Tyson Mutrx 00:00:10 So, John, you have said that lawyers should be healers, not flamethrowers. So tell me about that.
John Nachlinger 00:00:18 Well, it's along the lines of being a problem solver and not a lawyer. especially when we do divorce and family law, it should be much more about finding solutions to families and not making it worse. I think a lot of attorneys make it worse instead of trying to figure out how to make it better. I don't believe in going to court until I've tried to resolve things. And a lot of attorneys don't believe in that. They just, you know, fire off the complaint and see what happens and then try to resolve it later. I just don't believe in that. I don't think it's good for families, not good for kids.
Tyson Mutrx 00:00:47 I mean, do you find that other family lawyers practice that way?
John Nachlinger 00:00:51 I do, and it's it's a hard thing to try to get around, because it takes talking to your client to talk to their spouse, to try to convince the spouse, you know, don't go this direction because they might have an attorney that's pulling them in that direction.
John Nachlinger 00:01:04 And I really think that it's a disservice to everybody. Plus, the court system is really screwed up. I mean, every state's got their problems, but in new Jersey in particular, we have a very, taxed court system that, you know, you're going to be in the court system for 12, 18, 24 months if you decide to go through it as opposed to trying to resolve things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:01:22 Yeah, a lot of people think it's torts that, that that really bind up and jam up the court systems across the country. It's family law cases. It's domestic cases. without a doubt. I mean, do you think the desire is because, like, is it a financial interest of the attorneys or is it, is it a or is it a character flaw? Like, what is it about family law? Because I've only barely dabbled in it. Okay. Like I've had three cases ever. It was more than a decade ago that I've ever touched a family law case, and it seemed like it was really difficult to deal with the family alternatives from what I was used to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:01:54 And so what do you what is it about family law attorneys. That makes it so difficult.
John Nachlinger 00:02:00 There's probably three cases too many, right?
Tyson Mutrx 00:02:02 Yeah. Exactly. Right. They were all favors, quote unquote favors.
John Nachlinger 00:02:05 Oh I see. So the problem with family law is there's so many different things within family law that are handled like there's domestic violence cases. Yeah. You know, there's people that have children that aren't married. Then there's of course, your divorces, and then there's people that are already divorced that need things change and there's adoption, there's name changes. There's all these things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:02:23 Real estate taxes.
John Nachlinger 00:02:24 Real estate tax. There's all kinds of things that have to be handled. So there are people out there that do this all the time, and those are great. But a large percentage of people that show up in family court are what we like to call people that only have, you know, one, 2 or 3 cases, you know, in, in divorce or domestic violence or these other things, and they don't really know the law.
John Nachlinger 00:02:45 They don't really know the procedures. They don't know how to resolve things without being a lawyer. And unfortunately, in family law, you have to take your lawyer hat off a little bit and start thinking more in a collaborative way. Like, how can I resolve things because people are already pissed off they're getting divorced. You know, maybe someone cheated on somebody and there's all these emotions, but you got to figure out how to get around those emotions because emotions. What's 95% of a divorce? The law is pretty easy. I mean, it's not hard. And I mean very seldom to someone have something that really needs to go in front of a judge. It's very rare. Most of the time we can get around it. And I will say that most attorneys at least look themselves in the mirror and believe that. And the problem is, is, well, we've got two problems. One is financial. I mean, attorneys need to make a living. And I'm never going to say an attorney builds a case just to make money, but we need to make a living.
John Nachlinger 00:03:37 Number two, attorneys are scared to death of malpractice. They're scared to death of not doing enough. You know, not doing enough discovery, not looking for enough information, not asking enough questions. Because later on, if you don't ask all those questions, you don't want your client coming back to you saying, well, how do we not know about that? How did we not know about that? So I think it's those two competing things that really force a lot of attorneys to really go above and beyond what they probably need to do in a given case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:04:03 Yeah. Are you are you are you bill by the hour flat rate. What do you do?
John Nachlinger 00:04:07 So my firm is transitioning to all flat rates. And we're I say transitioning because it's hard to just do all flat rates. It's a transitional period. So we've started doing divorces, flat fee divorces. there's certain categories that would qualify, but like, we do a mediation flat fee where we act as mediators but actually write the agreement, get them divorced.
John Nachlinger 00:04:29 We do some where they already know what they want, and we give them like little worksheet to like, figure. Tell us what it is. Yeah. And then and then we've got like basic where no one has anything. And so we have all of those sorts of things. And then we still bill by the hour as well. but even there we try to do, payment arrangements and try to my, my whole goal is that we it shouldn't be a barrier. And if you can't pay an attorney 5000 or 7000 500 or $10,000 to start a case. It shouldn't be a barrier to you getting help. So we try to figure out a way to help people within the confines of actually having a business, which is those are the two competing things. You know, I have to be able to pay my staff. I pay my paralegals, pay everybody while helping people. So it's that it's that dichotomy that's always, you know, when you're an owner of a law firm, it's really hard because, you know, people always want to give favors.
John Nachlinger 00:05:17 They always want to let me do a favor for this person. Do a favor for that person. Let's do a low bono case here. Let's do pro bono here. And I love all of that. But at some point, we also have to make enough money to pay our staff and to because they all depend on us as well.
Tyson Mutrx 00:05:31 Yeah. Well, the reason why I ask is because you mentioned, you know, you don't think attorneys, they just build just to make money. I there is a firm I won't mention their name. and I actually think from a business standpoint, if we're just talking purely business, it's a brilliant model. They bill hourly, and they have all these different things that they that must be done on a file, their associates must do on the file. The reason why I think is brilliant is that, again, from a business standpoint, purely business from like making money is what I'm talking about. is you can't then go back and look and say, well, they did all these things for me.
Tyson Mutrx 00:06:07 They did a terrible job. Now they did all these things for you. So it for the file looks like they've done an amazing job because they've done all these things. Maybe not all of them were necessary, but they did all these things to help, you know, at least help with the case. And they're able to build all that towards the retainer and everything. And I wonder if, if part of the the problem is the billable hour, if your what are your thoughts on that?
John Nachlinger 00:06:31 I think it's a huge part of the problem. I mean, I hate to build what if I didn't have to ever bill by the hour again? I would not, it's the one thing that drives me absolutely insane. you know, I like to. I'm one of those people that does my entire day. And then I go back and Bill because I just can't I don't I don't like the whole idea of. I just got off the phone, let me go Put it in my room. I really don't like that.
John Nachlinger 00:06:52 but it is the problem. And a lot of clients, they don't care how they get divorced. They don't care how the sausage is made. Which is another problem. The attorneys love to talk about how the sausage is made. Yeah, they want the outcome. They want the outcome, and they want to know what is it going to cost me to get this outcome. And so that's why the flat fee model is a more appropriate model in a lot of cases. Obviously there's things we don't know. We don't know how the spouse is going to react. We don't know how their attorneys can behave. But in terms of a hourly rate, everyone gets bogged down on how much the hourly rate is or isn't. And all of this stuff, when really at the end of the day, we just need to figure out how to get our clients from point A to point B. And yes, right now we have to build by the hour on cases that are truly, you know, kind of we don't have a clue what's going to happen.
John Nachlinger 00:07:36 So we have to do that. But if I could get away from it completely and figure out, like this way, this magical way, and I've thought of things. I mean, we thought about flat fee, like, parts of cases like flat fee and like. Filing a complaint. Flat fee, going to court, you know, doing sort of flat fees along the way. But clients, we've found out that scares them even more if they see a whole like menu of here are all the expenses that you might incur that scares them even more than just the well, the average divorce in new Jersey is about 15 to $16,000. A lot of times they just feel comfortable with that. And that's a billable like traditional contested case. Yeah, they feel more comfortable with that than giving me a menu of things because we've tried it and it scared them. They're like, well, what if I have to do all these things because they take out their calculator and start adding them all up and they're.
Tyson Mutrx 00:08:24 Like, right.
John Nachlinger 00:08:24 Yeah, it's going to cost us much. I'm like, no, you're not going to do all of these things. But so I don't know how to get away from the hourly model entirely. As long as there's other attorneys out there doing it because they're if they're doing it, it puts pressure on us as well. Because, you know, if if I get a stack of discovery from my adversary, my clients will be like, well, if I have to answer it, they have to answer it too. Sure. So now all of a sudden, we've started this back and forth. That's not productive for anybody.
Tyson Mutrx 00:08:52 That's the interesting thing about family law is that that you have to do that whenever you request it. You have the I think that applies in a lot of states. I don't know if every state, but it does a lot of states. How do you navigate the situations with like a flat fee, where it's like just a client that is sucking up all your time? How do you deal with those situations?
John Nachlinger 00:09:08 So we we specifically set forth like how much communication they get with the office, exactly what we're going to do.
John Nachlinger 00:09:15 The scope of service is very specific. And once they exceed the allotment that they have for communication, they do get billed for additional communications.
Tyson Mutrx 00:09:26 And I like that.
John Nachlinger 00:09:27 That's good and that, but that keeps everyone in check. I mean, probably in a given month we have one client that exceeds their their communication because they know, okay, I have two hours of communication with my attorney, which is a lot, two hours. And we I mean, we're I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 00:09:41 They they don't always think that, but.
John Nachlinger 00:09:43 They don't always think that. And that's in addition to like an initial strategy session. It's in addition to getting revisions to their agreement. Those things are all separate. It's like above and beyond. It's like those little like nagging questions that the clients like to ask. They wake up in the morning and they have this, you know, this question that has nothing to do really with anything, but they want to talk to somebody. So we've done that. But the clients love it.
John Nachlinger 00:10:05 The clients that have gone through the flat fee are so happy because they've talked to all their friends that haven't. And they know, they know that they got a good deal and they got divorced. And now their spouse and them aren't killing each other. Their kids are happier. Everything is a better situation and they saved a lot of money.
Tyson Mutrx 00:10:22 Yeah, they know what the what the cap is unless they overcommunicate. Right. You mentioned, attorneys care too much about, like, how talking about how the sausage is made. I, I think I might slightly disagree, but. So I want to ask you more about that because don't you find value from like, just a marketing standpoint of demonstrating the value that you've added.
John Nachlinger 00:10:44 Well, certainly if you're billing by the hour, you have to use, you have to justify your bill. But if you're doing outcome based billing, like flat fee billing, you don't need to do that because they're paying for the result. The result is I'm going to be divorced, I'm going to have an agreement, and it's going to be done in this period of time.
John Nachlinger 00:10:59 But if you're billing by the hour, of course you have to justify everything you do. You know, every phone call. What was it about every email? What was it about? Why did you talk to the adversary? Why did you send that letter? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? So when I say don't talk about how the sausage is made, I'm talking like at the beginning of the case. Attorneys like to sit down with clients and be like, oh, first we're going to file a complaint, and then we're going to go to court and do this, and then we're going to do that, and then we're going to do this. And they don't understand clients don't care about those things at the beginning. I mean, as they're getting billed, of course, they want to know what's going on in their case, but at the beginning, they don't care about that. They want to know, what are you going to do for me? How are you going to help me? And that's where I think a lot of attorneys lose clients because clients leave and they don't have that feeling of, this person doesn't want to help me.
John Nachlinger 00:11:40 All they talked about are all these things that are going to cost me money. Yeah. You know, and I know it's going to cost me money. I know it's going to be expensive. Divorce isn't cheap. But start talking to our clients about the outcome. Like what are we trying to achieve for them? Like when I have an initial conversation with somebody, I say, what are your three goals? What are they? They can be anything from. I, you know, I want to lose weight to. I want my kids custody of my kids, whatever it is this. What are your three goals? And then I write them down and I share it with them in an email that here are the three goals we identify. And throughout the case I keep coming back to those goals. So when we get off the when we get off the beaten path because their their spouse did something stupid, I come back and say, well listen, your goal was to get this thing, okay. If we get this thing, can you ignore this other thing that's going on? And I just keep them focused because divorce is one of those things that like, it's tit for tat, you know, someone does one thing and someone does something else, and then someone does one thing and someone does something else and they can.
John Nachlinger 00:12:38 And that's why divorces can cost 50, 60, 70, $100,000. So I just. You have to keep your client focused and unemotional as much as possible on what are you here for? Like what's important for you?
Tyson Mutrx 00:12:50 I love that for a lot of reasons. because you can like to start, like you can identify any red flags or like, like like you headed off right at the beginning. I can't do that for you. Kind of a scenario. Or you can you can make sure that you're on track with, with everything that, that they're wanting. You could also at the end say you you told me at the beginning that you wanted these three things and you got these three things. And I think that that's I think that's great. how do you deal situations where they're, they say they give you something on their list of goals that just it's unreasonable or just unattainable.
John Nachlinger 00:13:27 I tell them right up front.
Tyson Mutrx 00:13:29 Yeah.
John Nachlinger 00:13:30 No, I understand you want. Well, I'll use custody because a lot of times that's something that comes up.
John Nachlinger 00:13:35 I want sole custody of my kids. I don't want my spouse to be able to make any decisions or anything. I'll say, okay, I'll ask them why. First, why is that your goal? And usually it's some stupid reason, like, you know, he's an asshole or, you know, he cheated on me or something like that. If they say something more legitimate, like, oh, he's got a drinking problem or he's got a drug problem or something. Okay, then I'll go into it a little bit more and we'll talk. But if it's something really just dumb, I don't beat around the bush. I, I cannot stand attorneys that promise the world to their clients to get them to pay them. That's the worst. But a lot of divorce attorneys do.
Tyson Mutrx 00:14:10 Enjoy lawyers, too.
John Nachlinger 00:14:11 Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's it's like it's really bad. And so I from my perspective, I don't want to have to be looking at my client six months from now saying like, well, I know I told you that, but you know, and give them all the reasons why.
John Nachlinger 00:14:24 Now we're not going to get it. When I knew at the very beginning they weren't going to get what they were asking for. So I try to adjust their goal and I say, okay, if we can't get that, what would be the next best result or next most acceptable result for you. And I try to like get them to adjust their own goal to something that's more attainable. it may still be a stretch, and I'll tell them that I'm like, okay, listen, we'll try to get that. We'll get as close to that as possible. But, you know, you want to pay $1,000 a month in alimony. Well, try to get as close as possible, but if we get to like, you know, 1050 or 950, that's considered close. Do you understand that? You know, we may not get exactly what you want, but it's going to be close. You understand that. And, you know, as long as they can understand and we can have that communication at the very beginning, I'm fine with that.
John Nachlinger 00:15:12 I just don't lie to my clients. Yeah. And the ones that want to be lied to. Well, they can go somewhere where they'll be lied to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:15:19 Yeah, I like, I like how how big you are on setting those expectations up up front. because. Yeah, the the whole idea of these lawyers overselling at the beginning, like, I understand the desire to sell your firm, but like when you overpromise, You're just. You're setting yourself up for failure at the end. It just makes no sense.
John Nachlinger 00:15:39 It absolutely doesn't. And I'll take one step further in my firm, when you call our office, you talk to a non attorney salesperson anyway, so we don't like the attorney doesn't even have any contact with you until you've signed a retainer and paid. Right. So which I wish more attorneys would come around to this. Because still to this day, when I tell people I have this model, they look at me like I have five heads and like, how can you have a non attorney sell? But they're selling the outcome.
John Nachlinger 00:16:04 Like, what can the firm do for you. Sure. They're not selling how the sausage is made. They're not selling the process. They're selling the outcome. And if you get someone who's good at doing that, they really and they build a good rapport with the client because they're talking to a client on an emotional basis, not about their case, not about the law. When they come in to see the attorney, finally, and we have our strategy session, you know, the client's already has a good warm feeling about these people can help me. And they hear everything the attorney is saying in a much different way. Sure, they they're like, okay, I already I already trust these people. So if they're telling me that I can't get this, okay, that's fine.
Tyson Mutrx 00:16:43 I'm so glad you brought this up because I hear all the time, all the time with Maximum Lawyer, you have a lot of people where they'll listen and we talk about our hiring process. We don't have an attorney involved in our hiring process.
Tyson Mutrx 00:16:55 It's. But. But the excuse I always get is, well, you're not taking money up front. You know, you just need a signature you don't need. And there's there's many other firms of maximum lawyer that that do the same thing you do where they, they sign people up, a lot of times over the phone. No it no attorneys involved. So I guess what advice would you give to attorneys that are skeptical to think either they personally need to be the one that sells, or that they need to have an attorney that's on that intake team that's got to get the get the job done.
John Nachlinger 00:17:27 Well, if you own a firm and that's you, I would say this is the part where you really have a job and not a business, because if you have a business, you have to start looking at things from a non attorney point of view and the people that feel like they have to be involved every step of the way are the ones that are probably the same people who can't delegate work to anyone else anyway.
John Nachlinger 00:17:50 It's like I have to do everything. It's all me. The people are coming here for me. Okay, fine. If someone comes for you, then why do they need to talk to you to sign up? They're coming because they've some trusted person or someone out in the world said this person's great. So you don't need to have your hands in everything. And quite frankly, that's time. If you own a firm, that's time you should be using to build your business and work on your business and think of other things to do. Work on your marketing so you get the right people in the door to begin with. But I really feel like you just need to talk to someone who has the model. Yeah, because there's more and more people that do. I know it started. I know a lot of like immigration firms and people like that that do it, which I think people think that makes a little bit more sense. Family law, you seem, is like a little bit more complicated.
John Nachlinger 00:18:39 People think to do it, but not really because you're talking about people in the most emotional, like emotionally like damaged part person they probably have ever been. And they're coming in and they just want someone to hear them. And that doesn't have to be an attorney. And quite frankly, if you are an attorney doing those, a lot of attorneys do them for free, which even drives me even crazier. Like we actually have a policy, like if someone wants to talk to an attorney, we just do a paid consultation. Oh, interesting. And we just say, fine, you really want to talk to an attorney? Because, you know, you need to know before I sign. I need to know what my Alamo is going to be or whatever else they want to know. We just do a paid 30 or 60 minute consultation and they pay it. They talk to the attorney and then our non attorney salesperson follows up and then usually signs them up after that consultation. So if someone really needs to talk to an attorney, we'll do it.
John Nachlinger 00:19:30 Yeah. but I would say that's a very small percentage of the people that sign up with us, maybe 20% or less.
Tyson Mutrx 00:19:36 I am very curious, and you may not know the numbers, but it's off the top of your head with your hunches. I wonder if, where do the worst clients come from? The ones that sign up through the non attorney salesperson, or the ones that insist on talking to an attorney before they sign up?
John Nachlinger 00:19:53 I don't, I don't know if I know the answer to that.
Tyson Mutrx 00:19:55 I would love to know the answer.
John Nachlinger 00:19:56 Yeah. I never even thought about it. I would say are the clients that are the, the, the let's say not a clients that we have are typically the people we get from cold Google ads anyway. Sure. So a lot of them are hot to trot, so a lot of them will just sign up immediately because they need someone, because they just were served with a restraining order or, you know, they just got a complaint in the we're served with a complaint.
John Nachlinger 00:20:22 So a lot of them the ones. So now that I'm thinking about the ones that actually have consultations sometimes are a little bit more, they're thinking about things a little bit more, and they just want to give it a little bit more thought, which is nothing wrong with that. No, not at all. I it drives me crazy. I'm in a lot. I'm in a lot of masterminds and things. And every time I have, like, a, like a call with somebody and it's like, hot to trot, like, you know, give me your credit card right now. I'm like, okay, I'm going to ask questions first, and I need to know more, and then we'll do it. I mean, so I look at it from my I try to look at everything from my perspective to like, like, are you just is everyone just ready to give someone, you know, a credit card for $5,000 over the phone? Not everyone is some people. Some people are like, listen, I did my research.
John Nachlinger 00:21:05 I'm ready to go. Other people are like, let me think about this a little bit. And so I don't begrudge someone that wants the consultation. Now there are people out there that the consultation so that they can hear what they want to hear. Right. And a lot of times those people don't even sign up. And those are the ones everyone in my office gets. My attorneys get upset. My non tourney salesperson gets upset and I'm like listen, you make more money with the people we don't bring in than the ones we do 100%. So I'm like, if they didn't hear what they wanted to hear and we're never going to be able to make them happy. What do you think's going to happen down the road? Yeah. You know.
Tyson Mutrx 00:21:37 So a guy who used to rent office space from, a great personal injury attorney in Saint Louis, he used to always say that you make more money off the case, that you don't take the ones you take. Same thing you just said. I've never heard anybody say it is.
Tyson Mutrx 00:21:48 I think it's great. I love hearing here. Hearing you say it. I want to know, when it comes to hiring for that position, the non attorney salesperson, what are you looking for in that position? Because it's I mean, you just can't pull any person off the street to do it.
John Nachlinger 00:22:04 You can't. I'm on my sixth one right now. Okay. So it's taken a while to find the perfect person, right? Yeah. And I have I have her now. Oh, nice.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:12 So before her, she wasn't here for the here, here. Oh.
John Nachlinger 00:22:15 She'll be happy.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:17 she might want more money.
John Nachlinger 00:22:18 And everyone before her. Actually, everyone before her was a man. Like I had men before her. And, I was looking for someone who was selling something, particularly something that had some level of value. Like just someone who's been used to selling a product. Okay. So that's kind of who I was looking for beforehand. And then I put them into sales training.
John Nachlinger 00:22:38 You know, I have a sales coach that I have helped train these people, and they've all did fine. Sure. You know, they all did fine. But I realized men don't have the same. Not not all. Some men do. But a lot of men don't have the same empathy that women do. Yeah. And on these initial calls, no matter who it is calling their, you need to have a certain level of just empathy.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:59 You draw the connection.
John Nachlinger 00:23:00 Yeah. You need to have a little bit more of a connection. So, so I finally the person that I found was not someone who had any sales training whatsoever, but she had been through a divorce. She'd been through a particularly difficult divorce.
Tyson Mutrx 00:23:14 So she can really relate.
John Nachlinger 00:23:15 Yeah. And she, you know, has children. And she was really, she didn't want a job. She wanted this job when I talked to her. She was very much like, had read about what we were doing as a firm, these flat fees and trying to change the way that people get divorced, and that she was really attracted to that and was ready to sell that to people because she's in.
John Nachlinger 00:23:36 She was in all kinds of other like, divorce support groups and everything. And she was like, oh my gosh, people need this. They need to like, see, there's a better way. So when I heard all that, I was like, okay, well, she doesn't have any sales background. Okay. Let me just get her the training and see if it works. So we trained her and she has been outstanding because she had something that the other people just didn't have. I was looking for the sales, but I kind of just completely forgot that someone who has some first level experience and can tell people maybe not like, oh, let me tell you what happened to me, but at least hear what they're saying and understand what they're saying, and respond to them in a way that only someone who can understand what they're saying would respond. combined with the receptiveness to being taught how to do sales. because that is that's another skill set. It's hard. I mean, I've been through this.
John Nachlinger 00:24:26 I've been through the sales training. And let me tell you, when I do, on the rare occasion I'll do a consultation just because it's a it's a friend. It's like someone really important that refers someone to me. And I'm just like, I have to do this consultation. Sure. even I, I get into my attorney ness too much. I lose track of, you know, sort of the sales script and the sell script is not anything bad. It's just, you know, you want to keep people on track 100% the only the information that you need so that you can, explain to them how we can help them or whether we can help them. So really, you need, I think anyone, especially in divorce and family law, you got to find somebody who just understands what people are going through and is receptive to learning how to do sales. So if you can find someone with those two skills, I think you've got someone that you probably will do a really good job.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:16 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:17 Can you think of the name of the training, the sales training? Because I think people would love to hear what that is.
John Nachlinger 00:25:20 It's S3.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:21 S3.
John Nachlinger 00:25:22 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:23 How did you learn about that?
John Nachlinger 00:25:26 I'm trying to think where where I, I was in I was in a coaching program for a long time where I, I learned about a lot of these things, will not be named and, and, nothing bad to say. It's just, don't need any, don't need any advertisements. So, I learned about S3, and, it's really good. It's like a, it's just a very systematic, specific way of selling. and what I, what I really love about it is they have like, weekly dojos where like, she, she gets on for an hour and she just practices parts of the sales conversation with another student so that they can practice outside. And I love that. And they get feedback from instructors. but I just really and she doesn't follow it to a tee. And I told her she doesn't have to.
John Nachlinger 00:26:11 It's just a good foundation and just you, you need to always. It's like a skill set. Any skill set. You got to keep working on it. Keep working on it. You get better and better and better.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:20 So does she. Is that something you will? Do you have, like, regular training scheduled for her? So she's better? That's awesome.
John Nachlinger 00:26:26 But I have someone who knows what they're doing. Yeah. Not me. And that's nothing. Attorneys. We all think we know everything. I don't know anything about sales, so I have someone else do it. Just like I don't know anything really much about marketing. Yeah. So I have someone else do all of that, too. So you have to, you know, hire the right people so that or at least get the right coaches and people that can help you.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:44 I love that, that's really good. I'm going to shift gears and you have something called. I make sure I get the name is a divorce playbook.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:50 Is that what. Is that what it's called? And what is the divorce playbook? I want to make sure I've got the is. Is that what it's called?
John Nachlinger 00:26:58 Well, I mean, we have a divorce. Playbook is just something we give people that helps them understand, mediation. But, you might be referring to, divorce shield, perhaps. So this. So I also do, like a men's divorce coaching.
Tyson Mutrx 00:27:12 Because I want to get into that, too. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about that then. Yeah. Because we can get back to the divorce playbook if it comes up. Yeah. Talk about that.
John Nachlinger 00:27:20 Yeah. So, during Covid, I just sort of wanted a different way to help people. And I just. I've been talking to all of my male clients, and they've all they've all had very similar issues. Yeah. Really struggling with the emotion of going through this and not having people to talk to, you know, as as men were really bad at talking to other guys.
Tyson Mutrx 00:27:37 Kind of bottle it up.
John Nachlinger 00:27:37 Yeah. We don't want to. And, there's a lot of guys that live in, like, rural America. Like in small towns where everyone knows everybody. They don't want to talk to anyone about what's going on. So, I decided to form, basically form a group, online of guys that can just join and talk to each other. And then stemming from that, I was like, listen, as an attorney, I know what they need to do to prepare for divorce. Like if they have time to prepare, I know what they need to do. Like, for example, they need to learn their kids friend's names. They need to know who their kids teachers are, who the principal is, who the who the pediatrician is who? Their friends. Parents. Who? Their friends. Parents are. They need to learn, like, just. I'm just giving you an example, some basic information that they need to learn that if they don't know it, it's not like they're not going to get custody, but it's going to make it more difficult.
John Nachlinger 00:28:25 Whenever, you know, whenever their wife says, oh, he doesn't even know who, you know, little John's friends are. Yeah, I do. It's this person. This person. Like it's just little things that as guys, particularly if you're like, have a you're working hard and everything. Maybe you just don't know. So I just I came up with like a process where a program where people can sort of put all these pieces together, everything from learning information, organizing finances to protecting yourself against bogus domestic violence claims, which is another big thing, and then actually start looking towards the future, because I feel like the people that have the worst divorces are the ones that are so caught up in the moment, they're so caught up in what's going on that they can't even see that light at the end of the tunnel. They don't even think about it. And those are the same guys I women do this to same guys who, you know, drink too much, they get out of shape.
John Nachlinger 00:29:12 There they sit around and mope around all the time. And then it makes it harder for them to even agree to something in the divorce. Even something reasonable, because they're just so distraught about what's going through. So I form this, and then I sort of became a divorce, immense divorce strategist. I don't like the word coach. So Mr. Strategist.
Tyson Mutrx 00:29:33 Well, I was gonna use the word coach, so strategist I like that.
John Nachlinger 00:29:36 Yeah, I don't like coach because I mean, although men do respond to coach, they understand. I'm like I explain it to guys all the time. I'm like, I'm just like a basketball coach. I'm on the side. We drop the play. I send you out in the court. If it doesn't work, come back over, we'll drop another play. But I really concentrate on the strategy of it. Like, how can how can I help guys prepare to go into the divorce process and then how and then to tie it back to what I do in my law firm.
John Nachlinger 00:30:01 I help them understand the benefits of going through like a mediation process and an amicable process. And then I try to teach them how to talk to their spouse about it, their spouse who they hate or they're distraught about or. My favorite. she told me she wanted a divorce, and I had no idea this was coming. Which is. I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 00:30:18 Do you.
John Nachlinger 00:30:18 Believe that? No, I've never believed it. Once. One time. And every guy that I've ever worked with knows that. I think that that line is just a bunch of nonsense. It's just you didn't. You weren't paying any attention.
Tyson Mutrx 00:30:28 I like your focus on the after two. So you're you're prepping them for it. But also the after we had someone on the show recently and the name of her firm is Happy Ever After, which I think is a it's a great name. Really is good. so you but you do the the strategy and do you can you do this with anyone across the country because of the way you have it set up?
John Nachlinger 00:30:49 Yeah.
John Nachlinger 00:30:49 So I work with I work with any guy actually anywhere in the world. I've had guys in other countries. Oh, incredible. But but I won't do. I won't work with anyone in new Jersey because I just I just feel like because I practice law in new Jersey, I don't want any unintentional conflicts or anything that might arise. Okay. So, but I have other people in new Jersey I'll refer someone to. because if they're if someone in new Jersey wants my help, I'll just say, listen, we'll we'll do some of the, the strategy and coaching and all of that as part of you being a client of the law firm. So that's sort of what I it's just easier to do it that way because it's too complicated, you know, doing both sides and but yeah, I work with anyone. you know, I try to, I try to only work with about 20 guys at a time just because,
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:36 So you really. Okay, I, I thought it was more like, a bigger thing.
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:39 So it's, you know.
John Nachlinger 00:31:40 Why? One on one work with 20 guys. So I have an online course to that. Guys. That guys do. it's basically just a, you know, it's like four modules that they can like sort of.
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:50 How do people plug it? How do people find that if they want to?
John Nachlinger 00:31:53 so men's divorce network. Com okay, that's all the information about the, the programs and, you know, the coaching program with me is very much a application process because I'm really big on. I only want to work with people I can help, and sometimes it's very obvious that it's somebody that I they need more like a mental health professional and not a coach. And there is there's a difference between the two, and there's a situation where someone would need one and not the other. Sometimes people need both. Sure. but, yeah, I try to keep I like to I mean, most guys I talk to once a week, you know, and I'm. And I run a law firm, so it's kind of like, I.
John Nachlinger 00:32:31 I'm spread too thin everywhere all the time. But this is what I love. I love talking to these guys. I love trying to help them untangle, you know, how how am I going to be okay? Because, I mean, I've been divorced, too. I'm a divorce attorney. I've been divorced. So I, you know, I tried to come at it from that perspective. I'm also a father, so you know that too. Most guys are scared of the same things. Am I going to lose all my money? And am I going to lose my kids? Yeah. I mean, almost every guy is scared of those two things. So you, you know, so it's easy to come to a place where you can just sort of talk to them about those issues. Because if you don't resolve them, if you can't get a guy to sort of or a girl or a woman to understand that they're going to be okay, that they're going to be able to get through this, that they need to concentrate on something bigger than the divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:33:19 if you can't get them there, they're going to get focused on the divorce. They're going to be focused on the day to day. They're going to get focused on having their attorney be their support system. And that as an attorney is what I really don't like, because they end up paying for it and they end up paying a lot of money because we can't just like, not, not build somebody to sit on the phone with them, you know, 2 or 3 hours a week. We have to because we can't work on other we can't work on other people's cases.
Tyson Mutrx 00:33:45 That's a great segue because I want to ask you about that. So whenever you you have a situation where you are doing the strategy, but you also have the strategy coaching, maybe they already have a lawyer, or maybe they do need a mental health professional. How do you deal with those situations? And do you find that the attorneys are open to this, or do you find that they're opposed?
John Nachlinger 00:34:09 Some are. Some are open, some are not.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:11 Do you ever get nasty emails?
John Nachlinger 00:34:12 I do, I do and I get I've had I've had many clients in the past that have wanted me on calls with their attorneys.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:19 What do you.
John Nachlinger 00:34:20 Do with that? Or I'll do it if they want me to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:22 Oh, okay.
John Nachlinger 00:34:23 I mean, they understand that there's, you know, there's a there's a privilege issue with that. But as long as they understand. I've sit in meetings with experts and clients like people that some people are. So. See, this is what attorneys don't always understand. Sometimes your client is so emotionally fragile that they don't hear what's being said. They don't hear it. They they really almost need somebody to interpret what just happened. Okay. And attorneys are really, you know, it's the whole thing. If you say something to somebody and go, do you understand what I just said? It's human nature always to say yes, but a lot of times attorney clients don't understand what just happened. You know, if they're sitting in a meeting with an accountant, an accountant, saying all these things, the attorneys asking all these questions, and they're like, do you have any questions? I mean, sometimes people don't even understand what just happened.
John Nachlinger 00:35:10 So, so I'll send in some of those meetings. It's not my preference to do it, but I'll do it so that I can help them sort of unpack what just happened, and I can explain it to them in a different way. I also help guys find attorneys. That's another thing that I've been doing. I've been toying with sort of a course in terms of how to look for an attorney, because most people just go and they look, what were the things people look for? Who told me this person was great because they, you know, they got this great result for somebody else or who's the cheapest. I mean, it's like people, people shop for attorneys the same way they shop for just about everything else.
Tyson Mutrx 00:35:44 It's just crazy.
John Nachlinger 00:35:45 It is. And so I try to help them understand, like what to look for. Like, don't look for someone who dabbles. Look for someone who does this primarily. If divorce and family law isn't like the major thing on their website, probably not the right person for you.
John Nachlinger 00:35:58 So, yeah, but most attorneys are open. They understand that we're there to help, not to hurt them or to make things more difficult for them. And I don't suck a guess. An attorney ever.
Tyson Mutrx 00:36:08 What I love about it is, and you were when you were talking about I started to think about all the adjacent areas where you could you could branch this out into and make it so much bigger if you really wanted to. And I know that you're not motivated by this, but you could I mean, you could build like an empire around it if you really wanted to, where you you have the mental health side of things, you could do pay for leads kind of a thing. There's so many things you could do with it. I think it's kind of interesting, but, and I want to shift over to something else, though. When it comes to, how do you avoid dabbling in, let's say you find someone in Missouri that you're, that you're strategizing with, and how do you prevent yourself from getting into, you know, practicing law or giving legal advice?
John Nachlinger 00:36:54 So what will happen often is I will get like a a letter or a proposed agreement that my, my, coaching client attorney has prepared.
John Nachlinger 00:37:07 Okay. The coach client will say, Will you look at this with me? And so what I'll usually do is just I'll post questions to them to ask to their attorney without flat out saying, what the hell did this attorney.
Tyson Mutrx 00:37:20 Sure.
John Nachlinger 00:37:20 Yeah. Like, I don't like I never do that. I just sort of, like, pose the question, like, maybe ask why it was worded this way and maybe, like, what is it that you want to do? Oh, you want to do this? Well, maybe see if maybe see if there's a different way to get there. Just make sure the attorney understands what you want so that we can get to the right language. I try not to cross the line. there have been a couple occasions where I have just emailed an attorney directly, at my client's permission, but not copy my client. Sure. And just been like, listen, I saw what just. I saw this thing in the agreement. you know, do you understand that your client is actually wants this.
John Nachlinger 00:37:57 You know, I don't know if he was clear. He may not have been clear. I try to be very diplomatic about it. Yeah. And, most of the attorneys are happy with that. I've only had one attorney ever that got upset that I was involved. And, and then what interestingly happened is my coaching client fired that attorney because it was like, okay, well, if you're not going to work with my coach, then I'm going to go somewhere else, but I don't I'm there to be a supplement to help. Yeah, not not to be a hindrance, but being an attorney is helpful because I see things. I mean, I don't like the way. I mean, it's it's like any attorney, you see what someone else wrote and you're like, oh my God. And it's hard not to want to rewrite it if you're reviewing it. Sure. But sometimes you just have to say, okay, does it accomplish the goal? Fine. So even though it was worded like, you know, a ninth grader wrote it and it's grammatically insane, it does what it needs to do.
John Nachlinger 00:38:50 So it's okay.
Tyson Mutrx 00:38:51 I it's what I like about it. And I am very curious how receptive other attorneys are whenever they listen to this to it. But I'm kind of envisioning the times where it's kind of a difficult client, where I'd love to have you as a buffer, you know what I mean? Like having that buffer and it I do see how it could be a lot cheaper for the client if you're building on an hourly basis, because unless they're paying you early but are or I guess how do they pay you.
John Nachlinger 00:39:18 So we it's usually like a program okay, of a certain number of weeks. And they I mean I do unlimited like email communication with them.
Tyson Mutrx 00:39:26 Yeah. So in a situation like that I mean that's it's cheaper for them. They're not paying the attorney by the hour. It's something where you can help filter a lot of those communications. And so you can receive ten emails instead of the attorney getting ten emails. And you're that filter where it could be a massive advantage to, to to an attorney.
Tyson Mutrx 00:39:46 It's almost you could sell it almost like as a concierge service. In a way. I know that that's not what it is, But you kind of in a way, it could be. It could be a really I mean, it could be a massive benefit. I wonder why there aren't more of these that have popped up. Unless maybe there are.
John Nachlinger 00:40:00 But, well, there's not a lot of divorce coaches out in the world that are attorneys. I mean, most divorce coaches, you know, anyone can call themself a coach. It's like just.
Tyson Mutrx 00:40:09 Plop. So there are divorce coaches. There's lots of there's.
John Nachlinger 00:40:12 There's a lot of divorce coaches out there, but a lot but a lot of them don't really understand divorce. Yeah. So a lot of them became a divorce coach because they had a bad divorce themselves, or they went and got some accreditation from I don't know, I don't know who was accredited to, to do this sort of thing, but whatever. and so they don't really have the full background of like every step of, of a divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:40:37 And, you know, everything that's happened, like, I've been a divorce attorney for 22 years. Yeah, I've done, I think around 1800 divorces, something like that.
Tyson Mutrx 00:40:45 A lot of divorces.
John Nachlinger 00:40:46 Yeah. So I mean, at this point, I mean, I've seen everything, I've done everything. So I sort of, I. So when I coach people I it's with that background. So there's a lot of people out there that don't have the background. And so I think attorneys would be a little bit more skeptical of someone who maybe they don't think knows what's going on as much sort of being in this role. But, you know, when they're talking to someone who is an attorney but not acting as an attorney, at least then, like I've, I've had attorneys help me convince a convince our mutual client of something. And a lot of times, I agree with the attorney that they need to be convinced of something. And so there are times it's a good supplement. But you're right.
John Nachlinger 00:41:25 I mean, like, here's the thing I do more often than not. I just got this email from my wife. This is in the middle of divorce. I just got this email from my wife. Can you look at my my response and tell me if it's okay? I get that probably 5 or 6 times a week. and that is one of the or I get text message. Same thing. Here's the text message. How should I respond? Bond. So that is something that attorneys just don't do, right? I just don't do that because, they they always see the aftermath. They always see after the emails was sent and then, oh, look what your client said, you know. So I do that a lot, and I help them rewrite things. And the goal isn't not to, like, hold their hand, but the goal is to help them learn how to communicate, learn how to put things through. And I love I now because now I can like, tell them, take what you just wrote, dump it into clod or ChatGPT or grok or whatever you want to use and say, can you rewrite this in this particular tone or that particular term? I mean, so I'm trying to I'm trying to help guys understand that, you know, use all these tools.
John Nachlinger 00:42:31 You know, you may be pissed off, but I can make you seem less pissed off. So let's make you less pissed off. which will probably upset your wife even more that you're unemotional. But that's better for you in the long run.
Tyson Mutrx 00:42:43 I like that. I like that a lot. Do you. Do you have some sort of community somewhere where the the guys that are in this group can all talk to each other and be a support group? How does that.
John Nachlinger 00:42:55 Work? Yeah. So right now it's a it's a Facebook group. Yeah I had it on an off site place. But I asked them all and they were like, no, let's let's put it back on Facebook. particularly most of the guys that are in that are that I work with are in the age group where Facebook's still.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:12 Right.
John Nachlinger 00:43:12 Still in vogue.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:13 It's still the it's still the best place for groups to meet. It really. Yeah it is. It really is.
John Nachlinger 00:43:18 It is. So, Yeah. So we, you know, we have a strict, you know, no women policy in there, like, women try to join it all the time.
John Nachlinger 00:43:27 Yeah. like, all the time. Probably several times a day.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:30 Why do you think that is?
John Nachlinger 00:43:32 I just want to I. I don't know if they just. They want to be. They want to hear what's going on. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. So I have a podcast. Get divorced without getting screwed. and it's a podcast for men, but traditionally about 30 to 40% of our audience has been women. Yeah. And it's like they just I think they just want to hear what we're all talking about. Like what? What's going on? Which is interesting because the things we talk about are the same things they're talking about. It's all the same thing. It's just how this is the whole thing. You have to how do you talk to a man is a little bit different than how you talk to a woman, you know, like from an emotion perspective from like what? What's important to them. Perspective. It's just different. And so, you know, when you go back to coaching, a lot of coach, there's a lot of coaches out there.
John Nachlinger 00:44:15 Vast majority of them are women. And there's just it's just one of the I mean, I would I don't know I don't know the statistic for sure, but just knowing because I've been out in the community a lot, I'd say it's probably 70 to 80% are women. And because of that, most men, they might have a female divorce attorney. But when it comes to someone they're going to talk about, you know, how they're feeling about things. They might not want to do that to a woman. Yeah. So so I kind of there's there's a lot of reasons out there why this group is probably doing very well because I haven't really it's funny, for years I didn't do any kind of advertising. I didn't do anything. It grew by word of mouth. It just grew very organically. and that let me know that there was something that was missing in the world that people needed this community. And now I stay in this group for, you know, post-divorce. And they'll talk about, you know, what's going on, what happened at this holiday, what happened at that holiday.
John Nachlinger 00:45:14 You know, my ex-wife just did this. What do you guys think I should do? And I chime in every once in a while, but they. It's like they just all are talking to each other now, and it's it's a thing of beauty, and I love it.
Tyson Mutrx 00:45:25 That's pretty cool when it comes to. So you've got the group that focused on men. Does the firm focus on men as well?
John Nachlinger 00:45:31 No, we we just focus on we focus on everybody.
Tyson Mutrx 00:45:34 Have you ever thought about making that shift?
John Nachlinger 00:45:35 No, no, because I, because I first of all, I really like to focus on mediation. So obviously I need two people anyway. Sure. And I've always thought that if I focus on men, I'm going to turn off, you know, a wife from wanting to be a part of this process. Now, in the law firm, we're focused on helping families, and that's how it's always going to be. Plus, I have a I have a whole bunch of attorneys in the firm who, you know, they, they represent everybody too.
John Nachlinger 00:46:04 and I think if you start to focus too much on one gender, at least it's been my experience in new Jersey that, your firm gets a reputation, whether it's earned or not, of being difficult to work with because you're advocating so much for one gender when we really should be advocating for reasonable results, whatever, you know, it should be gender neutral. and so I don't think I'm ever going to do that. And I don't begrudge people that want to represent only women or only men, but really because of what we want to do to change the way divorce is happening and really go to more of a flat fee model. I just want to help people And help people get through this process. Because I've seen way too many people get completely. It's like bankruptcy to some degree. People have gotten ruined by divorce. Sure. For no reason. I mean, I've had people fight about things like crock pots and Ikea furniture.
Tyson Mutrx 00:46:55 Things I hear from you, all the family attorneys just cracks me up sometimes because it's it's sad, but it cracks me up at the same time.
Tyson Mutrx 00:47:02 So I there's only a couple firms that I know of that like really push like they represent one side and that's it's Cordell and Cordell. Like they represent men. Stingy. It's either I don't know, I think I don't think it's stingy. Stingy. I think it's just state law firm is what it is. But stingy is I think they're in like 13 states, but like Cordell and Cordell, they're in every US state, I think. And then they're like in the UK. It's kind of an odd mix, but, I because I did want to ask about that, because I was curious as to whether or not you did just represent men, but I mean, that makes sense. So, do you think, though, if you did it, it would make the support group stronger and vice versa.
John Nachlinger 00:47:46 Maybe. But what's interesting is the law firm itself is really not. I'm I'm less associated with it in general, which is by design. Good because I want the law firm. I mean, my, my I do have aspirations that this, this law firm will be in other states soon because it's really building a model of how we can help people get through divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:48:08 And it's less about me. I mean, I don't litigate anymore. I haven't been I've been into two courtrooms since Covid, so I don't litigate. Very nice. So, so it's not really so much about me. So I want I want the firm to really do this now as a divorce strategist. It is about me. I mean, I that's who I am. So that's a little bit different. So I've never really considered this. I mean, I would do it if everyone in my firm wanted it, but, you know, everyone's more satisfied with trying to find ways to help people, and that's really where we're going to stay. I mean, I just, I would say in our mix is about 5050 as it is. And quite frankly, it depends on who they are. But some of my some of my most difficult clients I've ever worked with have been men. you know, so and it's so it's really it's a really an interesting thing. But I don't begrudge people that want to do just men and just women.
John Nachlinger 00:49:05 We have a lot in new Jersey that focus on only one side or the other. We have a cordial and Kordell in New Jersey. but we have other, smaller firms that just do one or the other. And, I just, I feel like they their taglines are always very gender specific. Like, sure. You know, like helping, you know, helping fathers, you know, not lose their kids and stuff. And I just think sometimes it kind of flies in the face of trying to find reasonable solutions to divorce problems, which just Which means we should come at it much more from the standpoint of what's going to be fair to everybody. Because let me tell you something. There's a lot of women out that make a lot more money than men.
Tyson Mutrx 00:49:43 Absolutely.
John Nachlinger 00:49:43 It's all shifted now substantially. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to do it. I mean, I could. Who knows? Talk to me. In five years, who knows? I might have changed my mind.
Tyson Mutrx 00:49:52 We'll do this again in five years. Was there some sort of triggering event that led you away from litigation? Because you. I mean, you were heavily in litigation before, and then what what made you want to do more of the the mediation style?
John Nachlinger 00:50:06 So in 2018, I had a 27 day trial.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:13 in 2018.
John Nachlinger 00:50:14 Yeah, in 2018.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:15 That's funny because I had a I have a five week one. So you and I, you and I, maybe it was around the same time.
John Nachlinger 00:50:19 So yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:20 I don't, I don't.
John Nachlinger 00:50:21 I don't know how yours was scheduled but mine, the 27 days was over seven months.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:25 Oh no. Mine was together. So. Wow. That's.
John Nachlinger 00:50:27 Yeah. That's how we do things in family court. It's like you come in on a Monday and then next week it's like a Wednesday, and a three weeks later you get a Monday, Tuesday, and then two weeks after that it's like a Thursday.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:37 So it sounds like a nightmare.
John Nachlinger 00:50:38 Yeah. So you you there's no no out.
John Nachlinger 00:50:41 You're constantly living in this night.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:43 And having to relearn the facts.
John Nachlinger 00:50:45 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:45 It's crazy.
John Nachlinger 00:50:46 So, so I had this trial. I had an adversary that was a, like, an ex prosecutor who should have retired years ago, who made my life miserable. we had a brand new judge who had. This might have been one of the first divorce trials this judge had. Oh, no. everything about it was just horrible. and I, I had, I it was in a county two. That's, in new Jersey. That's. No one really likes to practice into. So you combine it all together. it was just a horrible experience all around. the decision was so completely screwed up because it took forever. Facts were confused. Things were screwed up. Then we had to go through an entire appellate process. It got remanded back to the court and that was when I finally told my client. Listen, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it anymore. that whole year, I had gained I had gained weight.
John Nachlinger 00:51:47 I was beyond stressed out all the time. I couldn't I was just because, you know, this case was going on, I still had 30 or 40 other cases all going on to, and at the outcome of it, literally, the outcome at the end of the day is something that if someone walked to my office and said, here are my facts, I would have told them this is the outcome. I mean, it was it was a very predictable, easy outcome that we had to get to. And after that, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. I can't. It's it gives me no joy. and so after that, I've devoted myself to mediation. And I have other attorneys that love to go into court and argue, and they love it and it gives them, you know, gets them excited. Fine. You guys go do that. But, you know, it's just it's the kind of thing where it wasn't so much about going to court in the process.
John Nachlinger 00:52:38 For me, it's what I saw happen to this family. I mean, this kid, I think was probably a junior in high school when the case started. He was graduating college when the appeal was decided. Oh, no. So he had gone on for that many years. That is absurd. That is ridiculous. And, I'm going to I'm going to change the way people get divorced if it kills me because that that whole process, I mean, my client, he was the shell of a person that he was before the whole thing started. It was all because he went through this horrible process that was not set up in such a way that it encouraged people to resolve things from the very beginning.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:17 So, you know, right now, people that are the billable rate, people are like screaming right now saying, this is why you need the billable hour and not the flat rate. I am so curious, was that case on a flat rate or was it on the billable.
John Nachlinger 00:53:30 No, no, I mean, we would.
John Nachlinger 00:53:31 I'd never do a trial on a flat rate. that wasn't that was a billable hour case. but I wasn't the first attorney. Oh, no. So.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:41 And, I mean, it's the nightmare case.
John Nachlinger 00:53:43 Well, I come in. I've cleaned up a bunch of cases in the past. I do have a I do have a policy. I will never be the third attorney on a case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:50 That's that's kind of ours, too.
John Nachlinger 00:53:51 Yeah. I mean, I say that we do. I do have one where I'm the third attorney, but it was a very specific. The first attorney died. Oh, you know, the second attorney, something happened. So there's specific things that might happen, but, in that, in that one, I was not the first attorney. And so by the time I got in the case, the attorneys had screwed it up so bad, they had made it so litigious that it was going to trial. So there was really nothing I could do. But if I had gotten at the very beginning, I'm confident that I would have been able to at least steer it in a different direction than it ultimately went.
Tyson Mutrx 00:54:25 Okay. Speaking of steering in a different direction, let's let's talk about the mediation. Let's get away from the litigation stuff. Talk about the mediation. And I've always found it, like, hard for me to kind of internalize the idea of representing two different parties. And maybe representing is not the way of putting it, but that's why I'm going to put it representing the two parties. to then try, I understand the idea of like a common goal trying to get this thing to resolved, best thing for the family and all that, which I guess I could also say, like that's part of the internal struggle is like, best thing for the family might be keeping the unit together, but, like, let's set that aside for a second. How do you how do you deal with all of that when it comes to the two different sides? And what happens if if one of them goes off the rails?
John Nachlinger 00:55:12 It's it's hard. so mediation occurs in two different parts of a divorce. Usually one is super, super early, like at the very, very beginning.
John Nachlinger 00:55:21 And one is after. They've already been fighting for like 9 or 10 months. So it's really a different process depending on where you are. Sure. So in the law firm, what we usually we usually get people at the very very beginning. So they're coming to us. First of all they have to sign up together. So step one is they have to at least acknowledge that you don't have to like each other. You don't have to be in the same room, because I can put them in separate rooms on zoom in breakout rooms. But can. Are you both committed to saving all your money and at least trying to figure out a way to resolve things? And if they both agree to that, and they sign and they come in. basically, I think I haven't succeeded once in four years of not resolving a case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:03 Wow.
John Nachlinger 00:56:04 Because they both they both committed and I make and I make them give a commitment at the very beginning to, like, don't say yes to something unless you really mean it.
John Nachlinger 00:56:11 You know, if you need to think about it. Let's go think about it. You know, little things to kind of help them. I talk to people all the time who hate each other's guts. You can see it in their eyes. You can see it in the the sarcasm coming out.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:23 Through gritted teeth.
John Nachlinger 00:56:24 Yeah, I can see it, but I just put them in separate rooms. And the second time I put them in the separate room, all of that facade comes off because now they're not doing it for show anymore. They're doing it, you know, they're doing they can sort of hide behind me and find a way to resolve things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:37 How do you how do you convince them to? So I'm kind of thinking, like through the whole marketing process, what is it that gets through to one of them or both of them to come in and then hire an attorney together, as opposed to going and getting their own quote unquote bulldog, which I think is ridiculous. That's those are the ones that make family law probably bad, as probably is my guess.
Tyson Mutrx 00:57:01 But but how do you what is it about your marketing or what is it about the messaging that convinces them to want to come in?
John Nachlinger 00:57:08 So if you go on our Instagram page, you'll see this hit hard every single day. It's one line, you know, here's here's the mediation program where you get a you get mediation, you get an agreement, and you get a divorce, you get everything done for a little bit less than $5,000, or each of you can go pay an attorney $5,000. And don't forget, plus apply. And then the average divorce is about $15,000 per person. So we always if you look if you look at you say, okay, $30,000 versus $5,000, 12 to 18 to 24 to 36 months versus 10 to 14 weeks. And if you just put it in those terms, you know, your kids, you know, upset at everybody because you dragged them through the process over here, you're able to sit next to each other at your kids kid's graduation. Like, we we sort of like pace it out.
John Nachlinger 00:58:02 Like, here's here's what life could look like on this route. Here's what life could look like in this route. And really, people are buying the result. Like I said earlier, they see that and they're like, okay, that's the result we want. So then they're able to put some of what they hate about each other aside. And a lot of times they hate each other, but they know they're going to get everything done quickly, inexpensively. And then as a mediator, I make sure it's a fair. I really do make sure it's fair to make sure everyone gets heard. Everyone thinks it's fair. And I'll even go one step further. About 80% of everyone that goes to this process mediates in three hours or less to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:58:41 Oh.
John Nachlinger 00:58:41 Wow. So we go really quick because in advance of mediation, we send them videos to help them prep. We send them like sort of little worksheets to like kind of get their mind around what they're looking for, what do they want. So when we get there, literally I say, you know, hi, my name's John.
John Nachlinger 00:58:55 Now here's what mediation is. All right. Let's get right to work. We're going to start with your kids. And then it's like, bam, we're on our way. And the quicker I can get it done and they feel good about it, the better I feel, because I realize, you know, if people if left to their own devices, people don't really want to fight. Yeah. The fight happened about the divorce. The fight happened because I hate, hate, hate you. I don't want to be married to you anymore. Once that fights over, people don't want to just fight all the time. It exhausts you. It drains you. It's horrible. And then your kids are affected. If you really give people a choice, they're going to choose, to resolve things quickly. But unfortunately, most attorneys don't believe in that. They believe in. They will hire me. Let's do all this stuff and then we'll go get a mediator. Okay. Well, now, how much did I just spend when I could have just started with a mediator who's an attorney who can? I mean, I don't act as an attorney.
John Nachlinger 00:59:45 I act as a mediator, as a neutral third party. so it's a choice. And in your marketing, you just lay it out as a choice. You can do this, or you can do this. Which one are you going to choose?
Tyson Mutrx 00:59:55 How do you how do you make sure that they understand that you're not taking a side or that you're not you're not giving one side a better deal than the other side?
John Nachlinger 01:00:07 Well, I mean, I explained that at the very beginning, you know, I'm a neutral party. although I am an attorney that has done this for a long time, so at least I know what we need to talk about. But what I end up if I need to. If I need to tell somebody, you know, let's get back on the road. You're off roading somewhere. Let's get back on the road. I take them in a breakout room and I have that conversation with them, and I say, listen, I get your upset, I get where you're going.
John Nachlinger 01:00:32 But do you want to resolve this? Because if you want to resolve it, what? You're what you're talking, what the things you're saying and the things that you're talking about aren't going to get this done. So let's get back. What do you really want? Talk to me. And then usually they'll say, okay, listen, I'm sorry I was pissed off, you know, because she said this or he said that I was just pissed off. But really, you know, as long as we can get this, this and this, I'll be fine, okay? Let me go. Let me go talk to her now. And so you just really you just really make sure by your actions that you're listening to what they're saying. But then I use my attorney filter a little bit to make sure that we stay on the right track, that we're staying within the bounds of reasonableness. because if one, you're never going to get a result if one person thinks they're being screwed. So you have to make sure that everyone feels at least that they they think they're getting a reasonable and fair deal.
Tyson Mutrx 01:01:23 Have you ever had a couple reconcile in the process during the middle of the process?
John Nachlinger 01:01:29 we've had a couple, yes, who have gone through mediation and we've drafted the agreement and then they've decided to not get divorced.
Tyson Mutrx 01:01:36 Yeah. Is that part of your is that because of part of your process, or is that something they did on their own?
John Nachlinger 01:01:40 Yeah. I mean some people. I it it happens. It's it happens not just in the mediation. It happens in general. Yeah. I mean, we probably have at least two, 2 or 3, people a year that reconcile. some of them just flat out reconcile, and they, they just dismiss everything, and it's done. Other times they say, okay, listen, we're going to give the marriage a chance, but we've already reached an agreement. So. Oh, interesting. So we this happens very frequently where they'll sign the agreement and we'll just put in a provision that if either one of them re files for a divorce within 12 months, let's say.
John Nachlinger 01:02:14 Then this is the agreement. So it's kind of like so, but in a certain way that's good because they all know what's going to happen if the marriage doesn't work. They already have it figured out. So there so they don't have to worry about any of that anymore. All they have to worry about is each other. And is this marriage going to work? There's some cultural issues to there's certain cultures where this happens more than others. but yeah, people reconcile. And I've, I've divorced people more than once, too, from the same spouse.
Tyson Mutrx 01:02:41 Yeah. those are those those return customers. would be interesting from a just from a mental standpoint, I, I find it hard to believe, like, I, I would find it hard to do it as a client to have, like, some sort of agreement hanging over my head. for a lot of reasons. One, it can be used as leverage. the other thing is, like, it just seems like the marriage is temporary, but, I mean, good on the I mean, you're you're right.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:07 The benefit is that they know what the outcome is going to be, you know?
John Nachlinger 01:03:09 Well, you could say you could say the same thing about prenup. I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:12 True. Yeah.
John Nachlinger 01:03:13 Absolutely, people. But. But peanuts. I'm a big proponent of cleanups. Yeah. mostly because I think people should talk about money more before they get married. Because that's the number one reason people get divorced is money. Yeah. someone spends too much. Someone, you know, someone saves too much. Whatever. but it's the same thing with that. You just have to agree. I mean, listen here, there's there's going to be. What's the outcome going to be? If your marriage doesn't work, you're going to get divorced. Yeah. Okay. 50% of all marriages end in divorce. I don't know if that's still the right number. I I've been saying.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:43 It's higher than that.
John Nachlinger 01:03:44 But it's it's a lot. Right? so if you know that, it's like, it's like getting insurance.
John Nachlinger 01:03:50 It's like an insurance policy on. Okay, in the unlikely event our marriage doesn't work, at least we're not going to have to fight anymore. Yeah. And this is so it's it's really no different than that. and I know people think that about prenup. They're like, oh, we're gonna have to live our life under this prenup. Well, maybe if your prenup is ridiculous because some people have ridiculous prenup, but if it's really just a in the event we get divorced, here's how we're going to split our stuff. And it's really simple like that. Then it really shouldn't be hanging over your head. I tell people when I do prenup, just put it in a drawer, lock the door and forget it even exists.
Tyson Mutrx 01:04:23 So I think that's interesting. So you've been divorced. It looks like you're married again. And so I wonder, is there anything that you made sure that you did at the beginning? And let's set aside a prenup, because you may have got to I don't care if I want to look at something else, like maybe something a little deeper that you made sure that you did at the beginning, that you that you should have probably done during the first marriage.
Tyson Mutrx 01:04:45 And so I wonder if there's anything you could focus on because I'm, I think this could it could apply to maybe law firm owners or thinking about a partnership, but also about marriages too, because it has such a massive impact on the actual firm itself. A marriage does. So I wonder, is there anything you can point to that to make sure X needs to be done at the beginning of the marriage, to make sure to give, to give you the best chance for success.
John Nachlinger 01:05:06 Your visions have to align, your visions have to align. I've had a partner to in my law firm before. You've got to have an alignment of your your vision when it comes to marriages. you know, often I hear people say things like, I want to travel, my spouse doesn't want to travel. And I'm like, how did that not come up when you were dating? Like, I don't understand. It was a good question. What do you guys talk about? I don't even understand. Like, so, when I got I mean, first thing I did between the first and second marriage is the same thing I tell everyone to do, which is you have to work on yourself.
John Nachlinger 01:05:36 You have to, you know, whether it's a therapist, a coach or just self-help books and listening to podcasts or whatever. Work on yourself and you have to identify what happened. What what did I do that contributed to my marriage not working? Now? In my case, I got married when I was like in my early 20s. So I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 01:05:54 Pretty.
John Nachlinger 01:05:55 Young now. And I think when you get married in your early 20s, I think it's just dumb. I mean, it really is. Yeah. But, so, you know, I didn't know who I was. So it just kind of, you know, that that one you can excuse a little bit, but this this, my my new spouse. It's really more of a we just talked a lot more about deep things, like, what are you where do you want to be in 20 years? You know what? What's your view on money? Like, do you want to save a lot? Do you want to spend a lot? What kind of house should we be living in? Children.
John Nachlinger 01:06:27 Do you want children? Do you not want children? you know, travel, you know, like eating out, like all these things that, like, people just don't really talk about. We just make assumptions, you know, because people are just playing along when they're dating. They just play along. But, you know, you're going on trips to Aruba. Well, maybe one person hates going on this trip.
Tyson Mutrx 01:06:45 But there's happy times.
John Nachlinger 01:06:46 Yeah, but there's happy times. So people just don't have enough of those intense conversations. I mean, I think maybe everyone should go through some kind of premarital counseling. Sure. But I like the prenup in that it forces you at least talk about money. It just makes you talk about money. It makes you talk about, you know, whether whether your agreement. Most people just agree that I keep what I had coming into the marriage. You keep what you have and everything else will be split. Most prenup say that by the way. You know, most people probably think prenup say you get nothing if we get divorced.
John Nachlinger 01:07:15 That's not what most prenup say. But at least we all know, you know, going in. Here's the deal. At least I get back what I had before we got married. Okay, which sounds pretty reasonable. And the law is a little bit more difficult to. If you don't have a prenup, it's a little bit more difficult because you can commingle and stuff. But, I just think I knew what I did wrong, what the things that I didn't do well in my marriage. And then I also realized that I just married somebody who, ultimately was very different from me from the very beginning, but glossed over those differences for years because we had a child and you have a child. And that's it's easy when you have a child to gloss over, you know, imperfections in your marriage. So, you just people just don't communicate enough. And then you have to work on yourself. And people don't work on themselves enough. I mean, as you've probably talked to a lot of people, you know, that, there's so many, there's so many people out there that can help you sort of look inward and figure out what's stopping you from being the person you really need to become, and all the things that hold us all back.
John Nachlinger 01:08:22 And if you don't work on yourself, I don't know how you can actually have somebody else, like, fully like involved in your life. You're always hiding something from them. You're always hiding some part of you. Sure. So if you can work on that. And so I did all that. I worked on that which actually led to me getting divorced. Oh, I started doing all of my excuse me. I started doing all of my, improvements, myself improvements and working with coaches and people to sort of identify. And that led me to open up my eyes to realize how my marriage was holding me back from being the person I really wanted to be. You know, both professionally and personally. So, there's a lot of, you know, that's a that's a very long topic.
Tyson Mutrx 01:09:03 No that is that's a deep one. I, my my wife and I was talking about how, like, you're really responsible for your own happiness. You really are. Because it. I agree with that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:09:11 You have you have to work on yourself. You have to. It starts with you. Because if you're if you can't make your own self happy, you're not gonna be able to make anybody else happy. So I, I think that's that's a good message for sure. I'm going to make a really hard pivot to podcasting. All right. And I wonder how has do you find that the podcast has been more of a benefit to the firm and the business, or do you think it's been more of a benefit to you and helping you find your professional voice? Talk about talk about the podcast.
John Nachlinger 01:09:43 It's very it's a very interesting question. because I for a long time didn't see myself as a brand, you know, and in fact, I just started in a mastermind about ten months ago that that's the entire mastermind is about building a brand. so when I first did it, it was it was really just it was just me trying to. Trying to figure out how I wanted to help men. Sure.
John Nachlinger 01:10:06 So having people on, talking about all the things guys go through in a divorce, having guys come on and talk about their real life experiences and all that sort of things. And I did it for fun. I mean, I think a lot of people maybe start a podcast for fun, but I started it during Covid. Like, yeah, like a lot of people probably did. and then over time, unbeknownst to me, because I never even paid attention to stats or anything. Unbeknownst to me, a lot of people were listening, and so people were seeking me out all the time. and so what ended up happening is, yes, it it helps. It helps both the law firm and the coaching business. but I don't do it intentionally to help either one, because all I want to do, I come at it from a place of, I want to provide information and provide this, this important, you know, this important information to guys out there who maybe don't have any other access to it, but it has.
John Nachlinger 01:11:03 It has helped me and people reach out to me all the time. I kind of knew that the podcast has started to do really well when my marketing assistant would be like, okay, we got 30 requests yesterday and 25 today to be on your podcast. Wow. And I'm just. And of course, after a while, I mean, you have a podcast. I mean, I after a while I'm like, okay, I've already covered that subject like 12 times that we covered that one. Like nine times. I'm like like I want to I always want to add new information now. So I've kind of gotten to the point in my podcasting where I only I only put things out if I really, truly think they're, they're unique and interesting and new. because, you know, that's sort of the brand that I built, but everyone but I have people reach out to me all the time who want me to represent them in divorces, but they live in, you know, Idaho or something. And guys that, want me to, to coach them.
John Nachlinger 01:11:56 But they think part of coaching them is giving them legal advice. It's just it's all over the place. but I really enjoy doing it. more so than I thought I was going to. But, I do, I do I'm doing fewer, episodes per season now just because it's, Again, I don't want to just repeat. I mean, I don't want to. I had I had a guy talking about bankruptcy on last year. Who's this guy? Is he going to have anything new to say? Because people can just go back and listen to the last episode? I every once in a while if this happens to you. But every once in a while I find myself like, oh my God, this is so boring. I hope, I hope my listeners are going to enjoy this because I, I feel like we've already talked about this like ten different times.
Tyson Mutrx 01:12:41 So yeah, so because we've been doing it for eight years, we've not missed a week in eight years. And so for the majority of those, we've had two a week, sometimes three a week.
Tyson Mutrx 01:12:50 And so we've a long time there have been when that happens, we I try to shift gears because you do kind of get into the ones where it's like, oh man, you got to stop talking. So I can ask you another question. Like, this isn't, by the way, because you made a comment that your long answer that wasn't in reference to that. Just so I'm very clear about that. But there has been times where we're like, it's usually via like a video, one where like, let me get in here and let me let's, let's engage a little bit. And they kind of view it more as like a speech. And it's not a speech as a conversation. What is what has made it a lot better? Is this like having the back and forth, being able to read your body language? You can read my body language. You know that that makes a massive difference in the quality of it. I think, we've had the bigger concern, though, the bigger we've had were we've had episodes we've never aired because the person comes on to the pitch, they're just pitching a product or service or something, and we're just not into that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:13:49 We're just like, I'm not. We're not going to hear that. It's just not going to do it. So that's the bigger one. But yeah, I mean, we've had so many different characters like we since we've been here for eight years. Like we're going to repeat topics this just but sometimes the topic has to be repeated because things change like SEO, like search engine optimization today is way different from from 2017 2016. Way different. right now we're talking about LMS and I you know, it was I thought it was kind of funny. I was thinking of just a few minutes ago how we've not even talked about. I like it's because it's such a massive thing, but, so, yeah, things have changed, but you're right back and I, we, we talk a lot about, like, if it's not excellent, we're not putting it out. It's just that's the other thing too, where, it's we we want to make sure that the listener really is getting something out of it.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:37 So. And so I like I like your approach to it. how how often does yours come out?
John Nachlinger 01:14:43 once a week.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:44 Once a week? Yeah. What day of the week?
John Nachlinger 01:14:47 we do Thursday.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:48 Thursday. Yeah. So we've we've always done Tuesdays, but, you know, we might have done Wednesdays at some point, but it was.
John Nachlinger 01:14:54 Just something fun. And then we do, that's the audio. And then we do the video. two weeks later on a Monday so that they come out. They come out at different times. You know, like, for fun. Nice. I like to I like to give the people that give me their time. I like to make sure that we spread out the promotion of them as much as possible. so, I mean, I really enjoy doing it. It's just, you know, I'll give you a great example. I probably have done 12 or 13 episodes on narcissism.
Tyson Mutrx 01:15:23 Oh, that's a fantastic topic.
John Nachlinger 01:15:24 I know, but it's like, I think I've covered it.
John Nachlinger 01:15:27 Yes, I think I've covered it. And it's just it's just one of those things. And the people of all have been excellent. They've been wonderful. But, you know, at some point I'm like, you know, you're this is a little bit more of an expansive podcast about a lot of different things. Yeah. It reminds very much more focused on people planning for or going through a divorce. So it's like, you know, there's only so many. The topics tend to kind of start to go over again. And I'm with you. Most of a lot of the pitches I get are people that want to come on to sell something, and you can see it in the pitch that they want to sell something. And I'm like, I don't know about that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:15:59 It's usually the it's something along the lines of, hey, I listened to your episode on X and we're X, Y, Z, whatever it is, and they'll pick one line out of it. And it's very clear they've never listened to that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:16:11 Like anything else, they've just the one. And then I'd like to come in and talk about this. It's like the same formula that they use like okay, that's a, that's a red flag. and for a long time we, we didn't let anybody on because we had, we had gone like 2 or 3 episodes in a row where we said, okay, we'll bring them on. It was all pitch and we didn't hear it. We're like, we're not doing that again. So, we've now every once when we get like a topic that we're like, oh, that, you know, I think people like that. That's interesting. We just make it very clear that you can't sell. okay. So I want to I want to end with this, though. I want to go back to you, though, the, the branding. You talked about the brain because I did want to get into branding with you a little bit, and I, I wonder what what lessons from training that you've learned that that maybe you wish you would have applied earlier in your career.
John Nachlinger 01:16:57 So when I when I originally formed a firm, I wanted it to be about I wanted it to be about the firm and not about me. So I intentionally kept myself from not being like the figurehead of the firm. And so people, because I had this idea that people would want me if it was all about me. And I realized that now I started to realize over the years that people they just wanted like an environment where they trusted who was in charge, who was actually like it was their firm and they were promoting it. Then then fast forward, I finally decided, okay, if that's the case I'll start making it more about me. But I really have always talked my firm, I've always talked about my firm, my coaching program. I've never talked about me as a person. So, I finally decided that, you know, building a brand affects everything that I do. I also had a cookie company for a while, and it's like we. So it's just a way to get rid of stress from doing all this crazy stuff.
John Nachlinger 01:18:03 So basically, BigQuery and the brand just sort of goes through all the things that you do, and it becomes about people trusting you and who you are. No matter what it is that you're helping them do and helping them with. and so I, I joined, I think I said this earlier, I joined a mastermind. That's the entire purpose of it is sort of helping me seen helping you build a brand. And I've learned so much about what that actually looks like. And a lot of it's been very uncomfortable for me. Sure. I mean, I've always been guests on podcasts and done things in the past, but, I've had to up it a lot now. And really, I, I've been in all kinds of articles talking about my personal life, and, there's an article that came out in the Guardian a couple weeks ago that was about how my spouse and I met. Like, it has nothing to do with anything other than just me, and I would never have been comfortable with that five years ago because I've been like, how is that relate to my business? Why am I doing that? But then when you start to realize that it's about people knowing and liking you and trusting you.
John Nachlinger 01:19:05 Yeah, and it doesn't really matter what it is you're talking about. They just have to know who you are. And so like, people listen to the podcast and then I talk to them. They literally to a person and be like, I feel like I already know you because when I do my podcast, I'm just, you know, I curse a lot. I just like, I'm just I'm who I am. And, and it's becomes obvious to people. so the more and more the brand has been building, what's interesting is people call looking for me, but then we're easily able to say, well, he trained all of these people. He, you know, he works with all these people, you know, you're going to be okay. You're going to be. You're going to be great with, you know, this attorney or that attorney or this coach. So, but yeah, I mean, attorneys don't build enough. Don't work on their brand enough. I think it's because we all look at ourselves as attorneys and not as a business owner, somebody who, you know, owns this business and owns this, this brand.
John Nachlinger 01:20:03 And so, like, I've it's like a shift. I've had to, like, shift my, like, social accounts to be more about me as a brand and not just me putting things on like the company pages and all of those sorts of things. And it's it's a hard shift. It's something that as an attorney, it's just been difficult to to see on my and I won't even talk about. It's not like the personal injury attorneys that have all their fun commercials, which we don't do in new Jersey, but we get Philadelphia and New York media, and I love all of those. But, yeah, it's something that I think more attorneys need to focus in on, you know, building a brand, building a business, and figuring out what it is that you're doing. What is it that you want to do? Yes. We all practice law. Yes, we go to court. Yes, we represent clients. But what is it you're doing? What is it that you really are offering in the world that someone else isn't, or that you're trying to, you know, like.
John Nachlinger 01:20:52 For me, it's really about changing the way people get divorced. So of course, part of that has to be me explaining the journey and why I got to where I am so that people can fully appreciate why this is a better process. And, you know, building that brand is very difficult. I had no idea what I was in for when I started down the road, but it's been it's made me a better person, made me a better an attorney, and it's clarified for me my purpose. And, I wish more attorneys would just, get out from underneath, you know, their cases and all their files and start to really focus on, on, you know, showing the world who they really are as a person.
Tyson Mutrx 01:21:32 I can't think of a better way of ending. we'll talk about the cookie company because I was on my list of things to ask you, but we'll talk about that next time with chat. But thanks for doing this, John, I appreciate it.
John Nachlinger 01:21:40 No problem.
John Nachlinger 00:00:18 Well, it's along the lines of being a problem solver and not a lawyer. especially when we do divorce and family law, it should be much more about finding solutions to families and not making it worse. I think a lot of attorneys make it worse instead of trying to figure out how to make it better. I don't believe in going to court until I've tried to resolve things. And a lot of attorneys don't believe in that. They just, you know, fire off the complaint and see what happens and then try to resolve it later. I just don't believe in that. I don't think it's good for families, not good for kids.
Tyson Mutrx 00:00:47 I mean, do you find that other family lawyers practice that way?
John Nachlinger 00:00:51 I do, and it's it's a hard thing to try to get around, because it takes talking to your client to talk to their spouse, to try to convince the spouse, you know, don't go this direction because they might have an attorney that's pulling them in that direction.
John Nachlinger 00:01:04 And I really think that it's a disservice to everybody. Plus, the court system is really screwed up. I mean, every state's got their problems, but in new Jersey in particular, we have a very, taxed court system that, you know, you're going to be in the court system for 12, 18, 24 months if you decide to go through it as opposed to trying to resolve things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:01:22 Yeah, a lot of people think it's torts that, that that really bind up and jam up the court systems across the country. It's family law cases. It's domestic cases. without a doubt. I mean, do you think the desire is because, like, is it a financial interest of the attorneys or is it, is it a or is it a character flaw? Like, what is it about family law? Because I've only barely dabbled in it. Okay. Like I've had three cases ever. It was more than a decade ago that I've ever touched a family law case, and it seemed like it was really difficult to deal with the family alternatives from what I was used to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:01:54 And so what do you what is it about family law attorneys. That makes it so difficult.
John Nachlinger 00:02:00 There's probably three cases too many, right?
Tyson Mutrx 00:02:02 Yeah. Exactly. Right. They were all favors, quote unquote favors.
John Nachlinger 00:02:05 Oh I see. So the problem with family law is there's so many different things within family law that are handled like there's domestic violence cases. Yeah. You know, there's people that have children that aren't married. Then there's of course, your divorces, and then there's people that are already divorced that need things change and there's adoption, there's name changes. There's all these things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:02:23 Real estate taxes.
John Nachlinger 00:02:24 Real estate tax. There's all kinds of things that have to be handled. So there are people out there that do this all the time, and those are great. But a large percentage of people that show up in family court are what we like to call people that only have, you know, one, 2 or 3 cases, you know, in, in divorce or domestic violence or these other things, and they don't really know the law.
John Nachlinger 00:02:45 They don't really know the procedures. They don't know how to resolve things without being a lawyer. And unfortunately, in family law, you have to take your lawyer hat off a little bit and start thinking more in a collaborative way. Like, how can I resolve things because people are already pissed off they're getting divorced. You know, maybe someone cheated on somebody and there's all these emotions, but you got to figure out how to get around those emotions because emotions. What's 95% of a divorce? The law is pretty easy. I mean, it's not hard. And I mean very seldom to someone have something that really needs to go in front of a judge. It's very rare. Most of the time we can get around it. And I will say that most attorneys at least look themselves in the mirror and believe that. And the problem is, is, well, we've got two problems. One is financial. I mean, attorneys need to make a living. And I'm never going to say an attorney builds a case just to make money, but we need to make a living.
John Nachlinger 00:03:37 Number two, attorneys are scared to death of malpractice. They're scared to death of not doing enough. You know, not doing enough discovery, not looking for enough information, not asking enough questions. Because later on, if you don't ask all those questions, you don't want your client coming back to you saying, well, how do we not know about that? How did we not know about that? So I think it's those two competing things that really force a lot of attorneys to really go above and beyond what they probably need to do in a given case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:04:03 Yeah. Are you are you are you bill by the hour flat rate. What do you do?
John Nachlinger 00:04:07 So my firm is transitioning to all flat rates. And we're I say transitioning because it's hard to just do all flat rates. It's a transitional period. So we've started doing divorces, flat fee divorces. there's certain categories that would qualify, but like, we do a mediation flat fee where we act as mediators but actually write the agreement, get them divorced.
John Nachlinger 00:04:29 We do some where they already know what they want, and we give them like little worksheet to like, figure. Tell us what it is. Yeah. And then and then we've got like basic where no one has anything. And so we have all of those sorts of things. And then we still bill by the hour as well. but even there we try to do, payment arrangements and try to my, my whole goal is that we it shouldn't be a barrier. And if you can't pay an attorney 5000 or 7000 500 or $10,000 to start a case. It shouldn't be a barrier to you getting help. So we try to figure out a way to help people within the confines of actually having a business, which is those are the two competing things. You know, I have to be able to pay my staff. I pay my paralegals, pay everybody while helping people. So it's that it's that dichotomy that's always, you know, when you're an owner of a law firm, it's really hard because, you know, people always want to give favors.
John Nachlinger 00:05:17 They always want to let me do a favor for this person. Do a favor for that person. Let's do a low bono case here. Let's do pro bono here. And I love all of that. But at some point, we also have to make enough money to pay our staff and to because they all depend on us as well.
Tyson Mutrx 00:05:31 Yeah. Well, the reason why I ask is because you mentioned, you know, you don't think attorneys, they just build just to make money. I there is a firm I won't mention their name. and I actually think from a business standpoint, if we're just talking purely business, it's a brilliant model. They bill hourly, and they have all these different things that they that must be done on a file, their associates must do on the file. The reason why I think is brilliant is that, again, from a business standpoint, purely business from like making money is what I'm talking about. is you can't then go back and look and say, well, they did all these things for me.
Tyson Mutrx 00:06:07 They did a terrible job. Now they did all these things for you. So it for the file looks like they've done an amazing job because they've done all these things. Maybe not all of them were necessary, but they did all these things to help, you know, at least help with the case. And they're able to build all that towards the retainer and everything. And I wonder if, if part of the the problem is the billable hour, if your what are your thoughts on that?
John Nachlinger 00:06:31 I think it's a huge part of the problem. I mean, I hate to build what if I didn't have to ever bill by the hour again? I would not, it's the one thing that drives me absolutely insane. you know, I like to. I'm one of those people that does my entire day. And then I go back and Bill because I just can't I don't I don't like the whole idea of. I just got off the phone, let me go Put it in my room. I really don't like that.
John Nachlinger 00:06:52 but it is the problem. And a lot of clients, they don't care how they get divorced. They don't care how the sausage is made. Which is another problem. The attorneys love to talk about how the sausage is made. Yeah, they want the outcome. They want the outcome, and they want to know what is it going to cost me to get this outcome. And so that's why the flat fee model is a more appropriate model in a lot of cases. Obviously there's things we don't know. We don't know how the spouse is going to react. We don't know how their attorneys can behave. But in terms of a hourly rate, everyone gets bogged down on how much the hourly rate is or isn't. And all of this stuff, when really at the end of the day, we just need to figure out how to get our clients from point A to point B. And yes, right now we have to build by the hour on cases that are truly, you know, kind of we don't have a clue what's going to happen.
John Nachlinger 00:07:36 So we have to do that. But if I could get away from it completely and figure out, like this way, this magical way, and I've thought of things. I mean, we thought about flat fee, like, parts of cases like flat fee and like. Filing a complaint. Flat fee, going to court, you know, doing sort of flat fees along the way. But clients, we've found out that scares them even more if they see a whole like menu of here are all the expenses that you might incur that scares them even more than just the well, the average divorce in new Jersey is about 15 to $16,000. A lot of times they just feel comfortable with that. And that's a billable like traditional contested case. Yeah, they feel more comfortable with that than giving me a menu of things because we've tried it and it scared them. They're like, well, what if I have to do all these things because they take out their calculator and start adding them all up and they're.
Tyson Mutrx 00:08:24 Like, right.
John Nachlinger 00:08:24 Yeah, it's going to cost us much. I'm like, no, you're not going to do all of these things. But so I don't know how to get away from the hourly model entirely. As long as there's other attorneys out there doing it because they're if they're doing it, it puts pressure on us as well. Because, you know, if if I get a stack of discovery from my adversary, my clients will be like, well, if I have to answer it, they have to answer it too. Sure. So now all of a sudden, we've started this back and forth. That's not productive for anybody.
Tyson Mutrx 00:08:52 That's the interesting thing about family law is that that you have to do that whenever you request it. You have the I think that applies in a lot of states. I don't know if every state, but it does a lot of states. How do you navigate the situations with like a flat fee, where it's like just a client that is sucking up all your time? How do you deal with those situations?
John Nachlinger 00:09:08 So we we specifically set forth like how much communication they get with the office, exactly what we're going to do.
John Nachlinger 00:09:15 The scope of service is very specific. And once they exceed the allotment that they have for communication, they do get billed for additional communications.
Tyson Mutrx 00:09:26 And I like that.
John Nachlinger 00:09:27 That's good and that, but that keeps everyone in check. I mean, probably in a given month we have one client that exceeds their their communication because they know, okay, I have two hours of communication with my attorney, which is a lot, two hours. And we I mean, we're I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 00:09:41 They they don't always think that, but.
John Nachlinger 00:09:43 They don't always think that. And that's in addition to like an initial strategy session. It's in addition to getting revisions to their agreement. Those things are all separate. It's like above and beyond. It's like those little like nagging questions that the clients like to ask. They wake up in the morning and they have this, you know, this question that has nothing to do really with anything, but they want to talk to somebody. So we've done that. But the clients love it.
John Nachlinger 00:10:05 The clients that have gone through the flat fee are so happy because they've talked to all their friends that haven't. And they know, they know that they got a good deal and they got divorced. And now their spouse and them aren't killing each other. Their kids are happier. Everything is a better situation and they saved a lot of money.
Tyson Mutrx 00:10:22 Yeah, they know what the what the cap is unless they overcommunicate. Right. You mentioned, attorneys care too much about, like, how talking about how the sausage is made. I, I think I might slightly disagree, but. So I want to ask you more about that because don't you find value from like, just a marketing standpoint of demonstrating the value that you've added.
John Nachlinger 00:10:44 Well, certainly if you're billing by the hour, you have to use, you have to justify your bill. But if you're doing outcome based billing, like flat fee billing, you don't need to do that because they're paying for the result. The result is I'm going to be divorced, I'm going to have an agreement, and it's going to be done in this period of time.
John Nachlinger 00:10:59 But if you're billing by the hour, of course you have to justify everything you do. You know, every phone call. What was it about every email? What was it about? Why did you talk to the adversary? Why did you send that letter? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? So when I say don't talk about how the sausage is made, I'm talking like at the beginning of the case. Attorneys like to sit down with clients and be like, oh, first we're going to file a complaint, and then we're going to go to court and do this, and then we're going to do that, and then we're going to do this. And they don't understand clients don't care about those things at the beginning. I mean, as they're getting billed, of course, they want to know what's going on in their case, but at the beginning, they don't care about that. They want to know, what are you going to do for me? How are you going to help me? And that's where I think a lot of attorneys lose clients because clients leave and they don't have that feeling of, this person doesn't want to help me.
John Nachlinger 00:11:40 All they talked about are all these things that are going to cost me money. Yeah. You know, and I know it's going to cost me money. I know it's going to be expensive. Divorce isn't cheap. But start talking to our clients about the outcome. Like what are we trying to achieve for them? Like when I have an initial conversation with somebody, I say, what are your three goals? What are they? They can be anything from. I, you know, I want to lose weight to. I want my kids custody of my kids, whatever it is this. What are your three goals? And then I write them down and I share it with them in an email that here are the three goals we identify. And throughout the case I keep coming back to those goals. So when we get off the when we get off the beaten path because their their spouse did something stupid, I come back and say, well listen, your goal was to get this thing, okay. If we get this thing, can you ignore this other thing that's going on? And I just keep them focused because divorce is one of those things that like, it's tit for tat, you know, someone does one thing and someone does something else, and then someone does one thing and someone does something else and they can.
John Nachlinger 00:12:38 And that's why divorces can cost 50, 60, 70, $100,000. So I just. You have to keep your client focused and unemotional as much as possible on what are you here for? Like what's important for you?
Tyson Mutrx 00:12:50 I love that for a lot of reasons. because you can like to start, like you can identify any red flags or like, like like you headed off right at the beginning. I can't do that for you. Kind of a scenario. Or you can you can make sure that you're on track with, with everything that, that they're wanting. You could also at the end say you you told me at the beginning that you wanted these three things and you got these three things. And I think that that's I think that's great. how do you deal situations where they're, they say they give you something on their list of goals that just it's unreasonable or just unattainable.
John Nachlinger 00:13:27 I tell them right up front.
Tyson Mutrx 00:13:29 Yeah.
John Nachlinger 00:13:30 No, I understand you want. Well, I'll use custody because a lot of times that's something that comes up.
John Nachlinger 00:13:35 I want sole custody of my kids. I don't want my spouse to be able to make any decisions or anything. I'll say, okay, I'll ask them why. First, why is that your goal? And usually it's some stupid reason, like, you know, he's an asshole or, you know, he cheated on me or something like that. If they say something more legitimate, like, oh, he's got a drinking problem or he's got a drug problem or something. Okay, then I'll go into it a little bit more and we'll talk. But if it's something really just dumb, I don't beat around the bush. I, I cannot stand attorneys that promise the world to their clients to get them to pay them. That's the worst. But a lot of divorce attorneys do.
Tyson Mutrx 00:14:10 Enjoy lawyers, too.
John Nachlinger 00:14:11 Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's it's like it's really bad. And so I from my perspective, I don't want to have to be looking at my client six months from now saying like, well, I know I told you that, but you know, and give them all the reasons why.
John Nachlinger 00:14:24 Now we're not going to get it. When I knew at the very beginning they weren't going to get what they were asking for. So I try to adjust their goal and I say, okay, if we can't get that, what would be the next best result or next most acceptable result for you. And I try to like get them to adjust their own goal to something that's more attainable. it may still be a stretch, and I'll tell them that I'm like, okay, listen, we'll try to get that. We'll get as close to that as possible. But, you know, you want to pay $1,000 a month in alimony. Well, try to get as close as possible, but if we get to like, you know, 1050 or 950, that's considered close. Do you understand that? You know, we may not get exactly what you want, but it's going to be close. You understand that. And, you know, as long as they can understand and we can have that communication at the very beginning, I'm fine with that.
John Nachlinger 00:15:12 I just don't lie to my clients. Yeah. And the ones that want to be lied to. Well, they can go somewhere where they'll be lied to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:15:19 Yeah, I like, I like how how big you are on setting those expectations up up front. because. Yeah, the the whole idea of these lawyers overselling at the beginning, like, I understand the desire to sell your firm, but like when you overpromise, You're just. You're setting yourself up for failure at the end. It just makes no sense.
John Nachlinger 00:15:39 It absolutely doesn't. And I'll take one step further in my firm, when you call our office, you talk to a non attorney salesperson anyway, so we don't like the attorney doesn't even have any contact with you until you've signed a retainer and paid. Right. So which I wish more attorneys would come around to this. Because still to this day, when I tell people I have this model, they look at me like I have five heads and like, how can you have a non attorney sell? But they're selling the outcome.
John Nachlinger 00:16:04 Like, what can the firm do for you. Sure. They're not selling how the sausage is made. They're not selling the process. They're selling the outcome. And if you get someone who's good at doing that, they really and they build a good rapport with the client because they're talking to a client on an emotional basis, not about their case, not about the law. When they come in to see the attorney, finally, and we have our strategy session, you know, the client's already has a good warm feeling about these people can help me. And they hear everything the attorney is saying in a much different way. Sure, they they're like, okay, I already I already trust these people. So if they're telling me that I can't get this, okay, that's fine.
Tyson Mutrx 00:16:43 I'm so glad you brought this up because I hear all the time, all the time with Maximum Lawyer, you have a lot of people where they'll listen and we talk about our hiring process. We don't have an attorney involved in our hiring process.
Tyson Mutrx 00:16:55 It's. But. But the excuse I always get is, well, you're not taking money up front. You know, you just need a signature you don't need. And there's there's many other firms of maximum lawyer that that do the same thing you do where they, they sign people up, a lot of times over the phone. No it no attorneys involved. So I guess what advice would you give to attorneys that are skeptical to think either they personally need to be the one that sells, or that they need to have an attorney that's on that intake team that's got to get the get the job done.
John Nachlinger 00:17:27 Well, if you own a firm and that's you, I would say this is the part where you really have a job and not a business, because if you have a business, you have to start looking at things from a non attorney point of view and the people that feel like they have to be involved every step of the way are the ones that are probably the same people who can't delegate work to anyone else anyway.
John Nachlinger 00:17:50 It's like I have to do everything. It's all me. The people are coming here for me. Okay, fine. If someone comes for you, then why do they need to talk to you to sign up? They're coming because they've some trusted person or someone out in the world said this person's great. So you don't need to have your hands in everything. And quite frankly, that's time. If you own a firm, that's time you should be using to build your business and work on your business and think of other things to do. Work on your marketing so you get the right people in the door to begin with. But I really feel like you just need to talk to someone who has the model. Yeah, because there's more and more people that do. I know it started. I know a lot of like immigration firms and people like that that do it, which I think people think that makes a little bit more sense. Family law, you seem, is like a little bit more complicated.
John Nachlinger 00:18:39 People think to do it, but not really because you're talking about people in the most emotional, like emotionally like damaged part person they probably have ever been. And they're coming in and they just want someone to hear them. And that doesn't have to be an attorney. And quite frankly, if you are an attorney doing those, a lot of attorneys do them for free, which even drives me even crazier. Like we actually have a policy, like if someone wants to talk to an attorney, we just do a paid consultation. Oh, interesting. And we just say, fine, you really want to talk to an attorney? Because, you know, you need to know before I sign. I need to know what my Alamo is going to be or whatever else they want to know. We just do a paid 30 or 60 minute consultation and they pay it. They talk to the attorney and then our non attorney salesperson follows up and then usually signs them up after that consultation. So if someone really needs to talk to an attorney, we'll do it.
John Nachlinger 00:19:30 Yeah. but I would say that's a very small percentage of the people that sign up with us, maybe 20% or less.
Tyson Mutrx 00:19:36 I am very curious, and you may not know the numbers, but it's off the top of your head with your hunches. I wonder if, where do the worst clients come from? The ones that sign up through the non attorney salesperson, or the ones that insist on talking to an attorney before they sign up?
John Nachlinger 00:19:53 I don't, I don't know if I know the answer to that.
Tyson Mutrx 00:19:55 I would love to know the answer.
John Nachlinger 00:19:56 Yeah. I never even thought about it. I would say are the clients that are the, the, the let's say not a clients that we have are typically the people we get from cold Google ads anyway. Sure. So a lot of them are hot to trot, so a lot of them will just sign up immediately because they need someone, because they just were served with a restraining order or, you know, they just got a complaint in the we're served with a complaint.
John Nachlinger 00:20:22 So a lot of them the ones. So now that I'm thinking about the ones that actually have consultations sometimes are a little bit more, they're thinking about things a little bit more, and they just want to give it a little bit more thought, which is nothing wrong with that. No, not at all. I it drives me crazy. I'm in a lot. I'm in a lot of masterminds and things. And every time I have, like, a, like a call with somebody and it's like, hot to trot, like, you know, give me your credit card right now. I'm like, okay, I'm going to ask questions first, and I need to know more, and then we'll do it. I mean, so I look at it from my I try to look at everything from my perspective to like, like, are you just is everyone just ready to give someone, you know, a credit card for $5,000 over the phone? Not everyone is some people. Some people are like, listen, I did my research.
John Nachlinger 00:21:05 I'm ready to go. Other people are like, let me think about this a little bit. And so I don't begrudge someone that wants the consultation. Now there are people out there that the consultation so that they can hear what they want to hear. Right. And a lot of times those people don't even sign up. And those are the ones everyone in my office gets. My attorneys get upset. My non tourney salesperson gets upset and I'm like listen, you make more money with the people we don't bring in than the ones we do 100%. So I'm like, if they didn't hear what they wanted to hear and we're never going to be able to make them happy. What do you think's going to happen down the road? Yeah. You know.
Tyson Mutrx 00:21:37 So a guy who used to rent office space from, a great personal injury attorney in Saint Louis, he used to always say that you make more money off the case, that you don't take the ones you take. Same thing you just said. I've never heard anybody say it is.
Tyson Mutrx 00:21:48 I think it's great. I love hearing here. Hearing you say it. I want to know, when it comes to hiring for that position, the non attorney salesperson, what are you looking for in that position? Because it's I mean, you just can't pull any person off the street to do it.
John Nachlinger 00:22:04 You can't. I'm on my sixth one right now. Okay. So it's taken a while to find the perfect person, right? Yeah. And I have I have her now. Oh, nice.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:12 So before her, she wasn't here for the here, here. Oh.
John Nachlinger 00:22:15 She'll be happy.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:17 she might want more money.
John Nachlinger 00:22:18 And everyone before her. Actually, everyone before her was a man. Like I had men before her. And, I was looking for someone who was selling something, particularly something that had some level of value. Like just someone who's been used to selling a product. Okay. So that's kind of who I was looking for beforehand. And then I put them into sales training.
John Nachlinger 00:22:38 You know, I have a sales coach that I have helped train these people, and they've all did fine. Sure. You know, they all did fine. But I realized men don't have the same. Not not all. Some men do. But a lot of men don't have the same empathy that women do. Yeah. And on these initial calls, no matter who it is calling their, you need to have a certain level of just empathy.
Tyson Mutrx 00:22:59 You draw the connection.
John Nachlinger 00:23:00 Yeah. You need to have a little bit more of a connection. So, so I finally the person that I found was not someone who had any sales training whatsoever, but she had been through a divorce. She'd been through a particularly difficult divorce.
Tyson Mutrx 00:23:14 So she can really relate.
John Nachlinger 00:23:15 Yeah. And she, you know, has children. And she was really, she didn't want a job. She wanted this job when I talked to her. She was very much like, had read about what we were doing as a firm, these flat fees and trying to change the way that people get divorced, and that she was really attracted to that and was ready to sell that to people because she's in.
John Nachlinger 00:23:36 She was in all kinds of other like, divorce support groups and everything. And she was like, oh my gosh, people need this. They need to like, see, there's a better way. So when I heard all that, I was like, okay, well, she doesn't have any sales background. Okay. Let me just get her the training and see if it works. So we trained her and she has been outstanding because she had something that the other people just didn't have. I was looking for the sales, but I kind of just completely forgot that someone who has some first level experience and can tell people maybe not like, oh, let me tell you what happened to me, but at least hear what they're saying and understand what they're saying, and respond to them in a way that only someone who can understand what they're saying would respond. combined with the receptiveness to being taught how to do sales. because that is that's another skill set. It's hard. I mean, I've been through this.
John Nachlinger 00:24:26 I've been through the sales training. And let me tell you, when I do, on the rare occasion I'll do a consultation just because it's a it's a friend. It's like someone really important that refers someone to me. And I'm just like, I have to do this consultation. Sure. even I, I get into my attorney ness too much. I lose track of, you know, sort of the sales script and the sell script is not anything bad. It's just, you know, you want to keep people on track 100% the only the information that you need so that you can, explain to them how we can help them or whether we can help them. So really, you need, I think anyone, especially in divorce and family law, you got to find somebody who just understands what people are going through and is receptive to learning how to do sales. So if you can find someone with those two skills, I think you've got someone that you probably will do a really good job.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:16 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:17 Can you think of the name of the training, the sales training? Because I think people would love to hear what that is.
John Nachlinger 00:25:20 It's S3.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:21 S3.
John Nachlinger 00:25:22 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:25:23 How did you learn about that?
John Nachlinger 00:25:26 I'm trying to think where where I, I was in I was in a coaching program for a long time where I, I learned about a lot of these things, will not be named and, and, nothing bad to say. It's just, don't need any, don't need any advertisements. So, I learned about S3, and, it's really good. It's like a, it's just a very systematic, specific way of selling. and what I, what I really love about it is they have like, weekly dojos where like, she, she gets on for an hour and she just practices parts of the sales conversation with another student so that they can practice outside. And I love that. And they get feedback from instructors. but I just really and she doesn't follow it to a tee. And I told her she doesn't have to.
John Nachlinger 00:26:11 It's just a good foundation and just you, you need to always. It's like a skill set. Any skill set. You got to keep working on it. Keep working on it. You get better and better and better.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:20 So does she. Is that something you will? Do you have, like, regular training scheduled for her? So she's better? That's awesome.
John Nachlinger 00:26:26 But I have someone who knows what they're doing. Yeah. Not me. And that's nothing. Attorneys. We all think we know everything. I don't know anything about sales, so I have someone else do it. Just like I don't know anything really much about marketing. Yeah. So I have someone else do all of that, too. So you have to, you know, hire the right people so that or at least get the right coaches and people that can help you.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:44 I love that, that's really good. I'm going to shift gears and you have something called. I make sure I get the name is a divorce playbook.
Tyson Mutrx 00:26:50 Is that what. Is that what it's called? And what is the divorce playbook? I want to make sure I've got the is. Is that what it's called?
John Nachlinger 00:26:58 Well, I mean, we have a divorce. Playbook is just something we give people that helps them understand, mediation. But, you might be referring to, divorce shield, perhaps. So this. So I also do, like a men's divorce coaching.
Tyson Mutrx 00:27:12 Because I want to get into that, too. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about that then. Yeah. Because we can get back to the divorce playbook if it comes up. Yeah. Talk about that.
John Nachlinger 00:27:20 Yeah. So, during Covid, I just sort of wanted a different way to help people. And I just. I've been talking to all of my male clients, and they've all they've all had very similar issues. Yeah. Really struggling with the emotion of going through this and not having people to talk to, you know, as as men were really bad at talking to other guys.
Tyson Mutrx 00:27:37 Kind of bottle it up.
John Nachlinger 00:27:37 Yeah. We don't want to. And, there's a lot of guys that live in, like, rural America. Like in small towns where everyone knows everybody. They don't want to talk to anyone about what's going on. So, I decided to form, basically form a group, online of guys that can just join and talk to each other. And then stemming from that, I was like, listen, as an attorney, I know what they need to do to prepare for divorce. Like if they have time to prepare, I know what they need to do. Like, for example, they need to learn their kids friend's names. They need to know who their kids teachers are, who the principal is, who the who the pediatrician is who? Their friends. Parents. Who? Their friends. Parents are. They need to learn, like, just. I'm just giving you an example, some basic information that they need to learn that if they don't know it, it's not like they're not going to get custody, but it's going to make it more difficult.
John Nachlinger 00:28:25 Whenever, you know, whenever their wife says, oh, he doesn't even know who, you know, little John's friends are. Yeah, I do. It's this person. This person. Like it's just little things that as guys, particularly if you're like, have a you're working hard and everything. Maybe you just don't know. So I just I came up with like a process where a program where people can sort of put all these pieces together, everything from learning information, organizing finances to protecting yourself against bogus domestic violence claims, which is another big thing, and then actually start looking towards the future, because I feel like the people that have the worst divorces are the ones that are so caught up in the moment, they're so caught up in what's going on that they can't even see that light at the end of the tunnel. They don't even think about it. And those are the same guys I women do this to same guys who, you know, drink too much, they get out of shape.
John Nachlinger 00:29:12 There they sit around and mope around all the time. And then it makes it harder for them to even agree to something in the divorce. Even something reasonable, because they're just so distraught about what's going through. So I form this, and then I sort of became a divorce, immense divorce strategist. I don't like the word coach. So Mr. Strategist.
Tyson Mutrx 00:29:33 Well, I was gonna use the word coach, so strategist I like that.
John Nachlinger 00:29:36 Yeah, I don't like coach because I mean, although men do respond to coach, they understand. I'm like I explain it to guys all the time. I'm like, I'm just like a basketball coach. I'm on the side. We drop the play. I send you out in the court. If it doesn't work, come back over, we'll drop another play. But I really concentrate on the strategy of it. Like, how can how can I help guys prepare to go into the divorce process and then how and then to tie it back to what I do in my law firm.
John Nachlinger 00:30:01 I help them understand the benefits of going through like a mediation process and an amicable process. And then I try to teach them how to talk to their spouse about it, their spouse who they hate or they're distraught about or. My favorite. she told me she wanted a divorce, and I had no idea this was coming. Which is. I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 00:30:18 Do you.
John Nachlinger 00:30:18 Believe that? No, I've never believed it. Once. One time. And every guy that I've ever worked with knows that. I think that that line is just a bunch of nonsense. It's just you didn't. You weren't paying any attention.
Tyson Mutrx 00:30:28 I like your focus on the after two. So you're you're prepping them for it. But also the after we had someone on the show recently and the name of her firm is Happy Ever After, which I think is a it's a great name. Really is good. so you but you do the the strategy and do you can you do this with anyone across the country because of the way you have it set up?
John Nachlinger 00:30:49 Yeah.
John Nachlinger 00:30:49 So I work with I work with any guy actually anywhere in the world. I've had guys in other countries. Oh, incredible. But but I won't do. I won't work with anyone in new Jersey because I just I just feel like because I practice law in new Jersey, I don't want any unintentional conflicts or anything that might arise. Okay. So, but I have other people in new Jersey I'll refer someone to. because if they're if someone in new Jersey wants my help, I'll just say, listen, we'll we'll do some of the, the strategy and coaching and all of that as part of you being a client of the law firm. So that's sort of what I it's just easier to do it that way because it's too complicated, you know, doing both sides and but yeah, I work with anyone. you know, I try to, I try to only work with about 20 guys at a time just because,
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:36 So you really. Okay, I, I thought it was more like, a bigger thing.
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:39 So it's, you know.
John Nachlinger 00:31:40 Why? One on one work with 20 guys. So I have an online course to that. Guys. That guys do. it's basically just a, you know, it's like four modules that they can like sort of.
Tyson Mutrx 00:31:50 How do people plug it? How do people find that if they want to?
John Nachlinger 00:31:53 so men's divorce network. Com okay, that's all the information about the, the programs and, you know, the coaching program with me is very much a application process because I'm really big on. I only want to work with people I can help, and sometimes it's very obvious that it's somebody that I they need more like a mental health professional and not a coach. And there is there's a difference between the two, and there's a situation where someone would need one and not the other. Sometimes people need both. Sure. but, yeah, I try to keep I like to I mean, most guys I talk to once a week, you know, and I'm. And I run a law firm, so it's kind of like, I.
John Nachlinger 00:32:31 I'm spread too thin everywhere all the time. But this is what I love. I love talking to these guys. I love trying to help them untangle, you know, how how am I going to be okay? Because, I mean, I've been divorced, too. I'm a divorce attorney. I've been divorced. So I, you know, I tried to come at it from that perspective. I'm also a father, so you know that too. Most guys are scared of the same things. Am I going to lose all my money? And am I going to lose my kids? Yeah. I mean, almost every guy is scared of those two things. So you, you know, so it's easy to come to a place where you can just sort of talk to them about those issues. Because if you don't resolve them, if you can't get a guy to sort of or a girl or a woman to understand that they're going to be okay, that they're going to be able to get through this, that they need to concentrate on something bigger than the divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:33:19 if you can't get them there, they're going to get focused on the divorce. They're going to be focused on the day to day. They're going to get focused on having their attorney be their support system. And that as an attorney is what I really don't like, because they end up paying for it and they end up paying a lot of money because we can't just like, not, not build somebody to sit on the phone with them, you know, 2 or 3 hours a week. We have to because we can't work on other we can't work on other people's cases.
Tyson Mutrx 00:33:45 That's a great segue because I want to ask you about that. So whenever you you have a situation where you are doing the strategy, but you also have the strategy coaching, maybe they already have a lawyer, or maybe they do need a mental health professional. How do you deal with those situations? And do you find that the attorneys are open to this, or do you find that they're opposed?
John Nachlinger 00:34:09 Some are. Some are open, some are not.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:11 Do you ever get nasty emails?
John Nachlinger 00:34:12 I do, I do and I get I've had I've had many clients in the past that have wanted me on calls with their attorneys.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:19 What do you.
John Nachlinger 00:34:20 Do with that? Or I'll do it if they want me to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:34:22 Oh, okay.
John Nachlinger 00:34:23 I mean, they understand that there's, you know, there's a there's a privilege issue with that. But as long as they understand. I've sit in meetings with experts and clients like people that some people are. So. See, this is what attorneys don't always understand. Sometimes your client is so emotionally fragile that they don't hear what's being said. They don't hear it. They they really almost need somebody to interpret what just happened. Okay. And attorneys are really, you know, it's the whole thing. If you say something to somebody and go, do you understand what I just said? It's human nature always to say yes, but a lot of times attorney clients don't understand what just happened. You know, if they're sitting in a meeting with an accountant, an accountant, saying all these things, the attorneys asking all these questions, and they're like, do you have any questions? I mean, sometimes people don't even understand what just happened.
John Nachlinger 00:35:10 So, so I'll send in some of those meetings. It's not my preference to do it, but I'll do it so that I can help them sort of unpack what just happened, and I can explain it to them in a different way. I also help guys find attorneys. That's another thing that I've been doing. I've been toying with sort of a course in terms of how to look for an attorney, because most people just go and they look, what were the things people look for? Who told me this person was great because they, you know, they got this great result for somebody else or who's the cheapest. I mean, it's like people, people shop for attorneys the same way they shop for just about everything else.
Tyson Mutrx 00:35:44 It's just crazy.
John Nachlinger 00:35:45 It is. And so I try to help them understand, like what to look for. Like, don't look for someone who dabbles. Look for someone who does this primarily. If divorce and family law isn't like the major thing on their website, probably not the right person for you.
John Nachlinger 00:35:58 So, yeah, but most attorneys are open. They understand that we're there to help, not to hurt them or to make things more difficult for them. And I don't suck a guess. An attorney ever.
Tyson Mutrx 00:36:08 What I love about it is, and you were when you were talking about I started to think about all the adjacent areas where you could you could branch this out into and make it so much bigger if you really wanted to. And I know that you're not motivated by this, but you could I mean, you could build like an empire around it if you really wanted to, where you you have the mental health side of things, you could do pay for leads kind of a thing. There's so many things you could do with it. I think it's kind of interesting, but, and I want to shift over to something else, though. When it comes to, how do you avoid dabbling in, let's say you find someone in Missouri that you're, that you're strategizing with, and how do you prevent yourself from getting into, you know, practicing law or giving legal advice?
John Nachlinger 00:36:54 So what will happen often is I will get like a a letter or a proposed agreement that my, my, coaching client attorney has prepared.
John Nachlinger 00:37:07 Okay. The coach client will say, Will you look at this with me? And so what I'll usually do is just I'll post questions to them to ask to their attorney without flat out saying, what the hell did this attorney.
Tyson Mutrx 00:37:20 Sure.
John Nachlinger 00:37:20 Yeah. Like, I don't like I never do that. I just sort of, like, pose the question, like, maybe ask why it was worded this way and maybe, like, what is it that you want to do? Oh, you want to do this? Well, maybe see if maybe see if there's a different way to get there. Just make sure the attorney understands what you want so that we can get to the right language. I try not to cross the line. there have been a couple occasions where I have just emailed an attorney directly, at my client's permission, but not copy my client. Sure. And just been like, listen, I saw what just. I saw this thing in the agreement. you know, do you understand that your client is actually wants this.
John Nachlinger 00:37:57 You know, I don't know if he was clear. He may not have been clear. I try to be very diplomatic about it. Yeah. And, most of the attorneys are happy with that. I've only had one attorney ever that got upset that I was involved. And, and then what interestingly happened is my coaching client fired that attorney because it was like, okay, well, if you're not going to work with my coach, then I'm going to go somewhere else, but I don't I'm there to be a supplement to help. Yeah, not not to be a hindrance, but being an attorney is helpful because I see things. I mean, I don't like the way. I mean, it's it's like any attorney, you see what someone else wrote and you're like, oh my God. And it's hard not to want to rewrite it if you're reviewing it. Sure. But sometimes you just have to say, okay, does it accomplish the goal? Fine. So even though it was worded like, you know, a ninth grader wrote it and it's grammatically insane, it does what it needs to do.
John Nachlinger 00:38:50 So it's okay.
Tyson Mutrx 00:38:51 I it's what I like about it. And I am very curious how receptive other attorneys are whenever they listen to this to it. But I'm kind of envisioning the times where it's kind of a difficult client, where I'd love to have you as a buffer, you know what I mean? Like having that buffer and it I do see how it could be a lot cheaper for the client if you're building on an hourly basis, because unless they're paying you early but are or I guess how do they pay you.
John Nachlinger 00:39:18 So we it's usually like a program okay, of a certain number of weeks. And they I mean I do unlimited like email communication with them.
Tyson Mutrx 00:39:26 Yeah. So in a situation like that I mean that's it's cheaper for them. They're not paying the attorney by the hour. It's something where you can help filter a lot of those communications. And so you can receive ten emails instead of the attorney getting ten emails. And you're that filter where it could be a massive advantage to, to to an attorney.
Tyson Mutrx 00:39:46 It's almost you could sell it almost like as a concierge service. In a way. I know that that's not what it is, But you kind of in a way, it could be. It could be a really I mean, it could be a massive benefit. I wonder why there aren't more of these that have popped up. Unless maybe there are.
John Nachlinger 00:40:00 But, well, there's not a lot of divorce coaches out in the world that are attorneys. I mean, most divorce coaches, you know, anyone can call themself a coach. It's like just.
Tyson Mutrx 00:40:09 Plop. So there are divorce coaches. There's lots of there's.
John Nachlinger 00:40:12 There's a lot of divorce coaches out there, but a lot but a lot of them don't really understand divorce. Yeah. So a lot of them became a divorce coach because they had a bad divorce themselves, or they went and got some accreditation from I don't know, I don't know who was accredited to, to do this sort of thing, but whatever. and so they don't really have the full background of like every step of, of a divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:40:37 And, you know, everything that's happened, like, I've been a divorce attorney for 22 years. Yeah, I've done, I think around 1800 divorces, something like that.
Tyson Mutrx 00:40:45 A lot of divorces.
John Nachlinger 00:40:46 Yeah. So I mean, at this point, I mean, I've seen everything, I've done everything. So I sort of, I. So when I coach people I it's with that background. So there's a lot of people out there that don't have the background. And so I think attorneys would be a little bit more skeptical of someone who maybe they don't think knows what's going on as much sort of being in this role. But, you know, when they're talking to someone who is an attorney but not acting as an attorney, at least then, like I've, I've had attorneys help me convince a convince our mutual client of something. And a lot of times, I agree with the attorney that they need to be convinced of something. And so there are times it's a good supplement. But you're right.
John Nachlinger 00:41:25 I mean, like, here's the thing I do more often than not. I just got this email from my wife. This is in the middle of divorce. I just got this email from my wife. Can you look at my my response and tell me if it's okay? I get that probably 5 or 6 times a week. and that is one of the or I get text message. Same thing. Here's the text message. How should I respond? Bond. So that is something that attorneys just don't do, right? I just don't do that because, they they always see the aftermath. They always see after the emails was sent and then, oh, look what your client said, you know. So I do that a lot, and I help them rewrite things. And the goal isn't not to, like, hold their hand, but the goal is to help them learn how to communicate, learn how to put things through. And I love I now because now I can like, tell them, take what you just wrote, dump it into clod or ChatGPT or grok or whatever you want to use and say, can you rewrite this in this particular tone or that particular term? I mean, so I'm trying to I'm trying to help guys understand that, you know, use all these tools.
John Nachlinger 00:42:31 You know, you may be pissed off, but I can make you seem less pissed off. So let's make you less pissed off. which will probably upset your wife even more that you're unemotional. But that's better for you in the long run.
Tyson Mutrx 00:42:43 I like that. I like that a lot. Do you. Do you have some sort of community somewhere where the the guys that are in this group can all talk to each other and be a support group? How does that.
John Nachlinger 00:42:55 Work? Yeah. So right now it's a it's a Facebook group. Yeah I had it on an off site place. But I asked them all and they were like, no, let's let's put it back on Facebook. particularly most of the guys that are in that are that I work with are in the age group where Facebook's still.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:12 Right.
John Nachlinger 00:43:12 Still in vogue.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:13 It's still the it's still the best place for groups to meet. It really. Yeah it is. It really is.
John Nachlinger 00:43:18 It is. So, Yeah. So we, you know, we have a strict, you know, no women policy in there, like, women try to join it all the time.
John Nachlinger 00:43:27 Yeah. like, all the time. Probably several times a day.
Tyson Mutrx 00:43:30 Why do you think that is?
John Nachlinger 00:43:32 I just want to I. I don't know if they just. They want to be. They want to hear what's going on. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. So I have a podcast. Get divorced without getting screwed. and it's a podcast for men, but traditionally about 30 to 40% of our audience has been women. Yeah. And it's like they just I think they just want to hear what we're all talking about. Like what? What's going on? Which is interesting because the things we talk about are the same things they're talking about. It's all the same thing. It's just how this is the whole thing. You have to how do you talk to a man is a little bit different than how you talk to a woman, you know, like from an emotion perspective from like what? What's important to them. Perspective. It's just different. And so, you know, when you go back to coaching, a lot of coach, there's a lot of coaches out there.
John Nachlinger 00:44:15 Vast majority of them are women. And there's just it's just one of the I mean, I would I don't know I don't know the statistic for sure, but just knowing because I've been out in the community a lot, I'd say it's probably 70 to 80% are women. And because of that, most men, they might have a female divorce attorney. But when it comes to someone they're going to talk about, you know, how they're feeling about things. They might not want to do that to a woman. Yeah. So so I kind of there's there's a lot of reasons out there why this group is probably doing very well because I haven't really it's funny, for years I didn't do any kind of advertising. I didn't do anything. It grew by word of mouth. It just grew very organically. and that let me know that there was something that was missing in the world that people needed this community. And now I stay in this group for, you know, post-divorce. And they'll talk about, you know, what's going on, what happened at this holiday, what happened at that holiday.
John Nachlinger 00:45:14 You know, my ex-wife just did this. What do you guys think I should do? And I chime in every once in a while, but they. It's like they just all are talking to each other now, and it's it's a thing of beauty, and I love it.
Tyson Mutrx 00:45:25 That's pretty cool when it comes to. So you've got the group that focused on men. Does the firm focus on men as well?
John Nachlinger 00:45:31 No, we we just focus on we focus on everybody.
Tyson Mutrx 00:45:34 Have you ever thought about making that shift?
John Nachlinger 00:45:35 No, no, because I, because I first of all, I really like to focus on mediation. So obviously I need two people anyway. Sure. And I've always thought that if I focus on men, I'm going to turn off, you know, a wife from wanting to be a part of this process. Now, in the law firm, we're focused on helping families, and that's how it's always going to be. Plus, I have a I have a whole bunch of attorneys in the firm who, you know, they, they represent everybody too.
John Nachlinger 00:46:04 and I think if you start to focus too much on one gender, at least it's been my experience in new Jersey that, your firm gets a reputation, whether it's earned or not, of being difficult to work with because you're advocating so much for one gender when we really should be advocating for reasonable results, whatever, you know, it should be gender neutral. and so I don't think I'm ever going to do that. And I don't begrudge people that want to represent only women or only men, but really because of what we want to do to change the way divorce is happening and really go to more of a flat fee model. I just want to help people And help people get through this process. Because I've seen way too many people get completely. It's like bankruptcy to some degree. People have gotten ruined by divorce. Sure. For no reason. I mean, I've had people fight about things like crock pots and Ikea furniture.
Tyson Mutrx 00:46:55 Things I hear from you, all the family attorneys just cracks me up sometimes because it's it's sad, but it cracks me up at the same time.
Tyson Mutrx 00:47:02 So I there's only a couple firms that I know of that like really push like they represent one side and that's it's Cordell and Cordell. Like they represent men. Stingy. It's either I don't know, I think I don't think it's stingy. Stingy. I think it's just state law firm is what it is. But stingy is I think they're in like 13 states, but like Cordell and Cordell, they're in every US state, I think. And then they're like in the UK. It's kind of an odd mix, but, I because I did want to ask about that, because I was curious as to whether or not you did just represent men, but I mean, that makes sense. So, do you think, though, if you did it, it would make the support group stronger and vice versa.
John Nachlinger 00:47:46 Maybe. But what's interesting is the law firm itself is really not. I'm I'm less associated with it in general, which is by design. Good because I want the law firm. I mean, my, my I do have aspirations that this, this law firm will be in other states soon because it's really building a model of how we can help people get through divorce.
John Nachlinger 00:48:08 And it's less about me. I mean, I don't litigate anymore. I haven't been I've been into two courtrooms since Covid, so I don't litigate. Very nice. So, so it's not really so much about me. So I want I want the firm to really do this now as a divorce strategist. It is about me. I mean, I that's who I am. So that's a little bit different. So I've never really considered this. I mean, I would do it if everyone in my firm wanted it, but, you know, everyone's more satisfied with trying to find ways to help people, and that's really where we're going to stay. I mean, I just, I would say in our mix is about 5050 as it is. And quite frankly, it depends on who they are. But some of my some of my most difficult clients I've ever worked with have been men. you know, so and it's so it's really it's a really an interesting thing. But I don't begrudge people that want to do just men and just women.
John Nachlinger 00:49:05 We have a lot in new Jersey that focus on only one side or the other. We have a cordial and Kordell in New Jersey. but we have other, smaller firms that just do one or the other. And, I just, I feel like they their taglines are always very gender specific. Like, sure. You know, like helping, you know, helping fathers, you know, not lose their kids and stuff. And I just think sometimes it kind of flies in the face of trying to find reasonable solutions to divorce problems, which just Which means we should come at it much more from the standpoint of what's going to be fair to everybody. Because let me tell you something. There's a lot of women out that make a lot more money than men.
Tyson Mutrx 00:49:43 Absolutely.
John Nachlinger 00:49:43 It's all shifted now substantially. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to do it. I mean, I could. Who knows? Talk to me. In five years, who knows? I might have changed my mind.
Tyson Mutrx 00:49:52 We'll do this again in five years. Was there some sort of triggering event that led you away from litigation? Because you. I mean, you were heavily in litigation before, and then what what made you want to do more of the the mediation style?
John Nachlinger 00:50:06 So in 2018, I had a 27 day trial.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:13 in 2018.
John Nachlinger 00:50:14 Yeah, in 2018.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:15 That's funny because I had a I have a five week one. So you and I, you and I, maybe it was around the same time.
John Nachlinger 00:50:19 So yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:20 I don't, I don't.
John Nachlinger 00:50:21 I don't know how yours was scheduled but mine, the 27 days was over seven months.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:25 Oh no. Mine was together. So. Wow. That's.
John Nachlinger 00:50:27 Yeah. That's how we do things in family court. It's like you come in on a Monday and then next week it's like a Wednesday, and a three weeks later you get a Monday, Tuesday, and then two weeks after that it's like a Thursday.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:37 So it sounds like a nightmare.
John Nachlinger 00:50:38 Yeah. So you you there's no no out.
John Nachlinger 00:50:41 You're constantly living in this night.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:43 And having to relearn the facts.
John Nachlinger 00:50:45 Yeah.
Tyson Mutrx 00:50:45 It's crazy.
John Nachlinger 00:50:46 So, so I had this trial. I had an adversary that was a, like, an ex prosecutor who should have retired years ago, who made my life miserable. we had a brand new judge who had. This might have been one of the first divorce trials this judge had. Oh, no. everything about it was just horrible. and I, I had, I it was in a county two. That's, in new Jersey. That's. No one really likes to practice into. So you combine it all together. it was just a horrible experience all around. the decision was so completely screwed up because it took forever. Facts were confused. Things were screwed up. Then we had to go through an entire appellate process. It got remanded back to the court and that was when I finally told my client. Listen, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it anymore. that whole year, I had gained I had gained weight.
John Nachlinger 00:51:47 I was beyond stressed out all the time. I couldn't I was just because, you know, this case was going on, I still had 30 or 40 other cases all going on to, and at the outcome of it, literally, the outcome at the end of the day is something that if someone walked to my office and said, here are my facts, I would have told them this is the outcome. I mean, it was it was a very predictable, easy outcome that we had to get to. And after that, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. I can't. It's it gives me no joy. and so after that, I've devoted myself to mediation. And I have other attorneys that love to go into court and argue, and they love it and it gives them, you know, gets them excited. Fine. You guys go do that. But, you know, it's just it's the kind of thing where it wasn't so much about going to court in the process.
John Nachlinger 00:52:38 For me, it's what I saw happen to this family. I mean, this kid, I think was probably a junior in high school when the case started. He was graduating college when the appeal was decided. Oh, no. So he had gone on for that many years. That is absurd. That is ridiculous. And, I'm going to I'm going to change the way people get divorced if it kills me because that that whole process, I mean, my client, he was the shell of a person that he was before the whole thing started. It was all because he went through this horrible process that was not set up in such a way that it encouraged people to resolve things from the very beginning.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:17 So, you know, right now, people that are the billable rate, people are like screaming right now saying, this is why you need the billable hour and not the flat rate. I am so curious, was that case on a flat rate or was it on the billable.
John Nachlinger 00:53:30 No, no, I mean, we would.
John Nachlinger 00:53:31 I'd never do a trial on a flat rate. that wasn't that was a billable hour case. but I wasn't the first attorney. Oh, no. So.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:41 And, I mean, it's the nightmare case.
John Nachlinger 00:53:43 Well, I come in. I've cleaned up a bunch of cases in the past. I do have a I do have a policy. I will never be the third attorney on a case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:53:50 That's that's kind of ours, too.
John Nachlinger 00:53:51 Yeah. I mean, I say that we do. I do have one where I'm the third attorney, but it was a very specific. The first attorney died. Oh, you know, the second attorney, something happened. So there's specific things that might happen, but, in that, in that one, I was not the first attorney. And so by the time I got in the case, the attorneys had screwed it up so bad, they had made it so litigious that it was going to trial. So there was really nothing I could do. But if I had gotten at the very beginning, I'm confident that I would have been able to at least steer it in a different direction than it ultimately went.
Tyson Mutrx 00:54:25 Okay. Speaking of steering in a different direction, let's let's talk about the mediation. Let's get away from the litigation stuff. Talk about the mediation. And I've always found it, like, hard for me to kind of internalize the idea of representing two different parties. And maybe representing is not the way of putting it, but that's why I'm going to put it representing the two parties. to then try, I understand the idea of like a common goal trying to get this thing to resolved, best thing for the family and all that, which I guess I could also say, like that's part of the internal struggle is like, best thing for the family might be keeping the unit together, but, like, let's set that aside for a second. How do you how do you deal with all of that when it comes to the two different sides? And what happens if if one of them goes off the rails?
John Nachlinger 00:55:12 It's it's hard. so mediation occurs in two different parts of a divorce. Usually one is super, super early, like at the very, very beginning.
John Nachlinger 00:55:21 And one is after. They've already been fighting for like 9 or 10 months. So it's really a different process depending on where you are. Sure. So in the law firm, what we usually we usually get people at the very very beginning. So they're coming to us. First of all they have to sign up together. So step one is they have to at least acknowledge that you don't have to like each other. You don't have to be in the same room, because I can put them in separate rooms on zoom in breakout rooms. But can. Are you both committed to saving all your money and at least trying to figure out a way to resolve things? And if they both agree to that, and they sign and they come in. basically, I think I haven't succeeded once in four years of not resolving a case.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:03 Wow.
John Nachlinger 00:56:04 Because they both they both committed and I make and I make them give a commitment at the very beginning to, like, don't say yes to something unless you really mean it.
John Nachlinger 00:56:11 You know, if you need to think about it. Let's go think about it. You know, little things to kind of help them. I talk to people all the time who hate each other's guts. You can see it in their eyes. You can see it in the the sarcasm coming out.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:23 Through gritted teeth.
John Nachlinger 00:56:24 Yeah, I can see it, but I just put them in separate rooms. And the second time I put them in the separate room, all of that facade comes off because now they're not doing it for show anymore. They're doing it, you know, they're doing they can sort of hide behind me and find a way to resolve things.
Tyson Mutrx 00:56:37 How do you how do you convince them to? So I'm kind of thinking, like through the whole marketing process, what is it that gets through to one of them or both of them to come in and then hire an attorney together, as opposed to going and getting their own quote unquote bulldog, which I think is ridiculous. That's those are the ones that make family law probably bad, as probably is my guess.
Tyson Mutrx 00:57:01 But but how do you what is it about your marketing or what is it about the messaging that convinces them to want to come in?
John Nachlinger 00:57:08 So if you go on our Instagram page, you'll see this hit hard every single day. It's one line, you know, here's here's the mediation program where you get a you get mediation, you get an agreement, and you get a divorce, you get everything done for a little bit less than $5,000, or each of you can go pay an attorney $5,000. And don't forget, plus apply. And then the average divorce is about $15,000 per person. So we always if you look if you look at you say, okay, $30,000 versus $5,000, 12 to 18 to 24 to 36 months versus 10 to 14 weeks. And if you just put it in those terms, you know, your kids, you know, upset at everybody because you dragged them through the process over here, you're able to sit next to each other at your kids kid's graduation. Like, we we sort of like pace it out.
John Nachlinger 00:58:02 Like, here's here's what life could look like on this route. Here's what life could look like in this route. And really, people are buying the result. Like I said earlier, they see that and they're like, okay, that's the result we want. So then they're able to put some of what they hate about each other aside. And a lot of times they hate each other, but they know they're going to get everything done quickly, inexpensively. And then as a mediator, I make sure it's a fair. I really do make sure it's fair to make sure everyone gets heard. Everyone thinks it's fair. And I'll even go one step further. About 80% of everyone that goes to this process mediates in three hours or less to.
Tyson Mutrx 00:58:41 Oh.
John Nachlinger 00:58:41 Wow. So we go really quick because in advance of mediation, we send them videos to help them prep. We send them like sort of little worksheets to like kind of get their mind around what they're looking for, what do they want. So when we get there, literally I say, you know, hi, my name's John.
John Nachlinger 00:58:55 Now here's what mediation is. All right. Let's get right to work. We're going to start with your kids. And then it's like, bam, we're on our way. And the quicker I can get it done and they feel good about it, the better I feel, because I realize, you know, if people if left to their own devices, people don't really want to fight. Yeah. The fight happened about the divorce. The fight happened because I hate, hate, hate you. I don't want to be married to you anymore. Once that fights over, people don't want to just fight all the time. It exhausts you. It drains you. It's horrible. And then your kids are affected. If you really give people a choice, they're going to choose, to resolve things quickly. But unfortunately, most attorneys don't believe in that. They believe in. They will hire me. Let's do all this stuff and then we'll go get a mediator. Okay. Well, now, how much did I just spend when I could have just started with a mediator who's an attorney who can? I mean, I don't act as an attorney.
John Nachlinger 00:59:45 I act as a mediator, as a neutral third party. so it's a choice. And in your marketing, you just lay it out as a choice. You can do this, or you can do this. Which one are you going to choose?
Tyson Mutrx 00:59:55 How do you how do you make sure that they understand that you're not taking a side or that you're not you're not giving one side a better deal than the other side?
John Nachlinger 01:00:07 Well, I mean, I explained that at the very beginning, you know, I'm a neutral party. although I am an attorney that has done this for a long time, so at least I know what we need to talk about. But what I end up if I need to. If I need to tell somebody, you know, let's get back on the road. You're off roading somewhere. Let's get back on the road. I take them in a breakout room and I have that conversation with them, and I say, listen, I get your upset, I get where you're going.
John Nachlinger 01:00:32 But do you want to resolve this? Because if you want to resolve it, what? You're what you're talking, what the things you're saying and the things that you're talking about aren't going to get this done. So let's get back. What do you really want? Talk to me. And then usually they'll say, okay, listen, I'm sorry I was pissed off, you know, because she said this or he said that I was just pissed off. But really, you know, as long as we can get this, this and this, I'll be fine, okay? Let me go. Let me go talk to her now. And so you just really you just really make sure by your actions that you're listening to what they're saying. But then I use my attorney filter a little bit to make sure that we stay on the right track, that we're staying within the bounds of reasonableness. because if one, you're never going to get a result if one person thinks they're being screwed. So you have to make sure that everyone feels at least that they they think they're getting a reasonable and fair deal.
Tyson Mutrx 01:01:23 Have you ever had a couple reconcile in the process during the middle of the process?
John Nachlinger 01:01:29 we've had a couple, yes, who have gone through mediation and we've drafted the agreement and then they've decided to not get divorced.
Tyson Mutrx 01:01:36 Yeah. Is that part of your is that because of part of your process, or is that something they did on their own?
John Nachlinger 01:01:40 Yeah. I mean some people. I it it happens. It's it happens not just in the mediation. It happens in general. Yeah. I mean, we probably have at least two, 2 or 3, people a year that reconcile. some of them just flat out reconcile, and they, they just dismiss everything, and it's done. Other times they say, okay, listen, we're going to give the marriage a chance, but we've already reached an agreement. So. Oh, interesting. So we this happens very frequently where they'll sign the agreement and we'll just put in a provision that if either one of them re files for a divorce within 12 months, let's say.
John Nachlinger 01:02:14 Then this is the agreement. So it's kind of like so, but in a certain way that's good because they all know what's going to happen if the marriage doesn't work. They already have it figured out. So there so they don't have to worry about any of that anymore. All they have to worry about is each other. And is this marriage going to work? There's some cultural issues to there's certain cultures where this happens more than others. but yeah, people reconcile. And I've, I've divorced people more than once, too, from the same spouse.
Tyson Mutrx 01:02:41 Yeah. those are those those return customers. would be interesting from a just from a mental standpoint, I, I find it hard to believe, like, I, I would find it hard to do it as a client to have, like, some sort of agreement hanging over my head. for a lot of reasons. One, it can be used as leverage. the other thing is, like, it just seems like the marriage is temporary, but, I mean, good on the I mean, you're you're right.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:07 The benefit is that they know what the outcome is going to be, you know?
John Nachlinger 01:03:09 Well, you could say you could say the same thing about prenup. I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:12 True. Yeah.
John Nachlinger 01:03:13 Absolutely, people. But. But peanuts. I'm a big proponent of cleanups. Yeah. mostly because I think people should talk about money more before they get married. Because that's the number one reason people get divorced is money. Yeah. someone spends too much. Someone, you know, someone saves too much. Whatever. but it's the same thing with that. You just have to agree. I mean, listen here, there's there's going to be. What's the outcome going to be? If your marriage doesn't work, you're going to get divorced. Yeah. Okay. 50% of all marriages end in divorce. I don't know if that's still the right number. I I've been saying.
Tyson Mutrx 01:03:43 It's higher than that.
John Nachlinger 01:03:44 But it's it's a lot. Right? so if you know that, it's like, it's like getting insurance.
John Nachlinger 01:03:50 It's like an insurance policy on. Okay, in the unlikely event our marriage doesn't work, at least we're not going to have to fight anymore. Yeah. And this is so it's it's really no different than that. and I know people think that about prenup. They're like, oh, we're gonna have to live our life under this prenup. Well, maybe if your prenup is ridiculous because some people have ridiculous prenup, but if it's really just a in the event we get divorced, here's how we're going to split our stuff. And it's really simple like that. Then it really shouldn't be hanging over your head. I tell people when I do prenup, just put it in a drawer, lock the door and forget it even exists.
Tyson Mutrx 01:04:23 So I think that's interesting. So you've been divorced. It looks like you're married again. And so I wonder, is there anything that you made sure that you did at the beginning? And let's set aside a prenup, because you may have got to I don't care if I want to look at something else, like maybe something a little deeper that you made sure that you did at the beginning, that you that you should have probably done during the first marriage.
Tyson Mutrx 01:04:45 And so I wonder if there's anything you could focus on because I'm, I think this could it could apply to maybe law firm owners or thinking about a partnership, but also about marriages too, because it has such a massive impact on the actual firm itself. A marriage does. So I wonder, is there anything you can point to that to make sure X needs to be done at the beginning of the marriage, to make sure to give, to give you the best chance for success.
John Nachlinger 01:05:06 Your visions have to align, your visions have to align. I've had a partner to in my law firm before. You've got to have an alignment of your your vision when it comes to marriages. you know, often I hear people say things like, I want to travel, my spouse doesn't want to travel. And I'm like, how did that not come up when you were dating? Like, I don't understand. It was a good question. What do you guys talk about? I don't even understand. Like, so, when I got I mean, first thing I did between the first and second marriage is the same thing I tell everyone to do, which is you have to work on yourself.
John Nachlinger 01:05:36 You have to, you know, whether it's a therapist, a coach or just self-help books and listening to podcasts or whatever. Work on yourself and you have to identify what happened. What what did I do that contributed to my marriage not working? Now? In my case, I got married when I was like in my early 20s. So I mean.
Tyson Mutrx 01:05:54 Pretty.
John Nachlinger 01:05:55 Young now. And I think when you get married in your early 20s, I think it's just dumb. I mean, it really is. Yeah. But, so, you know, I didn't know who I was. So it just kind of, you know, that that one you can excuse a little bit, but this this, my my new spouse. It's really more of a we just talked a lot more about deep things, like, what are you where do you want to be in 20 years? You know what? What's your view on money? Like, do you want to save a lot? Do you want to spend a lot? What kind of house should we be living in? Children.
John Nachlinger 01:06:27 Do you want children? Do you not want children? you know, travel, you know, like eating out, like all these things that, like, people just don't really talk about. We just make assumptions, you know, because people are just playing along when they're dating. They just play along. But, you know, you're going on trips to Aruba. Well, maybe one person hates going on this trip.
Tyson Mutrx 01:06:45 But there's happy times.
John Nachlinger 01:06:46 Yeah, but there's happy times. So people just don't have enough of those intense conversations. I mean, I think maybe everyone should go through some kind of premarital counseling. Sure. But I like the prenup in that it forces you at least talk about money. It just makes you talk about money. It makes you talk about, you know, whether whether your agreement. Most people just agree that I keep what I had coming into the marriage. You keep what you have and everything else will be split. Most prenup say that by the way. You know, most people probably think prenup say you get nothing if we get divorced.
John Nachlinger 01:07:15 That's not what most prenup say. But at least we all know, you know, going in. Here's the deal. At least I get back what I had before we got married. Okay, which sounds pretty reasonable. And the law is a little bit more difficult to. If you don't have a prenup, it's a little bit more difficult because you can commingle and stuff. But, I just think I knew what I did wrong, what the things that I didn't do well in my marriage. And then I also realized that I just married somebody who, ultimately was very different from me from the very beginning, but glossed over those differences for years because we had a child and you have a child. And that's it's easy when you have a child to gloss over, you know, imperfections in your marriage. So, you just people just don't communicate enough. And then you have to work on yourself. And people don't work on themselves enough. I mean, as you've probably talked to a lot of people, you know, that, there's so many, there's so many people out there that can help you sort of look inward and figure out what's stopping you from being the person you really need to become, and all the things that hold us all back.
John Nachlinger 01:08:22 And if you don't work on yourself, I don't know how you can actually have somebody else, like, fully like involved in your life. You're always hiding something from them. You're always hiding some part of you. Sure. So if you can work on that. And so I did all that. I worked on that which actually led to me getting divorced. Oh, I started doing all of my excuse me. I started doing all of my, improvements, myself improvements and working with coaches and people to sort of identify. And that led me to open up my eyes to realize how my marriage was holding me back from being the person I really wanted to be. You know, both professionally and personally. So, there's a lot of, you know, that's a that's a very long topic.
Tyson Mutrx 01:09:03 No that is that's a deep one. I, my my wife and I was talking about how, like, you're really responsible for your own happiness. You really are. Because it. I agree with that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:09:11 You have you have to work on yourself. You have to. It starts with you. Because if you're if you can't make your own self happy, you're not gonna be able to make anybody else happy. So I, I think that's that's a good message for sure. I'm going to make a really hard pivot to podcasting. All right. And I wonder how has do you find that the podcast has been more of a benefit to the firm and the business, or do you think it's been more of a benefit to you and helping you find your professional voice? Talk about talk about the podcast.
John Nachlinger 01:09:43 It's very it's a very interesting question. because I for a long time didn't see myself as a brand, you know, and in fact, I just started in a mastermind about ten months ago that that's the entire mastermind is about building a brand. so when I first did it, it was it was really just it was just me trying to. Trying to figure out how I wanted to help men. Sure.
John Nachlinger 01:10:06 So having people on, talking about all the things guys go through in a divorce, having guys come on and talk about their real life experiences and all that sort of things. And I did it for fun. I mean, I think a lot of people maybe start a podcast for fun, but I started it during Covid. Like, yeah, like a lot of people probably did. and then over time, unbeknownst to me, because I never even paid attention to stats or anything. Unbeknownst to me, a lot of people were listening, and so people were seeking me out all the time. and so what ended up happening is, yes, it it helps. It helps both the law firm and the coaching business. but I don't do it intentionally to help either one, because all I want to do, I come at it from a place of, I want to provide information and provide this, this important, you know, this important information to guys out there who maybe don't have any other access to it, but it has.
John Nachlinger 01:11:03 It has helped me and people reach out to me all the time. I kind of knew that the podcast has started to do really well when my marketing assistant would be like, okay, we got 30 requests yesterday and 25 today to be on your podcast. Wow. And I'm just. And of course, after a while, I mean, you have a podcast. I mean, I after a while I'm like, okay, I've already covered that subject like 12 times that we covered that one. Like nine times. I'm like like I want to I always want to add new information now. So I've kind of gotten to the point in my podcasting where I only I only put things out if I really, truly think they're, they're unique and interesting and new. because, you know, that's sort of the brand that I built, but everyone but I have people reach out to me all the time who want me to represent them in divorces, but they live in, you know, Idaho or something. And guys that, want me to, to coach them.
John Nachlinger 01:11:56 But they think part of coaching them is giving them legal advice. It's just it's all over the place. but I really enjoy doing it. more so than I thought I was going to. But, I do, I do I'm doing fewer, episodes per season now just because it's, Again, I don't want to just repeat. I mean, I don't want to. I had I had a guy talking about bankruptcy on last year. Who's this guy? Is he going to have anything new to say? Because people can just go back and listen to the last episode? I every once in a while if this happens to you. But every once in a while I find myself like, oh my God, this is so boring. I hope, I hope my listeners are going to enjoy this because I, I feel like we've already talked about this like ten different times.
Tyson Mutrx 01:12:41 So yeah, so because we've been doing it for eight years, we've not missed a week in eight years. And so for the majority of those, we've had two a week, sometimes three a week.
Tyson Mutrx 01:12:50 And so we've a long time there have been when that happens, we I try to shift gears because you do kind of get into the ones where it's like, oh man, you got to stop talking. So I can ask you another question. Like, this isn't, by the way, because you made a comment that your long answer that wasn't in reference to that. Just so I'm very clear about that. But there has been times where we're like, it's usually via like a video, one where like, let me get in here and let me let's, let's engage a little bit. And they kind of view it more as like a speech. And it's not a speech as a conversation. What is what has made it a lot better? Is this like having the back and forth, being able to read your body language? You can read my body language. You know that that makes a massive difference in the quality of it. I think, we've had the bigger concern, though, the bigger we've had were we've had episodes we've never aired because the person comes on to the pitch, they're just pitching a product or service or something, and we're just not into that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:13:49 We're just like, I'm not. We're not going to hear that. It's just not going to do it. So that's the bigger one. But yeah, I mean, we've had so many different characters like we since we've been here for eight years. Like we're going to repeat topics this just but sometimes the topic has to be repeated because things change like SEO, like search engine optimization today is way different from from 2017 2016. Way different. right now we're talking about LMS and I you know, it was I thought it was kind of funny. I was thinking of just a few minutes ago how we've not even talked about. I like it's because it's such a massive thing, but, so, yeah, things have changed, but you're right back and I, we, we talk a lot about, like, if it's not excellent, we're not putting it out. It's just that's the other thing too, where, it's we we want to make sure that the listener really is getting something out of it.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:37 So. And so I like I like your approach to it. how how often does yours come out?
John Nachlinger 01:14:43 once a week.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:44 Once a week? Yeah. What day of the week?
John Nachlinger 01:14:47 we do Thursday.
Tyson Mutrx 01:14:48 Thursday. Yeah. So we've we've always done Tuesdays, but, you know, we might have done Wednesdays at some point, but it was.
John Nachlinger 01:14:54 Just something fun. And then we do, that's the audio. And then we do the video. two weeks later on a Monday so that they come out. They come out at different times. You know, like, for fun. Nice. I like to I like to give the people that give me their time. I like to make sure that we spread out the promotion of them as much as possible. so, I mean, I really enjoy doing it. It's just, you know, I'll give you a great example. I probably have done 12 or 13 episodes on narcissism.
Tyson Mutrx 01:15:23 Oh, that's a fantastic topic.
John Nachlinger 01:15:24 I know, but it's like, I think I've covered it.
John Nachlinger 01:15:27 Yes, I think I've covered it. And it's just it's just one of those things. And the people of all have been excellent. They've been wonderful. But, you know, at some point I'm like, you know, you're this is a little bit more of an expansive podcast about a lot of different things. Yeah. It reminds very much more focused on people planning for or going through a divorce. So it's like, you know, there's only so many. The topics tend to kind of start to go over again. And I'm with you. Most of a lot of the pitches I get are people that want to come on to sell something, and you can see it in the pitch that they want to sell something. And I'm like, I don't know about that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:15:59 It's usually the it's something along the lines of, hey, I listened to your episode on X and we're X, Y, Z, whatever it is, and they'll pick one line out of it. And it's very clear they've never listened to that.
Tyson Mutrx 01:16:11 Like anything else, they've just the one. And then I'd like to come in and talk about this. It's like the same formula that they use like okay, that's a, that's a red flag. and for a long time we, we didn't let anybody on because we had, we had gone like 2 or 3 episodes in a row where we said, okay, we'll bring them on. It was all pitch and we didn't hear it. We're like, we're not doing that again. So, we've now every once when we get like a topic that we're like, oh, that, you know, I think people like that. That's interesting. We just make it very clear that you can't sell. okay. So I want to I want to end with this, though. I want to go back to you, though, the, the branding. You talked about the brain because I did want to get into branding with you a little bit, and I, I wonder what what lessons from training that you've learned that that maybe you wish you would have applied earlier in your career.
John Nachlinger 01:16:57 So when I when I originally formed a firm, I wanted it to be about I wanted it to be about the firm and not about me. So I intentionally kept myself from not being like the figurehead of the firm. And so people, because I had this idea that people would want me if it was all about me. And I realized that now I started to realize over the years that people they just wanted like an environment where they trusted who was in charge, who was actually like it was their firm and they were promoting it. Then then fast forward, I finally decided, okay, if that's the case I'll start making it more about me. But I really have always talked my firm, I've always talked about my firm, my coaching program. I've never talked about me as a person. So, I finally decided that, you know, building a brand affects everything that I do. I also had a cookie company for a while, and it's like we. So it's just a way to get rid of stress from doing all this crazy stuff.
John Nachlinger 01:18:03 So basically, BigQuery and the brand just sort of goes through all the things that you do, and it becomes about people trusting you and who you are. No matter what it is that you're helping them do and helping them with. and so I, I joined, I think I said this earlier, I joined a mastermind. That's the entire purpose of it is sort of helping me seen helping you build a brand. And I've learned so much about what that actually looks like. And a lot of it's been very uncomfortable for me. Sure. I mean, I've always been guests on podcasts and done things in the past, but, I've had to up it a lot now. And really, I, I've been in all kinds of articles talking about my personal life, and, there's an article that came out in the Guardian a couple weeks ago that was about how my spouse and I met. Like, it has nothing to do with anything other than just me, and I would never have been comfortable with that five years ago because I've been like, how is that relate to my business? Why am I doing that? But then when you start to realize that it's about people knowing and liking you and trusting you.
John Nachlinger 01:19:05 Yeah, and it doesn't really matter what it is you're talking about. They just have to know who you are. And so like, people listen to the podcast and then I talk to them. They literally to a person and be like, I feel like I already know you because when I do my podcast, I'm just, you know, I curse a lot. I just like, I'm just I'm who I am. And, and it's becomes obvious to people. so the more and more the brand has been building, what's interesting is people call looking for me, but then we're easily able to say, well, he trained all of these people. He, you know, he works with all these people, you know, you're going to be okay. You're going to be. You're going to be great with, you know, this attorney or that attorney or this coach. So, but yeah, I mean, attorneys don't build enough. Don't work on their brand enough. I think it's because we all look at ourselves as attorneys and not as a business owner, somebody who, you know, owns this business and owns this, this brand.
John Nachlinger 01:20:03 And so, like, I've it's like a shift. I've had to, like, shift my, like, social accounts to be more about me as a brand and not just me putting things on like the company pages and all of those sorts of things. And it's it's a hard shift. It's something that as an attorney, it's just been difficult to to see on my and I won't even talk about. It's not like the personal injury attorneys that have all their fun commercials, which we don't do in new Jersey, but we get Philadelphia and New York media, and I love all of those. But, yeah, it's something that I think more attorneys need to focus in on, you know, building a brand, building a business, and figuring out what it is that you're doing. What is it that you want to do? Yes. We all practice law. Yes, we go to court. Yes, we represent clients. But what is it you're doing? What is it that you really are offering in the world that someone else isn't, or that you're trying to, you know, like.
John Nachlinger 01:20:52 For me, it's really about changing the way people get divorced. So of course, part of that has to be me explaining the journey and why I got to where I am so that people can fully appreciate why this is a better process. And, you know, building that brand is very difficult. I had no idea what I was in for when I started down the road, but it's been it's made me a better person, made me a better an attorney, and it's clarified for me my purpose. And, I wish more attorneys would just, get out from underneath, you know, their cases and all their files and start to really focus on, on, you know, showing the world who they really are as a person.
Tyson Mutrx 01:21:32 I can't think of a better way of ending. we'll talk about the cookie company because I was on my list of things to ask you, but we'll talk about that next time with chat. But thanks for doing this, John, I appreciate it.
John Nachlinger 01:21:40 No problem.
