IAM1923 – Content Creator Helps Businesses on Developing Personal Brand in the Virtual Practice

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Atty. Brittany Alexander 00:00

Lawyers are notoriously terrible communicators. Like they're working the file, they're doing all this stuff, but I think that the culture of being an attorney is just I have time to go to this hearing and this deposition file this thing and draft this that we're never actually telling the client what we're doing.

And that was a big disconnect, right? Because you're getting calls from a client saying I haven't heard from you in two months. What are you doing? Nothing's happening in my case. Actually a lot is happening, right? So we've set up systems that make it super easy and simple for our team to communicate with our clients.

Intro 00:28

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:55

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics or as I like to call them business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners, or what I like to call CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focused on innovation, disruption, women entrepreneurship, DEI, gig economy, remote economy, even the cannabis industry. Think about these industries and these disruptive technologies that really sometimes aren't as disruptive, but there are people that are just paying attention to what the market needs and they're providing that. So really think about the things that are quote and quote outside of the norm, but really help entrepreneurship to grow and fully develop.

I think it's an extremely exciting time when you're talking about any type of innovation or disruption, because I think that there are so many opportunities and needs that aren't felt that are starting to be filled by different groups, different organizations, or even different industries. So what I want you to do is sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Greg from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Brittany Alexander of premier property law in the modern professional podcast. Brittany, super excited to have you on the show.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 02:22

Thanks Gresh. Excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 02:24

Yes, I love everything that you're doing. Before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Brittany so you can hear about some of those awesome things that she's doing.

Brittany Alexander Esquire, founder and CEO, premier property law and the host of the modern professional podcast is revolutionizing the virtual practice of law and teaching other professionals how to create seven figure businesses with the power of personal branding and content creation.

She launched a firm as a one woman show in october 2020 inside 100 clients within her first 100 days and through her strategic use of social media platforms like instagram, she grew her company to 1.78 million in year one with an advertising budget of zero. Brittany excited again to have you on the show, hear about all the awesome things you're doing.

Are you ready to the I AM CEO community?

Atty. Brittany Alexander 03:09

I sure am.

Gresham Harkless 03:10

Let's get it started then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock. I know I touched on a little bit but I wanted to hear a little more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 03:18

I'm a lawyer, so it goes all the way back to law school when I had no idea what I was going to do. I joined a big firm out of law school in really big insurance defense division, if you will, department. And I'd never read an insurance policy before and never even really knew anything about property insurance, but I fell into handling these insurance defense cases, quickly learned that working for the insurance companies is absolutely no fun. It was just draining and exhausting. I felt like I wasn't really doing the good that I had set out to do when I actually started going to law school. So I flipped off, went to the plaintiff side and loved it. It was amazing. It was so much fun.

I love working for the homeowners and property owners. I actually got pretty good at representing them and knowing what the intricacies of insurance law was. So after some time doing that on the plaintiff side, working for another firm, I started thinking to myself, you know what? I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I've always wanted to have my own business and it came to me and my fiance nudged me a little bit saying, Hey, open your own law firm. You could do this for yourself. So a little bit before that, about 3 months before I started marketing myself on social media. So I started posting videos about what happens if your roof is leaking and how do you report insurance claim?

Not sexy stuff at all. But I started to get a lot of traction. There was not a lot of people talking about this on social media at that time. It's about June, July of 2020. It got such great traction. I started bringing in leads 3 months later, I opened my own firm, October 1st, 2020, almost 2 years ago.

Gresham Harkless 04:47

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more on how you serve your clients.

I know you touched on a little bit, but also I wanted to hear a little bit more about your podcast too, and what you're doing to help support your audience there.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 04:57

So I feel like I have two businesses and I do at this point. So my law firm, Premier Property Law, we help homeowners and property owners when their insurance companies don't pay or don't pay enough to repair their home after damage. So there's a storm or a tornado or a fire or a leak or something happens where they need repairs done. The insurance company tries to lowball them or just to say, we don't think we have to cover this at all, but we think there's coverage and we think they need more money, we'll go forward in the claim and the lawsuit to get them compensated for that loss.

So that's how we help homeowners and property owners on my law firm side. So, I touched on a little bit, a few months before I started my own law firm from our property law, I was marketing on social media. So like Pandemic, not a ton of things to do, tons of time, had this idea that sparked and I was like, you know what? Let me start recording videos. So I just set up a tripod and my iPhone in my living room, and I started recording videos about, like how do you report insurance claim? What's my claim worth? How does this process work? Things that I knew and that were very basic to me, but that I realized that my clients didn't know and my prospective clients didn't know.

I started posting those on my personal Instagram page, to everybody that I knew and already followed me put that out there and I started getting such good feedback and traction that I continued doing it, created systems and processes for creating and posting this content and that's what allowed me to open my own firm. Once that happened, I started flood of DMS and messages and emails and calls saying, how did you do this? And how did you figure this out? How you just like posting on Instagram and all of a sudden you have a firm. I didn't even have a website when I hit that first a hundred days in my firm.

I had a hundred clients. I didn't even have a website yet. So social media was really powerful. I really built it up and I was getting all these messages from people saying. How did this happen? Walk me through this and I found myself giving the same answers over and over. Same kind of voice message, same conversation. I was like, you know what? Let me make a podcast. Then I can refer people to that one recording. So that's where it kind of birth from as I could share my knowledge, share my passion for business as well as helping my clients at my law firm.

Gresham Harkless 07:01

Nice, I love the organic nature, how everything's grown about and you've been able to make that impact. And I don't know if you would consider the law to be a bit old school so to speak interms of how the market and everything happened but I feel like as a result of the pandemic just about everthing has been distrupted in some form of fashion. People aren't sure about what to do or how to do but I feel like you were able to execute on that to build your practice. But two, you're able to take that information, that knowledge, all the success that you've had and be able to help other people be able to have that same success.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 06:57

And it's funny that you mentioned old school because we are completely remote. We are 100% remote law firm located all throughout the U.S and even abroad. Some of our team members and people are always flabbergasted when they ask me, Oh, where's your office at? I'm like I have a mailing address, but if you want to stop by, no one is going to be there.

Gresham Harkless 07:15

Absolutely. And it's like what Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. I think if you are around the same people that are doing the same things and not looking at innovation, you're just thinking differently about things. You don't realize that that could be reality until you hear that you've been able to do that and have so much success doing it.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 07:57

I agree.

Gresham Harkless 07:36

So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for your businesses yourself or a combination of both. But what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Atty. Brittany Alexander 07:45

So we brand ourselves as a modern law firm. I always say that modern law firm, like I said, we're 100% remote. So that's already very different from your traditional old school, big office with the staff and mahogany desks and a bunch of books. I don't even think I have any books in this room. So we brand ourselves as a very modern law firm. And in conjunction with that, we're using very modern techniques and tools. I always preach to my team, communication and efficiency. Like those are our two biggest values. I think that's really our secret sauce is we're very intentional and strategic and right.

We focus on those values of being communicative. Lawyers are notoriously terrible communicators. They're working the file. They're doing all this stuff. But I think that the culture of being an attorney is just I have time to go to this hearing and this deposition file this thing and draft this that we're never actually telling the client what we're doing.

And that was a big disconnect, right? Because you're getting calls from a client saying, Okay. I haven't heard from you in two months. What are you doing? Nothing's happening in my case. Actually, a lot is happening, right? So we've set up systems that make it super easy and simple for our team to communicate with our clients very consistently. So they know exactly what's happening in their case. They understand it beyond that. We have very simple education for our clients about what's going on, how it's affecting their case. We're also doing that efficiently. So I said, we have systems and procedures set up for communication. We have that for the entire firm to make it easy, because if you're starting from scratch every time, or you have to have the attorney review and do everything, you end up with a bottleneck or you end up with things that fall through the cracks and don't get done.

So we use our communication and our efficiency as like our secret sauce put together to create a client experience, which a lot of law firms don't even think about, and it just becomes a poor experience really. So that's our secret sauce is like crafting that client experience through communication and efficiency.

Gresham Harkless 09:41

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Atty. Brittany Alexander 10:05

This is what I call thought shifting, and this has helped me in every level from, before I even started posting, marketing on social media to start my firm, before I started my firm, before I started hiring people, thought shifting has gotten me to where I am today. In a nutshell, this is like an energetics manifestation principle. I'm a lawyer, so we're going to put it in more type a terms. So shifting is taking a negative thought or a negative belief or, a negative thought or belief and shifting it into something that is more positive for you.

And I don't mean blind optimism. I'm like, Oh, it's a beautiful day. This is wonderful. Everything's working out. Taking that thought of oh, my gosh, if this client doesn't sign with me, I'm never going to make another client again. I'm never going to hit my income goals. And you say, wait a second, is that actually true? Or is that my, my fear brain, my anal brain saying, oh my gosh, protect yourself because it usually is right.

You could switch that thought into, you know what, if this person doesn't sign, they just were not meant to be for my company. Maybe they don't align with us, but they're making room for the people that do align with us. So the people that we do want to serve that are going to appreciate us and I can't wait for those people to get to us. So you can shift your thought because we have all these emotions and thoughts that are running through our head all the time.

So if we get good at recognizing them, we can then shift them into something more helpful. And while that might sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo and like wooboo stuff, it does work even in a practical sense. Because if you're spending all your time thinking about the negatives about Yeah, this isn't going to work out. This is terrible. Oh, my gosh. What if, what if what if and you're focusing on that? That's where all your focus is going to go.

You're not going to see and recognize the good opportunities. And like, when something presents itself, that's going to help you. You're not going to see it. You're going to say, oh, my gosh, it's never going to work out. But if you're thinking on the other side, this is great. This is working out. It's all happening for me. And an opportunity presents itself or something happens and you're like, Hey, I can take advantage of that.

Or, Hey, that's an open door for me. Then you're going in the right direction. You're focusing on what's good for you. So thought shifting has helped me so much. And this kind of goes back to principles that I learned in a book called Rich as F by Amanda Francis. Her work just changed my life and you can buy it on Amazon. Her audio book is also great. That book kind of like sets the foundation for what I'm talking about.

That thought shifting is the most basic principle in what I'm talking about, but there's a whole world of like energetics and mindset is what people call it, although I think there are better terms for it. That really will help you just in the very basic core, get to your goals and what you want to do, because they're pretty practical advice about time management and everything else, but really it all comes down to you and how you think and how you perceive the world, because if you don't see the opportunities and you don't see where you can act, you're never going to get anywhere.

Gresham Harkless 12:59

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? This is a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your favorite client, mention on your podcast, and potentially would tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 13:15

Oh, man, hop into a time machine. I feel like everybody would always say, start before you're ready. But I feel like that is misguided advice because I think you need to be confident in your abilities, although maybe not confident in your execution. First seriously considering opening my own firm, I was like, terrified. I was like, Oh my gosh what if I screw this up? What happens? So this is terrible. My fiance sat me down and he's like what's the worst thing that happens if you fail? If you get no clients, what do you do? And I was like I'd have to go back to get a job as a lawyer.

And he was pointing out there that, Hey, okay. So the worst thing that happens is what you're doing right now. So your ability to actually perform the work is not in question. You're already able, it's do you believe in yourself enough to just go for the execution? So that whole start before you're ready, it's like when is that though? You know what I mean? What type of ready? I think the ready is okay I have my abilities. I know I can do this in a sense, but I'm not sure if it's gonna work out. So get confident in your abilities, and then you'll be confident in your execution.

Gresham Harkless 14:22

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on this show.

So Brittany, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Atty. Brittany Alexander 14:31

CEO means being able to design and run a company that has the values and integrity and the outcome that you wish to see in the world, in business, in your industry.

Gresham Harkless 14:44

I love that values, integrity and outcome. I think that so many times we can look at the work that we do and we could just get really focused on we're just serving this client, we're just doing this case, we're just creating this whatever, that we sometimes don't see the domino effect that happens from the things that we're doing.

So what I want to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best people can view about about all the awesome things that you are working on.

Atty. Brittany Alexander 15:12

Yes. So I'm most active on Instagram. You can find me at lawyer.britt with two T's. Shoot me a DM. I actually have a workshop going on right now that is on demand. You can watch it anytime talking about how I create content and how specifically I create one week worth of content in one hour so that I can focus on the income generating side of my business.

That's how I built my seven figure law firm.

Gresham Harkless 15:40

Nice. I absolutely love that. And we'll be able to get that through DM?

Atty. Brittany Alexander 15:44

Yes. Just DM me a workshop and my team will get it over to you.

Gresham Harkless 15:47

Awesome. And to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But definitely appreciate all the awesome things you're doing, of course, the time that you took today. And again, I keep talking about this reality, sometimes we don't know that something's reality till we hear and see that somebody is doing it. So I love that you're trailblazing and reminding us of how important it is to trailblaze too. So thank you.

Thank you so much again, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:13

Thanks for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo. co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Get your driven feedback. CEO gear at ceogear.co. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue 16 media.com. This has been the I AM CEO podcast Jr. Thank you for listening.

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