Tricia Meyer is the Founder and Managing Attorney at Meyer Law. This award-winning, woman-owned law firm specializes in helping companies navigate the crucial decisions they make to grow their business, including corporate, contracts, employment, intellectual property, fundraising, and privacy matters. Meyer Law has helped thousands of companies, from startups featured on Shark Tank to large corporations on the Inc. 500 list to some of the largest businesses in the world. Tricia is also the Co-founder of The Clever Baby and mentors thousands of companies at incubators and accelerators, including Techstars, WeWork Labs, and 1871. She graduated from St. Ambrose University with a BA in English and political science and received her JD from the John Marshall Law School. Among many awards and accomplishments, Tricia has been named to Forbes Next 1000 list and also as one of the Most Influential Female Attorneys in Chicago by Crain’s Chicago Business.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Tricia Meyer talks about pivoting from tech to law
• How to overcome roadblocks and accelerate your entrepreneurial journey
• Why you should mean what you say and follow up
• Tricia shares how authenticity and the desire to help have grown her business
• Using psychology to evaluate potential partners and clients to find the best fit for your brand
• What tools are available to keep you organized?
• Tricia details her typical routine and her daily rituals

In this episode…

Beginning a business is challenging, but is it possible to vet potential partners or clients before you invest too much in the relationship? How can you leverage relationships to provide value within your network and grow your business? Tricia Meyer built her business based on responsiveness, transparency, authenticity, and a genuine desire to help companies and people thrive. For Tricia, finding the right partner or client means understanding and paying close attention to interactions and conversations. Tricia believes that partnerships and clients won’t always be a good fit for your brand, and sometimes that means walking away because relationships can’t be forced, and they’re not always meant to be. If people or businesses don’t match your energy level or drive, it is best to search for partners and clients with the same vigor and vitality. In this episode of 15 Minutes, Michael Renfro sits down with Tricia Meyer, Founder and Managing Attorney at Meyer Law, to discuss an entrepreneurial journey to discover value. Tricia talks about the importance of putting words into action, how authenticity can grow a business, and why you should evaluate partners and clients based on mutual values.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Michael Renfro on LinkedIn
• Gladiator Law Marketing
• Adam Draper on LinkedIn
• Lisa Vaughn on LinkedIn
• Tricia Meyer on LinkedIn
• Meyer Law
• The Clever Baby
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Monday
• Clio
• Trello
• Slack

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Gladiator Law Marketing, where we deliver tailor-made services to help you accomplish your objectives and maximize your growth potential. To have a successful marketing campaign and make sure you’re getting the best ROI, your firm needs to have a better website and better content. At Gladiator Law Marketing, we use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and decades of experience to outperform the competition. To learn more, go to gladiatorlawmarketing.com or schedule a free marketing consultation. You can also send an email to Adam@gladiatorlawmarketing.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 You’re listening to 15 Minutes, where we feature community leaders sharing what the rest of us should know but likely don’t. Michael Renfro 0:12 Hello everyone, Michael Renfro here I’m the host of 15 Minutes. Share your voice where we talk with top notch lawyers, as well as law firms about what it takes to grow a successful law practice. This episode is brought to you by Gladiator Law Marketing where we deliver tailor made services to help you accomplish your objectives and maximize your growth potential to have a successful marketing campaign and make sure that you’re getting the best ROI. Your firm does need to have a better website and better content than the competitors and a Gladiator Law Marketing we use artificial intelligence machine learning as well as a nearly a century now we’re over a century now have experienced outperform the competition. To learn more, please go to gladiatorlawmarketing.com Which should be at the bottom of the screen. Now. For those of you who are just listening, it’s simply gladiator law marketing spelled all standards. So that’s GladiatorLawMarketing.com. Or you can by all means you can schedule a free consultation there or you can reach out directly to me, email me to Michael@GladiatorLawMarketing.com. With that we do have Trish Meyer with us today. And Trish, if you wouldn’t mind introducing the folks and telling us what practice area you Tricia Meyer  1:32 sure Hi, Meyer. Sure, everybody. Hi, I’m Trish Meyer, I’m the founder and managing attorney at Meyer Law. We are a business law firm helping companies in six main areas, which is corporate contracts, employment, intellectual property, fundraising and privacy. Michael Renfro 1:50 Nice. Just out of curiosity, and this one’s off the cusp. I don’t think you’ll I don’t think you’ll mind it. But which one do you find? Which one is the one that that kind of you do most just out of curiosity? Tricia Meyer 2:03 Well, we’re pretty evenly split, I would say, privacy with all the changes coming next year, we are extremely busy on the privacy front. From a contractual standpoint. I mean, every business needs contracts for all the different relationships. So we’re really busy there. And we also help companies as an outsourced general counsel. And so contracts is the name of the game there. And then really, really all of the areas even fundraising, you know, there’s been a slowdown, I think, in the fundraising environment, but our clients have been really busy in that space as well. Michael Renfro 2:33 as theirs, it’s time to pick it back up things. Yeah, Tricia Meyer 2:37 exactly. And then there’s so many people starting businesses now. So from a corporate standpoint, just setting up entities getting partnership agreements in place, things are like so important for earlier, Michael Renfro 2:48 you know, the six areas that you the six areas with the exception, really, I would say fundraising, the six areas that you do kind of lend themselves to be all, you know, all the same partner, all the same client, whatever you call your your folks, but really, they they could end up using all of those even on their first, you know, walk in the door, particularly if they’re particularly if they’re an orange, you know, they could easily be using you for everything. Tricia Meyer  3:12 Right? For a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Michael Renfro 3:15 And I really, truly believe that we are now we’re never gonna get back to normal. This is the new normal. And that means it’s no different than, like, say, 1823, or excuse me, 1923 when they realized, okay, we’re never gonna get rid of this. So we just have to learn to live with it. We’re still living with that today. Right? Yeah. Tricia Meyer 3:32 Right, right. From a work standpoint, though, we’ve been virtual for the past almost 13 years. So we didn’t really skip a beat went down. So it was, you know, it was seamless for us. Michael Renfro 3:45 It was it actually lend itself to being very advantageous for us because of the fact that we were 100% virtual. From day one of the company will be 10 years old, so not quite as long as you but we’ll be 10 years old here in January, and we had been virtual from day one. Yeah. And, you know, it made it we were able to give a lot of advice, number one to all the attorneys that we had, and we were working with, right and number two, we were very quick on everything in the sense of we didn’t have to worry about understanding it. We were just worried about helping them get implemented and helping people understand that it’s all virtual. Tricia Meyer 4:21 Yeah. And I think it’s really opened up people’s eyes. Michael Renfro 4:25 They understand less money, less hassle. Beautiful. Look like you have that beautiful backdrop. I want to turn my camera, because I want you to see that I stare like right now. I’m staring at Pikes Peak. That’s beautiful. I know. It’s awesome. Yeah. How did you get started? Tricia Meyer 4:43 So you know, it started being a lawyer. My parents really influenced my choice. My dad was a deputy sheriff at a courthouse and so I worked there on the summers and he always told me I should be a judge. I didn’t want to be a judge. I thought I wanted to be a litigator. I I was gonna go into medical malpractice or product liability. So that’s really why I went to law school. But then, when I graduated from law school, I actually got two offers one at a litigation firm making next to nothing and another at a tech company. And I’d be working on negotiations with various networks like entertainment, television, and Disney and things like that. So it does a lot of fun. Yeah, it was like, Well, that could be kind of interesting. And I came up with a massive amount of loans. So with the litigation job, I was like, how would I even live, you know, and so I took the tech job. And that really is what shaped my career. Michael Renfro 5:37 So that was really the early days as well, right? That was the beginning, if you will, which is funny. And I’m sure you, you’re an attorney now for doing this for 14 years. So I’m sure that you know what I’m saying here. But almost every attorney I talk to an interview, where they start and where they are now, unless they are fresh out of law school is always you know, it’s a difference because I believe every 10 years, we’re different people anyway, so you never know where you’re going to end up after you go through all that. And then you really, once you have all that knowledge under your belt, and you’ve lived some your views change and like no one really want to do this. Tricia Meyer 6:15 Yeah, exactly. And why would you live any day settling like, so I’m really big on that, and doing what you love and need to do every day is a gift and time is precious, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything other than I’m doing today. And that’s a choice. That’ll Michael Renfro 6:32 it all happens for a reason. You would only be here, you know, if you not have you made and my belief, had you made any different change or any different decision, excuse me, it would have changed the path. And most likely you would not be where you are today with the same path outlining now for you. Tricia Meyer 6:50 That’s right. And so I started off my career working at this software company in Denver. And then I moved back to Chicago and worked for HSBC and Discover card and in their tech divisions. So I got really great experience. Michael Renfro 7:05 I got a lot of a lot of knowledge up here was that industry? Tricia Meyer  7:09 Yes, absolutely. And then I went on to work for a telecom company. And that experience, really, I love the legal team. But it really wasn’t fulfilling me from a business standpoint, or, you know, I was almost like, I just didn’t like the dynamic between the business Michael Renfro 7:25 was one of those that felt like you didn’t really have, you didn’t feel like your job had quite the purpose that you wanted it to have. Tricia Meyer 7:33 Right? I was kind of treated like a roadblock by the sales guys, when it was like I’m there to help you. I’m not there to act as a roadblock. And so I was like, well, this dynamic is not going to be my life, I’m not going to be dealing with these types of relationships forever. And so that was really what caused me to say, Okay, I’m going to start my own firm, I have got a lot of great experience now. And I’m going to go out and help these companies. And it just so happened that as I started the firm, there was this tech community that was growing in Chicago, and there were all of these incubators and accelerators popping up. And this was a community that I really knew nothing about. I didn’t grow up around entrepreneurship, I was gonna starting businesses. But yet this community really resonated with me. So I discovered about myself that I’m really an entrepreneur at heart, but a lawyer by trade. And that is that is really a huge differentiator for a lawyer, especially, you know, doing the type of work that I’m doing helping all of these businesses, I understand the need to move things forward. But with a realistic lens and not, you know, counseling from a, from an area of being scared or fearful or riff. Michael Renfro 8:48 Yeah, but if I may, may interject as a sales salesperson. I’ve been selling for 36 years, and I’ve always, I was told for years that I should be a litigator. Number one, because a good salesperson simply is overcoming objections. And that’s really the same thing a litigator does, right. But it’s funny, because just like you, you know, that’s my trade, but my heart is the fact that I want to start something that has a great effect on this on this world, that gives something back, right, that does something for it. That’s I mean, whether regardless of what your reason is, the entrepreneurship has always been a flame. This burned quite, quite hot in me. And I’m curious what was what was your biggest? So I look at him, you know, somebody else wrote these questions. I think I’m gonna rewrite because I really, I don’t like to call them mistakes or even pitfalls. Because in my world and the way that I believe everything that you everything you go through that literally doesn’t stop you from living in this earth. Truly, I believe in that one, makes you stronger and gives you a new gift. To overcome other challenges in the future that are no longer will be challenges after this, right? Yeah. So when I asked this, what was those, what was one of those things that literally taught you something so valuable that it that it changed the way you viewed things in the way that you the move, you move forward? It’s the one about pitfalls, if you will mistake, but you know, which one was it that really helped you the most, and becoming who you are? Tricia Meyer 10:27 Yeah, I think really understanding what the client needs, right? They want to lawyers get a bad rap. Okay. And so changing that narrative to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So changing that narrative, and coming from a place of being really responsive, really transparent, really providing true value, and really being their champion and cheerleader and wanting them to do really well and help them in any way that you can, whether it be, from a legal standpoint, a business standpoint, or, you know, connection standpoint, I think, I think, you know, really understanding that has led me to grow the business. So providing a lot of value, leveraging my relationships, and my network, and providing value there. And just working really hard. Michael Renfro 11:22 I love that because, to me, it goes hand in hand with a philosophy that I have in sales that I feel like I’ve developed and developed my own processes and trained, you know, hundreds to probably 1000 People now, unfortunately, I’m getting up the numbers, you know, they don’t want to get smaller, they just get bigger, right. But one of the early philosophies I had, and I came up with it, when I was around 28, which, you know, I had 28 I thought I was old and alaka 28, obviously, as kids, but I mean no disrespect to any 28 year Tricia Meyer 12:01 old, but now I’m with you. Michael Renfro 12:03 But I came up with it then, because salespeople have their they’re taught and I know the lawyers are taught the same thing. They’re taught to ask questions, right? These questions are vitally important, but mediocre to poor salespeople. And this could probably be said for attorneys ask questions, and then they don’t listen well. Right. And so mine was asked questions, and then, you know, bold and big letters, all caps, listen, listen, listen, shut your mouth. And let them speak, you know, because you’re gonna get every all the information that you need, and to understand whether you can help this person or not for an attorney. Tricia Meyer  12:43 And you know, what else I think is so important that so many people miss is that and it’s kind of like the big secret that’s so it’s obvious, but a lot of people miss is putting a follow up process in place. So you’re regularly meeting with people you’re following up and you’re doing what you say you’re going to do. So many people your Do you meet with, they say they’re going to do one thing or another and then they don’t or whatever. And sometimes you will just get busy or falls off their radar. But putting a process in place and then staying true to your word is such a differentiator. Michael Renfro 13:16 It doesn’t matter what side you’re on Trish, because I have my father, drill this one into the point where I think one day I may just get a tattoo across my forehead because I it is what I believe it is what I live by, and I cannot I don’t judge. And I don’t and I love everybody. That’s part of who I am and who I have to be for myself and quite frankly, for other reasons. But I can still be upset and hurt, right. And one of the things that upsets me most and hurts me most is when somebody says they’re going to do something and they don’t because if I say I’m going to do it, I do it. I may be late. I tell people even in the beginning look I’m I’m a Renfro you don’t know what that means. But that means we’re a little late sometimes you know, you can expect this we’re gonna be they’re always guaranteed. I’m a Taurus too, which means very much. My word may 19 I Tricia Meyer  14:04 love that. Wait, when’s your birthday? 19th. Okay, um, the nine. Michael Renfro 14:08 That is awesome. My father’s the 10th. So Oh, awesome. Yep. And I have a lot of Gemini, me. So I will say that there’s obviously a lot because I’m right on the cusp. But yeah, Tricia Meyer  14:19 you are right. Michael Renfro 14:21 But I’m still I’m still, you know, Taurus at heart and in many, many ways. And one of the things that Taurus take very, very seriously is look, what we also gravitate to, I’m sure you probably know this is that if we say something, we mean it, we really do mean it. And we will stick by you until the end. But the end is when you stop meaning what you say, right? I can only take that so much from somebody before. I’m like, I don’t have any value in your words. Your words mean nothing. And the thing that my father taught me was actions speak louder than words. It’s all about what you do. You can say something great, and that’s awesome. But unless you back it with action, it’s just fluff. Tricia Meyer  14:59 Yeah, you’re out. Fully right. Hey, there’s one other. There’s one other mistake I wanted to run through with you. There’s a million that I could talk to you about, Michael Renfro 15:06 right? I mean, everything I learned from this Yeah, that’s why I don’t they’re not mistakes. They are pivotal learning points for me. That’s what they really are. Tricia Meyer  15:14 Yeah. And this is one though that I think gets missed a lot by people. So we recently launched a new business called the clever baby. Our first product is jet. It’s a first of its kind baby food feeder medicine dispenser and T there and one, it’s really cool. It’s the shape of a plane. It’s we love it so much. And I have six kids. Okay, so it’s right up my alley. Michael Renfro 15:33 I have a son with a cleft lip cleft palate. Tricia Meyer  15:36 Oh, you do? Okay. Okay. So you can see you Michael Renfro 15:39 understand that everything happens for a reason. This is every single person that I actually end up interviewing. I get this great connection with and I understand now why the ones cancel out the due. I’m like, That wasn’t supposed to meet them. Tricia Meyer 15:52 Yeah, right. Everything happens for a reason. I’m with you. I’m with you. I Michael Renfro 15:55 apologize for interrupting. But I thought you would love to hear that when you said kids, like you have to know immediately what I was. Tricia Meyer  16:02 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we will probably Jack. Yeah. So what we did what the big mistake we made with the clever baby is we late, we wasted a lot of time waiting on the wrong partners to bring the first product jet to life. So we called so many manufacturers, we got so many noes, we finally found a yes. And we thought it was the perfect couple to help us. But they ended up not being the perfect couple. They built many multimillion dollar baby businesses, they were amazing, they were really helpful. We had really great conversations, things were always gonna go somewhere, but then they never went anywhere. And although I know that these people meant well, they just didn’t have the time to help us. And so we wasted time on that. And so once we figure that out, like oh my gosh, we just can’t wait any more. We have to get this product to market. We started calling other partners. And we found the right partner through a referral. I asked my network I said, Listen, does anybody know a manufacturer that could help us get this T their manual out there to the universe? Yeah. And lo and behold, we got a great introduction. They’re the perfect partner. And we are, you know, we launched the product. So we’re finally to market but it’s all wasted reservation. Thank you so much. But we wasted, you know, nine months with the wrong partner because we weren’t paying it. Sadly, I wouldn’t I guess I wouldn’t be so harsh on myself to say we weren’t paying close enough attention. I think that we really thought that they were the right partner. But we had to wake up and we had to move on when we found and discover that maybe they weren’t. They weren’t with the same, you know, energy and vigor as we were to get this to market. And so I think noticing that and making sure that you really do have the right partners is key, otherwise, you’re not going to get anywhere with your Michael Renfro 17:59 business. Well, if I may say just a couple of things, because, you know, when I when I hear a story like that, and I, you did be trips up to me, you’re beating yourself up too much, for one reason, you obviously believe and everything happens for a reason. So there’s so much you learned in that experience that you’re going to take forward number one, and number two, you said it like there was I mean, they gave you a lot of information that clearly you weren’t going to get anywhere else. And what you will now know is in the future, okay? Is this just an information channel? Or do I need to go ahead and quickly look elsewhere? And you will you know, I’ve been in that game, but obviously I’ve told you I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve got several things that I work on and having in my arsenal, I’ve even I’ve been patented. So I really didn’t know what it is. And you know, you many times I had the same one I ended up floundering with a couple guys that showed so much. But they never had the passion. And I’ll just give you one example. They had a meeting scheduled with a mill, billionaire, excuse me, who I know, played my game. And all they all I had to do was get the introduction, I was like to put me in front of putting my passion, the guy that made the game and knows every single sales point and who is also a salesman, and also as a motivational speaker, if you can believe it with all the stuff I believe I was like just put me in front of them. And let me do my thing. And the guy never worked. So it never it never came to volition through that that channel because and I end up wasting so much time and believe, like you say, but I learned so much from it. You know, and I’m only here today in the happiest place that I’ve ever been in in my life. Because of the fact that I’ve learned all these little things along the way. And let me tell you from the moment you came on, you look pretty damn happy Trish. I don’t think that this is somebody I’m talking to is like a wasted All right. Oh, right, right, right. Right. There was other things. The whole company as a whole was still doing this. You might have had one line out of however many you have in your arsenal. That wasn’t that was stagnant. It still wasn’t moving down. It just wasn’t moving up. And now it is. So there you go. Yeah. You know, that kind of lends itself is that, would that be your proudest moment? Or do you have something separate? Tricia Meyer  20:28 So my proudest moment is I was named last year, late last year on the Forbes next 1000 list. And I have to tell you, I’m usually I’ve received 27 awards, okay, over the course of my career, and I’m usually not willing to even think twice about it. But that one was important to me, because that one, I think, shows my differentiating factors shows. Michael Renfro 20:53 I don’t know if it blinked out or what I just didn’t catch the name. I apologize. You have Tricia Meyer  20:56 the award? Yes, ma’am. Sure. Yeah. The Forbes next 1000. Forbes. Michael Renfro 21:02 Next 1000? Thank you. Yes, I know, that award. I just didn’t hear I missed the very beginning. So I was like, Okay, this has got to be a good one. Tricia Meyer  21:10 Yeah, yeah. I mean, what entrepreneur wouldn’t want to be recognized by four by Michael Renfro 21:15 four? Right? Well, I mean, if you’re, if you’re recognized by Forbes, it’s kind of the equivalent as I would say, to, like having your book picked by Oprah. Tricia Meyer  21:25 Right, exactly. And so to me, it just speaks volumes as to like how I’m different as a lawyer and how I’ve been able to build such an amazing business law firm with such a dream team. I mean, it really highlights that, you know, I think our responsiveness, our transparency, our authenticity, our true desire to want to help these businesses has like really just set us apart. And we’ve grown year over year, I think because of that. Michael Renfro 21:51 No, that is that is incredibly awesome. And I believe in one of the things that is funny, you know, I still have my arms and my moments, and I’m never going to stop doing that. Because most of the things I do when I do on I do, I try to record them live, because I rather have the authenticity of people seeing who I am. And I see other, you know, content creators that will do a lot of editing, where it’s just the site, and they take all that out, which I get people love. But what people tell me when they see me or talk to me on anything that I’ve ever done, is I can feel your authenticity, I can feel what you’re saying you mean it? You know, I mean, I’ve lost it on on screen before, where I just, you know, and it wasn’t sadness, by the way, it’s usually just overwhelmed. Energy where you know, you can’t hold back to the emotion. Yeah, and you can’t I don’t think, I guess maybe some of these Oscar winners would claim that they can, you know, invoke those kind of emotions on on a spur of the moment. But yeah, Q on Q Thank you. I don’t feel that. So. And I think people will see that when they when they talk to me, you know, and there’s a lot of things that I try to do. It’s a camera. Yeah. But I try to as much as I can maintain eye contact, whether I’m talking to somebody or just, you know, the camera. Yeah, eye contact, I think is huge. Again, my father. Tricia Meyer 23:18 Oh, that’s great. Michael Renfro 23:20 So who would you say is your you know, Tom, what’s your proudest moment? Who gave you the best piece of advice? And would that also be the same person that you would call your mentor? Yeah, so. Tricia Meyer  23:33 So I don’t really have one mentor, but rather I meet a lot of people. And I take little nuggets from everybody, everybody. I’ve thought of a few that I could share with you here today. Okay, so there’s three that I’m going to share. The first is from my mom, and amazing lady that passed away 15 years ago, far too young saying, yeah, 15 years ago, she passed away. Yeah. But she always gave me the best advice. And her best piece of advice was take time to smell the roses. I’ve always been on the go, right. And now with six kids and a couple of businesses. I mean, we are always moving over here. And so, you know, I always try to be really mindful of her advice, and just really live in the moment and create these really great experiences for my family that will remember forever. Yeah. The second one is from a well known Chicago investor. And he basically told me as I was starting my business, don’t try to be everything to everyone, right? Find a niche, get really good at it and focus on that. And I thought that was a really great piece of advice. And then the last piece of advice is from Gary Vee. And there’s a lot of what Gary Vee says that I can relate to and that really resonates with me, but one thing that he says all the time is don’t waste time trying to convince people. And this is so true. I mean people will either see your value or they won’t. You don’t want to waste time trying to convince people. Instead, you need to find the people that believe in you and what you’re doing. And then the others may come around, or they may not. But it really doesn’t matter. Like if you’re trying to convince somebody you’re wasting Michael Renfro 25:18 time. As a salesman, I’m sure you can imagine that everything you just said there was things that if I haven’t heard than I should hear, but in this case, the things that I’ve taught it, what I mean by that is, you know, one of the things that makes me let’s just say good at what, what I do, is that I learned a long time ago, and I had a knack for reading people. Now, I did go through a lot of psychology starting at the age of five years old, because my parents split up, there was a very awkward split up. This was in the 70s, during a time when nobody knew about a lot of the things that were causing my parents to split up in the sense of the public eye, wasting time. And in the in the sales world and going through and what I’ve done. I learned real quick, and Tom, people like you, you need to learn how to read these people. Now that was my neck. Unfortunately, not everybody has that knack? Yeah, but you can teach it to a certain degree. And what I mean by that is, I can still tell people like this is what I hear, this is what I hear, this is what I see. I always, you know, like I’m most of mine has been phone sales over my life. And I tell people, you’re very limited. But you’re also not, you only are getting, you’re only getting one sense, right. And that’s you can only listen to them. But people will give more away with their mouth than any anything else. Now, they’ll give a lot away with body language. And I always love to have that. And now when I could do zoom calls, I’ll take the advantage and do it. Because their body language many times will give me obviously an extra either in the plus or negative. But what’s funny, I’ll tell you this. And as much as I say I’ll do it, I still end up preferring the call without the zoom, without the screen when I’m talking to a prospective client, especially the first time because I actually still just hear more, because I rely on just hearing everything they say. And I even tell them many times if they come on with the camera, I will say to them, Hey, do you mind while I’m presenting to you. And while I’m showing you things, I want to turn that camera off, because it’s just more of a distraction for me, you both end up looking at it. And we don’t need to I’d rather you look at the screen, and what I’m showing you and then I will listen for the responses. And we can talk to each other a little bit later. And I’ll use that talk and each other point maybe in the end just you know when I’m asking some closing questions, right? Yeah, so but that’s a different, you know, scenario. So everything you said there, the wasting of time was one of the biggest ones. And I feel like you, you have to learn how to do that. Obviously, some of it can be taught some of it once you’re once you learn it, you just have to go with your own skills and start to really become an investigator is what I tell people and really listen to every word every inflection of every word. The pauses the amount of pause at all matters is so much psychology. I know that sounds ridiculous. But it’s who I’ve become over the years to really know who I’m talking to on the other side of the phone within 30 seconds to 60 seconds, right? Yes. Is this worth? Is this worth continuing? Right? And then even five minutes later? How do I say I’m constantly evaluating? Right reevaluating? Is this worth it? Right. And there’s times where I really go after somebody. I know it’s inappropriate to drink my coffee, but I’m an inappropriate kind of guy. Tricia Meyer  28:46 Enjoy, enjoy your coffee. Michael Renfro 28:48 The one thing that I have also learned is when you can smell that they want to be with you, but something’s holding them back. Then go with it. And if if I go with it now, I know I know. It’s always first of all, I truly believe in everything happens the way it’s supposed to. So when I feel like I’m supposed to go with it, I go with it. When I feel like it’s not that it’s a waste of my time. And it wasn’t worthy. I don’t I would say 90% of the time I’m on target. And you know, very rarely now do I get that call where I thought I was wasting my time. So I didn’t reach out to them again, all sudden, you know, two months later, I get a call, like have been twice in four years. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m not missing them. Right. Right. Right. So to me, it’s a it’s a balance. But you’re absolutely right. You have to know when my saying for that same scenarios was you have to know when to cut your ties, cut your loss and move on to the next move on to the next person. Exactly. And it goes hand in hand Tricia Meyer 29:49 and then you don’t want to work with somebody that doesn’t see your value like also. Right, that is the worst. Michael Renfro 29:55 One of the things I love about Adam, my CEO and we’re it’s family groups. So there’s Adam Draper, there’s Lisa Vaughn. And then there is their mother. I can’t think of her name right now, I don’t really work with her. But she’s the senior editor, she used to be the clerk of court for a federal judge for over 20 years in Kentucky, which is why she’s our senior editor. But, you know, one of the things that this family and this company believes in is that we really want to work with the right partners. If someone like you say, doesn’t say our value, or we’re trying to convince them of the value, then that’s how it’s going to be for the entire relationship, that that is never gonna stop, it’s going to be a harder person to please, even though because you know, no matter what happens, you end up getting a few of these without without trying, it just happens, because you get the good with the bad, right? The good typically overwhelms the bad, that’s just how it is like a 10 to one kind of ratio is what I feel. But at the same time, there’s not one, and you’re like, you know, you learn to fly now, like pan, there was some signs I should have, just let that guy go, I should have just, there was too many writing’s on the wall, you know, I’m gonna be a pain in your butt. And I’m not gonna see your value, even though we like for an instance, got someone to the front page in the top five, you really can’t ask much better for an SEO company. That’s where the money is, you know. And they’re like, We even tell them it takes 12 months to 18 months, we did it in exactly 12 months. Like that’s on our best. That’s why we give that like, sometimes it can happen that quick. You know, it really all depends on the starting point. Still wasn’t happy. So you never like you say you never know that you’re not going to please. Right. And you can read the writing on the wall if you pay attention. Yes. You know, and, Tricia Meyer 31:47 and run the other way. Michael Renfro 31:49 Yes. So many scenarios I would like to tell you about. But those are probably not appropriate. But you got to run the other way. Whenever you see those. Yeah, for sure. So here’s it. Here’s a fun one. What would you say? I’m going to change it up actually. And ask you this one last. So real quick, what would be software tools that you use the most that you could pass on to other attorneys that you find very useful? And why? Yes, I’ll Tricia Meyer 32:14 give you three one is Clio, we we’ve been using it for years and years and years to just write CLI Oh, CLI. Michael Renfro 32:22 Sorry. That’s right. Yeah, I’m familiar with them. But I’ve had it wrong in my head. Tricia Meyer  32:27 But I have no problem there. I so we track all of our matters and our client information and their and all of that. And now they have a another portion of it. That’s for the bizdev portion before they’d only used to be for client stuff. Now. It’s for pre client and client stuff. So now we’re under contract platform from Yeah, before we had to be on two separate platforms, Michael Renfro 32:48 right you have here and then transfer over once they got Yeah, Tricia Meyer  32:51 it was was annoying. So I’m glad new portion, but they just got I think an investment. So it’s great because they’ll build out their product even more. And I know, a lot of attorneys use it. So that’s a really great one for attorneys. And two others that we use just for organization and tracking things are Trello, which I love. I love Trello. And then we just started using Monday this year, Michael Renfro 33:15 that one is spelled exactly like the day it is Tricia Meyer 33:18 it’s okay, so if I’m being honest, I mean, I wish they would have thought of another name. Every time I’m talking to my team about Monday. They’re like, Oh, okay, do it on Monday. I’m like, no, no, no, we’re not talking about the game on day. Michael Renfro 33:31 One with people, they knew this was gonna happen. They’re like, yeah, it’s gonna make them talk so much about our name that there’s no way they’ll forget it. Tricia Meyer 33:37 Yeah, exactly, exactly. But we love it because it’s easy for task tracking, and they have really Michael Renfro 33:45 similar to like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Is it that kind of a sharing platform or what is it? Tricia Meyer  33:52 No, we use Slack too. Slack is more like kind of community info if you will, for us anyway. Right? Um, whereas Monday, Mondays and char, it’s more internal specific tasks for people that they have to do and work on so we don’t lose track. So it is kind Michael Renfro 34:07 of similar to trullo tree it Tricia Meyer 34:09 is similar to trullo to Yeah, except the way you’re able to assign our tasks and build out the boards Michael Renfro 34:17 is a little different. Okay. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Tricia Meyer 34:20 My favorites. No, yeah, I Michael Renfro 34:23 was actually just recently turned on on an outside project. Not not with gladiator onto. So I was pronouncing it wrong. So Trello Am I saying it right now? Throw out, bro. Yeah. And it’s funny because I looked at them before they’ve been around for a while and they have their hands and quite a bit. So hey, do you know they got bought two? I think for a couple billion. Tricia Meyer  34:43 They did. Yeah, they’re doing great. Michael Renfro 34:46 They’re very happy campers. Yeah, yeah. So my last question for you then is is what is a take us through like a an average day and give us some of the rituals that you find the most in valuable, if you will, the ones you couldn’t do without like. Tricia Meyer  35:03 Okay, so I’ll talk about the ritual first because it fits in somewhere within my crazy day, which I’ll explain that every day. I really take the time to think about what I’m thankful for. Like I am big on gratitude. I think it’s incredibly powerful. And I every day, think about things I’m thankful for. So that is a ritual that I do every single day. Michael Renfro 35:26 Grateful. Thankful. Blessed. Yeah, it’s literally stare it’s staring at me right here. I have another one says one small positive thought in the morning. I always read that one. Because it changes the whole day you start the day off with positive thoughts, but please, I love it. Tricia Meyer  35:40 I love it. That’s okay. I love it. So for a typical day, for me, there isn’t really a typical day because my days are Michael Renfro 35:48 tells you what your day is gonna be right there. Yeah, for me like, Okay, what you let the day kind of? Tricia Meyer  35:53 Yeah, I mean, I know, like, there’s certain things that I have to get done within a certain day. And so I’ll plan for that. But I also have six kids who are truly. Yeah. And so in, you know, with my position, I have the beauty to work from wherever, whenever I look where I’m at, right. And so that is great. And, and I’m up early, I’m one of those people that don’t need a lot of sleep. So I’m up by 430. And I’m pretty much moving and grooving until my head hits the pillow. So every day brings a new adventure, I wouldn’t change it for anything, I get to spend a lot of time with my family and kids, in addition to doing work that I love. Michael Renfro 36:29 Well, I have to share a few things that I meant to share earlier. So one, I have four boys that are blood boys. I have a fifth one that calls me father for the last four years because he moved out here with us. And he is, as he said, and this was were one of those moments I might end up with I will try not to but as he said, I gave him the ability to understand what family was about. Oh, that’s so I have all boys. I can’t couldn’t God knew who I was before I started making children as I tell everybody, so he’s like, Hey, you’re not gonna have a girl, I would have probably had her in a, you know, a gilded cage, amongst other things. So I don’t have any girls. But funnily enough, I have four sisters, but Oh, wow, I am the oldest of my family. Or have my my my father’s you know, nucular family, if you will. I’m actually the oldest of my generation two, I was the first one born to all the siblings of my father. So I was the start. But that’s a whole nother story. We won’t make it about me. But I love the family stuff in the way you said that because we really do have so much in common I, I plan things out. And I know that I have deadlines, but every day I kind of allowed to just, you know, knowing it’s like I have these checkpoints that I will get to I don’t know exactly how I’m gonna get to them until I’ve done my little 35 to 40 minute ritual of the day, that is always the same. That part is, you know, I start off the same. There’s water involved reading these, I never check emails or any of that stuff. Like I mean, I might glance and see, but I won’t open an email that makes sense. I’ll look at the inbox and see, okay, that’s like usually within the first five minutes of getting up and having water only to see if there’s anything important that I’m going to need to get to address right away. That support like I say, part of that ritual for me decides where the day is gonna go. You know? Yeah. And the family thing is, is so important. It’s it’s, I don’t think I ever I never understood it until. Because if you had talked to me at 27 Yeah, a year before I became a father, I would have told you I’m never having kids. Tricia Meyer 38:36 Oh, wow. Okay, okay. And here you are five kids. That’s Michael Renfro 38:42 you never know what’s what’s going. Well, the first two I got twins right out of the gate. Oh, no. So that that kind of started off started things off in a in a very fast way. I won’t use the word shotgun because that gets so misappropriated. So Tricia Meyer  38:56 yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Michael Renfro 39:00 Oh, that is that was great. Listen, I loved having you. And I, I would absolutely like to think that you’d be okay with maybe reaching out again in a year and kind of touching base again and seeing things, seeing where things are at. Yeah, let’s Tricia Meyer  39:12 do that. That’d be great. And thank you so much for taking the time and having me I Michael Renfro 39:17 know, absolutely. You know, I truly live my life. In fact, if you’d like to link up on LinkedIn, I would love to have you as a connection. It’s simply Michael I think Michael S. Renfro. But you’ll clearly know it’s me. It is an older picture before I lost about 8085 pounds. So it’s a black and white picture of me kind of looking like a rockstar had longer hair. It’s getting curlier now like, this didn’t this was not curly. Four years ago, it has to do and my son to Skylar, one of the twins, his has gone even curlier and it’s been since we moved out here so it has to be what the altitude is. doing to our hair because it. I don’t know if you know this, but the high altitude also makes your nails grow faster, and your hair grow faster. So I would imagine that it could possibly without the humidity, maybe it’s allowing it to do what it would have done without the years of humidity on top of it. I don’t know, interesting, but all of a sudden, I have curly hair on the top of my head. Yeah. So it’s not that it’s just wavy, when you see me it was like me about maybe a year having been here a year or so. But it’s easy to find. The only thing I was gonna say is I truly believe in everything happens for a reason. That’s why I know when I end up interviewing somebody, there’s going to be an awesome connection and have some the number of things that are so similar here, I can’t even begin to tell you it was awesome. Listening to you, because I’m like, yes, yes, it was. I fancied myself a preacher, in my off time in the sense of not religious in that sense, more preaching philosophy, if that makes sense, right, and storytelling. So I try to share those things with people that have allowed me to finally be happy. And I can tell when I meet somebody who’s actually happy, because there’s very few of us Trish in this world who are truly happy with ourselves. Yeah, Tricia Meyer 41:09 I agree. I agree. There’s a lot of people that are struggling a lot of people that are also making excuses and limiting themselves if they don’t. Michael Renfro 41:17 And when you do that, you’re you know, I tried to tell someone the other day I try to explain to people like this. There’s a difference between loving yourself and loving your persona. If you’re loving your persona, you will you’re usually stagnant and not moving forward because you’re loving something that you’re doing for other people. Right? If you love yourself for the own accomplishments and the things that you do, then your strangeness, your gifts, whatever you want to call it, they will shine and the world will see it. Right says simple. Tricia Meyer  41:49 I agree. I agree. I agree. Well, thank you so much. Again, I appreciate it. So I Michael Renfro 41:54 really hope to connect, I would love to have conversations over the next year. Because I think, quite frankly, you could probably teach me quite a few things, especially since you actually run a business takes care of and I do have some projects on the horizon. And I’m being very sincere that obviously gladiator cannot help me with because they are not attorneys. Just marketing. Tricia Meyer 42:15 Yeah, I’d be more than happy to talk with you about it and help you anything I can do. Michael Renfro 42:20 Thank you so much. All right. Have a wonderful after. Is it afternoon there for you now or no? It Tricia Meyer  42:25 Yeah. Coming up on one o’clock. It’s Michael Renfro 42:27 beautiful back there. By the way. It’s just such a gorgeous, gorgeous. Tricia Meyer  42:31 It is thank you very much. It’s I still can’t believe it’s my backyard. I mean, it’s like I’m telling you every day I’m like, Wait, what are we doing here? Michael Renfro 42:39 I have that down in Florida for some years. But I you know, I can’t express to you and it’s my front yard is for me, my front yard is Pikes Peak and the whole ridge. It’s, you know, Colorado Springs, right. So you know what I’m talking about, like, that whole gorgeous, like, that’s the Rockies man. And I mean, I lived in Asheville, but Asheville was not it, they’re beautiful. They are gorgeous. There’s nothing like the Smokies at 6am in the morning, by the way, that’s the other thing. i The only difference is I’m up to like 132 and then get up at like, you know, somewhere between seven as early as 630. And as late as like maybe eight, you know, but I don’t ever everybody else gets more sleep than me. Put it that way my whole life. I don’t know when it’s gonna change. Yeah, it’s also ADHD. So part of me going with my ADHD is I don’t medicate it. I don’t believe in pills anymore. I try to do all natural of any kind was no matter what it is. And I allow the ADHD and just between you and me since this is now off record between ADHD and God, I’m gonna go exactly where I need to go. Yes, Tricia Meyer 43:44 yes, exactly. Exactly. Michael Renfro 43:48 So have a wonderful day. It was honestly an absolute pleasure. Nice meeting you. Nice meeting you. Have a great day. Bye. Outro 43:55 Thanks for listening to 15 Minutes. Be sure to subscribe and we’ll see you next time.