Culture Is a Strategic System for Law Firm Growth with Colleen Joyce

Karin Conroy (00:01.25)
Before we jump in, if building authority and visibility is a priority for you, we run something called the Authority Tour, where we help law firms position their expertise strategically across the right platforms. You can learn more at conroycreativecouncil.com slash authority dash tour. So welcome to Council Cast. Today we are continuing our Q1 series on strategy and systems, and we’re looking at culture.

not as this sort of soft concept that self-help books are written about, but as a strategic system that ties into your marketing, which may sound strange, but we’ll get into that. And it ties into your law firm growth. So my guest is Colleen Joyce, who helps leadership teams build businesses where culture, performance and growth reinforce each other. Colleen, most law firm leaders say that culture matters, but they don’t treat it as strategic.

So first of all, thank you for being here. And I had this question and whatever, and I felt like I just totally skipped over like, know, welcoming being nice here. But let’s talk about culture. Why is it tied to revenue and why does this matter in terms of not just these soft skills?

Colleen Joyce (00:59.555)
Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (01:17.537)
Yeah, sure, absolutely. If you have a happy team that is all together, right? They’ve got skin in the game, they know what’s happening. You know what’s gonna happen? Your revenue is gonna grow, right? Because they believe, first of all, they understand the mission, they believe in the mission, and they’re ready to fight for the mission. And that’s truly what you want. I think that very often, and not maybe so much so now, but five, 10 years ago, law firms didn’t…

Karin Conroy (01:28.653)
Right. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (01:45.559)
believe in that culture, right? They looked at the tech companies like, that’s just, that’s a Google thing. Right now, that’s all over. If you don’t have a culture, if you don’t have core values, you don’t have a place.

Karin Conroy (01:50.807)
Right.

Karin Conroy (01:58.092)
Right. Yeah. A hundred percent. So let’s, I didn’t really in the intro talk much about you. I just kind of said culture and whatever, but talk about, cause I know you have this history of building all these different companies and talk a little bit about what that’s been like and where you’ve seen mistakes and failures when it comes to culture and team building.

Colleen Joyce (02:06.134)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (02:10.519)
Yep.

Colleen Joyce (02:18.549)
Yeah, and I’ll admit it, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, right? And we encourage that. Fail once, don’t fail twice, and learn from it. I think one of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made in culture is that I went in one day and I was like, this is our culture. And I looked around, I’m like, why isn’t anyone doing what I’m saying? Like, I said this is our culture, like what’s going on? Very quickly I realized that doesn’t, it doesn’t work like that, right? You need to sit down with your leadership team.

Karin Conroy (02:22.776)
Yeah.

Of course.

Karin Conroy (02:38.051)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (02:48.331)
and all agree on what is it that we’re trying to do here? Yes, we’re trying to make money, right? Yes, we’re trying to build a business. Yes, we’re trying to build a brand. But you know what? At the end of the day, we’re also housing, growing, mentoring hundreds of people. How are we gonna do that in a unified manner? And I think that’s really at the end of the day, what culture is. And it’s definitely a new thing, right? Like 10 years ago,

culture didn’t play a role in strategy. Now it’s one of the key players. If you look at like the EOS system, first and foremost, what are your core values? And that all plays into culture.

Karin Conroy (03:18.861)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:26.924)
Yeah. Yeah, I think it, as you’re describing it, it sounds very much like when we set up in our initial strategy meeting with our clients and we’re talking about strategy and we start asking these questions and I can almost every time see their faces like, what are you asking me and why, and why? You know, why are you asking me these sort of soft kind of weird marshmallow-y questions?

Colleen Joyce (03:35.426)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (03:47.447)
Wait, yeah.

Colleen Joyce (03:52.653)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (03:56.48)
that they kind of make me cringe a little bit. But this is what is the differentiating factor in figuring out how you are successful, how you’ve brought your success to this point, and then how you’re going to take that success to the next point. And the difference that I see all the time in firms that are struggling and first come to me and they think that they need a new website,

Colleen Joyce (04:19.981)
Mm-hmm.

Colleen Joyce (04:23.586)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (04:24.666)
and these firms that are actually thriving is a combination of strategy, which is based in culture, right? I think they go hand in hand. Okay, so tell me about how you… Actually, before I was gonna get into the how part, let’s talk more about how you define it and where you start with it.

Colleen Joyce (04:31.287)
Yeah, 100%.

Colleen Joyce (04:41.708)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (04:48.481)
Yeah, and that’s, think, the hardest part. And I agree with you on the fuzzy marshmallow part, and you kind of just have to get over that. You do. Because it does help, right? There are hundreds of millions of companies that use culture as a strategy. So just dive in. I think it starts with sitting around a whiteboard and saying, why are we here? What gets you out of bed every morning into this office, right? OK, well.

Karin Conroy (04:56.386)
Yeah. Right.

Colleen Joyce (05:17.247)
I’m similar to that pillar as well. And then you go the next step, which is how does that help you serve your clients? How do those values then make the clients happy? And then what’s your goal? Why are we here? We are a for-profit company like a lot of other companies out there. Your goal is to drive revenue, to drive growth. Okay, well, you have to use that.

Karin Conroy (05:27.18)
Yes, yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:39.917)
Right, yeah.

Colleen Joyce (05:46.273)
So you gotta understand what’s driving you, what’s driving your clients, and how do you use that to drive revenue? And I think that’s very important.

Karin Conroy (05:53.23)
Yeah. So give me some examples of what that sounds like in terms of when we get into the strategy, we pretty quickly talk about like, what do you do differently and how do you kind of implement that in a way that keeps these clients happy? But how does that translate into the culture part? Like, give me some examples of what that sounds like when you’re in front of that whiteboard and you’re saying, why are we here? Like, you I know I can hear some people’s minds saying to make money, like you already said, and it’s like, no, no, no. Okay. How do we dig deeper into that?

Colleen Joyce (06:13.196)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (06:20.087)
Right, yeah, of course. So, okay, one of our core values is help, and I’ll walk you through what that looks like. We help consumers find lawyers. We talk to thousands of consumers every day that are looking for a lawyer. I personally come to the table with the mentality of I always wanna help people. Kill them with kindness, that’s how I always feel. That’s the world I choose to live in, right? I choose to help.

Karin Conroy (06:30.241)
Okay.

Colleen Joyce (06:49.279)
then that allows and enables us to help the consumer. The consumers are calling us on their worst day saying, hey, I need a lawyer. And what we can provide them is help. That help then turns into matching them with a lawyer, which then drives revenue. So it’s a nice trajectory of kind of that one core value working from start all the way to a revenue growth funnel.

Karin Conroy (06:55.875)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (07:14.584)
So how does, cause I’m picturing there’s a step in there that I feel like is more complicated than the sort of couple seconds that you gave it, but the help part matching them with that lawyer. on your company is law.com, lawyer.com and the help part in matching, it’s not just like, here’s a list of lawyers. How do you kind of take the piece of we really want to help you and find the right person, not just a lawyer, but the right one.

Colleen Joyce (07:24.119)
Yep. Yep.

Colleen Joyce (07:32.311)
Yep. Yep. No.

Colleen Joyce (07:42.072)
Yeah, no, and that really is different for everybody. So you come to us, for example, you need a DUI lawyer, right? So first of all, we have talked to thousands, hundreds of thousands of consumers who have had DUIs, right? So right off the gate, you’re talking to somebody who can help you, not give you legal advice, because that’s not our role. We’re here to just help. We then say, OK, you are in, you know,

Karin Conroy (07:47.757)
Right.

Karin Conroy (07:58.924)
Yeah. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (08:10.817)
Bismarck, you need a criminal attorney. What we do is we send it out to our network and we say, hey, listen, any attorneys in the Bismarck area, we have our secret sauce there, John Smith needs a DUI lawyer and we try to match it. Now the challenge is when you sit through and you call lawyer after lawyer after lawyer, it’s hard to get a match. Listen, it’s hard to get a date, right? Just imagine trying to do that with a law firm. You have to like.

Karin Conroy (08:34.568)
Right, exactly. Right.

Colleen Joyce (08:39.597)
who answers the phone. The lawyer has to like your case. You have to like the lawyer. The lawyer has, you guys both have to agree on price. That’s four huge blockades right out the gate that makes it hard. 100%. If I call in to someplace and I don’t like somebody’s tone, I’m like click.

Karin Conroy (08:43.222)
Right. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:51.36)
Yeah. Any one of which could be a total deal breaker. Yeah.

Yep. Bye. Yep. Exactly. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (09:03.117)
So I think that I make it seem easy by saying the help part, but there is a lot of magic that goes behind it, which makes, you know, that’s why we’ve been in business for 14 years, right? We can help make that connection.

Karin Conroy (09:08.599)
Right.

Karin Conroy (09:14.262)
Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And that’s why I kind of dug into that. Cause I feel like that one little piece of it is such a major part of this strategy. And obviously the strategy for your company is going to be totally different for every law firm and every approach, but to sit down and think about how that ties, first of all, that was your culture. That was this sort of feeling and the approach that you start with. And it’s really different from strategy because the culture

Colleen Joyce (09:45.837)
Of

Karin Conroy (09:47.154)
like we said earlier, they go hand in hand. But what other components are there of this sort of culture when you’re sitting before that whiteboard? So you talked about like if you guys were back in your day one and you’re talking about, okay, we’re here to help. What other components are there that you say, okay, this is something that we want to pull forward and kind of say to everyone who works here and everyone who works here also agrees on it. How do you get to that point?

Colleen Joyce (10:00.259)
Yep.

Colleen Joyce (10:14.187)
Yeah, well, that’s also the challenge. think now with AI, it’s got to be so much easier because you could deep research the hell out of your competition and be like, OK, what is the culture of these and why? Right. Because I do think with culture, it does take time. Yes, we have core values, right? The core values are really the foundation of what your culture becomes. But you can’t just walk into the room and say, this is what our culture is. You have to lead by example.

Karin Conroy (10:21.772)
Yes.

Colleen Joyce (10:43.671)
Right? So if we hire five people, they need to see that I’m helping, right? They need to see, like they have to physically see that. And I may be wrong on this, but I strongly feel that if you lead by example and have strong values, that’s what’s gonna drive your culture.

Karin Conroy (10:50.232)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:04.054)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I’ve, know we probably have both worked at places where they say a thing and then they do a totally different thing. And meanwhile, when, you know, the people are out to lunch together, they’re all sitting there talking about that and they’re like, haha, it’s just such a joke. And right.

Colleen Joyce (11:09.707)
Yeah, of course.

Colleen Joyce (11:18.283)
And that’s been me, believe me. I’ve been the fodder for lunch conversations because I didn’t know, you know, I just, I’m learning on the fly kind of thing. And it was like, here, she’s telling us what to do kind of thing. But you learn through your failures, right? Like, wait, that’s why it didn’t work. That’s why I have to actually lead by example. But I think that if, like you said, if you go out and just say, do this, it’s never gonna work.

Karin Conroy (11:22.999)
You’re right.

Karin Conroy (11:27.479)
Right, yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:46.892)
Right. Okay. So how do we build this in as part of this infrastructure? And this is not just like vibes. We’re not just talking about like, let’s all get together and hug on a Tuesday morning and maybe, you know, meditate or something like that. Listen, I’m all about it. I’m not trying to like, you know, be negative about that, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We are talking about like a core part of your infrastructure that is a strategic difference. And obviously this show is about marketing. So,

Colleen Joyce (11:47.69)
ever.

Colleen Joyce (11:54.497)
No.

Colleen Joyce (12:04.097)
Yeah, now 100%.

No.

Karin Conroy (12:15.522)
We need to tie into how this ties into this bottom line, how this ties into how clients find you and care about your company. So how do you do all of that?

Colleen Joyce (12:25.047)
Yeah, so I think that you get the buy-in from the team, right? Once you’ve had your culture established, the team’s drinking the Kool-Aid, right? You’re passing it around, everybody’s happy. You’ve got those, you got everything moving. Then it says, okay, well, how does this tie into our marketing? For us, it’s very easy because number two is we like to have fun. Like we grind like no other, but we also like to have fun. So.

We come from a world where the legal marketing could be a little stuffy. I didn’t say that, you know, AI leave, right? No, but it’s true. Right. And, especially when we first started. So we have the ability to use our culture to drive our message. So when we send emails or we have webinars or we have events, nobody else is really doing that because it’s a little bit loud. Right.

Karin Conroy (12:58.188)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Karin Conroy (13:20.534)
Yeah, right.

Colleen Joyce (13:21.301)
It’s a little bit too fun. It’s a little bit on that gray area. just today, the president’s day on Monday. So we’ve put in our newsletter, the first person who can call in and name all presidents starting at Washington to Trump wins a hundred bucks. And we open that to the whole community, because that’s the kind of stuff we do here. So I feel like that’s how we personally,

Karin Conroy (13:39.609)
Peace.

Colleen Joyce (13:48.535)
take our culture and then put it into our marketing.

Karin Conroy (13:52.374)
Right. And so then that is getting like from a marketing side, I hear that and I look at that and I’m like, that’s a great campaign. It’s going to get attention. People are going to get excited about it. And whoever is going to win that a hundred bucks is going to be like, they’re going to be thinking about your company for a while. Like they’re going to think, that was cool. And that was fun. And so that’s a nice little relatively inexpensive piece of marketing, but it also ties into your brand and the approach and all of that stuff. So I think that’s a great example.

Colleen Joyce (13:58.658)
Yeah. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (14:13.921)
A hundred bucks.

Colleen Joyce (14:20.225)
Yeah, and we do things like that all the time because it’s fun, right? Like just because we work in the legal industry doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun. And that’s how we do it through marketing.

Karin Conroy (14:22.996)
Yeah. Right.

Karin Conroy (14:34.262)
Right, well, I feel like this is a good tie into talking about how women-owned businesses are different, and especially women in the leadership position, because in the legal industry, there’s this tradition of these old white guys, and you see that, and I’ve seen that. I’ve had this agency for like 17 years, and I’ve seen the difference, thank you, in where it all started, these…

Colleen Joyce (14:41.411)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Colleen Joyce (14:57.057)
Amazing.

Karin Conroy (15:03.564)
traditional navy blue brands with, you know, it was just like 14 names in the header and it was all Times New Roman font. And they’re all the pictures are the guys mostly standing against a bunch of law books. And then every website and every kind of marketing is the same. And it’s really changed over all of these years. And I really attribute a lot of that to an increase in women in these law firms.

Colleen Joyce (15:07.01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (15:15.672)
Yep.

Colleen Joyce (15:24.791)
Yeah, it has.

Karin Conroy (15:32.024)
So talk about, because I feel like what you’re talking about, having this element of fun in your culture, you wouldn’t have seen that 20 years ago in a law firm. That would have felt not professional or, I don’t know, just not on brand. And they would never have used those words. But talk about how women kind of add this other element, and especially in your company, and how that makes such a difference.

Colleen Joyce (15:39.597)
Mm-mm. No.

Colleen Joyce (16:00.364)
Yeah, it’s interesting. Just a little side note on that. The stigma of what a law firm has to be in terms of marketing and social media has definitely changed. I’m a big fan of the husband and wife team out of Arizona. I don’t know if you follow them, but they, it’s brilliant, right? I love brilliant marketing. So every day in their scrum, the main attorney DJs and it’s after.

Karin Conroy (16:11.873)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:18.871)
Maybe.

Karin Conroy (16:27.414)
Nice!

Colleen Joyce (16:27.789)
Absolutely hysterical. But again, that’s a really great example of their culture, who they are. That’s really what we’re talking about. This is who I am. These are who I surround myself. And this is what we’re putting out there. Now, I think in terms of women in the workplace and how that’s changed, I think that they bring a different type of personality, a different type of flair, may we say, that may just be a little bit more fun. I don’t think

Karin Conroy (16:33.165)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:52.919)
Yeah. Yep.

Colleen Joyce (16:57.347)
It’s hard to say that the typical guy wouldn’t be on social media, because they are, right?

Karin Conroy (17:02.038)
Yeah, but they tend to be very hesitant about it. Most of my clients who look at it, yeah, and they’re like, how many disclaimers can I add to this post? Exactly.

Colleen Joyce (17:05.795)
actually illegal.

Colleen Joyce (17:11.435)
and it’s like, please just don’t post, right? You know, women are warmer, right? That’s just kind of what it is. I don’t know for good or for bad. It’s a really tough question to answer because…

Karin Conroy (17:21.442)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:25.036)
Right. Right. Because it sounds like you’re being sort of stereotypical. One thing I saw recently that I thought was a really good visual for me, because I think very visually, that men, male-owned companies, and this thing was talking more about the patriarchy versus the matriarchy. so I don’t want to go down that road. I want to keep it to male-owned companies versus female. that is, male-owned companies are more like a ladder.

Colleen Joyce (17:33.837)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (17:39.832)
Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:53.344)
And female-owned companies are more like a circle. So we’re kind of like gathering people together. We are thinking of the common good. It’s not just one, you know, I’m either above or below you. We are all ranked and it is on a number versus a circle where we’re all working together and it’s more communal and we all care about the outcome for all of us as opposed to, yeah, sorry.

Colleen Joyce (17:53.473)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (18:05.079)
Yeah, agreed.

Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (18:14.967)
And I do think that, you I’m a mom, right? So I get what flexibility means. when I have a woman who’s gonna have a baby, the first thing I say is, you know, obviously congratulations, but you don’t have to pick here. You don’t have to pick between being a happy worker bee or a mom. Like there is room for both.

Karin Conroy (18:18.648)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (18:30.062)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (18:39.948)
Right. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (18:42.115)
especially here at Laurier.com. I had my baby and two weeks later I was back, not because I had to, but because I wanted to and I had the ability to have my daughter in the next room. And I think that women truly understand how important it is to have family and to have children, which is why they leave the workforce. And that’s a damage to the workforce. These are very bright, bright accomplished women that are leaving.

Karin Conroy (18:54.007)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (19:04.566)
Right, right.

Colleen Joyce (19:12.269)
to go do something incredibly amazing, but don’t make them pick. And I think maybe more women-led companies don’t make the women pick. They find a way to have that flexibility.

Karin Conroy (19:24.844)
Yeah, I really think I couldn’t agree more. And I’ve had a similar story in terms of having my own business and being able to have a family and be here for my kids. And I think this is what we’re looking at going forward. I don’t see the generation of our kids making those choices. I don’t see them looking at it and saying, it’s one or the other. And I think it’s going to be interesting because I do

Colleen Joyce (19:35.927)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (19:44.365)
Mm-mm.

Colleen Joyce (19:48.28)
Right.

Karin Conroy (19:51.096)
think this is kind of, you know, this is a short time span that we’ve seen all this change. I know I’ve had Davina Frederick on a handful of times and she’s a lawyer and she’s a little older than me. So she had this moment in her career and then she’s a lawyer. Now she’s a coach. She has the Wealthy Women Lawyer podcast. And she talks a lot about how she had a moment in her career as a lawyer where she specifically chose her career and not to have kids.

Colleen Joyce (19:55.117)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (20:09.037)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, yes.

Colleen Joyce (20:20.643)
That’s tough. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:20.766)
And it’s brutal. That is, you know, and I’ve had moments. I’ll never forget finishing my MBA. I sat down with my professor on sort of this end of the, you the program and they’re like, okay, what’s, what did the next couple of years look like for you? And you know, this was, I was in my mid thirties and I said, well, I’m thinking about a PhD and I’m thinking about starting a family and I’ll never forget. It’s as a male, obviously. And he looks at me and he goes, I’ve never had that question. I’m like, well, get with the program.

Colleen Joyce (20:38.776)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (20:42.731)
Yeah. Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (20:49.155)
Yeah, I’m sure he does now, right? Damn. Yeah, right.

Karin Conroy (20:53.478)
I’m like, know there’s mostly men here, but come on, there’s some women and we’re all the same age. Come on, let’s get this together. You need to start thinking about this. And I think this is a core, this may sound like a slight distraction from what we’re talking about, but I don’t think so. I think this is a core part of any company culture and to think about how women bring different things to the table and how that impacts your culture and your team dynamics.

Colleen Joyce (21:05.953)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (21:15.587)
100%.

Karin Conroy (21:19.779)
and the core of the kind of ways your company wants to show up and perform and think about how these are humans, not bots that you work with.

Colleen Joyce (21:30.691)
100%. It’s so true though. mean, and I think that’s what maybe makes women-owned businesses a little stronger or a little different, right?

Karin Conroy (21:40.174)
100%. Yeah, because we just get it done. Cause we know at any given moment, we’re trying to do multiple layers of the same thing. And so in this moment, this thing has to be finished now because I’ve got something else already scheduled for the next moment. Yeah. And so, yeah.

Colleen Joyce (21:47.063)
yeah.

Colleen Joyce (21:51.256)
Yeah. Right. The same way. Well, I think women innately are very good at multitasking and not talking. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll get it done. No more talking. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:04.65)
Exactly. And I’ve found, I read a lot of business books and I found, first of all, of course, the majority are written by men. And when I’m reading them, I’m always thinking, like, who’s making your kids lunches right now? Who is buying your kids shoes and thinking about all these? There is no part when you talk about like, you know, optimizing your schedule and your day and then, you know, kind of setting up all these different parts of a business. And it’s like, that’s not your entire life.

Colleen Joyce (22:13.357)
Mm-hmm.

Colleen Joyce (22:17.794)
Right.

Colleen Joyce (22:25.888)
yeah.

Colleen Joyce (22:31.171)
Right.

Karin Conroy (22:31.618)
And it’s not, you know, every part of what’s going on on a given day. And you’re really missing this broader scale perspective that, you know, women are thinking about all the time. So, yeah, I feel like it’s really a missed perspective when you look at a lot of these strategies and these, positions on culture that like, if you looked at traditional culture, it was like, we are here, especially law firms, when you go back to like,

Colleen Joyce (22:45.025)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:00.3)
the 90s and the book, The Firm. We are here 100 hours a week. Our entire life is here and it is all about money as opposed to like, okay, we’re gonna find balance. We’re gonna make sure that this works for everyone in our firm and we’re gonna have a part of our culture recognize the humanity of the people that work here.

Colleen Joyce (23:24.18)
I 100 % agree.

Colleen Joyce (24:25.315)
you

Karin Conroy (24:28.386)
I hear you.

Karin Conroy (24:33.698)
I hear you!

Colleen Joyce (24:49.325)
was like, was that me or you?

Karin Conroy (24:49.4)
We’re back!

never happened before. All of a sudden I’m talking and I’m like, she’s not moving.

Colleen Joyce (24:57.611)
And like all I heard was like you were like, but then I was moving and I’m like, I have no, and then I was like, my gosh, if she’s going to ask me a question, I’m just going to be like, yeah, brilliant. Yeah. Okay. All right. Sorry. I didn’t know.

Karin Conroy (25:06.7)
And then, I just kept talking because I’m like, she’s not moving. Maybe it’ll catch up. That has never happened, but they can, we’ll just chop this part out. And honestly, I felt like I was going on too long about that part anyway.

Colleen Joyce (25:14.645)
Yeah, chop it, okay.

but I was like, holy crap, how am I gonna spin this?

Karin Conroy (25:21.536)
Yeah, no, no problem. Totally. Yeah, I know. I just kept looking and I’m like, I don’t, I think it’s frozen. It’s like, no. Yeah, that has never happened before. So, all right. So I’ll kind of give it a second. I think we were just kind of talking about women.

Colleen Joyce (25:23.415)
But we would, we would, we were great.

Colleen Joyce (25:28.771)
I know, didn’t say, I don’t know, a weird little glitch in the system.

Colleen Joyce (25:43.169)
Yeah. Women. See how we can quickly just figure shit out?

Karin Conroy (25:49.098)
Exactly, right. So do you want to add, do you have anything else that you want to kind of add in that part? Cause then I’m just going to be silent and you can kind of.

Colleen Joyce (26:00.864)
yeah, no, that was good. Yeah, totally. That was good.

Karin Conroy (26:03.98)
Okay, okay. All right, so moving on, I feel like this is a good moment for the book review section. I know you’ve got a really good one. We have a whole section on the website where all of the guests have talked about one book that they recommend for the audience. So Colleen, what is the book that I know that you love and recommend that people pick up today?

Colleen Joyce (26:11.629)
Ooh, yep.

Colleen Joyce (26:25.869)
We are bringing radical candor to the table today. So it’s a phenomenal book. I actually, I was at an event and I heard the COO of Call Kelly talk about it. And I was like, man, that sounds really interesting. What is this book all about? And it’s…

Karin Conroy (26:29.855)
Ooh, that’s so perfect!

Karin Conroy (26:44.803)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (26:47.051)
And inadvertently, it’s kind of what we do. And I didn’t know that. It’s always fun when it’s like somebody writes a book about what you think that you’re doing right. And then it validates it. Yeah. to the one, the TLDR of Radical Candor is you have to care about people, right? You have to care that they’re going to be successful, but you also have to care enough where you can be honest and give feedback.

Karin Conroy (26:54.678)
Right? And you’re like, I knew this.

Karin Conroy (27:16.769)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (27:16.907)
And that hits home for me because I’ve learned from past mistakes, right? Where I didn’t have that candor. I will, I will lie on the ground for every single one of our team members. That’s not something I’ve struggled with. I’ve struggled with the rattle, with the, the being honest, like giving them that candor, right? So this book for me was really, truly eyeopening and really kind of helped to understand how to have those difficult conversations.

Karin Conroy (27:32.728)
Being honest, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (27:39.864)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (27:46.242)
I think this is like, to go back to this long section we just had about talking about women, I this is something that women struggle with too. And in my earlier days, I had the same kind of, I’m gonna go along with whatever choice you make and find a way to kind of sugarcoat that and make it great. Even when I can see this is not the right option. And when I made that kind of switch to say, it must have been someone,

Colleen Joyce (28:07.233)
Yeah. Right. Right.

Karin Conroy (28:15.81)
some client that I felt more comfortable with. I had a lot of clients who were sort of like referrals that, know, someone who was a friend of a friend or something like that. And someone who I was like, come on, let’s not do that. Let’s, and here’s, but here’s why. And so I wouldn’t ever make it like, okay, are you stupid? Like, let’s not, you know, like, let’s also be nice about it. Like.

Colleen Joyce (28:17.731)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (28:28.269)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (28:34.965)
Ha ha ha ha.

Colleen Joyce (28:38.923)
Totally.

Karin Conroy (28:40.174)
And so this is now part of my strategy when I have these initial calls and I will say, listen, this is my personality. I’m gonna tell you like it is and I will tell you if you are making a bad decision, it is still your decision. And if you choose to continue with that bad decision, at least I’ve said my piece. And I have told you that I don’t think this is the right choice and I will give you reasons why. Here is 10 examples of other law firms doing the exact same thing that make you look like you’re just one of the same.

Colleen Joyce (28:57.506)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (29:07.265)
Love that.

Karin Conroy (29:10.122)
or whatever the case might be. And I have found that where those, that’s how I find my people too. So that’s where it’s like, you know, these people who are red flag potential clients versus these green flag people, suddenly, like people who are like, I love that and that’s what I’m looking for. All of a sudden those projects are the best as opposed to people who are like, I think I know what you’re talking about better than you do. And I’m like, okay, bye. Then you go do it.

Colleen Joyce (29:15.885)
Yeah, right.

Colleen Joyce (29:37.636)
It’s a tough lesson to learn to say no, right? Like to say no to revenue, right? That’s, know, listen, we all want to grow. want revenue, bring it, bring it, bring it. But you have to realize that not every, you’re not for everybody. Right. And I learned that. So that means that every client isn’t right for your product. So having those up-front conversations or even with the team member, right? This is how we roll. It either works for you. It doesn’t.

Karin Conroy (29:40.076)
Yes. Exactly.

Karin Conroy (29:50.752)
Right. Right.

Karin Conroy (29:55.746)
Yes.

Colleen Joyce (30:04.077)
but it helps us build that trust relationship. So I love that. I completely agree.

Karin Conroy (30:09.868)
Yeah, well, and if it’s not the right fit, when you’re initially thinking, you’re just looking at that money piece, you are in the beginning part, you are not thinking about that full cost, not only like the cost of spending way more time with someone who’s not a good fit, but the sort of emotional cost of, ugh, every time I see their email, or just the drain on…

Colleen Joyce (30:23.853)
Mm-hmm.

Colleen Joyce (30:27.97)
Right.

Colleen Joyce (30:32.301)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (30:35.36)
Also your reputation and your brand because now it’s probably not going to be a good referral. They’re probably not going to have good things to say about working with you. So across the board for so many reasons, it’s more costly to take on the wrong client than whatever it might be worth on that top line number.

Colleen Joyce (30:37.763)
100%.

Colleen Joyce (30:50.243)
Agreed.

Colleen Joyce (30:54.101)
You only get one shot, right? And now more than ever, maybe now you get half a shot kind of thing. And you gotta make sure that you can deliver. And if you can’t, that’s your reputation on the line. And that’s scary now.

Karin Conroy (31:03.746)
exec.

Right. And it’s way more expensive than the potential win for some like quick cash of a bad fit. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, we all have. And then every time, exactly. And I did it last year once and halfway through I was like, I knew it. This was a bad idea. And I’m only mad at myself because it was like, I’m the one that made that choice. And you know.

Colleen Joyce (31:10.293)
yeah.

Colleen Joyce (31:14.253)
Doesn’t, yep, been there, done that multiple times. Yeah, right. It’s like one of those lessons I keep learning.

Colleen Joyce (31:25.26)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (31:32.053)
Right. Right.

Karin Conroy (31:36.344)
So sometimes you have to kind of go back and revisit these ideas. It’s kind of like when you forget the flu shot. Like last year, for whatever reason, I just didn’t get around to it, got so sick. And then I was like, I will always get my flu shot. Yes, exactly. Maybe a couple of weeks early.

Colleen Joyce (31:39.777)
Right. Yeah, and you’re like,

Colleen Joyce (31:50.06)
Yes, on time. I feel the same way. Yeah, right? It’s like, right, that’s what I had to do. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (31:57.324)
Yeah, this sucks. I hate feeling sick. that one second of the flu shot and know, it’s so worth it. Like, come on, let’s, let’s, you know, not do that again. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about, I feel like there was a lot that we covered here in terms of culture and like why it matters. your book was sounds like perfectly aligned, but what are the big things that you want people to take away from this episode in terms of

Colleen Joyce (32:08.801)
Right, 100 % agree.

Colleen Joyce (32:15.553)
Yeah!

Karin Conroy (32:27.246)
culture and building that sort of the trust and that team that then somehow relates to your marketing and the way that clients feel about you.

Colleen Joyce (32:28.707)
Sure.

Colleen Joyce (32:39.627)
Yeah, I think the best thing that I could think, like my takeaway is go and have a team meeting, right? Bring the whole team in the room, get lunch, get breakfast, get whatever it is, right? Surround yourselves around food. That’s the key to everybody, right? Then have conversations. Hey, what do you think’s working? What’s not working? But why isn’t it working? What do you feel about that? Right? Like, and I’m not saying have touchy feely conversations, because that’s not me, but

Karin Conroy (32:54.414)
100%. Yes.

Karin Conroy (32:59.533)
Yes.

Colleen Joyce (33:09.579)
Let’s look at the numbers. Okay, well this product line’s been flat, why? and once you have that openness and that transparency, that transparency could end up being one of your pillars, who knows? But get everybody in a room and then do like a, I hate this, but like a pulse check, right? How do you think we’re doing? What can we do better? And I guarantee out of that meeting, I’d love to hear what people think.

Karin Conroy (33:22.659)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (33:29.058)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colleen Joyce (33:36.227)
There will be something in that meeting that will help your revenue grow, that will help you spark a new idea. Maybe it’ll drive your marketing. The power of people and getting together is huge.

Karin Conroy (33:50.03)
100 % and you didn’t have that idea before the meeting. I started even doing this with clients much more because I I’m guessing you’re similar, but I tend to just kind of try to churn and I try to avoid meetings, you know as much as possible because they feel like they sometimes they feel like a waste of time, but I tried to pull back. I tried to pull back from that in the last year or so and make sure that I was in touch with my clients.

Colleen Joyce (33:52.403)
No!

Karin Conroy (34:18.452)
and got on Zoom, not just a phone call, but because my clients a lot of times are not in the same state. So, but we’re looking face to face and there’s so many clients that I’ve had for years and years and I’m like, I don’t think we’ve ever done this. Why did I not do this sooner? And a lot of times it’s not like I have this agenda and we’re gonna go check, check, check through. It’s what is, what’s going on? How are you doing? And tell me what things

Colleen Joyce (34:24.641)
Yeah, right.

Colleen Joyce (34:32.994)
Yeah.

Colleen Joyce (34:42.881)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:46.474)
I don’t already know about your firm and what’s happening there. And as you’re talking, it’s gonna spark ideas for me and think about like things that, you know, we would not have talked about if we didn’t have this meeting otherwise. I just think that it’s so undervalued just that idea that you were talking about of just sit down with your people and talk. Yeah, that’s amazing. Colleen Joyce is the CEO of Lawyer.com.

Colleen Joyce (34:53.666)
love that.

Colleen Joyce (34:59.459)
Right.

Colleen Joyce (35:07.543)
Yeah, great. I love that.

Karin Conroy (35:14.83)
I feel like I kind of buried that lead in the early part, but we will have it all over. Exactly. And we’ll have it all over the promotional stuff. So, you know, people will know by the time they get to this episode, but thank you so much. I thought that was such a cool conversation. Thank you so much.

Colleen Joyce (35:18.017)
Nah, that’s okay. We talked about what mattered.

Colleen Joyce (35:27.33)
you

loved it. Thank you so much. was such a pleasure to connect.

Karin Conroy (35:33.614)
Thanks.