Hi, my name is Jay Fleischman. I’m a consumer bankruptcy lawyer, a geek, a dad and a husband. I used to think I had to put the parts of my life in some sort of order depending on where I was – a lawyer at work, a husband at home, and a geek in my spare time (ha ha).
But that didn’t make me very happy.
My marketing was a mess. You name it, I was there. Yellow Pages, FindLaw, lawyers.com, newspapers, television, radio – I was spending thousands of dollars each month and crossing my fingers the the phone would ring each day.
My clients were a mess. Clients didn’t show up for appointments, haggled over fees, and didn’t cooperate. I was chasing people down and losing them in droves. Every day it seemed like I’d have a full schedule and end up sitting around waiting for no-shows. I was bitter, and my clients knew it.
My office was a mess. I was using expensive office equipment, writing myself notes on scraps of paper that would promptly get lost, and always running to catch the next piece of china before it fell to the ground.
In other words – everything about my life sucked.
So I did what most people do when confronted with a conundrum – I threw it all up in the air in frustration.
My practice was running on fumes, and so was I. I went to the office every day to feed the advertising monster and pay my staff. By the time I got home I was exhausted and beaten down from dealing with clients and putting out fires all day.
One day I sat in my office staring at a pile of bills and ignoring the phones, wondering why I was spending 12 hours a day working like a dog and barely scraping by.
I was a victim of my own business, slaving away each day keeping all the balls in the air. There wasn’t enough time in the day, not enough days in the week, and not enough money staying in my pocket to make me remotely happy.
I contemplated my own bankruptcy, shuttering the place and moving on. But I started asking questions – of myself, and of my clients. I wondered why I wasn’t getting good clients, why I was chasing a mythical pot of gold at the end of a mythical rainbow, and how I could make things better.
It all came down to asking myself a deceptively simple question:
How do profitable businesses make money, create a steady stream of raving customers, excellent word-of-mouth and a a good standard of living for their owners?
Once I figured out the answer, life got a lot better.
My answers forced me to break the cycle of marketing and client service that had been ingrained in me by the legal profession.
Over the next six months I spent over $20,000 of my own money to learn at the feet of the scions of direct response marketing. I studied their every move, every trick and tactic they employed to get people to buy from them – and do create real value for their customers. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t easy, but it was so powerful that it blew the doors off my practice.
Think about it: how does a pitchman on late-night television get someone to buy spray-on hair? How does Craftmatic Adjustable Beds sell a $5,000 product by giving away an informational brochure on television? And how did Columbia House Music Club make billions of dollars by giving away records, tapes and compact discs for a penny?
The secret is a system that attracts your best prospects, allows you to build an unbreakable bond of rapport, and allows them to decide to hire you – without you doing a thing to sell them on your services.
Nobody could help me – so I helped myself.
Though the basics were out there for all to see, nobody had adapted them to consumer bankruptcy lawyers. Our reality is a unique one, filled with ethical concerns as well as client realities. Undeterred, I set about creating the roadmap needed to make my practice a successful, profitable and powerful one that gave me a better life and created value for my clients.
Out of that knowledge grew this site.
Now I help lawyers around the country create better businesses – ones they can be proud of, ones that let them have the quality of life they deserve.
Check out the site, sign up for the newsletter, and hang out here. We’re going to have a long talk, and I’m going to help you.
Just to be clear, I do sell stuff here – products and services that I create to help you do things better and more productively. I also sell things other people create. From time to time we’ll talk about those products and services, and you should buy if it’s right for you. Some things will appeal to you, others not so much. No worries – I’m never going to turn the screws on you to get something that sucks or doesn’t work.
Because we’re in this together, you and I.
Let’s go.
