may be taking notes, they may be listening intently and taking notes, but what everything about typing on a laptop says is, “I’m doing something that’s more important than what you’re saying to me.” It’s so dismissive, and there’s a physical wall between you and your clients. And I realized that you may be doing a great job taking notes, but what you’re sort of subconsciously telling them is, “I’m not listening.” It’s a subtle, but really striking thing I think that we all get. We all feel dismissed when somebody’s looking at a screen instead of looking at us and listening.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. I mean, and there’s a couple great workarounds to that. Number one, do it the old fashioned way, write it down. I realized that that reduces productivity, but it increases connection with the client. Number two, have a colleague or an associate or a paralegal or a secretary sit in on the meeting to take notes.

Sam Glover: I like that one a lot, yeah.

Joey Coleman: So you can be very present in the moment. I mean, when I was a junior associate, starting out, that’s part of what my job was. My job was to walk in and not only take notes on the conversation, but take notes on the client emotions. Take notes on how they were reacting to the things that were being said in the situation at a maybe subconscious level, or at a visceral level, and then feed that back to the senior attorneys after the meeting was over and say, “Hey, I think they’re really anxious about this, even though they didn’t say they were anxious about it.”

Sam Glover: There’s a lot of data that suggests that when you take notes by typing, you actually don’t retain it or absorb it, the information, nearly as well.

Joey Coleman: Correct.

Sam Glover: I have a friend, Damien, who can type so fast that he can actually transcribe it, so he is basically playing the role of a court reporter, and then he can go back and study it later. And he insists he’s the exception to the rule, and maybe he is, but I still think that for most of us, actually just sitting there and listening, and maybe jotting down a few notes about the highlights, you’re probably going to have a better recollection later of that conversation anyway.

Joey Coleman: 100%. And in fact, with all due respect to the friend, most lawyers think that they’re the exception to the rule, and that’s part of the reason why the client experience is so horrid across the entire industry.

Sam Glover: If you’re listening, Damien, you know that I think that you might be right about this.

Joey Coleman: And I’m willing to be persuaded as well.

Sam Glover: The exception proves the rule.

Joey Coleman: Totally. I mean, the other thing that I think is worth considering is when I was practicing law, transcription was a really expensive endeavor. Having a court reporter in the room was going to cost hundreds of dollars, and it just wasn’t a practical application in a regular client meeting. What I do in all of my client meetings now, I have an app on my phone that records the conversation, and when I’m done, it uploads it to the cloud. It automatically goes over to a service called Rev.com, R-E-V .com-

Sam Glover: Oh, that’s what we’ll use for this podcast too.

Joey Coleman: And yeah, and for a dollar a minute, transcribes the conversation. And why lawyers aren’t using that and factoring that in, I don’t know. You would have a verbatim transcript, as you well know, Sam, that the transcription rate is in excess of 98% accurate. I mean, it’s incredibly, incredibly accurate. And if you really feel like you don’t want to miss anything, throw the recorder on, have the conversation, and you’re off to the races and use that to take your notes. It will allow you to be much more personally engaged with the client when you’re meeting.

Sam Glover: Just to throw a little [lawyery 00: 23: 27] stuff in here though, I think depending on who you’re talking with and who your client is and what kind of law it is, you may be creating a record that then comes up for discovery issues, and so it’s at least worth thinking about before you do that, but to the extent it’s really just an attorney client communication, I think you’re totally right. It’s a great way to make sure that you don’t miss anything. So we need to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, and our conversation is going faster than I thought, because I’m really absorbed in this. And so when we come back, we’re going to talk briefly about your book and your idea that it’s the first 100 days that deserves our focus, and we’re going to take apart what should be happening during those 100 days. So we’ll be back in just a moment.

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Okay, Joey, I meant to talk about this right up front, but your approach to client experience revolves around this idea of the first 100 days. So why 100 days? Why not 90, or 110? Is it just because it’s a nice number?

Joey Coleman: No. I mean, it is a nice number and it conveniently works that way. Now, the reason the 100 days is so important is all the research shows, and this is research that is cross-disciplinary, across every industry you can imagine, and also international in scope, not just human behavior in North America. What the research shows is that the first 100 days of a relationship with a new client is more dispositive to the lifetime value of that relationship than any other singular factor. And so what we find is that in the typical business, and again, I’m going to segue if I could briefly from law to talk about what the business stats are.

Sam Glover: Yeah, please.

Joey Coleman: Because they’re clear, but then we can apply them to the law. The typical business-

Sam Glover: And anyone who doesn’t think that law is a business is probably not listening to this podcast.

Joey Coleman: Fair enough, fair enough. And we should have a completely different conversation, right? But moral of the story is, a new customer coming to a business, somewhere between 20 and 80% of those new customers will decide to quit doing business with that company before they reach the 100 day anniversary. With auto mechanics, it’s 69%, banks is 32%, cellphones and the draconian contracts we have there that if you break the contract early, you have to pay huge penalties, 21% of people break the contract before the 100 days anniversary.

And so what we find is that this first 100 days is really important. Balance that against the fact that most businesses spend all their time in marketing and sales mode. “How do we fill the funnel? How do we prospect? How do we get some people to try our product or try our service?”

Sam Glover: Yeah, they’re on negative days.

Joey Coleman: Right. And they’re focused on all, what I would call, the day zero activities. The before day one when they actually raise their hand and say, “You know what? I’ve got a problem. I believe you can help me with that problem. I want to hire you.” Now that the chase is over, in the typical practice, there’s a lot less focus on maintaining the relationship, because we feel the hard part’s done. We already got the date. We’re good to go. And anybody who’s been in a personal relationship with a significant other knows that yeah, the dating period is fun, but once you say, “I do,” if you don’t continue to double down into that relationship, you can start a stopwatch as to how long that relationship is going to last. The same holds true for lawyers.

Sam Glover: And I heard you say, “Lifetime value,” and I know that, or at least I suspect that that’s the sort of word that causes say, criminal defense lawyers, to tune out, because they think, “Well lifetime value. I only represent my clients once.” But what hear you saying is that-

Joey Coleman: Then respectfully, Sam, they’re actually not criminal defense lawyers, because I had many what I will call perennial clients that always seem to have challenges.

Sam Glover: Right, okay fair enough.

Joey Coleman: But no, I get your point. A lot of lawyers would say, “Well, we represent them once, then we’re done.” Here’s the problem. The lifetime value if you’re only viewing it in the scope of this particular issue with this particular client, you’re missing the point. What we’re talking about is not only getting their business and any business they might ever have. And most lawyers I know wish they had more clients who were proactive, that were hiring them for the strategy, or that we’re hiring them to help before they were waist-deep in a storm. And instead of being reactive, being proactive.

So first of all, you can start to shift your clients to do that behavior. Second of all, if your client has an issue, I guarantee they have at least two or three friends who in the next five years are going to have that same issue, whether that issue is a business contract law issue, whether it’s a criminal defense issue, whether it’s a family law issue, whether it’s a real estate law issue. You pick the area of the law, and I guarantee, because birds of a feather flock together, they have other people that will behave that way. When I was a criminal defense lawyer, what was awesome is not only did I get great referrals from my former criminal defense clients, I got great referrals from law enforcement.

Now, that would seem counterintuitive, but the thing is, is the police officers and the deputies and the highway patrol folks that would see me in court, if one of their family members or friends got in a bind in the criminal justice system, they were calling me. So this lifetime value is based on the relationship, not the transaction.

Sam Glover: And well, what I also heard you saying is that they’ll decide whether to stay or leave, and so the lifetime might just be the lifetime of that representation. If you’re not completing your criminal representation in 100 days, or any representation, if you’re not focused on that, they may hire another lawyer and fire you within that time.

Joey Coleman: Totally. Totally. Or, even worse, they may stay on the officially having you represent them, but they’ve checked out emotionally, and mentally, and now when you finally do get to trial, maybe a year or two later, they are so burned out and done with you that now you spend more time fighting your client than you do fighting opposing counsel.

Sam Glover: So I assume there’s a way we should be thinking about those 100 days. So what should we be doing at which points during that time?

Joey Coleman: So every client goes through eight phases in their client journey. Let me break those down for you briefly. The first phase is the assess phase, where they’re scouting out a couple different lawyers, trying to decide who they want to work with. Then they move to phase two, where they admit that they have a problem and believe that you, counselor, are going to be the one that’s able to help them with that. So they sign on the dotted line for some representation. They then go into the affirm stage. This is what is common parlance known as buyer’s remorse.

We’ve all heard the phrase, and yet I’d be willing to bet that less than 1% of your listeners have a specific practice within their representation of clients designed to address the buyer’s remorse that every client feels the day they walk out of their first meeting with you where they’ve decided to hire you as their lawyer. We then come to the activate phase, phase four. Activate is when things really kick off. This could be an initial client meeting. This could be some discovery, again, depending on the area of law you’re practicing. This is where the relationship really starts to take off. And most lawyers are good at that first meeting.

But then they fall apart in the next phase, phase five, which is acclimate. This is when you’re holding the client’s hand, helping to acclimate them to the slow grind that is the legal process. Lawyers are conditioned in three years of law school to spend a lot of time talking and not a lot of time doing, and then all of the sudden have everything matter for one three hour exam at the end of the semester. The typical human being is not used to this. They’re wondering two weeks into the representation, “Well, when are we going to go to court?” When if you’re doing your job properly, you’re probably trying to avoid going to court at all.

So it’s all about acclimating them to doing the type of business and navigating the course of the legal system the way you need to. Then we come to phase six, the accomplish phase. This is where the client accomplishes the goal that they had when they originally hired you. It could be the signed contract, it could be the completed real estate deal, it could be the end of the divorce, it could be getting a not guilty verdict. Whatever it may be. Most lawyers spend a lot of time thinking or projecting what they think the client actually wants to accomplish without ever even asking them. So we need to ask early on in the process so that when we come to the accomplish phase, we can acknowledge that we’ve achieved our goal.

We then come to the adopt phase. The adopt phase is where the client says, “I am so feeling this relationship. I’m so loving this relationship that this is going to be my lawyer from here on out. I’m never going to shop for another lawyer, even if I have something that has nothing to do with the area of law we worked on. I’m going to come back to this lawyer for a referral.” This is wonderful and this is what most lawyers are hoping to get, but few are putting any effort focusing on.

And finally, we come to that last phase, phase eight, which is advocate. This is where not only has the client adopted their relationship with you, but they are zealously advocating for your abilities and your skills to all their friends, family, and colleagues. And this is where your business really takes off, because suddenly, referrals become a huge piece of your operation. Those are the eight phases. Every client has the potential to go through all eight, but they’re only going to go through all eight if you’re holding their hand and walking them through each step along the way. Every relationship you currently have with the client, you could think about those phases and decide, “Well, where do they fit?” And based on which phase they’re in, they’re going to have different emotional needs, different practical needs, different types of messaging that you’re going to want to direct to them, to help them recognize where they are in the process, to hold their hand, and to get them to the next phase.

Sam Glover: I suppose, like if people are at all thinking about say the net promoter scale, these are your 9’s and 10’s. And if you’re getting 9’s and 10’s, and you might just be lucky, or you probably do have a deliberate way of addressing these, even if you’re not thinking about them in these eight phases. But it sounds like these eight phases are a program for thinking about how to build promoters.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. It’s not only a program for building promoters, but it’s a system that you can apply to deliver a consistent client experience in every interaction. The problem I see with most lawyers and law firms is there are some clients that get the white glove, Ritz Carlton treatment, and there are some that are just churn them and burn them. Let’s get them through, let’s crank this case out, we’ve done this before, we know how it works. We can get to the end of this in three months, six months, a year, whatever it may be.

The problem is there needs to be a philosophy around client experience that is adopted across the organization, not just by the senior partners, but by everyone in the firm, down to the person who’s at the reception desk. And that’s not a criticism, but most firms are structured that way that that person has less status. The reality is that person is going to probably have more in-person, relevant interactions with your clients than the senior partners are.

Sam Glover: Oh, sure.

Joey Coleman: And so what are you doing to make sure that everybody on the team understands where the client is in the journey, and is constantly reinforcing the emotional importance of where they’re at so that we can navigate them to the next phase.

Sam Glover: Yeah. I mean, you’re building consistency, or establishing an expectation that’s tied to your brand, and you’re crafting the kind of reputation you want to have among your clients and referral sources. Because the difference, like Zappos doesn’t treat some people great and some people shitty because they didn’t pay enough on their retainer, and so we’re just going to string them along for awhile. There’s a consistent experience that they want their customers to have, and I know … I mean a lot of law firms that, those have come to our TBD Law Conference, some of the insiders that we have, are really starting to focus on this client-centric, consistent experience, but you’re totally right that a lot of lawyers just, “No, I treat all my clients the way I would want to be treated.” Which is a nice sentiment, but doesn’t actually mean much unless you actually have a system for delivering it.

Joey Coleman: Well, and it doesn’t work that way. I understand that a lot of … And it’s not just lawyers. A lot of businesses say, “We value our …” How many times have you been on hold and heard a message that said, “We apologize for the delay. We’re experiencing unusual hold times. Rest assured that we value your business.” Hey, you know what clowns, if you really valued my business, you’d hire more people to answer your phones, okay? Because I always get that message, no matter what time of day I call, no matter what day of the week I call, I get the same message.

So I think what … I mean, we were talking at the beginning of the conversation about how do we step into the client’s shoes. I think a big piece of client experience is really being able to look in the mirror and do an honest assessment of the experience your clients are having. And I mean every client. Not just the best ones. Not just the most vocal ones. But are all of your clients referring new business to you? Because if they’re not, there are things that are broken. Are all of your clients giving you those 9’s and 10’s for scores? I mean, a lot of lawyers aren’t even asking the questions. A lot of lawyers just figure, “Well, we got the not guilty verdict. We got the contract signed. You must be happy. It’s over.” Well great, that’s a recipe for long term success. “You must be happy because we’re done working together.” Oh, good luck on future business there. Never going to happen.

Sam Glover: Yeah. So what are the tools lawyers can use to get the most out of these phases? And by the way, if you weren’t taking notes quickly enough, Joey’s website is easy to find because it’s his name .com. JoeyColeman.com. And you can get the starter kit for the first 100 days, which I assume has all the things we’re talking about in here, right?

Joey Coleman: It does. So yeah, at Joey, J-O-E-Y, Coleman, C-O-L-E-M-A-N.com, you can download the first 100 days starter kit, which basically walks you through the eight phases, and then also applies the six tools, which goes to the question you just asked, Sam.

Sam Glover: Yeah, can you give us a preview?

Joey Coleman: Yeah, in each of those phases, you want to be communicating with the client. And I believe there are six tools you can use to communicate. Those are in-person interactions, emails, phone calls, physical mail, videos, and presents. Now in-person, email, phone, and mail, those are things that lawyers are already doing and have been doing for 50 to 100 years. So everybody’s pretty familiar with those. But what I will say about those is think a little bit about how you’re using them. Most lawyers I know are sending updates to their clients via the mail.

On one hand that’s good because there’s not a lot of competition in the mailbox now, and so it’s getting attention. On the other hand, if we’re worried about the perception that the client has of feeling distant from us, a standard form letter that goes out to every client saying, “This is when your next hearing’s going to be, this is when the next deposition’s going to be,” is not something that’s going to give them the emotional comfort that the otherwise should have. So you want to look at-

Sam Glover: Well, on the other, other hand, I don’t even check my mail more than every two or three months.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, yeah, so they might not even get it, depending on the situation and depending on the circumstance. So you want to look at those four tools you’re already using. Two tools I’d love to talk about briefly are video and presents. Now, we’ll get to it folks. I know some of you are already getting the heebie jeebies. Just be patient, we’re going to get there. All right, on video, you have in your pocket or in your purse a cellphone that has a video camera on it that is more powerful than the video cameras that were being used by network news just 30 years ago. You film videos, probably, or receive videos from friends and family all the time. When’s the last time you shot a video and sent it to one of your clients?

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Joey Coleman: Now, I understand there may be some issues that we get into depending on where you’re barred and what jurisdiction you’re practicing in, however, video communications are the future. That is where it’s at. People pay attention to them more. The typical response time for an email they’ll tell you is somewhere within the first 24 hours to 48 hours the client sees the email. In a text message or a video message, the response time is less than two minutes. I don’t know about you, I like the idea of my message getting straight to my clients as quickly as possible. So shoot videos and sent them to your clients.

You don’t want to obviously disclose anything substantial about their case, but even just a little video that says, “Hey, Sam. Just wanted you to know, spent the afternoon working on your case. Feeling really good about the progress we’re making. I’m going to send you an email follow up later this week kind of outlining next steps. But before I left the office for the day, just wanted to sent you this quick little video. I’m thinking of you, buddy. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to get the outcome you want. I’m on your side. This is all going to work out just fine.”

Sam Glover: It’s like, okay, I’m a very tech-forward person, but that feels weird to me. Like I think if my attorney sent me a personalized three minute video, I’d be like, “What? That’s a goofy thing.”

Joey Coleman: And some of your clients will feel that. But most of your clients will feel like, “Holy cow, this attorney really cares about me. He took the time to actually shoot and send a video? I’ve never shot and sent a video to someone I do business with. This is amazing.”

Sam Glover: Maybe.

Joey Coleman: And you know, here’s the deal. Try it. Test it. I understand you might be skeptical, but like any lawyer will tell you, being skeptical of something that you have no data for, or no precedent for-

Sam Glover: Oh, 100% behind that, yeah.

Joey Coleman: -is kind of unfair-ish, right. So go ahead and shoot some. Send them off. See, my theory is send a minimum of three videos to clients, and I guarantee you will get some incredibly positive response. Now, you may not get any response, but you’re not getting any response to the physical letter you’re mailing either. You’re not getting any response to the emails you’re sending with updates either, right? So if nothing else, give it a chance so that they remember what you actually look like and can pick up on a little bit of the emotion, because when we’re communicating in the written word, emotion is really hard to discern, whereas in a video, emotion’s really easy to discern.

Sam Glover: Yeah, and what does kind of resonate with me is I fucking hate voicemails, and so if you sent me a video saying, “Hey, I got your voice message, but I’d rather spend that time recording a quick video for you,” that actually might work for me. Because I’m much more likely to watch and listen to the video, first of all, and I fricken hate voicemails. And the best you’re going to do if you leave me a voicemail is I’m going to read Apple or Google’s garbled translation of it and delete it.

Joey Coleman: Sure, fair enough. Well, and this actually brings us back to that original question, how do we step into our client’s shoes? A question you should be asking every client in the very first meeting where you agree to work with them is, “We’re going to need to communicate with you regularly in this relationship. What’s your preferred form of communication? Do you want an email? Do you want a voicemail? Do you want us to schedule an in-person meeting? What would the best way for you to be able to keep up to speed on what’s going on in your case?” Then do it.

Sam Glover: And I would say like your client doesn’t get to be the boss, but you should take their preferences into account and accommodate them if you can.

Joey Coleman: Totally, totally. I mean obviously, if they say, “I want to have an in-person meeting for every single update.” You can say, “Well guess what, that’s not actually practical.” Or, if you’re billing hourly, we can do that, but you just need to realize that that just increased the cost of your representation fivefold. Some clients will say, “Okay, I’m fine. That’s what I want.” Great. No worries. But again, I think we spend so much time, and I realize you just said it kind of off the cuff, Sam, but I want to address it because I experienced this so much when I was practicing law.

We have this belief, I think, as lawyers, that what we’re doing is really difficult work, it’s very hard work, we had to go to school for a long time, we had to pass a bar exam, being in practice is challenging, it’s stressful. And almost a belief system that our clients should be deferential to us, or should appreciate what hard work we do for them. On one hand, I can understand that line of thinking. However, if that is your go-to belief about your clients, you’re going to lead a pretty miserable life.

Instead, the go-to should be, “They’re going through more stress and more emotional headache and heartache right now than I’ve experienced in a long time, and I have dozens of clients that are in the same state. What am I doing to empathize? What am I doing to sympathize? And what am I doing to make sure that they actually feel like I care?”

Sam Glover: So say more about presents, because you mentioned that as the sixth tool, and that-

Joey Coleman: Yeah. Yeah, and that’s the one that gets everybody anxious.

Sam Glover: Yeah, I want to know your definition.

Joey Coleman: Because they’re like, “Oh, there’s ethical rules. And what are we going to do?” So here’s the thing. A present is an unexpected surprise.

Sam Glover: Oh, presents, with a T.

Joey Coleman: Presents.

Sam Glover: I gotcha.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, presents, like gifts. Presents, right? So what are you doing to physically gift your clients? Now, what most law firms do is they send a fruit basket, or Starbucks gift cards, okay? If your grandmother for Christmas gave you a fruit basket or a Starbucks gift card, you would not be happy. You would not feel the love. And we say, “Oh, we take care of our clients like family, and they mean the most to us.” But then when it comes time to giving them presents, we treat them like the worst family member that we have.

What you should be thinking about in terms of presents is not the cost of the gift that you’re giving them, but the value to the recipient. So for example, a present could be … One of the things we did back when I was practicing criminal defense that could definitely be categorized as a present is we would occasionally represent minors who were at the high school football game and had an open container violation, they were drinking beer in the parking lot and now we’re taking their case and we’re helping them out. And usually, in those scenarios, mom and dad were the ones paying the bill, but it was the minor’s choices that created this situation.

And so what we would say with every minor we represented is, and we’d have their parents in the room and the child, and we’d say, “Okay, here’s the deal. Mom and dad are paying for this. That’s their commitment to this relationship. What you’re going to do, young squire, is you’re going to start doing study hall at our office every day from 3: 00 to 6: 00. So when school gets out, you come down to our office, you sit in our law library, and you’re going to do your homework.” Now, the parent’s eyes would light up as if we had given them the greatest gift in the history of the world.

The kids would obviously roll their eyes, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.” And we say, “No, no, no. This is an element of the representation. If you do not do this, you are fired as a client. And we’re not helping you out of this.” What we found is that parents loved it because we were keeping their kids out of trouble. The kids eventually came around to love it because their grades would go up, their parents were happier with them, their teachers were happier with them. Life got better. And so a present doesn’t have to be something that you buy at a store and give them. It can be a gift of time. It can be a gift of attention.

By the way, a lot of law firms got into, back in the 90s, especially in the 2000s, into the promotional products game of putting their logo all over stuff. Okay, let me be very clear on this. If you give someone an item that has your logo on it, that is not a gift or a present for them. That is a gift or present for you because you’re hoping they’ll wear it and that will be a walking billboard to market your firm. I’m not opposed to using promotional products, and they certainly have their place, but don’t think that it’s a gift because it’s not.

Sam Glover: Although, I did use to steal coasters from all the big firms I did depositions at because I liked having a collection of nice leather coasters from big firms.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. Absolutely. But were you excited about the name on it, or were you just excited about it that it was a high-end leather coaster?

Sam Glover: Oh, a little bit, but it wasn’t a present either.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Sam Glover: No, I like that. That goes to something we’ve talked about before on the podcast which is realize that lawyers tend to be myopic thinking about, “There is a legal problem and I have the solution to it,” rather than, “My client has a problem, one aspect of which is a legal problem that I was trained to solve in law school, but there’s a bigger problem that I can help solve.” For example, if somebody comes to you to probate a will, they actually don’t just have the problem of needing a will probated, they have a problem with distributing the estate and figuring out what to do with their emotions and grief and all of that stuff after they’ve lost a loved one.

There’s a bigger problem that you could help solve, and it sounds like a big component of that could be thinking about your concept of presents. Or when you were talking about young minors who had problems bringing their grades up and making sure they did well in school is another aspect of that. That’s solving the whole problem, not just the legal problem.

Joey Coleman: Exactly. We need to think holistically about our clients. You said it spot on, Sam. They have a legal problem, but tied into that legal problem are a bunch of emotional problems, or a bunch of mental problems can even be physical problems. These are all things that are weighing on them, and I think the very best lawyers are the ones that are addressing every aspect of their client, not just the pieces that line up nicely in a court of law or in a deposition.

Sam Glover: Well, that feels like a nice note to end on, so Joey, thank you so much for being with us today to talk about client experience. And if you want to know more, go to JoeyColeman.com. You’ll find the link in our show notes. If you sign up for the starter kit, Joey will also let you know about when his new book launches. And he says you’re not going to get a ton of emails, but he wants to be able to tell you about that. And the book is going to be called, Never Lose a Customer Again. It’s going to go in depth on all the stuff we’re talking about today. And it’s going to include 46 different case studies of small and large companies. So if you’re a little bit interested in the book or learning more, get the starter kit and then you’ll find out about the book. And thanks again.

Joey Coleman: My pleasure.

Aaron Street: Make sure to catch next week’s episode of the Lawyerist podcast by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast app. And please leave a rating to help other people find our show. You can find the notes for today’s episode on Lawyerist.com/podcast.

Sam Glover: The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.

The post Podcast #162: Designing Your Clients’ Experience, with Joey Coleman appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

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Podcast #162: Designing Your Clients’ Experience, with Joey Coleman

In this episode with Joey Coleman, we talk about what client experience really is and why it’s important—especially during the first 100 days.

Joey Coleman

Joey Coleman helps companies keep their customers. An award-winning speaker, he shares his First 100 Days® methodology for improving customer experience and retention with organizations around the world (e.g., Whirlpool, NASA, and Zappos). His book Never Lose a Customer Again shows how to turn any sale into a lifelong customer.

You can follow Joey on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists and Clio for sponsoring this episode!

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Transcript

This transcript was prepared by Rev.com.

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lawyerist podcast with Sam Glover and Aaron Street. Each week, Lawyerist brings you advice and interviews to help you build a more successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. And now, here are Sam and Aaron.

Sam Glover: Hi, I’m Sam Glover.

Aaron Street: And I’m Aaron Street, and this is episode 162 of the Lawyerist podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, we’re talking with Joey Coleman about designing your client’s experience, especially during the first 100 days, so you never lose a client again.

Sam Glover: Today’s podcast is brought to you by LawPay, Freshbooks, and Ruby Receptionists. We appreciate their support and we will tell you more about them later in the show.

Aaron Street: So this episode launches on Wednesday, March 7th, and if you are listening to it on the day it comes out, then we are currently at a BA tech show in Chicago through the end of the week. And if you happen to be there, you should come find us and say, “Hi,” because we want to meet you. And if you either aren’t there, or are there and just not listening to podcasts for the first couple of days because you’re at a conference and not doing your normal morning commute, then you’re not going to hear this while were there. And so we won’t be able to hang out in Chicago unless you realize to come say, “Hi,” to us anyway.

Sam Glover: But if you are there, look for the Lawyerist t-shirts. Aaron and I will be there with Ashley, our operations director, Marshall, our new editor in chief, and Stephanie, our community director. So there will be five of us there, and all of us would love you to come and say, “Hi,” or hang out, whatever.

Aaron Street: And also, if you’re listening to this on Wednesday, March 7th, the day it comes out, today happens to be a giant day of huge announcement for us at Lawyerist that we’re really excited about, and so if you’re kind of in the Lawyerist crowd, you’re probably hearing about that on Twitter, or our website, or whatever. So today we are announcing the launch of project we’re super excited about. It’s called The Small Firm Scorecard. We’ve been putting tons of effort over the last kind of year or two in secret into this project. Basically, we’ve created a qualitative self-assessment for all small firm lawyers in the country to benchmark their law firm’s across a scale to determine whether you’re building a practice that will be successful and sustainable for the next 10 years, and we have questions about your finances, and your marketing, and your technology, and your HR practices et cetera, all to figure out whether your building what we think of as a successful firm.

Sam Glover: I think it’s going to be really helpful to everyone. And you can find it on the new home page.

Aaron Street: Yes. And so another big announcement today is that we’ve redesigned the Lawyerist home page, in part to focus on encouraging people to take the scorecard. Scorecard is free. It’s available at Lawyerist.com/scorecard, or now easily findable from the Lawyerist home page. There are no strings attached, you just get your score and some recommendations about what areas we think your firm could use to improve. Another exciting announcement that Sam has already foreshadowed is that we have three new team members joining Lawyerist this week, including a new editor in chief, Marshall Lichte. Marshall is a TBD Law alumni and a former podcast guest, and for the first time in 10 years, Sam will now no longer be in charge of overseeing the content on Lawyerist, which is a big deal for us. He’s not going anywhere, obviously, unless this is a really weird podcast episode.

Sam Glover: No, but I’m leaving the content side of Lawyerist.com in really, really, good hands. We’ve known Marshall for a long time, and it was really lucky that he was willing to come join us.

Aaron Street: And so our team as of this week is now more than 10 people, and we’re super excited about that. And then the other big announcement that is dropping today, which I actually can’t say now, because it isn’t concluded while I’m recording this, is that we now know the date and location of our TBD Law Four conference. And so you can go to Lawyerist and find out that data now.

Sam Glover: Yeah, so you’ll be able to see almost all the stuff on Lawyerist.com, or you can meet the new team at Lawyerist.com/about. But lots of cool stuff happening. And come check it out. Come see us in Chicago if you’re there. And stick with us through the next year.

Aaron Street: So lots of exciting stuff. None of which has really anything to do with our guest, Joey Coleman, who I’m super excited about. Joey is another, in what’s becoming a long line of guests who I’ve gotten to know through the mastermind talks group that I’m a part of. Joey is both a kind of former recovering lawyer, and one of the leading thought leaders on client experience, and I think he’s got some really cool stuff to talk with us about today.

Sam Glover: Yeah, so hear from Diana Stepleton from Ruby Receptionists, with a brief sponsored interview, and then we’ll hear from Joey.

Diana Stepleton: Hi, this is Diana Stepleton. I am the VP of partner engagement here at Ruby Receptionists. We are the only live remote receptionist service dedicated to creating real, meaningful connections with callers, building trust, and helping you in business.

Sam Glover: Hi, Diana.

Diana Stepleton: How are you, Sam?

Sam Glover: I’m great, thanks. I’m glad you’re with us again. So remote receptionists now. You used to be a virtual receptionist, what’s up with that?

Diana Stepleton: Yes. Well we’ve been in business almost 15 years, and we’ve always called ourself a virtual receptionist, but we’re finding more and more these days that people call and have a different idea in their head of what virtual means, and they think we are computers or robots or something. And they’re surprised when they find out that we are actually live people answering the phone. So we are somewhat rebranding that to be live, remote receptionist, instead of virtual receptionists. Nothing has changed other than really the definition of virtual in the world.

Sam Glover: I’m now a little bit amused by my mental picture of what people might be imagining when they think of virtual receptionist then.

Diana Stepleton: Yes.

Sam Glover: I feel like when I was considering Ruby years ago for the first time, it felt really like a big deal to get set up with a virtual receptionist, and I now know that maybe I was a little misguided in that, but what is it actually like to get set up with Ruby? Because I think people might be thinking that’s harder than it actually is.

Diana Stepleton: Yeah, it’s actually really quite simple, for us anyway. What our new customers do is they fill out a short form online that gives us some basic information. They have an onboarding call with one of our on-boarders to help figure out how they want their calls handled, just very customizable, and then they forward their phones to us and we answer them. If they don’t have a phone number already, we can actually just provide the phone number for them, and then they don’t even have to worry about the forwarding part. But it’s really very simple. Most of the energy is spent on making sure that we are setting ourselves up to handle the calls the way the new customer would like them handled.

Sam Glover: And you have advice about that too right? So I don’t have to come up with the script on my own?

Diana Stepleton: Correct. We do. So for example, for attorneys, we will often say, “You know, when someone calls a law firm, they expect the receptionist to know certain things, like to have a stated hourly rate? Or do you offer free consultations?” Or those types of things. So we will ask to get those pieces of information so our receptionists can really sound in-house. So when someone calls they, “Of course we know these things, because we’re their receptionist.” So we will guide the new customer through that process.

Sam Glover: And what if what I’m worried about is that it’s going to suck and people are going to call up and I’m going to lose clients? Yeah but I think people might be worried about that, so how do you alleviate that fear?

Diana Stepleton: Well, there are a number of things. One is people can try it out for themselves. We have something all over our website that’s called Experience Ruby. You can find it in a number of different places that call Ruby.com. And it enables someone to simply enter their first name and their last name, their company name or firm name, their email address, and their phone number. And an account will immediately be set up for no charge, it’s just a test account. It will work for about an hour, at least an hour, sometimes a little bit longer. And what it enables people to do is really just play with it.

So do you want to hear what it would sound like if a Ruby Receptionist answered your phone? Fill the little form out and then have someone call you. And Ruby Receptionists will answer the phone and we can transfer calls through to you live, we can take messages so you can see how messages are delivered. It’s not 100%, because a lot of people use our app, we have an iPhone or an Android app, and so a lot of people get their messages in the app as opposed to getting it via email or text, but it’ll be a basic view of it, so without the app.

Sam Glover: So I could actually like have a colleague or a friend call up Ruby as if they were calling me as a law firm and go through the entire process and get connected to me, and I could experience the whole thing?

Diana Stepleton: You can, absolutely. And in fact, you could even play with the receptionist a little bit. And when your friend or colleague calls and asks for you, and the receptionist offers you that call, you can say, “Find out who referred him.” And then the receptionist will go back and ask who referred them, and they’ll come back to you and give you that information, and you can say, “Okay, I’ll take the call.” They’ll transfer them through. Or you can say, “You know what? I won’t take the call. Take a message.”

Sam Glover: So does that really just go through the normal switchboard then?

Diana Stepleton: Uh-huh.

Sam Glover: Oh, cool.

Diana Stepleton: Oh, yeah. It just sets up a test account automatically. And it’s very slick.

Sam Glover: That is very cool. And you have a money back guarantee for the first 30 days. If people aren’t happy?

Diana Stepleton: Yeah. Exactly. So back to your question of what happens if we suck, I would say first of all, people can go out and look on the internet to see reviews of us. People rarely complain that we suck. Even our customers who leave us do so because it might not be a good fit. They’ve decided to hire someone in-house. They’ve merged with another firm who has a receptionist. Any number of reasons, maybe they feel that their call volume is too low to justify the cost. But typically, even when those people leave us, they include a little note that says, “You guys are the best thing since sliced bread. I’ll tell everyone about you. But I’m canceling for now.”

Sam Glover: That’s got to feel nice.

Diana Stepleton: It does. It really does.

Sam Glover: Well, if you’d like to learn more about working with a remote or virtual receptionist, you can get the attorney’s guide to remote receptionists at CallRuby.com/LawyeristPod. That’s CallRuby.com/LawyeristPod. Thanks, Diana.

Diana Stepleton: Thank you, Sam. Talk to you later.

Joey Coleman: Hey everyone. My name’s Joey Coleman. I’m actually a recovering attorney. The first step is admitting that you have a problem, and now I’m a professional speaker. I get the pleasure of traveling all over the world, delivering a message about the importance of creating a remarkable client experience. My expertise is helping companies keep their customers and clients. Companies like Whirlpool, NASA, and Zappos come to me when they want to enhance their client experience. And I’m super excited to get a chance to be on the Lawyerist today and have a conversation with Sam.

Sam Glover: Hi, Joey. Thanks for being on. I told somebody recently that I was a lawyer and that I got over it.

Joey Coleman: Nice. I like it.

Sam Glover: Which is sort of true. But I stayed in the area. So I’m curious though, how did you make that transition from being a practicing lawyer, and I checked out your bio, and you were a practicing lawyer doing criminal defense, working for national security agencies, in the White House, so you’ve been kind of all over the map in various levels of being a lawyer. How do you do that and then decide to focus on client experience? Where did that change happen?

Joey Coleman: Well, it’s interesting. It’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get. How does guy go from working for CIA and the White House and the Secret Service to being a criminal defense lawyer, to selling promotional products, to running an ad agency, to being a client experience guy? And the thread is easy for me to see in hindsight, looking back. It wasn’t as clear maybe when I was actually going through the process originally. But long story short, every job I’ve ever had, the real crux or goal of being successful at that job is figuring out why do people do the things that they do? And what can we do to make them do the things that we want them to do.

So as a lawyer, that was pretty easy. How do we convince the jury to find my guy not guilty? As a marketer, it’s how do we convince a consumer to buy this product? And now as a professional speaker, it’s how do I help an audience understand that adopting the methodologies and the frameworks that I’m presenting to them is something that will help their business and is something that they should do after my talk ends. So the common thread is really connecting all of the people aspect, and that’s really how it all ties together. And interestingly enough, obviously a lot of the things I learned as a practicing attorney have been incredibly useful to me as not only a business owner, but as a speaker.

Sam Glover: So programming note here, we may go back and forth between saying customer and client experience, because obviously when you’re working with a company like Zappos, they think about customers, not clients. And when you’re working with lawyers, you think about clients, not customers. Just so listeners understand, sometimes we’re going to bounce back and forth without really thinking about it. Why client experience? I mean, obviously, clients are at the core of everything that lawyers do, doesn’t that mean we’re already automatically focused on client experience and that’s what we do?

Joey Coleman: Well, that would be nice. And it’s beautiful in theory.

Sam Glover: [inaudible 00: 12: 25] trick question, obviously.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, but we both have been around the block enough to know that that’s just not the reality. And one of the fascinating things as somebody who practiced law and now is immersed in client experience all day, every day, to be incredibly blunt without hopefully being offensive, as a general rule in the industry of attorneys, the client experience is horrid. It’s absolutely horrid. And that’s mainly because most attorneys have never actually been a client. So it’s really tough to understand how to create a remarkable client experience when you’ve never been on the client side of the equation. Secondarily, the typical lawyer, depending on whose research you look at, has anywhere between 40 and 80 active cases at any given time. The problem is for your clients, they have one active case. And so for them, emotionally-

Sam Glover: And it consumes them.

Joey Coleman: And it consumes them, and rightfully it should. Because it’s their life on the line. Especially in the context of when I was doing criminal defense. If the person I was representing got found guilty, I didn’t go to prison, they did. And so it consumes every waking moment of their life, and the problem is I think as practicing attorneys, when the client leaves the room, and we’re done with that meeting, we don’t sit there and ponder on that client and worry about what just happened in the meeting for the next 48 hours. We immediately go to the next meeting. And usually, the interesting thing is we don’t really think about that client again until either the next time we see them, or maybe we’re working on their case, but when we are working on their case, they usually don’t know we’re working on their case.

So they’re left in this thought of, “Well, the only time I ever hear from them is when we’re face to face, having a meeting, or on the phone.” And it’s like, no, there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. And that’s where I say from a communication point of view, the experience is horrid, because we need to be informing our clients much more regularly about where they are in the process, and what we’ve been doing for them.

Sam Glover: Yeah, we’re too busy being annoyed because our clients are calling us to check in. I’m curious, do you have like a tool or a recommendation for how lawyers can put themselves in their client’s shoes and actually try and see something from their perspective?

Joey Coleman: Yeah. I mean, a general tool is just to really strengthen your empathy muscle and to practice kind of seeing it from their perspective. Additionally, make the time to actually spend the time with the client, and ask them questions about how this is impacting their life. So again, it depends on what kind of law you practice. I spent a lot of my time in criminal defense, so that’s an easy and obvious emotional connection. “What’s going on here?” “Oh my gosh, I’m worried that I’m going to go to jail. I’m worried about what’s going to happen to my wife and kids. I’m worried about if I’ll ever be able to get a job after that. I’m worried about how long I would go to jail if I go to jail.”

But the same applies if you’re doing contract law. “Hey, I’m worried that this deal that my lawyer is negotiating, that maybe they skip a point that is really important, and three years from now I get sued and I lose my company.” Family law. “I’m worried that if my lawyer doesn’t do a good job, I might not get to see my kids as much as I would like to on the other end of this divorce.” So part of the idea of stepping into the shoes is to really have the conversations with your clients to ask them, “What are your fears here? What are the things that you’re worried about? What are the things you’re anxious about?”

And they may be, and most likely will be worried about things there’s really not a lot of reason for them to worry. But if we don’t ever take the time to ask that question, and record the answer in the file, and then every time we’re getting ready to jump on a call with that client, or meet with them in person, go back and read what their fears are so that in the call, we can be keeping in mind, “I need to be addressing these, all day every day, in every communication I have with them.”

Sam Glover: I’m curious, how granular do you think about … And I know we’ll dig deeply into this, but when I think about the client experience, I also try to think about things like how will somebody with those fears, and hopes, and whatever, who walks into my office, how will they feel when they walk in? If I’m sitting behind a giant desk in a suit, what does that say to somebody who’s approaching their legal problems that they have in the way that they are? And sort of the non-verbal cues in the way that we communicate, the non-verbal communications that we have, the environment that I’m creating, all that kind of stuff. Is that stuff relevant too? Or are we thinking more about communication styles?

Joey Coleman: It’s 100% relevant. Absolutely. And I think it most … And again, sweeping stereotype here, most lawyers and most law firms have a perception about what they should look like, and then they try to present that without recognizing that that actually may be having the opposite of their intended effect in terms of their client’s emotional state. Let me explain that in the context of experience I had when I was practicing law. I did a lot of high-profile criminal defense cases, where if my clients were found guilty, they’d go to prison for hundreds of years. If they came to meet with me and I was wearing a suit, they would associate with me with the feds who usually had been the ones who had brought them into custody.

Sam Glover: Right, not their friends.

Joey Coleman: Exactly. So what I used to wear a lot in the office were jeans and a sweater. Now, some lawyers would look at that and say, “That’s not professional. That’s ridiculous.” But when I’m meeting with my client, I need my client to be at ease, to tell me everything that’s going on, to give me the full story, not feel that they need to hold back or be on guard.

And then what we would do is we would actually have a conversation before we would go to court where I would actually sit them down and say, “Now, here’s the thing. Tomorrow when you walk into court, you’re going to see me in a way you’ve never seen me before. You’re going to see me in a suit. You’re going to see me using words and phrases with the judge and with the other lawyers that you don’t know what they mean. That’s okay. I’m playing a game. I’m playing a role. And if I have conversations with them the way I have conversations with you in jeans and a sweater, we’re in trouble. You’re in trouble. So know that you’re going to be anxious, but know that it’s going to be okay, because we’re basically putting on a show, for lack of a better way of putting it, or putting in layman’s terms.”

But you’re absolutely right. Even the difference of instead of sitting behind your desk for the initial meeting, have a couch in your office and you sit on one side of the couch and put them on the other side. Sit across from them. Try to eliminate the number of physical barriers between them. Make your office welcoming. Most lawyer’s offices look like they’re one of two things, either a photo shoot for Architectural Digest of boring offices, 2018, or a complete train wreck of paper everywhere and colossal disorganization. Neither of those images is really going to present the best foot forward for a client in terms of what their perceptions of you are. And so I think it’s all about taking into consideration the communication, the environment, what you’re wearing, how you say it, the way you communicate with them.

Are you sending letters? Are you sending emails? Are you doing phone calls? Are you doing in person? What are the different types of communication conversations you’re having? And sometimes the tool and mechanism for doing that, again, either helps or hurts your cause.

Sam Glover: One thing that I see so many people doing, not even just lawyers, but people doing is you’re sitting across a desk from somebody, and you’re talking to them, and they’re taking notes on a laptop. And they may be taking notes, they may be listening intently and taking notes, but what everything about typing on a laptop says is, “I’m doing something that’s more important than what you’re saying to me.” It’s so dismissive, and there’s a physical wall between you and your clients. And I realized that you may be doing a great job taking notes, but what you’re sort of subconsciously telling them is, “I’m not listening.” It’s a subtle, but really striking thing I think that we all get. We all feel dismissed when somebody’s looking at a screen instead of looking at us and listening.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. I mean, and there’s a couple great workarounds to that. Number one, do it the old fashioned way, write it down. I realized that that reduces productivity, but it increases connection with the client. Number two, have a colleague or an associate or a paralegal or a secretary sit in on the meeting to take notes.

Sam Glover: I like that one a lot, yeah.

Joey Coleman: So you can be very present in the moment. I mean, when I was a junior associate, starting out, that’s part of what my job was. My job was to walk in and not only take notes on the conversation, but take notes on the client emotions. Take notes on how they were reacting to the things that were being said in the situation at a maybe subconscious level, or at a visceral level, and then feed that back to the senior attorneys after the meeting was over and say, “Hey, I think they’re really anxious about this, even though they didn’t say they were anxious about it.”

Sam Glover: There’s a lot of data that suggests that when you take notes by typing, you actually don’t retain it or absorb it, the information, nearly as well.

Joey Coleman: Correct.

Sam Glover: I have a friend, Damien, who can type so fast that he can actually transcribe it, so he is basically playing the role of a court reporter, and then he can go back and study it later. And he insists he’s the exception to the rule, and maybe he is, but I still think that for most of us, actually just sitting there and listening, and maybe jotting down a few notes about the highlights, you’re probably going to have a better recollection later of that conversation anyway.

Joey Coleman: 100%. And in fact, with all due respect to the friend, most lawyers think that they’re the exception to the rule, and that’s part of the reason why the client experience is so horrid across the entire industry.

Sam Glover: If you’re listening, Damien, you know that I think that you might be right about this.

Joey Coleman: And I’m willing to be persuaded as well.

Sam Glover: The exception proves the rule.

Joey Coleman: Totally. I mean, the other thing that I think is worth considering is when I was practicing law, transcription was a really expensive endeavor. Having a court reporter in the room was going to cost hundreds of dollars, and it just wasn’t a practical application in a regular client meeting. What I do in all of my client meetings now, I have an app on my phone that records the conversation, and when I’m done, it uploads it to the cloud. It automatically goes over to a service called Rev.com, R-E-V .com-

Sam Glover: Oh, that’s what we’ll use for this podcast too.

Joey Coleman: And yeah, and for a dollar a minute, transcribes the conversation. And why lawyers aren’t using that and factoring that in, I don’t know. You would have a verbatim transcript, as you well know, Sam, that the transcription rate is in excess of 98% accurate. I mean, it’s incredibly, incredibly accurate. And if you really feel like you don’t want to miss anything, throw the recorder on, have the conversation, and you’re off to the races and use that to take your notes. It will allow you to be much more personally engaged with the client when you’re meeting.

Sam Glover: Just to throw a little [lawyery 00: 23: 27] stuff in here though, I think depending on who you’re talking with and who your client is and what kind of law it is, you may be creating a record that then comes up for discovery issues, and so it’s at least worth thinking about before you do that, but to the extent it’s really just an attorney client communication, I think you’re totally right. It’s a great way to make sure that you don’t miss anything. So we need to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, and our conversation is going faster than I thought, because I’m really absorbed in this. And so when we come back, we’re going to talk briefly about your book and your idea that it’s the first 100 days that deserves our focus, and we’re going to take apart what should be happening during those 100 days. So we’ll be back in just a moment.

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Sam Glover: Ruby Receptionists is a live, remote receptionist service that is dedicated to helping lawyers win clients and build trust one happy caller at a time. From their offices in Portland, Oregon, Ruby’s friendly, professional receptionists ensure exceptional client experiences by answering calls live in English or Spanish, transferring calls, taking messages, collecting new client intake, addressing common questions, making outbound calls for you, and more. Just like an in-house receptionist at a fraction of the cost. More importantly, they sound lik-e- they’re sitting in your office. For a special offer, visit CallRuby.com/Lawyerist2018, or call 844-715-7829. That’s 844-715-RUBY.

Okay, Joey, I meant to talk about this right up front, but your approach to client experience revolves around this idea of the first 100 days. So why 100 days? Why not 90, or 110? Is it just because it’s a nice number?

Joey Coleman: No. I mean, it is a nice number and it conveniently works that way. Now, the reason the 100 days is so important is all the research shows, and this is research that is cross-disciplinary, across every industry you can imagine, and also international in scope, not just human behavior in North America. What the research shows is that the first 100 days of a relationship with a new client is more dispositive to the lifetime value of that relationship than any other singular factor. And so what we find is that in the typical business, and again, I’m going to segue if I could briefly from law to talk about what the business stats are.

Sam Glover: Yeah, please.

Joey Coleman: Because they’re clear, but then we can apply them to the law. The typical business-

Sam Glover: And anyone who doesn’t think that law is a business is probably not listening to this podcast.

Joey Coleman: Fair enough, fair enough. And we should have a completely different conversation, right? But moral of the story is, a new customer coming to a business, somewhere between 20 and 80% of those new customers will decide to quit doing business with that company before they reach the 100 day anniversary. With auto mechanics, it’s 69%, banks is 32%, cellphones and the draconian contracts we have there that if you break the contract early, you have to pay huge penalties, 21% of people break the contract before the 100 days anniversary.

And so what we find is that this first 100 days is really important. Balance that against the fact that most businesses spend all their time in marketing and sales mode. “How do we fill the funnel? How do we prospect? How do we get some people to try our product or try our service?”

Sam Glover: Yeah, they’re on negative days.

Joey Coleman: Right. And they’re focused on all, what I would call, the day zero activities. The before day one when they actually raise their hand and say, “You know what? I’ve got a problem. I believe you can help me with that problem. I want to hire you.” Now that the chase is over, in the typical practice, there’s a lot less focus on maintaining the relationship, because we feel the hard part’s done. We already got the date. We’re good to go. And anybody who’s been in a personal relationship with a significant other knows that yeah, the dating period is fun, but once you say, “I do,” if you don’t continue to double down into that relationship, you can start a stopwatch as to how long that relationship is going to last. The same holds true for lawyers.

Sam Glover: And I heard you say, “Lifetime value,” and I know that, or at least I suspect that that’s the sort of word that causes say, criminal defense lawyers, to tune out, because they think, “Well lifetime value. I only represent my clients once.” But what hear you saying is that-

Joey Coleman: Then respectfully, Sam, they’re actually not criminal defense lawyers, because I had many what I will call perennial clients that always seem to have challenges.

Sam Glover: Right, okay fair enough.

Joey Coleman: But no, I get your point. A lot of lawyers would say, “Well, we represent them once, then we’re done.” Here’s the problem. The lifetime value if you’re only viewing it in the scope of this particular issue with this particular client, you’re missing the point. What we’re talking about is not only getting their business and any business they might ever have. And most lawyers I know wish they had more clients who were proactive, that were hiring them for the strategy, or that we’re hiring them to help before they were waist-deep in a storm. And instead of being reactive, being proactive.

So first of all, you can start to shift your clients to do that behavior. Second of all, if your client has an issue, I guarantee they have at least two or three friends who in the next five years are going to have that same issue, whether that issue is a business contract law issue, whether it’s a criminal defense issue, whether it’s a family law issue, whether it’s a real estate law issue. You pick the area of the law, and I guarantee, because birds of a feather flock together, they have other people that will behave that way. When I was a criminal defense lawyer, what was awesome is not only did I get great referrals from my former criminal defense clients, I got great referrals from law enforcement.

Now, that would seem counterintuitive, but the thing is, is the police officers and the deputies and the highway patrol folks that would see me in court, if one of their family members or friends got in a bind in the criminal justice system, they were calling me. So this lifetime value is based on the relationship, not the transaction.

Sam Glover: And well, what I also heard you saying is that they’ll decide whether to stay or leave, and so the lifetime might just be the lifetime of that representation. If you’re not completing your criminal representation in 100 days, or any representation, if you’re not focused on that, they may hire another lawyer and fire you within that time.

Joey Coleman: Totally. Totally. Or, even worse, they may stay on the officially having you represent them, but they’ve checked out emotionally, and mentally, and now when you finally do get to trial, maybe a year or two later, they are so burned out and done with you that now you spend more time fighting your client than you do fighting opposing counsel.

Sam Glover: So I assume there’s a way we should be thinking about those 100 days. So what should we be doing at which points during that time?

Joey Coleman: So every client goes through eight phases in their client journey. Let me break those down for you briefly. The first phase is the assess phase, where they’re scouting out a couple different lawyers, trying to decide who they want to work with. Then they move to phase two, where they admit that they have a problem and believe that you, counselor, are going to be the one that’s able to help them with that. So they sign on the dotted line for some representation. They then go into the affirm stage. This is what is common parlance known as buyer’s remorse.

We’ve all heard the phrase, and yet I’d be willing to bet that less than 1% of your listeners have a specific practice within their representation of clients designed to address the buyer’s remorse that every client feels the day they walk out of their first meeting with you where they’ve decided to hire you as their lawyer. We then come to the activate phase, phase four. Activate is when things really kick off. This could be an initial client meeting. This could be some discovery, again, depending on the area of law you’re practicing. This is where the relationship really starts to take off. And most lawyers are good at that first meeting.

But then they fall apart in the next phase, phase five, which is acclimate. This is when you’re holding the client’s hand, helping to acclimate them to the slow grind that is the legal process. Lawyers are conditioned in three years of law school to spend a lot of time talking and not a lot of time doing, and then all of the sudden have everything matter for one three hour exam at the end of the semester. The typical human being is not used to this. They’re wondering two weeks into the representation, “Well, when are we going to go to court?” When if you’re doing your job properly, you’re probably trying to avoid going to court at all.

So it’s all about acclimating them to doing the type of business and navigating the course of the legal system the way you need to. Then we come to phase six, the accomplish phase. This is where the client accomplishes the goal that they had when they originally hired you. It could be the signed contract, it could be the completed real estate deal, it could be the end of the divorce, it could be getting a not guilty verdict. Whatever it may be. Most lawyers spend a lot of time thinking or projecting what they think the client actually wants to accomplish without ever even asking them. So we need to ask early on in the process so that when we come to the accomplish phase, we can acknowledge that we’ve achieved our goal.

We then come to the adopt phase. The adopt phase is where the client says, “I am so feeling this relationship. I’m so loving this relationship that this is going to be my lawyer from here on out. I’m never going to shop for another lawyer, even if I have something that has nothing to do with the area of law we worked on. I’m going to come back to this lawyer for a referral.” This is wonderful and this is what most lawyers are hoping to get, but few are putting any effort focusing on.

And finally, we come to that last phase, phase eight, which is advocate. This is where not only has the client adopted their relationship with you, but they are zealously advocating for your abilities and your skills to all their friends, family, and colleagues. And this is where your business really takes off, because suddenly, referrals become a huge piece of your operation. Those are the eight phases. Every client has the potential to go through all eight, but they’re only going to go through all eight if you’re holding their hand and walking them through each step along the way. Every relationship you currently have with the client, you could think about those phases and decide, “Well, where do they fit?” And based on which phase they’re in, they’re going to have different emotional needs, different practical needs, different types of messaging that you’re going to want to direct to them, to help them recognize where they are in the process, to hold their hand, and to get them to the next phase.

Sam Glover: I suppose, like if people are at all thinking about say the net promoter scale, these are your 9’s and 10’s. And if you’re getting 9’s and 10’s, and you might just be lucky, or you probably do have a deliberate way of addressing these, even if you’re not thinking about them in these eight phases. But it sounds like these eight phases are a program for thinking about how to build promoters.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. It’s not only a program for building promoters, but it’s a system that you can apply to deliver a consistent client experience in every interaction. The problem I see with most lawyers and law firms is there are some clients that get the white glove, Ritz Carlton treatment, and there are some that are just churn them and burn them. Let’s get them through, let’s crank this case out, we’ve done this before, we know how it works. We can get to the end of this in three months, six months, a year, whatever it may be.

The problem is there needs to be a philosophy around client experience that is adopted across the organization, not just by the senior partners, but by everyone in the firm, down to the person who’s at the reception desk. And that’s not a criticism, but most firms are structured that way that that person has less status. The reality is that person is going to probably have more in-person, relevant interactions with your clients than the senior partners are.

Sam Glover: Oh, sure.

Joey Coleman: And so what are you doing to make sure that everybody on the team understands where the client is in the journey, and is constantly reinforcing the emotional importance of where they’re at so that we can navigate them to the next phase.

Sam Glover: Yeah. I mean, you’re building consistency, or establishing an expectation that’s tied to your brand, and you’re crafting the kind of reputation you want to have among your clients and referral sources. Because the difference, like Zappos doesn’t treat some people great and some people shitty because they didn’t pay enough on their retainer, and so we’re just going to string them along for awhile. There’s a consistent experience that they want their customers to have, and I know … I mean a lot of law firms that, those have come to our TBD Law Conference, some of the insiders that we have, are really starting to focus on this client-centric, consistent experience, but you’re totally right that a lot of lawyers just, “No, I treat all my clients the way I would want to be treated.” Which is a nice sentiment, but doesn’t actually mean much unless you actually have a system for delivering it.

Joey Coleman: Well, and it doesn’t work that way. I understand that a lot of … And it’s not just lawyers. A lot of businesses say, “We value our …” How many times have you been on hold and heard a message that said, “We apologize for the delay. We’re experiencing unusual hold times. Rest assured that we value your business.” Hey, you know what clowns, if you really valued my business, you’d hire more people to answer your phones, okay? Because I always get that message, no matter what time of day I call, no matter what day of the week I call, I get the same message.

So I think what … I mean, we were talking at the beginning of the conversation about how do we step into the client’s shoes. I think a big piece of client experience is really being able to look in the mirror and do an honest assessment of the experience your clients are having. And I mean every client. Not just the best ones. Not just the most vocal ones. But are all of your clients referring new business to you? Because if they’re not, there are things that are broken. Are all of your clients giving you those 9’s and 10’s for scores? I mean, a lot of lawyers aren’t even asking the questions. A lot of lawyers just figure, “Well, we got the not guilty verdict. We got the contract signed. You must be happy. It’s over.” Well great, that’s a recipe for long term success. “You must be happy because we’re done working together.” Oh, good luck on future business there. Never going to happen.

Sam Glover: Yeah. So what are the tools lawyers can use to get the most out of these phases? And by the way, if you weren’t taking notes quickly enough, Joey’s website is easy to find because it’s his name .com. JoeyColeman.com. And you can get the starter kit for the first 100 days, which I assume has all the things we’re talking about in here, right?

Joey Coleman: It does. So yeah, at Joey, J-O-E-Y, Coleman, C-O-L-E-M-A-N.com, you can download the first 100 days starter kit, which basically walks you through the eight phases, and then also applies the six tools, which goes to the question you just asked, Sam.

Sam Glover: Yeah, can you give us a preview?

Joey Coleman: Yeah, in each of those phases, you want to be communicating with the client. And I believe there are six tools you can use to communicate. Those are in-person interactions, emails, phone calls, physical mail, videos, and presents. Now in-person, email, phone, and mail, those are things that lawyers are already doing and have been doing for 50 to 100 years. So everybody’s pretty familiar with those. But what I will say about those is think a little bit about how you’re using them. Most lawyers I know are sending updates to their clients via the mail.

On one hand that’s good because there’s not a lot of competition in the mailbox now, and so it’s getting attention. On the other hand, if we’re worried about the perception that the client has of feeling distant from us, a standard form letter that goes out to every client saying, “This is when your next hearing’s going to be, this is when the next deposition’s going to be,” is not something that’s going to give them the emotional comfort that the otherwise should have. So you want to look at-

Sam Glover: Well, on the other, other hand, I don’t even check my mail more than every two or three months.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, yeah, so they might not even get it, depending on the situation and depending on the circumstance. So you want to look at those four tools you’re already using. Two tools I’d love to talk about briefly are video and presents. Now, we’ll get to it folks. I know some of you are already getting the heebie jeebies. Just be patient, we’re going to get there. All right, on video, you have in your pocket or in your purse a cellphone that has a video camera on it that is more powerful than the video cameras that were being used by network news just 30 years ago. You film videos, probably, or receive videos from friends and family all the time. When’s the last time you shot a video and sent it to one of your clients?

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Joey Coleman: Now, I understand there may be some issues that we get into depending on where you’re barred and what jurisdiction you’re practicing in, however, video communications are the future. That is where it’s at. People pay attention to them more. The typical response time for an email they’ll tell you is somewhere within the first 24 hours to 48 hours the client sees the email. In a text message or a video message, the response time is less than two minutes. I don’t know about you, I like the idea of my message getting straight to my clients as quickly as possible. So shoot videos and sent them to your clients.

You don’t want to obviously disclose anything substantial about their case, but even just a little video that says, “Hey, Sam. Just wanted you to know, spent the afternoon working on your case. Feeling really good about the progress we’re making. I’m going to send you an email follow up later this week kind of outlining next steps. But before I left the office for the day, just wanted to sent you this quick little video. I’m thinking of you, buddy. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to get the outcome you want. I’m on your side. This is all going to work out just fine.”

Sam Glover: It’s like, okay, I’m a very tech-forward person, but that feels weird to me. Like I think if my attorney sent me a personalized three minute video, I’d be like, “What? That’s a goofy thing.”

Joey Coleman: And some of your clients will feel that. But most of your clients will feel like, “Holy cow, this attorney really cares about me. He took the time to actually shoot and send a video? I’ve never shot and sent a video to someone I do business with. This is amazing.”

Sam Glover: Maybe.

Joey Coleman: And you know, here’s the deal. Try it. Test it. I understand you might be skeptical, but like any lawyer will tell you, being skeptical of something that you have no data for, or no precedent for-

Sam Glover: Oh, 100% behind that, yeah.

Joey Coleman: -is kind of unfair-ish, right. So go ahead and shoot some. Send them off. See, my theory is send a minimum of three videos to clients, and I guarantee you will get some incredibly positive response. Now, you may not get any response, but you’re not getting any response to the physical letter you’re mailing either. You’re not getting any response to the emails you’re sending with updates either, right? So if nothing else, give it a chance so that they remember what you actually look like and can pick up on a little bit of the emotion, because when we’re communicating in the written word, emotion is really hard to discern, whereas in a video, emotion’s really easy to discern.

Sam Glover: Yeah, and what does kind of resonate with me is I fucking hate voicemails, and so if you sent me a video saying, “Hey, I got your voice message, but I’d rather spend that time recording a quick video for you,” that actually might work for me. Because I’m much more likely to watch and listen to the video, first of all, and I fricken hate voicemails. And the best you’re going to do if you leave me a voicemail is I’m going to read Apple or Google’s garbled translation of it and delete it.

Joey Coleman: Sure, fair enough. Well, and this actually brings us back to that original question, how do we step into our client’s shoes? A question you should be asking every client in the very first meeting where you agree to work with them is, “We’re going to need to communicate with you regularly in this relationship. What’s your preferred form of communication? Do you want an email? Do you want a voicemail? Do you want us to schedule an in-person meeting? What would the best way for you to be able to keep up to speed on what’s going on in your case?” Then do it.

Sam Glover: And I would say like your client doesn’t get to be the boss, but you should take their preferences into account and accommodate them if you can.

Joey Coleman: Totally, totally. I mean obviously, if they say, “I want to have an in-person meeting for every single update.” You can say, “Well guess what, that’s not actually practical.” Or, if you’re billing hourly, we can do that, but you just need to realize that that just increased the cost of your representation fivefold. Some clients will say, “Okay, I’m fine. That’s what I want.” Great. No worries. But again, I think we spend so much time, and I realize you just said it kind of off the cuff, Sam, but I want to address it because I experienced this so much when I was practicing law.

We have this belief, I think, as lawyers, that what we’re doing is really difficult work, it’s very hard work, we had to go to school for a long time, we had to pass a bar exam, being in practice is challenging, it’s stressful. And almost a belief system that our clients should be deferential to us, or should appreciate what hard work we do for them. On one hand, I can understand that line of thinking. However, if that is your go-to belief about your clients, you’re going to lead a pretty miserable life.

Instead, the go-to should be, “They’re going through more stress and more emotional headache and heartache right now than I’ve experienced in a long time, and I have dozens of clients that are in the same state. What am I doing to empathize? What am I doing to sympathize? And what am I doing to make sure that they actually feel like I care?”

Sam Glover: So say more about presents, because you mentioned that as the sixth tool, and that-

Joey Coleman: Yeah. Yeah, and that’s the one that gets everybody anxious.

Sam Glover: Yeah, I want to know your definition.

Joey Coleman: Because they’re like, “Oh, there’s ethical rules. And what are we going to do?” So here’s the thing. A present is an unexpected surprise.

Sam Glover: Oh, presents, with a T.

Joey Coleman: Presents.

Sam Glover: I gotcha.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, presents, like gifts. Presents, right? So what are you doing to physically gift your clients? Now, what most law firms do is they send a fruit basket, or Starbucks gift cards, okay? If your grandmother for Christmas gave you a fruit basket or a Starbucks gift card, you would not be happy. You would not feel the love. And we say, “Oh, we take care of our clients like family, and they mean the most to us.” But then when it comes time to giving them presents, we treat them like the worst family member that we have.

What you should be thinking about in terms of presents is not the cost of the gift that you’re giving them, but the value to the recipient. So for example, a present could be … One of the things we did back when I was practicing criminal defense that could definitely be categorized as a present is we would occasionally represent minors who were at the high school football game and had an open container violation, they were drinking beer in the parking lot and now we’re taking their case and we’re helping them out. And usually, in those scenarios, mom and dad were the ones paying the bill, but it was the minor’s choices that created this situation.

And so what we would say with every minor we represented is, and we’d have their parents in the room and the child, and we’d say, “Okay, here’s the deal. Mom and dad are paying for this. That’s their commitment to this relationship. What you’re going to do, young squire, is you’re going to start doing study hall at our office every day from 3: 00 to 6: 00. So when school gets out, you come down to our office, you sit in our law library, and you’re going to do your homework.” Now, the parent’s eyes would light up as if we had given them the greatest gift in the history of the world.

The kids would obviously roll their eyes, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.” And we say, “No, no, no. This is an element of the representation. If you do not do this, you are fired as a client. And we’re not helping you out of this.” What we found is that parents loved it because we were keeping their kids out of trouble. The kids eventually came around to love it because their grades would go up, their parents were happier with them, their teachers were happier with them. Life got better. And so a present doesn’t have to be something that you buy at a store and give them. It can be a gift of time. It can be a gift of attention.

By the way, a lot of law firms got into, back in the 90s, especially in the 2000s, into the promotional products game of putting their logo all over stuff. Okay, let me be very clear on this. If you give someone an item that has your logo on it, that is not a gift or a present for them. That is a gift or present for you because you’re hoping they’ll wear it and that will be a walking billboard to market your firm. I’m not opposed to using promotional products, and they certainly have their place, but don’t think that it’s a gift because it’s not.

Sam Glover: Although, I did use to steal coasters from all the big firms I did depositions at because I liked having a collection of nice leather coasters from big firms.

Joey Coleman: Absolutely. Absolutely. But were you excited about the name on it, or were you just excited about it that it was a high-end leather coaster?

Sam Glover: Oh, a little bit, but it wasn’t a present either.

Joey Coleman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Sam Glover: No, I like that. That goes to something we’ve talked about before on the podcast which is realize that lawyers tend to be myopic thinking about, “There is a legal problem and I have the solution to it,” rather than, “My client has a problem, one aspect of which is a legal problem that I was trained to solve in law school, but there’s a bigger problem that I can help solve.” For example, if somebody comes to you to probate a will, they actually don’t just have the problem of needing a will probated, they have a problem with distributing the estate and figuring out what to do with their emotions and grief and all of that stuff after they’ve lost a loved one.

There’s a bigger problem that you could help solve, and it sounds like a big component of that could be thinking about your concept of presents. Or when you were talking about young minors who had problems bringing their grades up and making sure they did well in school is another aspect of that. That’s solving the whole problem, not just the legal problem.

Joey Coleman: Exactly. We need to think holistically about our clients. You said it spot on, Sam. They have a legal problem, but tied into that legal problem are a bunch of emotional problems, or a bunch of mental problems can even be physical problems. These are all things that are weighing on them, and I think the very best lawyers are the ones that are addressing every aspect of their client, not just the pieces that line up nicely in a court of law or in a deposition.

Sam Glover: Well, that feels like a nice note to end on, so Joey, thank you so much for being with us today to talk about client experience. And if you want to know more, go to JoeyColeman.com. You’ll find the link in our show notes. If you sign up for the starter kit, Joey will also let you know about when his new book launches. And he says you’re not going to get a ton of emails, but he wants to be able to tell you about that. And the book is going to be called, Never Lose a Customer Again. It’s going to go in depth on all the stuff we’re talking about today. And it’s going to include 46 different case studies of small and large companies. So if you’re a little bit interested in the book or learning more, get the starter kit and then you’ll find out about the book. And thanks again.

Joey Coleman: My pleasure.

Aaron Street: Make sure to catch next week’s episode of the Lawyerist podcast by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast app. And please leave a rating to help other people find our show. You can find the notes for today’s episode on Lawyerist.com/podcast.

Sam Glover: The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.

The post Podcast #162: Designing Your Clients’ Experience, with Joey Coleman appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

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[ronaldmrashid]

Sexual Harassment At Uber Reminds Us That HR Is Not Your Friend

One of the key takeaways from my book, How To Engineer Your Layoff, is understanding that the Human Resources department is not on your side. First and foremost, the HR department is there to protect the company from liability. After such protection is made, maybe then HR will help a troubled employee with a problem.

My experience comes from being a manager at a major financial organization, having to work with HR to hire and lay off staff, negotiating my own severance, and consulting with dozens of people about negotiating their own severance since publishing my severance negotiation book in 2012. Your best strategy is to befriend HR but hold sensitive information close to heart right before making a move.

Because Uber is the most successful startup of all time at its current stage, it’s always going to be a target. The latest damning news about the company comes from Susan Flowers, a former engineer at Uber who penned a post called, Reflecting On One Very Strange Year At Uber. You should read the post if you are an employee, manager, woman, startup entrepreneur, or work in HR. You should also read the post if you’re a bored entrepreneur crazy enough to think that going back to work will make you happier!

Susan writes that she was sexually harassed at Uber and denied upward mobility due to being a woman. This is not a surprise for those of us who have experience working in Silicon Valley, an area dominated by socially awkward men who’ve suddenly become hot stuff due to their computer engineering skills. Here’s an excerpt from her post:

On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn’t. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn’t help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.

Clearly, this type of behavior from a manager is NOT OK. The manager should be fired for trying to take advantage of a subordinate. No employee should ever have to feel uncomfortable going to work.

However, if your goal is to survive an organization’s politics, immediately reporting your manager to HR for any grievances could be a suboptimal career move. Instead, it’s important to consider CONFRONTING your oppressor first, spelling out exactly what it is s/he is doing that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Yes, confrontation is sometimes scary, but it is a must to help save your skin. Most oppressors don’t get confronted because the majority of people they maltreat are terrified to stand up for themselves. It’s so much easier to report someone than work out difficult and unsuitable situations yourself. Heck, trying to solve difficult situations is why most people quit instead of engineer their layoff.

But what you’ll find is that once you stand up to your oppressor, he should get the message and back off. The bully now knows you won’t stand for his bullshit, and if the bully continues, he knows he’s putting his career and reputation at risk.

One confrontation hack I used when it was time for me to face someone at work was envisioning what type of power this person or senior employee had over me OUTSIDE of work. The answer was always nothing. He was just another regular chump.

Here are more excerpts from her post highlighting how Susan continuously reported everything she felt was wrong to HR:

Things were beginning to get even more comically absurd with each passing day. Every time something ridiculous happened, every time a sexist email was sent, I’d sent a short report to HR just to keep a record going.

Less than a week after this absurd meeting, my manager scheduled a 1:1 with me, and told me we needed to have a difficult conversation. He told me I was on very thin ice for reporting his manager to HR.

California is an at-will employment state, he said, which means we can fire you if you ever do this again. I told him that was illegal, and he replied that he had been a manager for a long time, he knew what was illegal, and threatening to fire me for reporting things to HR was not illegal. I reported his threat immediately after the meeting to both HR and to the CTO: they both admitted that this was illegal, but none of them did anything.

With each HR reporting, Susan trapped herself in an increasingly difficult position because HR was building a case for the company, and not for her. The only thing Susan could do was leave Uber after one year, which is EXACTLY what HR wanted. Any HR department would prefer a disgruntled employee leaving quietly on his/her own versus having to deal with the complexities and negative ramifications of settling a legal case.

Unfortunately for Uber, Susan took to the internet to air her grievances and caused a massive backlash by reviving the #DeleteUber hashtag on social media. If HR and management had properly addressed the issues earlier, Susan would never have publicly blown up the company.

If Uber is valued at ~$66 billion based on the last round of funding, this negative PR could EASILY wipe away at least $1 billion in market value as consumers switch over to Lyft or other means of ridesharing transportation. Perhaps the damage is actually much greater given a reputation takes a tremendous amount of time to rebuild.

Hiring former attorney general, Eric Holder to lead an investigation into claims of sexual harassment and discrimination is totally a PR move, and the wrong one. First, if they want to hire anybody to investigate, it should be a woman. Second, how much investigating do you really need when you can easily find out who Susan Fowler’s HR manager was who repeatedly ignored her reports?

See: Massive Reputation Destruction Is Why Negotiating A Severance Is Possible

Understand The Role Of Human Resources

Most employees think of HR as a department that handles the onboarding of new employees, ensures everybody plays nice with each other and helps struggling employees do better. The reality is the HR department’s primary purpose is to protect the company and senior management from liability. The second goal of HR is to ensure the company is as successful as possible given their own careers are at stake.

Employers need workers to grow a business. But employers also realize that with each worker they hire, there’s a risk the employee might cause problems within the organization. HR is there to try and smooth things out before things reach extreme levels, e.g. settlements over lawsuits.

It is true states such as California have “at-will” employment laws, which mean a company can choose to lay off an employee whenever they want. But seldom are companies so ruthless as to lay employees off without proper documentation. Documentation is why it often takes at least one review and six months before a company will lay off any employee because if the employee ever sues for wrongful termination, the company can show they highlighted the performance issues and gave the employee a chance to improve.

The reason why Susan’s first manager wasn’t fired immediately after being reported was because he was deemed a “high performer.” Uber HR determined the manager was more valuable to the company than his transgressions. Clearly, this shows that HR is on the corporation’s side, and not on Susan’s side.

With each HR reporting, HR builds a case that Susan is a weak, easily offended employee, who isn’t willing to talk things out and play nice with others. HR can basically manipulate their interpretation of Susan’s reporting as they see fit to protect the company and its highest performers.

The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that *I* was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem.

Do not think for one second that everything you reveal to HR will be kept confidential and won’t be reported to your manager or someone in a position to determine your future.

I won’t discuss details about my experience with HR when subordinates were unhappy. All I can say is that I knew what unhappy subordinates were saying to HR because HR told me. And I’m sure there are things I don’t know from HR that were told to my managers because they deemed me a liability if I knew too much.

Instead of hiring the former U.S. Attorney General, Uber should reprimand or fire the HR manager for not properly managing Susan’s situation after repeated reports. But that would be too logical!

Your Goal As An Employee

Do these simple things if you want to survive workplace politics and get ahead.

1) Read your employee handbook. I’m constantly surprised that most people have never read their employee handbook. It is loaded with great information to your benefit. If the information is in your employee handbook, that means it is gospel. HR/management cannot go back and argue against whatever thing you did if it is OK per the handbook.

2) Keep meticulous records of perceived transgressions. Document everything you think is wrong. This includes inappropriate e-mails, texts, conversations, events. But keep everything private until you really need to talk. Your highly organized documentation will serve as your ammunition during any bargaining process.

3) Build a relationship with your office HR manager. If you can get your HR manager to be on your side, you’ve got a powerful ally because she will help you navigate the land mines. It’s human nature to help people you like. HR people are no different. Take her out for coffee. Ask about her vacation. If she has a family, inquire about their health. Hopefully, you really do build a great relationship. If not, at least make it clear you are a hard working, thoughtful, and caring employee. HR does have the power to speak on your behalf and make recommendations about your future with the company.

4) Confront your oppressor and talk things out. People who oppress in the workplace are sometimes CLUELESS about their actions. Because nobody tells them they are being weird, sexist, rude, or whatever, they continue to act inappropriately because they believe whatever they are doing must be OK. One strategy is to just take them out for lunch or coffee on you. You can disarm them with your generosity, making it much easier to share what’s on your mind. Bottling things up and exploding is not healthy. And reporting your manager to HR when everything you say could get back to your manager can be a risky, career limiting move. Stand up for yourself and talk things through.

5) Know your leverage. If you’ve come to wits’ end, then leaving is probably your best option. Leaving quietly is one way to go about things. Leaving through a lawsuit is another way. But the best way is to engineer your layoff so that both parties get something, i.e. go through mediation. The reason why I was able to earn a severance and keep five years worth of deferred compensation is by knowing my leverage and having a dialogue. After 11 years at my firm, I knew that if I left, the revenue I helped generate for the firm would decline by multiples more than the cost of my employment. Therefore, I came up with a plan to transition my clients to my subordinate over a two month period to help them minimize any losses. I also made it clear to my employer that I wasn’t going to a competitor, which made negotiations much easier.

2015 German study

Things Can Usually Be Worked Out

Please think twice before firing off every transgression, perceived or otherwise, to HR. That could set you up for failure. Instead, confront your terrible co-worker and clearly delineate that which is bothering you. If that doesn’t work, speak to a manager you think you can trust to help you. Speaking to HR is sadly the last resort.

As good fortune would have it, Susan landed on her feet at Stripe, another richly valued startup. It was wise of Susan to light Uber’s barn on fire after she solidified her position. Who’s going to dare bother her now?

Related:

Career Advice For Women: Blaze Your Own Path Instead!

Is Your Nose Brown Enough To Get Ahead?

How To Get Revenge From An Employer Who Fired You 

Readers, what are your thoughts about Susan’s case? Is there anything she could have done better to improve her situation? Why aren’t the HR people at Uber who let this slide not being accused? Could it be because HR works for senior management and not the employees? Why don’t more people confront their workplace oppressor if they are at wits’ end? Have you ever been sexually harassed or felt extremely uncomfortable at work? If so, how did you deal with the situation?

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/sexual-harassment-at-uber-reminds-us-hr-is-not-your-friend/

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67% off #From HTML to App Store in 60 Minutes – $10

Learn how to convert simple HTML into mobile apps on both Google Play and the iOS App Store and drive purchases.

All Levels,  – 1.5 hours,  15 lectures 

Average rating 3.7/5 (3.7 (115 ratings) Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course’s star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.)

Course requirements:

Basic HTML familiarity is preferred, but not required to build your first iOS and Android app. If you don’t have it, or you’re rusty, we’ll point you to additional resources. Google Android Developer’s License to make your Android app live Apple Developer’s License to make your iPhone app live A Mac development environment to make your iPhone app live.

Course description:

When developing a mobile app for iPhone and Android, most people think they need deep experience in programming languages like Objective-C and Java.

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Not sure how to do that? Don’t worry, I have included an additional section with strategies on exactly how to do it.

I look forward to seeing you in the class.

Thanks,

Ankur Nagpal

P.S. Keep in mind, I’ve lowered the price of this course to be able to build enough student sample projects. If you’re able to make this through this course, I’d love to know and feature your project.

P.S.S. My personal teaching philosophy is to have a good time while doing it, so you will hear me cuss and mess around. Don’t take this stuff too seriously, OK?

Full details Quickly develop and publish a live mobile HTML app for iPhone and Android Learn specific strategies I’ve used to prepare your app to be marketed in your App Store of choice Entrepreneurs Mobile App Developers

Reviews:

“I don’t appreciate the unprofessional language and lack of actual examples and teaching.” (Pamela Bowman)

“Very Good. Needs some links to HTML Java resources. Thanks Really Great.” (Kim Exton)

“Very poor uses of language. This class is pretty much (copy & Paste) just with a Mac & java. There was some useful info here and there. it’s like starting with an apple and say go to the other end. An here comes a apple pie. I should say Wow !!! what I learn nothing. I can go on for days with this class. But on a up note( 60mins of what you shouldn’t do in a class ), this be your class. YoYo who the heck say that anymore? unless you old school BK guy. No wonder people think I talk like that when I say I’m from NYC.” (Duane G.)

  About Instructor:

Ankur Nagpal Conrad Wadowski

Ankur was the largest individual developer in the history of the Facebook platform, with over 10,000 applications and a reach of upwards of 200M users. Ankur has been featured in numerous industry blogs as well as mainstream publications such as Business Week for earning millions of dollars on the social Internet. As a lifelong cricket fan and former international level athlete, Ankur headed up product at Live Current Media’s cricket and helped purchase the digital rights to the Indian Premier League from the Board of Control for Cricket in India for $50 million while pursuing a simultaneous degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, Ankur co-founded Leveraged LLC and consulted on user growth for a myriad of leading companies in the consumer Internet space including Glu Mobile, Electronic Arts, Betable, Fremantle Media and GameDuell.

I’m Conrad, a Partner at GrowHack and do growth work for multiple series-A funded companies and Quotidian Ventures in NYC. In the past I’ve launched products in multiple industries. I also founded and produce the first Enterprise Tech Meetup which has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider and ZDNet.

Instructor Other Courses:

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from Udemy Cupón/ Udemy Coupon/ http://coursetag.com/udemy/coupon/67-off-from-html-to-app-store-in-60-minutes-10/ from Course Tag https://coursetagcom.tumblr.com/post/156752773643