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JANUARY 2026
MEMBER BULLETIN
A LITTLE WORD TO THE WISE Loose Language Is Quietly Robbing Your Firm Jan. 9 is the official Word Nerd Day. As lawyers, it should be obvious to us that words matter, but it’s surprising how often casual misuse and/or using casual words in business cascades into all kinds of problemtunities*.
Let’s unpack this one at a time.
First, the casual misuse of words. This happens all the time, where people misuse words and create confusion. For example, a lawyer instructs an assistant to “file this.” The lawyer means with a court clerk, but the pleading winds up in the client’s file. I can’t make this stuff up. When I was a small law firm management advisor with the Florida Bar’s Law Office Management Assistance Service (LOMAS), the disciplinary committee called upon me to conduct an on-site investigation into the operating systems of a law firm where this really happened. All over your law firm, I bet there are problemtunities like this — maybe not so extreme, but problems nonetheless — that may be costing you money, causing headaches, frustrating you, and wasting your time. However, these are also potentially profitable opportunities that cost nothing but some time, attention, and your commitment to improving your business, allowing you to implement improvements.
The great news? You don’t have to do it alone. Ask your firm’s COO to help you. Don’t have a COO yet? Talk to your CEO and ask if one of our COOs can take you on a 90-day 100% money-back “test drive.”
Second of all, the use of casual words. This issue is most prevalent in marketing, particularly in sales, and can easily cost the unwary law firm owner as much as half their profits. Think I’m exaggerating? Let’s do the math so you take this seriously.
Let’s say your law firm is being “pretty well managed” and therefore produces Total Owner Benefits (TOB) of about 25% of gross revenue. This means that on gross revenue of, let’s say $1 million (to make the math easy), the firm will incur the cost of goods sold (COGS), and the overhead (static and dynamic) of $750,000, and TOB of $250,000.
If your use of casual words in marketing, especially intake and sales, squanders even just 10% of your gross, that will reduce your $1 million to just $900,000 gross, but it probably won’t reduce most of your COGS or overhead.
So, where do you think that $100,000 came from? That’s right, straight out of your pocket!
If you aren’t already signed up, grab a spot in a sales training workshop during an upcoming Workshopalooza.
As a reminder, we always appreciate your referrals. Please ask anyone you care about to go here to learn more.
Special note to all of our new members: I get it. Your first few months working with us can feel like drinking from a fire hose. Don’t try to do everything. But one thing you should definitely do is take advantage of some of the amazing workshops you have unlimited access to at Workshopalooza because you are part of this community. Not sure which workshop will “move the needle” for you most? Check out all the workshops coming up at the next Palooza and ask your firm’s C-suite “based on what you know about my business today, which of these workshops do you think would help me most right now?” Or ask your fellow members, “this is where my law firm is today (financially, personally, and professionally): which workshop. do you most wish you had taken back when your law firm was where mine is now?”
*Finally, the word “problemtunity.” Credit goes to longtime member Carrie Schultz (MensRightsDivorceLaw.com) for coining this phrase after hearing me talk about the fact that every opportunity comes “gift-wrapped” inside a problem, and every problem hides an opportunity.
–RJon
MEMBERS PAYING IT FORWARD
DREAM BIGGER Meet Pietro Canestrelli I started my career as a circus performer (yes, really) before deciding to go to law school. I spent six years as an IRS attorney. I thought I’d love it. I didn’t.
What I learned is that I need to help people, not institutions, to feel fulfilled in my work. So, I left. I worked for other firms for a while, had a great mentor, and then — after he passed away around the age I am now — I finally had the courage to go out on my own. At the time, I thought being a solo practitioner was the best approach, because hiring people is difficult. How would I manage them? How could I make sure they earned a living? I didn’t want my firm to get bigger. I felt that if I could just make $100,000 a year, that would be success.
But work kept coming.
By the end of my second year, there was too much work for one person. My wife, Kristen, came on board “temporarily” to help with admin and marketing. She replaced her salary almost immediately, and we got comfortable again.
Then COVID-19 hit.
It’s funny; we were living what we thought was the middle-class dream, but realized overnight it could disappear in a moment. We had no cushion. We had no capacity to pivot if something went wrong, and that got us thinking.
Around that time, we kept hearing about HTM, but we resisted. Honestly, it sounded like a lot of work. But what finally pushed us over the edge was the numbers.
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JANUARY 2026 MEMBER BULLETIN
HTM showed us how doubling our revenue in about 16 months was possible if we went all in. As a tax guy, that got my attention. Numbers don’t lie the way people can.
When we joined, they asked about our five-year goal. We said $1 million. We thought that was ambitious, coming from a firm doing $185K, but looking back, I realize we were dreaming way too small!
We went from $185K to $2 million in two years. And we did it while doing everything wrong: bad hires, ignoring metrics, hiring a marketing vendor, and then completely ignoring the data for six months, etc. But we did enough right to keep growing.
Today, five years later, we’re on track to do about $5 million.
And if I could go back and talk to my former self, I would tell him to aim for $10 million. I would tell him he just has to make a plan and invest in his mindset along the way.
And if you’re thinking you’re too old, I’m almost 60. And the best part of getting older is the knowledge that the skill stack you’ve built can never be taken away. If everything burned down tomorrow, we could rebuild it better than ever within a year.
I’m a better version of myself than I was five years ago, and I’m still just getting started.
If you’re new here, my advice is to dream bigger. Aim higher than $1 million! You’ve got it in you. And you’ll grow much faster and think so much differently if you embrace that mindset.
-Pietro Canestrelli, The Law Office of Pietro Canestrelli
90-DAY LOOK BACK
Jeanette Mora, Estate & Elder Law Counsel, P.A. My name is Jeanette Mora, and I’m a board-certified elder law attorney at Estate & Elder Law Counsel, P.A. My firm helps families achieve peace of mind and confidence for the future through highly personalized estate planning.
I had my first experience with HTM when I attended the July 2025 LQM as a guest and decided to join on the spot. I had just opened my firm, so my gross revenue was literally $0. I was just starting out.
Now, my firm is officially more than five months old, and in just 90 days with HTM, my total revenues exceeded $130,000. I never thought this would happen.
Today, I know what I can afford, and I am beginning to develop more effective processes and procedures. I’m so excited and delighted to get organized and get my butt kicked (probably) by my new fractional CEO. I’m thrilled to embark on this journey.
HTM changed my mindset because when I opened my firm, I was ruled by the fear of failure, and thoughts of “Can I do this?”
But now, I’m excited to continue growing with everyone.
JANUARY 2026 MEMBER BULLETIN
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RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
Secret Shop Your Firm (Yes, Really) One of the most valuable pieces of advice I can share is this: there is tremendous value in “spying” on yourself.
So often, firms come to us saying, “We’re not getting the results we want.” And the assumption is almost always that their marketing is broken. But very often, marketing isn’t the biggest problem.
What’s usually happening is you’re getting leads, and they’re leaking out of your intake system. Sometimes in multiple areas. Secret shopping allows you to identify the actual breakdown and provides clarity on how to rectify it.
But a warning from experience: It can be tough to swallow the truth. If you secret shop your firm, you’re almost always going to find something that needs to change. That might require uncomfortable conversations and/or a change in your processes and/or taking personal responsibility.
After all, if you never look, you never have to act. I want to be clear: This is not about “catching” your team. You’re trying to answer one question: “What is it actually like to try to hire my firm?”
That means looking at everything, not just one piece. 1. How someone finds you 2. What your website communicates 3. How the phone is answered
4. What information is taken 5. Whether anyone follows up 6. How objections are handled
7. Whether legal advice is being given when it shouldn’t be 8. Etc.
When we secret shop, we’re looking soup-to-nuts: marketing, intake, reception, consultation, etc. The full experience. Here’s how to get started:
Choose the right person. You want someone you can trust to be straight with you. And ideally, someone your team doesn’t recognize.
Don’t let them improvise! They have to have a believable story that includes a real problem and an outcome they’re looking for. You should define objections ahead of time, especially those that are challenging or emotional, so you can see how your team responds under pressure. The goal is to keep it as realistic as possible. If it doesn’t feel real, the data won’t be useful. Don’t overdo it. If you only get a few calls a week, sending five mystery shoppers in a row will be obvious. Don’t do that. Pick a cadence that will seem natural to your team.
“But we listen to call recordings … ”
That’s fine. You should. But no recording can help you know how the call felt, or how many rings it took to get someone on the line. And it can’t experience the silence after you submit a form. You can’t feel whether the interaction aligned with your brand promise. Secret shopping fills that gap.
On average, we can usually identify $50,000–$60,000 a month in missed opportunity just by shining a light on what’s already happening. Once, I even found a firm missing $300,000 a month.
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JANUARY 2026 MEMBER BULLETIN
Secret shopping is not optional if you want better conversions. And you can’t do it once and think you’re done. You should be scheduling this at least once a quarter.
If you need help, download the how-to guide in the resource library! Or just scan the QR code at the top of the article. To more data and better conversions in the new year!
-Jennifer Dudley, Practice Management Advisor
WHAT’S NEW WITH ME AND MINE
WHAT’S NEW WITH ME AND MY OWN A Wedding in Italy A huge congratulations to Danny Ferro in our finance team for his recent wedding in Italy!
Not only did Danny marry the love of his life in the most beautiful setting (I mean, look at that view!), he took a full three weeks off work to really enjoy it.
I am also so proud of Danny for taking that time off. For a lot of people, it may not have seemed like such a big deal. But those who know Danny know that he used to have a real mental block around taking a vacation at all.
He would say that vacations never felt restful because he’d only “come back to more work.” Or else he’d end up on his phone checking emails anyway.
But taking time off with Emergency-Access-Only is something he really wanted to try this time around, so he made the decision to make it happen.
He knew he couldn’t just wave a magic wand and disappear for three weeks, so he took the time in advance to delegate and train his team, and to write down his definition of the word “emergency” so we would know when to reach out to him, just in case. (And so he’d know that unless we did reach out, he didn’t need to worry about us.)
And then he spent three unforgettable weeks in Italy, completely unplugged. He even came back and said he’s officially ready to live in Tuscany forever. (Hah!) So, a big congrats, again, to Danny for ending 2025 with a bang. And here’s to more restful vacations from here on out! (Which reminds me: Where are you going while you’re on vacation with emergency-access-only this year? ;))
JANUARY 2026 MEMBER BULLETIN
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INSIDE 1. Finding the Problemtunities in Your Practice 2. What if You’re Built for More? 3. Turning Fear Into Action 4. Before You Fix Your Marketing, Spy on Yourself 5. Danny’s Exciting Time Off 6. Calendar of Events
CALENDAR OF EVENTS Every Sunday: New Episodes of “The Exponential Entrepreneur” podcast Every Monday: New Episodes of RJon Robins: “From The Vault” podcast
Every Wednesday: Momentum Calls (Zoom) 1/16 – 1/18: Live Quarterly Meeting (San Diego) 2/11 – 2/13: Iron Sharpens Iron – Oscar’s Group 2/26 – 2/27: Workshopalooza (Chicago, IL) • How to Interview • How to Find Your Dragon • How to Create A+ Clients • Advanced Business Plan Workshop • Stop the B.S.: Learn to Coach Them UP or OUT • Automatic Referral Machine
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