Quick Tips to Solve Law Firm Turnover

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:15:05
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Struggling with team turnover or culture misalignment in your family law firm. The root of the problem might not be your people. It could be your mission, vision, and values. Let’s fix that.

00:00:15:07 – 00:00:44:26
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Welcome to the Revenue Roadmap podcast. The show designed specifically for growth minded family law professionals. We dive into practical strategies to drive more revenue and increase profits for your firm. One insight at a time. I’m Tyler Dolf, CEO of Rocket Clicks, which is our full service digital marketing agency focused exclusively on helping family law firms scale with smarter marketing and operational strategy.

00:00:44:29 – 00:01:10:21
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Today, I am joined by Tony Carls and JP VanderLinden. Tony is our president here at the agency and also the co-founder of our law firm, Sterling Lawyers, which is a 30 plus attorney firm. And he has seen firsthand how internal alignment can make or break a firm. We also have JP VanderLinden, who heads up our operations here at Rocket Clix.

00:01:10:24 – 00:01:36:15
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
JP brings a deep expertise in operational leadership and team performance, making him the perfect guest to unpack today’s topic. So today we’re going to talk about breaking down the mission, vision, and values trifecta. What they really mean, why they matter more than you think, and how to embed them in your culture to supercharge engagement and hiring within your family law firm.

00:01:36:17 – 00:01:59:05
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
If you like this episode, we do a deep dive into all three of these as separate podcasts. So make sure to follow us along for that deep dive. Gents, great to have you back. Today we are doing a big overview on mission, vision, and values. If you continue to listen to this series, we will go deeper into each of these subjects.

00:01:59:05 – 00:02:15:00
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
But today we are going to, at a very high level, talk through what each of these mean. JP, why don’t we start with our mission? Tell us what a mission is, why it’s important, and then, Tony, let’s talk about the why for a family law firm.

00:02:15:02 – 00:02:40:22
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah. So there’s three parts here and some they all kind of get come together when we talk about them together. Mission is kind of the big overarching like what we’re trying to accomplish here, the big vision, the big why for why you exist. The vision is a little bit more specific, and so usually it has some like quantifiable of like, what does it look like when you achieve the why, and what’s the steps you’re going to take to get there.

00:02:40:25 – 00:02:58:24
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And then the values are all about behaviorally, what are you going to do in the day to day? What’s your team going to do that’s going to lead you to accomplishing your mission and your vision? So basically, where are we headed? What does it look like? And how are we going to get ourselves there? Kind of the three parts: mission, vision, and values.

00:02:58:24 – 00:03:21:25
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Yeah, where this trio is really important is, you know, in one of the previous podcasts we did, we talked about kind of the people framework of align, develop, transition. The first step of getting that framework put in place is having a really clear, compelling mission, vision, values, because that’s going to be your—it’s going to be your foundation for all of your people systems.

00:03:21:25 – 00:03:43:28
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
So we talked about people systems for a lot of this. This overarching series is about people and people systems. This is the absolute foundation—mission, vision, values. So if you don’t have it, and it isn’t clear, basically you’re building a house on a really soft or sandy substance, and then you’re going to see the org just go the way it’s going to go because you haven’t defined it.

00:03:44:02 – 00:03:47:22
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
You haven’t made it clear. And it’s really important to do that.

00:03:47:22 – 00:03:54:08
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Kind of setting. And who should build the mission, vision, values for a family law firm?

00:03:54:11 – 00:04:17:13
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah, it’s got to come from the top down. It’s got to come from the leadership. It’s got to come from the folks who are directing where you’re going. Because if you don’t have a clear vision, if you can’t articulate it, the odds of your team being able to are incredibly low. And I will say, like, one of the temptations—I’ve actually heard this from folks who have led organizations or who are growing their organizations—is there’s a temptation to involve everyone in it.

00:04:17:13 – 00:04:32:07
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Like, “What do you guys think it should be? What do you want it to be?” And it’s like, there’s a time and a place to get feedback and input, but this is not it. This is the place for you to make a definitive statement and plant your flag on what you stand for, what you will and will not tolerate, and where you are going.

00:04:32:07 – 00:04:41:00
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
This is your differentiation for your team internally. This is not a democracy. You need to step forward. You need to own this as the leader.

00:04:41:02 – 00:05:03:13
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
I think I mentioned this on a different podcast, but we internally—both at the agency, and not so much the law firm, but definitely at the agency—tried to crowdsource this and have everyone have a say and a voice. And from personal experience, I will tell you it is not effective, because if everyone has a voice, kind of no one does, and then there’s no alignment.

00:05:03:15 – 00:05:25:28
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Yeah, you know, when we crafted ours over at Sterling, we kind of created the first version of what we called our “vivid vision,” which included mission, vision, values. And being part of the co-founding team, I didn’t know what a law firm should look like. So we took a first stab at it and then we wrestled over that for probably three to four weeks of just crafting that statement and defining, like, who we are and what we’re going to be.

00:05:25:28 – 00:05:42:04
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
And then, you know, we’d read that out loud to each other every week to just reinforce it and kind of come back—“Who did we say we were going to be?” or “Are we executing against it?” That type of thing is really important. Like, this does seem small and insignificant, like, “Who cares? I can just smile, do my work.”

00:05:42:07 – 00:05:52:12
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Yeah, that’s—that is true. Who are you trying to become? And what are you trying to create? I think it’s also very important if you want to grow your business.

00:05:52:12 – 00:06:03:24
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
So we’ve done the work, and we listened to all of our podcasts and did a deep dive into mission, vision, values. We’ve created it now. JP, how do we use it to engage our team?

00:06:03:26 – 00:06:31:09
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah, I’d say there’s really two areas that you’re going to think about. One is that you’re going to constantly remind your team of the mission and the vision. I heard a pretty well-known leadership coach say recently that if you’re the CEO, you’re actually the “chief reminder.” That’s your main thing for the org. And you’re constantly reminding everybody of where we’re going. Because it’s so easy to, to Tony’s point, just get down in “I’m just going to do good legal work.”

00:06:31:12 – 00:06:45:25
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
“I’m just going to do the work, right? I’m going to do good plumbing work, I’m going to do good HVAC work, I’m going to do good marketing work, right?” I’m just going to do my job. But why am I doing this again? And you’ll feel—you will feel 100% like “I’m blue in the face. I say it every 20 minutes. I feel like I’m saying it all the time.”

00:06:45:25 – 00:07:00:13
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And right about the time you feel that way, that’s when the team starts to be like, “Oh yeah, I remember that now.” So don’t get tired of saying it; you’re the “chief reminder.” You need to keep bringing it up and reminding people of where you’re going. That’s one really big thing. We do that once a week with our team.

00:07:00:15 – 00:07:14:04
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
We also do that on a monthly basis where we deep dive further. You’ve got to figure out your cadence and your rhythms, but don’t just assume people remember it because it’s super important to you. They don’t at all.

00:07:14:04 – 00:07:20:26
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
So Tony, I know you guys had some rhythms at the law firm for the vivid vision that you used as well to kind of think about that reminding piece.

00:07:20:28 – 00:07:38:00
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Yeah, it was something that we would read as a leadership team once a week, and then the individual teams in their ten-ten would also read it once a week to come back and prevent the drift—so that we don’t continue to drift. But I’ll also say, you know, family law firm, these are really intense emotional conversations at times, a good chunk of them.

00:07:38:00 – 00:07:57:03
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
So having really good clarity of “why we’re doing what we’re doing” can really help you get through some of those tough times, because you can kind of get mired down in that and forget, like, “What’s the purpose of what we’re doing? Why are we here?” Because some of that comes along with it. At Sterling, ours was “Empower family law clients.” Super simple.

00:07:57:03 – 00:08:13:07
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
So every decision we made, we looked to that one. It helps us during those times when we have to make hard decisions.

00:08:13:09 – 00:08:35:01
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
I think the second piece, Tyler, about how it gets used—like Tony said, the first piece is you’re repeating it, you’re reminding, you’re using it as a filter. The second piece is really specific to the values. Values should be behaviors that you’re looking for from your team, and you use those value behaviors to hire, to fire, and to reward.

00:08:35:03 – 00:08:54:03
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
It’s very straightforward: these are the things that you use to evaluate every single potential team member or current team member. “Are they living out our values?” So they have to be—when you’re forming them, you have to ask yourself, “Would I fire somebody for not doing this? Would I hire somebody who does all these things? How would I reward people for doing this?”

00:08:54:03 – 00:08:57:08
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And if you’re not willing to live that out, don’t put it in your values.

00:08:57:08 – 00:08:58:24
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
It’s not enough?

00:08:58:24 – 00:09:18:17
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Absolutely not. It feels false, it feels fake, people can smell that a mile away. They want authenticity when they’re joining someplace and they’re hitching up. They want to buy into the vision. So you have to operationalize them very much in the hiring process, the onboarding, the coaching—every step along the way.

00:09:18:19 – 00:09:41:23
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And then when it comes down to it, like, when you’re giving people praise, tie it to a value. When you’re giving people bonuses, show how they’re living out the values. Because what you’re showing the rest of the organization is, “These are the behaviors that we want you to authentically do.” If you say we’re going to be candid, if you say we’re going to be hardworking, you have to follow through on that every week, every day—giving those praises, giving those shout outs, giving those bonuses, saying, “Hey, this person’s not here anymore because they didn’t live out our values.

00:09:41:23 – 00:09:44:28
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
We didn’t see them showing up the way we needed to.”

00:09:45:00 – 00:09:56:17
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Also, yes, it has to be the lens to which you’re evaluating your law firm team members there. So in concept, sounds great.

00:09:56:19 – 00:10:16:14
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
How-to and what we—one of the things that we do is our final interview is a presentation from a potential hire, and they present to us why they’re a good fit for Rocket Clicks and our mission, vision, values, and why Rocket Clicks is a good fit for them. So it’s kind of two-sided, and they’ve got to deliver that presentation. If they can’t articulate that, it’s not a great interview.

00:10:16:20 – 00:10:35:23
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
And we typically pass on those opportunities, but it really gives you an opportunity to see, like, “Are they actually passionate about the things we’re passionate about? Or is this just about filling the seat?” Because butts-in-seats don’t really work; that’s not something that typically will help you grow and sustain growth over the long term.

00:10:35:25 – 00:10:51:11
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Another way is, we get really specific with our vision. So we break it down into three buckets—we’ll talk more about it when we get into that—but it’s like, “We want our legacy to be… What’s the impact for the marketplace? How do we want to impact people? And then, financially, what do we want to accomplish there?” That kind of gives three different lenses of where we’re trying to head.

00:10:51:11 – 00:11:09:13
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
And then there’s very clear ways that you can operationalize that. So, like, one of our higher-level looks is we want to achieve 1,000 “PPF” goals with our team in the next ten years—that’s personal, professional, and financial goals. We want to see our team accomplish 1,000. So how do we operationalize it? We’ve got to track it, we’ve got to execute our conversations, we’ve got to do lots of things in coaching.

00:11:09:13 – 00:11:32:11
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
We’ve got to celebrate as we’re getting closer to those milestones. So there’s a lot of ways that once you get specific, you can really create operations behind it to make it real—make it part of the culture, not just something that’s said every week, but it’s actually something that’s a lived process.

00:11:32:14 – 00:11:57:00
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
We literally have that employee self-diagnose, self-assess against the values, and the manager might say, “Rate yourself on a scale of one to ten,” or something like that is the end of it, but really reach for the uncomfortable. We don’t just ask them, “Are you good at this core value?” We say, “Please provide specific examples of times when you have lived out this core value well.”

00:11:57:02 – 00:12:15:27
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And so, if you say, “Oh, I’m great,” and you can only come up with two examples where you lived it out well, you’re probably not that great. You probably need to have ten examples and pick four because you ran out of characters. Or you’re actually just kind of okay at it. And we talk about, like, “What does it look like for you to model this with integrity for the rest of the organization and be authentic with it?”

00:12:15:29 – 00:12:38:26
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
So really make it part of the ongoing process. Put it in your performance reviews, show your team that you’re serious about it, because to the degree that you are, they will take it seriously, and to the degree that you aren’t, they’ll just say, “Hey, this is just fluff on the wall, and I don’t have to care about it.”

00:12:38:29 – 00:12:55:15
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
And like that last point is so important, because, like, when you said the degree to which you take it seriously, the team will never take it more serious than you, and they will likely take it less seriously. So the degree to which you take it seriously will dictate how seriously they take it. You have to own it—really be truly, authentically you. Because if it’s not, it’s not going to be for the team.

00:12:55:16 – 00:12:56:10
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
So yeah.

00:12:56:17 – 00:13:01:04
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
100%.

00:13:01:11 – 00:13:17:13
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
Totally agree. And I feel like we’ve, you know, I wanted to end on a few pitfalls or how companies—especially law firms, which I know we’ve talked about a few of them—but JP, anything that we missed that firm owners can avoid when truly building out their vision, guys?

00:13:17:16 – 00:13:45:24
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah, I’d say there’s probably two that I would call out. One is being unspecific with your language—being vague. And so if you’re not detailed with your values, with your vision, then people are going to have different interpretations, and they’re going to think they’re living it out when they’re not. You need to be crystal clear to the point where if you’re not repelling somebody with the way you describe it, you’re probably not being specific enough and clear enough.

00:13:45:29 – 00:13:47:17
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah. Like…

00:13:47:19 – 00:14:11:17
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
Yeah, 100% agree with that. You know, I always say, like, one of the biggest reasons people love the Cowboys or the Yankees is because most people that like NFL football, they like the Cowboys or they hate them. They like the Yankees or they hate them—perfect. That’s great branding, because now you have an opinion and you know who they are, versus, “I don’t even know what the Cleveland Indians’ new name is,” because most people don’t care about that team.

00:14:11:22 – 00:14:44:16
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
It’s like they don’t really—they don’t, like, create any emotional response. To JP’s point, if you’re trying to be everything to everyone, you’re nothing to anyone. Like, you haven’t repelled anyone, you haven’t attracted anyone—it’s just mush. And I would say, if you do have them clearly articulated out and you’re doing this within your firm, you’re not living these values out and you’re not allowing them to have financial impacts—because you’re going to have situations where you have a client that’s going to try to push you outside of your values, or it’s an opportunity you really “should” take.

00:14:44:19 – 00:15:03:10
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
And, like, are you willing to truly live that? Because if you’re not, your team isn’t going to trust you—your team isn’t going to actually believe it because you don’t really believe it when, you know, the rubber hits the road, because you’re willing to violate it for a couple extra bucks. So now I can violate it because I don’t have time to do it. It’s going to be how your team member thinks about it.

00:15:03:10 – 00:15:06:00
SPEAKER 3: Anthony Karls
So…

00:15:06:02 – 00:15:26:13
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
Yeah, that was at least my second one. I think we haven’t really talked as much about it. It’s like, when you go to apply these—if, when things are down, you opt for things that you didn’t put in your mission, vision, values, you probably didn’t accurately represent your desires for the organization. And so if you’re interviewing and you’ve got somebody who, like, you know, you’ve got kindness as a value, and this person’s a jerk, but they’re a super skilled, super successful jerk?

00:15:26:13 – 00:15:52:11
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
And you’re like, “Yeah, but they’re going to do such good things for the company,” and you hire them and you bring them in, it’s like, okay, then either kindness isn’t actually one of your values or it’s something you didn’t list, or you’re willing to mortgage those and give those up, in which case you don’t really believe in them. And so you have to be willing to say no, all right?

00:15:52:11 – 00:16:09:18
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
You have to be willing to pass on somebody who’s really talented, has a great resume, looks like a great client, because they violate your values. To be willing to fire clients, to say, “Hey, this one isn’t a good fit because they treated our team badly, and that does not align with our values.” You win so much from that—so much respect from your team.

00:16:09:18 – 00:16:20:23
SPEAKER 2: JP VanderLinden
But if you don’t follow through on that, you don’t apply it in those cases—like, again, people can smell B.S. all day.

00:16:20:26 – 00:16:39:23
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
They won’t trust that any of the other values were right, right, if you’re showcasing as the owner, “Well, they’re only right sometimes?” I love it. This is great—appreciate the overview, gents. If you’re listening to this and you want to learn more, we are deep-diving into each one of these elements—the mission, the vision, and the values.

00:16:39:28 – 00:17:00:29
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
So make sure to stay stand tuned and listen to our further deep dives, and we will see everyone next time on the revenue. If you liked this podcast on the overview of mission, vision, values, make sure to check out our future episodes where we dive deeper into each individual topic—one on the mission, one on the vision, one on the values.

00:17:01:01 – 00:17:10:19
SPEAKER 1: Tyler Dolph
And we also have a great podcast on the Employee Maturity Model, which you can check out here. Thanks, and we’ll see you next time on the Revenue Roadmap!