Chris Dreyer:
Bill "The Lawman" Umansky has built what most of us in the legal world aim for: a thriving practice, deep roots in his community, real respect in Orlando. But even after nearly three decades of success, he felt there was something bigger to unlock. What he discovered changed everything about how he ran his firm. Instead of staying locked in the usual patterns of leadership, Bill started showing up differently, having lunch with his entry-level staff, connecting with his virtual team overseas, and really seeing the people who make his firm work.
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind, the show where ambitious attorneys come to learn, implement, and get results. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the SEO agency of choice for elite personal injury law firms. Bill challenges everything we think we know about scaling a law firm. Sometimes, the biggest growth happens when you stop chasing the numbers and start investing in the depths of your relationships. Let's dive in.
Bill Umansky:
Scaling is good, but I don't believe you grow, you die, in the same sense and a lot of people believe that. I think a lot of people grow just number wise. I think it's growing depth wise, finding the right people, and then working with people you really, really want to work with. Especially in this law business, it's more than just a numbers' game. It's especially my age at 58, it's just about working with people you really want to work with.
Chris Dreyer:
You don't have the same stresses, and you enjoy coming to work, and your role's changed. You stepped away from practicing law. You may do some cases that you're super passionate about, but you're focused more on leadership, and that brings you passion. What kind of prompted that decision to change your role at the firm?
Bill Umansky:
Yeah, like, I think, everyone else. I mean, at some point you want to pass on the torch. I wanted to help people, and that's what prevented me from stepping away. That was the first thing that prevented me from stepping away, was the actual one-on-one personal relationship with your clients. And the second thing that caused me, honestly, was my ego. And feeling like I was a very, very good lawyer. At some point when I was younger, I thought I was a great lawyer. Both of those things I look back on, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I was good, but I watched some of the younger lawyers I have now, and some of the older lawyers and I'm like, "No, I wasn't as good as them." So I think ego was really important, and setting aside the ego, and for me, just moving on and getting into a business mindset.
And by the way, not very good at it, Chris. It was last year was the first time I hired a CFO after being in practice for 28, 29, I don't know how many years since 1995. And I finally am now working with numbers, and realizing I still don't have to take away my joy from the practice. My CFO gives me some extra money to do silly stuff with my employees, and my teammates, but I'm under control now. And I wish I had done that 10 years ago. But that's the reason why I stepped away.
Chris Dreyer:
So, I just went through that same thing, Bill. And I'll be honest in that. I'd be curious to hear what triggered that too on the CFO is, I'd always, you hear the bad nicknames, the bean counters and things like that. You feel like you want to just spend your money and not have the bean counter. But then I was like, "Oh, I had this cloud over my eyes that I wasn't even able to see certain things to make decisions." So, talk to me about that, working with the CFO on the legal side.
Bill Umansky:
Yeah. I don't give shout-outs to anyone either, unless I've been with them for about a year. But I'm going to shout this guy out, his name is Moshe with Profit First. He's been life-changing for me, not necessarily because I've hit the targets. We are making moves towards hitting the targets, and I'm certainly getting a higher profit margin. But what he's done for our law firm and for me specifically, he's made me realize that, while I hate numbers, it doesn't have to be painful. If you picked up the right CFO who's good for your personality, they understand you, they know what you want, and they can still restrain you, right? But they're going to deliver it in a message that you can understand and appreciate. And I think that's what for me has changed dramatically. It's I'm not afraid of numbers anymore, because the way he delivers it to me. And when you actually see what they can do with the numbers and where they put it in different buckets and how you actually get paid.
For example, I get bonus, but I also have a side pot. And he moves the money around in different places that it's good, I have a little bit of free money now, but I also can take care of people on, what you know, as KPIs, all this stuff that I really didn't do. And a lot of your listeners are sophisticated, so they already do all the KPI stuff. But if you're a free spirit, you love just giving people money. Just, "Oh, you did a great job, John, Mary, here's some money." But then there's a back side to that. And the back side is, what if John's listening, or Mary, or Tom, what are they not getting? Or maybe it's their reflection, maybe you didn't give me enough, or it's not tied to a specific metric. And so yeah, it's been life-changing.
Chris Dreyer:
The other hat you've been wearing is, I've seen you doing a lot more the rainmaking, networking, right? You just talked about the Mastermind, you've got The Lawman's Lounge. Unbelievable podcast. I was fortunate to be a guest on your show. You hit me with some curveballs on the how to play a poker hand.
Bill Umansky:
You're a brilliant guy, though, dude. You're way smarter than I am, so.
Chris Dreyer:
Thank you.
Bill Umansky:
Hope you are. There you are.
Chris Dreyer:
No, no. I really enjoy, it's super conversational. I love the John Morgan episode you did with him. John, he's got no filter, and he says some crazy shit, and it makes it fun. But talk to me about that rainmaking side. You're doing the Mastermind, you're doing the podcast, and those benefits.
Bill Umansky:
Yeah. So rainmaking is interesting, right? Again, I came to it, I'll be very blunt with you, I have a company now that's really good, but I didn't spend the time I should have spent on digital for PI. I had two separate websites, lawman.net, lawman.com. I let one go. Big mistake. And so now I'm in a market in Orlando, which is very difficult. There's outlying pockets, GMB strategy, all that stuff. But it's not the same. Rainmaking is exhausting. So, our practice is bifurcated. And I get to play in both areas, where criminal, heavy advertising, heavy digital. There is a mix of lawyers that refer us business, which I love, that's the best. And former clients, we've got to hit all three of those verticals. But with PI, it's always been non paid, non-digital. Yeah, I got some stuff, I have some pages on my site. They don't really work. In fact, as you know, tracking it can be difficult.
So, if someone calls you up from a 407-228-3838 number says, "Oh, I got you from the lawman because your staff, they're trained, they're not lazy that day," and you're like, "Didn't get them to the website." It's like, you know, my page doesn't rank. No one's coming in from there. So, I can tell you that rainmaking is exhausting. The parties, the events, the community service, it gets tiring. And so I hired a business developer to not offload that, but to be a mini me. And believe it or not, I thought that was another thing, your ego, is the name of the firm of Umansky, of course I wanted to rebrand. Now, I hated my name, awkward name, stupid name, can't even say it. Now I'm like, "Hey, it's my name. And I like it. It's actually strong." And so I hired a business developer to be a mini me.
And what I realized is that too can be delegated. That person could go out under your name and build on the relationships you've already done, or open the door as a marketer, can open the doors for that business developer to walk in. So, I may just hire more business developers at some point. Just go out and be me, and be out there, if that makes sense. But it's exhausting. And one regret I had is that I wish I'd done more digital stuff back in the day, and built it when the timing is right. There's very few lawyers in a very competitive market other than GMB strategies. It takes a lot of money, a lot of investment, right, Chris? And I'm at that age where I'm not like, "Okay, I'm ready to go invest three, 400, $500,000. I just don't want to do it at this point." So, I think I'm digressing, but essentially, rainmaking is incredibly difficult. It's hard. I love it though.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say. I mean, it's a ton of work. I mean, we both know. I mean, you run a podcast, your first 50 to 100 episodes, I mean, there's not very many listeners. But something happens once you just stick with it and it starts to gain some legs. Kind of narrowing in on that business developed role, which is different, I normally don't hear, I hear people invested in social, or Google Ads, or SEO, or TV. What's their goal? Is it to get you on podcasts? Is it to build referral relationships? What do they do?
Bill Umansky:
It's funny. So, here's the thing about podcasts. I don't ask for business. I'm friends with the sheriff, I'm friends with the mayor, I'm friends with politicians. I am, just naturally. And I'd say really good friends with some of them. And I would never ask them for business. This is different from having a marketer who's going to doctor's offices and trying to get cases. This is someone who's not just trying to get cases, but developing relationships. And for the midsize firms that you are with, to even larger firms that have it, some don't have it, even if they're digitally successful, I think you should have it, this is the key. It makes the ask, so I don't have to make the ask, I don't have to make the connection.
And I'll give you a little story. I have a foundation, and I do personal [inaudible 00:09:51]. So I won't mention the politician's name, but we set up a meeting, meeting with me, in a big, huge conference room. And I said, listen to politicians, "How come I never get cases? I don't get it." He's like, "Bill, you never asked." I'm like, "Yeah, but we're the friends. I go to your house. I socialize with you. We have private conversations." "You never asked. I thought you didn't need it."
And I realized, again, my ego back then was at the point, not that I thought I was that great, I thought I was that great of a friend. Of course, you'd normally think about me. Why would you think? But the reality is that is a lot of other people asking for business never did that. So the business developer laughed and said, "Well, I'm here. So who do I need to ask?" He's like, "My right-hand assistant, that's who you need to ask." So we're now developing trainings now with this politician for, I don't want to give it away, but we're doing trainings, and I'll just say it, we're doing trainings for law enforcement. We're doing trainings, a lot more stuff that we got going on as a result of the ask. So, this is developers not about getting you on podcasts also, by the way, or just developing relationships or referrals, but it's asking for the business, asking for what.
Of course, they start off saying, "What can I do for you?" But there's an ask part of it. And I just hated all that, Chris. I just didn't like it. So, I'd say that's even, and what's great is we have a marketer that opens the door. She goes in, and smiles, and makes connections, and then the calls come in, the business developer handles it, has lunch with me sometimes without me, and when she makes the ask, it's been great. So we do masterminds, we do law lunches, we do lunches with The Lawman. And before, we were doing a mastermind once every year. We're supposed to be once a quarter, we're supposed to do these lunches, mass lunches with lawyers, give them some coaching advice. Again, once a year. Now we're doing it every quarter. It's got to keep doing it to gain traction, traction, traction, traction. Like the book, right? Just gain traction.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I think that's incredible, and I didn't even ask that component. I think it's so interesting.
Bill Umansky:
Yeah. For your business, do you have one?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. Even for me, I'll tell you, Bill, I'll be honest, on me, even my conference, you didn't see me sell from stage. I did not ask. And it's like, but I did have the salespeople there that could in the crowd. And the other thing too, I heard this, Hormozi was talking about this, the author of $100M Offers, whatever, I think most people know Hormozi, that a lot of people do organic social and they're posting their day-to-day stuff. And he said, "Well, you need to run social ads because that's the ask. You build this community, but then you run the ads for the ask." And I was like, "Oh, that's a different framing, because other people are like, you need to do a call to action in every post," and I'm like, "Well, do you? Is that a turn-off?"
Bill Umansky:
Wow. You know what's funny? That's just so in my head up again, I've heard that before, because I used to do the social media and then the ask, they just never worked. The agencies just weren't really good at it, it cost a lot of money. I think it is really, really important because not only if they respond to the social media ask, at least the people that are following their page are knowing that that's the work that you do. So you might even be able to do it cheaper for some of your listeners, just because it informs more branding, but it is the ask. And I always struggle with that because I don't tell people, "Hey, here's a check, here's a check, here's a check." And that's a mistake probably, if I'm not running ads, maybe for the asked to get business in, but even more likely if it doesn't work, so that at least my followers are like, "Man, he does PIs asking for PI cases." Really, really important.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. I think that could be an interesting mix for a lot of lawyers. I think they're doing the same, right? They're doing great content, they're giving value, they're answering questions, but it's a little taboo in the legal space really. It's not a lot our people are doing it. So last time we spoke, you emphasized supporting departing employees, and how they can be an asset to your firm. And I was just wondering, that's a little bit different. It's like a lot of times you may have a relationship, but it's kind of like, there's this, you feel guilty, or you feel whatever. Can you walk us through a specific success story of maintaining a relationship with a former employee?
Bill Umansky:
I think the toughest thing is not just your guilt. That's actually putting it on us. I think the toughest thing is actually their lack of accountability at the time where you're separating ways, if you are the one separating them. I'll tell you stories right now. My new trainer was someone who used to be my executive assistant. Out of respect, I'll just be separated. My new dance instructor from my wife's and I was a legal assistant who left us. My nonprofit board is all four or five ex-employees. One was my director of operations, one was my firm administrator, former firm administrator. One was my former executive assistant. I just gave awards out to two lawyers. They asked me to give speeches for them at a professionalism thing. They're not working with me anymore. But I feel like the series is like build a bridge, don't burn it. How to build that bridge with people that leave, and that doesn't start when they leave. It starts from the very, very, very beginning.
And you can't do with everyone, and they're going to be employees... I just had lunch with the salesperson that left us. It was a very emotional lunch. We got deep. But that didn't start at that lunch. Because you know what, dude? A lot of people will not be honest with your people that are doing the HR, or doing the firm exit interviews. A lot of it's bullshit. They're just going to tell you something, because they don't want to, in their mind, burn a bridge. Or they're like, "You know what? I don't give a fuck about this company, so I ain't giving them anything of value." Why do they do that? Because you didn't give them anything of value in their minds, or their perception.
So it starts from when you hire them, how you treat them when you hire them, how you treat them as they go along. And I'm a big, big proponent now of, yeah, one of our cultures is accountability. Right seat, right person. They're not in the right seat, move them to another seat. Can't move them to a seat? You got to move them out. But some people also just need a lead. They're leaving, they want to be their own entrepreneur. Some of the worst for you, one day is going to open up a competitive SEO company just because they want to. But the reality is, think about this: if you've treated them a certain way during that course of time, even supported them as they move out, that could be a guy that buy, or a woman that buys your company out, or you could buy their company out when they're frustrated and can't deal with it. And it's not just for business, it's about relationships.
And to me, I think I answered this question before about moving on from being a lawyer was, the relationships matter, and they got to start when they're coming in, you're wearing a shirt, you're meeting with them, you're doing check ins with them. As the owner of a business, and I would highly suggest this to you, I don't know how many employees you have, check in. Not just with your leaders, check in with people that you have your leaders talk to you and tell you who's a superstar. And check in from the superstar that used to be, right? We don't have mail rooms anymore. But whatever that lowest position is, check in with them. Go to lunch with them, or have a second lunch, or a fourth lunch in the day, and do it. And don't make it ritual, so it's expected. And tell them before you meet with them, "Listen, I just want to meet you and get to know you. This is not about your job. I just want to understand who you are."
If you put in those efforts, then when the time comes to separate, whether they leave or whether you have to separate them, terminate them, you'll have more of a foundation, because when that conversation comes up about accountability, no one wants to be told. I didn't want to be told, especially at 25 or 28, I lost a lot of jobs, Chris, because of my ego back then. And no one wants to be told that you're not good enough, or you're not the right person. Even if you have traction, EOS, or all these other operating systems. So I don't know if that makes sense, but it starts from the very beginning of how you hire them, how you communicate with them, how you value them. And it means listening to them, understanding their personal life. I want to know their lives. It's just hard, but I try to remember what they're interested in, and refresh myself before I have a serious conversation.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's phenomenal advice. I'll be honest, I struggle with that a little bit. I need to be more intentional. And I think I do, if the leaders are listening, I think I do that. But I think you got A+ superstar SEO specialist and other roles marketing, I could definitely do a better job. We have a remote company, so it's kind of challenging to have those lunches and things like that. But there's still ways to do it.
Bill Umansky:
Yes, yes. So we have three VAs in Venezuela, or Six VAs, I don't even know how many now. I set a time, they're not just, they're legal assistance. And I asked them about who they are, what they are, what their interests are. And we put it on our bonus thing. So one of them likes to spa in the Philippines, spa treatment all day here is 700 to $1000. There, it's $100 dollars. And that's the nicest spa, because you get a massage there for like 20 bucks. Give them a $100 and they'll do whatever. And so you got to listen to them and understand, and also ask them about their future. It is all intentional. I can't stress that to you enough.
And it's not just your superstars either, because people are watching you as you're meeting other people. If you're kind to them during the time, they'll have a more of an understanding when it's time to part ways. And when they decide to part ways on their own, hopefully they'll respect you and care about you. So, I would say to you and all your listeners, it takes effort, but as a CEO of your company, and books have been written about this, but I don't remember which book, and don't really care. It's just natural. But I have to make it a rock every quarter, I have to make a rock how many people I'm going to meet. And I used to do it with outside people. And by the way, who's the biggest promoter of your business? Is your people. That's how intentional you got to be. And you got to get in and make sure that you're there and present with everyone.
Chris Dreyer:
Bill challenges what we typically think drives law firm success. Sure, revenue and market share matter, but as we've heard today, there's something more fundamental at play. Bill showed us that when you prioritize real connections with your team, whether they're with you for a year or a decade, you build something that goes way beyond traditional metrics. I'm Chris Dreyer, and this is Personal Injury Mastermind. If you got value from today's conversation, share with another phone owner who might need to hear it. And remember, sometimes the best investment you can make is in the people setting right outside your office. Catch you next time. I'm out.
