IAM563- Author Helps Protect The Rights of Clients in the Workplace

Tom Spiggle is the author of the book “You’re Pregnant? You’re Fired: Protecting Mothers, Fathers, and Other Caregivers in the Workplace.” He is the founder of the Spiggle Law Firm, which has offices in Arlington, Va., Washington, D.C., and Bethesda, Md., where he focuses on workplace law helping protect the rights of clients facing pregnancy and caregiver discrimination, sexual harassment, and wrongful termination in the workplace. To learn more, visit: https://www.spigglelaw.com/contact.

• CEO Hack: Book – E-myth and Checklist Manifesto
• CEO Nugget: (1) Understand at an early stage that growth is possible (2) Mistakes are part of learning
• CEO Defined: Having a vision for your business and communicating it

Website: http://www.spigglelaw.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spigglelaw/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tspiggle
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-spiggle-law-firm/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spigglelaw/

Transcription

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Intro 0:02

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 0:29

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Tom Spiggel of Spiggel Law Firm. Tom, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Tom Spiggle 0:38

Thanks. Great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:38

Yeah, no problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do, which is read a little bit more about Tom so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Tom is the author of the book, “You’re Pregnant? You’re Fired: Protecting Mothers, Fathers, and Other Caregivers in the Workplace”. He is the founder of Spiggle Law Firm which has offices in Arlington, Virginia, Washington D.C., and Bethesda, Maryland, where he focuses on workplace law helping protect the rights of clients facing pregnancy and caregiver discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination in the workplace. Tom, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Tom Spiggle 1:15

I'm thrilled too. Yes.

Gresham Harkless 1:16

All right, let's make it happen. So to start everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And we'll let you get started with your business.

Tom Spiggle 1:24

Yeah, so I opened my firm in 2009. I had been interested in doing that for a long time, my father was a solo practice doctor, a small-town doctor. So I sort of had that in my blood. And, this was, about the time that several blogs were getting started by other attorneys who were starting their own firms. And I was reading those and like, Hey, that sounds like you know, that sounds like something I'd like to do. So I started with a laptop with a cracked screen. And had only way I could see it was I had, an external monitor, that I could hook it up to. And I could actually see the screen because when I left, I was at the US Attorney's Office or I was in the government, which was, which was great.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. But that meant I left without any clients. So I started with just that trusty laptop, and, kind of learned as I went along, particularly the business side of it because I didn't have any real training in that. And along the way, I hired a number of different coaches to help me out. Lee Rosen, who's a fantastic law coach, how to manage a small law firm, and of course, read and educated myself on how to grow to how to fail and grow a business. And so that's what we've done. And last year, we hit the million dollar mark for the first time in revenue. And we had another almost 50% growth this last year. So it's been a wild ride.

Gresham Harkless 2:57

Yeah, it definitely sounds like that. And I appreciate you for taking the lead. But I also like you breaking it down. Because I think so many times, when somebody is trying to do something different, or maybe start a business, whatever it might be, we sometimes forget that there are people that know exactly how to do it, we can lean on as far as like experts and mentors, but also those are resources that we can learn about. So that as we are making those leaps, we can do it not to guarantee that there's no risk, but lower than the likelihood of there being like a catastrophic climate failure, I guess.

Tom Spiggle 3:27

Yeah, I think that's a great point. And my advice for anybody starting out in any business, as you say is, to reach out to those folks earlier rather than later. When I look back on it, I learned a lot of good lessons. Now. I don't regret the way things have turned out, certainly. But I could have made that growth trajectory a lot faster. If I had reached I just didn't know and it just didn't occur to me to reach out to those coaches, until I sort of stumbled upon them. And if I had done that sooner, because as you say they can't guarantee success, but there are certain best practices that anybody starting growing a business will be able to tell you, Hey, do this, don't do that spin here, don't spin there.

And you know why? Why reinvent the wheel? There's gonna be plenty of mystery in your business, no matter what, you know, let's not make those not let's not screw up some of the basics like, like I did when I started out.

Gresham Harkless 4:23

Yeah, absolutely. Just reduce the likelihood of failure as much as you can and that's the way you can increase the likelihood of success. So definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to draw down a little bit deeper. I know I spoke about it when I introduced you, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about your Law Firm. Could you take us through some of the things you're doing for the clients you're working with?

Tom Spiggle 4:40

Yeah, no, thanks for that. So we of course represent our employees only people who have been fired or are afraid that they might be in one of our client bases we focus on our people with caregivers, caregivers discard concerns about pregnancy discrimination, and paternity leave discrimination because one of the things I'm noticed when when I started my firm was that I just by happenstance ended up with a few of these clients who were, you know, had pregnancy discrimination cases or childcare? They were having problems at work because they had young children.

And the laws in those areas were so complicated that, I'm like, even a lawyer can barely figure this stuff out, you know, how do you expect somebody who's not a lawyer and just trying to, work every day and provide for their family? How do you expect them to understand it, that is why I wrote the book, You're Pregnant, You're Fired, because I wanted that to be sort of, you know, to walk, educated client to walk them through how this works.

And that's one of the things that we focus on here is, one of the, one of our key kind of our core principles is to leave people better off than when they contacted us whether they become a client or not because a lot of what we find people really help people is to educate them to let them know what their rights are. Of course, sometimes they need an attorney, to help you walk your way through those, but a lot of times people, you give them the right information, and they're just so relieved to have it, or they can take steps on their own to solve their problem, short of hiring an attorney, and that's great.

We're always thrilled to be able for somebody to say, hey, I took these pointers that did these things, and Jose to keep my job or get a better job. Because, obviously, work is something so fundamental to all of us, what we do is such a part of our identity. And when you're in trouble with that, you know, it's, it's a real burden on you and your family. So that's one of the things that we focus on. People who are particularly facing caregiver or pregnancy discrimination, giving them the tools that they need to help them solve their own problems, or when they can't, helping them hire us, and then we'll help them walk them through those problems and get them to a better spot.

Gresham Harkless 6:45

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, at the end of the day, knowledge, a lot of times is power. And, you know, when you're going through, like when you're starting a business, or you're going through, like the employment issues that you kind of spoke to, you kind of don't know where to go what to do, you don't know what the next steps are. So to be able to at least have that information, so that you can hire somebody like yourself, or you know, just be and be able to make informed decisions is a huge thing, because I think it can be scary. We don't know what to do and you're depending on, you know, being able to pay your bills and the nine to five to be able to do that.

Tom Spiggle 7:19

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and just to that, for this audience, in particular, I would say for business owners, we don't represent businesses, but we do get a fair number of calls from small businesses in particular. And what I always tell them is, what, like, form a relationship with a lawyer, particularly an employment lawyer, because, you know, we can help you with this one problem, but you really need a relationship with an attorney with a firm. And the great thing about, you know, my, my brethren, on the other side of the web, as we call it here, who represent the companies that that we're, we're working with.

So to say, is, you know, they they are, most of them are very sensitive and, and understand business owners, you know, and they are all kinds of flat fee arrangements. And, you know, they're just from some really great employment lawyers that do business level stuff, you know, or business attorney that has an employment law expertise, because it is complicated. As a business owner,  you don't need to be, you need to be advised about but you don't need to be reading the Fair Labor Standards Act and figuring out when to pay overtime and when not to pay overtime, you don't need somebody to call that you can rely on to answer those questions for you.

Yeah, and that makes so much sense. And I've always heard a lot, especially around a banker, like you want to develop a relationship with the banker before you need to ask for money, you need to do the same thing with a lawyer, you should have that relationship before something happens and your dad tried to build that relationship while you're trying to put out a huge fire.

Exactly. And so they also signed with a banker, so they know your business, you know so that you got the phone and you call that lawyer. And it doesn't have to be you know, for litigious reason, it could just be for, hey, I'm, you know, I need to come up with an employee manual. We look over my section on overtime, and they know your business. And they said they know that you know, whatever it is, most of your employees are going to be non-exempt. And so they don't have to, they don't have to jump in and figure it out cold, they can be like, okay, you know, Tom, I understand your business. I know what you do. So this is where I think we're gonna go on that.

Gresham Harkless 9:11

Yeah, makes so much. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And it could be for you personally or for your business. What do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Tom Spiggle 9:20

I think having a real understanding of our ideal client, you know, somebody who's really a good fit for us. You know, I know this is not unique to large what we do, but you know, having your own client persona, ideal client persona, you know, who they are, where they live, not just what kind of why they need your services, but who they are as people, you know so that you can speak to them at places where they're looking for information in a place that they understand, you know, so our, you know, our kind of our client persona is usually an upper-level female. You know, she's not she's not the vice president. Yet, maybe she's close to it, she's never had any problems at work. And all of a sudden, for the first time, things are getting a little sideways.

You know, she's not interested in running off to court first thing, but she needed to know what to do. So we've got that fleshed out and build out built out. So when all of our marketing, you know, all of our messaging, we're always talking to her. And that probably more than anything else has made the biggest difference for us and being able to grow and meet those needs. So yeah, I'd say that's probably and for me, for me personally, you know, another coach that I worked with Dan Sullivan, was Strategic Coach. I love his timekeeping system, you know, because I think as entrepreneurs like, yes, of course, there are times you need to work hard, but sort of the ideal is, while you're sleeping on your office floor, your you know, your grind and your grind, and you're grinding.

And his thing is, like, you know, you will make more money and do better if you take some free days, where you're not checking your email, you're not checking Slack, you're spending time with your family, or whatever it is you need to do to recharge, I still struggle with that. But I do now much more than when I started, say, You know what, like, I'm taking the weekend off, you know what I'm not mommy check my email once a day, but I'm not turning off slack, I'll just, you know, I need to unplug. And so that that has been those two things, personally, that and then, having our client persona as the second one.

Gresham Harkless 9:38

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to 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?

Tom Spiggle 11:33

In terms of a book, you know, one, which is, you know, of course, a Bible for a lot of us use small business owners, the E Myth, I would say the E Myth and Checklist Manifesto are both just key wins for me that I keep coming back to just that idea that, you know, hey, let's, let's take the mystery out of what we're doing. What's the, you know, what's the recipe that you use to bake the cake and really given that some thought and breaking it down into constituent steps because that helps you delegate, write delegate those tasks, that you're not particularly strong yet to find people that are in those areas. But I'd have to say the E Myth and Checklist Manifesto, those two books in particular, are my best CEO hack.

Gresham Harkless 12:20

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that can be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Tom Spiggle 12:31

Understand at an earlier stage, what growth is possible.

Gresham Harkless 12:36

Awesome. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Tom, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Tom Spiggle 12:47

Being a CEO, to me means having a vision for your business and constantly commuting, communicating that to people who are working with you.

Gresham Harkless 12:56

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Tom, appreciate that. I appreciate your time, even more, what I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get a copy of your book and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Tom Spiggle 13:11

Yeah, no, one final thing I'd like to add, it just occurred to me that if I can jump back in that time machine and talk about my younger business self, as a business owner, at whatever level, you're gonna make mistakes, it's just gonna happen, it's part of the learning curve, and to forgive yourself for making them. Because the truth is, there probably isn't a mistake, I can almost guarantee it as a business owner, there isn't a mistake that you have made, that hasn't been made, or fails in 100,000 times by somebody else. And just understanding that you are in a community of people there, they're all facing these, you know, it's not just the struggles, but also the winds, and those things.

But one of the most powerful things that I got, you know, and I would recommend this to anybody is, you know, join a coaching group where you're with similar business owners, is to hear them tell stories of the challenges that they faced and the wins that they'd had. And for me to be like, wow. Okay, it wasn't just me. It wasn't just me. Like, this is a common thing that people struggle with, and not make it so personal, you know, that this is my failure, I did this or it was my, you know, no, these are just like a child learning how to walk is going to fall and skin, his or her knees does happen.

So forgive yourself for those things. And of course, to own the wins to those, those are important in terms of finding me, you know, you can certainly go to our website, which is www.biglaw.com. You can find a copy of our book there, also on Amazon. You can find it there's both the hardcopy and our Kindle edition book. In addition to that, we've also got a couple of podcasts which you can find on our website and on iTunes. We've got a parent at work, which is me and another attorney, where we're interviewing parents, parents in different professions, and the best practices in different professions in terms of how to succeed in your career when you have children.

And then we've also got one called out, I got fired, which is as it sounds for people who've been terminated or afraid they might be and help them, walk them through that process, but come to our website, lots of good information there. And we're always happy to share.

Gresham Harkless 15:18

Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. And we will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate that. Appreciate the reminder as well, too, and jumping back into the time machine because I think so many times, we don't give ourselves credit or allow ourselves to fail, or understand, and that's part of the process part of success. And when we fail, sometimes we feel like we're alone or by ourselves, and we're the dumbest person in the room, by the laugh oftentimes. Everybody's made that type of mistake, and you're not the first you definitely won't be the last. You just got to know that it's okay. And then you can continue to kind of get through anything. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Tom, I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 15:58

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab a CEO gear at www.cepgear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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