Harnessing Systems, Processes, and Efficiency to Build an Estate Planning Practice with Andrew Zihmer

When you look at that , what is it that only that person can do , but everything else around it , someone else can ? They don't need a JD after their name , and that is a lot of what we do . So I take the concept of building systems , because it was similar in the engineering world .

You couldn't have everybody with a master's or PhD take every step along the way . They had to build it or be there to review or approve and go back to the next project . You had different technicians , different skill levels of people implementing building fixing with your guidance , and so that's a lot of .

The same concept is if you can do 10,000 hour work level capability , don't be the one putting the paper in the printer , and it's not an ego thing , it's just let people know what the responsibility is , delegate it down and focus on what the highest , best use of your time is .

Now here's your host , brian Glass .

I have Andrew Zimmer , who's the Vice President at Zimmer Law Firm in Pittsburgh , pennsylvania , a growing trust in estates practice , and Andrew and I are gonna be talking today about how to build the kind of practice that you can leave and that you can take vacations , and that you can leave your phone and your email somewhere and not have to answer them seven

times a day . So , andrew , welcome to the show .

The lawyers from my perspective are trained up in law school , the kind of folks that go to law school and they're around other people in law school and they keep building that right and the practice of law becomes very strong and center , as it should , and then these folks go and work for other lawyers at other firms .

It could be big law , it could be a little solo and it's one or two people , but they stay in that environment . And then I come just out of engineering from just a shakeup of let's just do it differently . I solved different problems , worked on different projects and so a lot of my day is why do you do that , why have you done that before ?

And just poking holes . So that's a lot of what I do and how it functions , coming in as an engineer to say it doesn't align , and that's the point .

I think a lot of the problem with lawyers who try to grow businesses is that we tend to keep ourselves at the hub of every decision , and so how have you created systems that it's okay for somebody who's not a lawyer in your law firm and your wife's law firm to operate those systems and make decisions within a safe framework ?

When you look at that , what is it that only that person can do ? And that's how we build our systems and processes to say , okay , great , you've passed the bar in that state . That is what you must do , but everything else around it , someone else can .

So then when we look at how do we build a system and the systems are gonna be the collection of the processes that build up step by step across these things we realize , oh , step three and four must be attorney driven . And then step 11 , and then step 22 . All right , next process .

And when we string that together , we realize you don't have to be attorney heavy and you're allowed to just now hire . For what are the roles ? Oh , my gosh , steps one through four . I need a person who's personable and great in email communication . Let me hire that person . They don't need a JD after their name and that is a lot of what we do .

So I take the concept of building systems because it was similar in the engineering world . You couldn't have everybody with a master's or PhD take every step along the way . They had to build it or be there to review or approve and go back to the next project .

You had different technicians , different skill levels of people implementing building fixing with your guidance , and so that's a lot of . The same concept is if you can do 10,000 hour work level capability , don't be the one putting the paper in the printer .

And it's not an ego thing , it's just let people know what the responsibility is , delegate it down and focus on what the highest , best use of your time is .

But once you've had that conversation with a client , now you can hand that off to a paralegal or to a legal assistant , really to build the machine . Am I right about that ?

That's the levels we're looking at now is do I have to have the attorney in the whole hour meeting or should I have someone else do 20 or 30 minutes and then come in for maybe 15 minutes to go ? Based on everything you've already talked about , Do this , don't do this . It was great to meet with you . Any questions for me before I leave ?

And we're building a system like that now for tracing the other attorneys here , even because we realize we can maximize their time . If , instead of in one hour they could see one person , what if in an hour they could see three or four or five and keep it moving ? So you've nailed it . It's what must you do .

And then get back to the what you must do and only can do . The rest of the team can do it . They're highly talented , insanely good at what they do . Let them , and then they enjoy what they do more too .

Now how do you translate that to clients and how do you set client expectations for when you're coming in for this consult or you're coming in to have your will or your trust prepared , the person who you're meeting for actually doesn't have a JD , they're not licensed , but they're gathering information , and so that and I hear all the time when I review , intake

phone calls here are you a lawyer ? No , I'm not , and you don't need to talk to a lawyer yet . I need to gather a little bit of information to see if we're a right fit . But there's resistance to that from the client's perspective .

And so what do you do to either get around that resistance or prepare the client expectation or potential client expectation for the fact that they're not gonna be talking to a lawyer right off the bat ?

They are there to answer the questions they're able to , and so we set that right out of the gate . It also then keeps us in the safe spot both from legally and from just , I think , how we want to run a business

of . If a non-attorney is running those initial meetings , it's a very easy answer to say I'm not an attorney , I can't answer that , because the problem is so many attorneys get sucked into free answers , just giving the advice and not getting paid or compensated , because you're the one on the phone call and it's much harder to say I won't answer it .

Then I'm not allowed to .

I'm not going to answer that for you , even though I know the answer , because I just won't . It's trickier , so we do guide that .

The other thing I would add is and this isn't a perfect across the board most people do not interface with attorneys or law firms a lot , so they come in maybe with some conceptions of what this looks like , but what we have found is that we can really build the narrative and they're open to it because they've not done this before , they're not coming in going .

This is the 75th time I've updated my will or trust and I expect it to be like the last 74 . They've probably never done it , or they did it 20 years ago and they know things have changed . So when we just are clear about what our proven process is , they're very open to it .

This guy was a lawyer , but not an injury lawyer , and so he's got some conception of what negotiations and the systems are like and we're driving each other insane because the things that he thinks he knows are just wrong , and I probably never should have let him in the door in the first place , right ?

If you're wanting different , we are and sometimes even that kind of paradigm shift , they go . Oh , you're right . Yeah , I didn't like XYZ that they did . They didn't communicate . This is our way of communicating , keeping you in the loop better .

Unfortunately , we can't have an attorney do every single one of those steps and give you that great experience and let them make the trade off , decide if they want to work with us or not to .

Hey , don't forget , I love that thing you did yesterday and the way you had that interaction . I was thinking about maybe adding this piece and what do you think ? And it's just this constant game of improvement and I got that from engineering . Engineering is such a game of always be better , always develop and design and work on the next project .

There's no sitting on your laurels . So that's my favorite thing to bring in here is just this constant evolution of if that was a great job , letting you know and what do you think we could do next time to do better . And the team will come out and go . I did it well , but I think I would have said this that might have gone better .

And it just leads these conversations and it's just constant reinforcement to the whole team , without feeling let's sit down and go through a PowerPoint . It's just the interactions that we have , you realize , every day , every week , every month . We now have a lot of this and I tell people focus on one or two things .

You're not going to have that script or that methodology down day one , but focus on one thing until it just becomes second nature , then work on the next thing and the next thing , and then all of a sudden you build this tool chest and you go I've got a lot of tools in there and it took some time to build it that way , but that's how I like to structure

teaching and leading folks to do that .

I want people who want to do a great job and want to learn how , and that's really what we hire for . We have totally changed our hiring process in the past couple of years to really have very specific types of questions that lead us into understanding how they think and the kind of environment they want , and when that matches , we keep moving forward .

When it just doesn't , even if they look great on paper , we just do not continue further , because we have learned a bit of our leadership styles and what they're looking for matters the most .

I will add in , though the systems and processes allow you to hire younger folks with less experience , because if you have great procedures , you have your why really down and you can convey it . I don't need them to come in with a lot of other understanding , because we can teach it and we can teach it very quickly . So there are times you go this one role .

I really need someone with experience , but otherwise you go . Look , if you want to do this and you're the right fit whether you're brand new or you've done it for 10 years we can get you in and you'll be contributing quickly .

everybody else , and here's how we do it . And then breaking them from the place that they've been at for 10 or 12 years man , that's a hard task .

So what we found is if they just don't know what they're doing , it's easier to build that up . And so then , but that's a ton of effort on the system's process aside , someone's listing goes oh , that just sounds great . If you don't have that foundational framework , everywhere , you just have someone who doesn't know what they're doing .

You have to have the entire system built around , allowing you to bring in new young talent and get them up and running in a system where they won't just be sitting in your office , shoulder to shoulder with you for the next six months , because that's the way that they can learn .

She got me a book a couple of years ago I'll try to think what it was called I'm surrounded by idiots which was based on a disk and basically , right , you have that jam up when you don't understand why people are different and everybody's an idiot if they're not cut out of the same mold as you . And that opened my eyes up to disk .

So we've been looking at that and a few other ones that start to explore . Do you use any of these types of profiles ?

He likes seeing the good in everybody and saying I can take this person from a six to a nine and I have a tendency to like to do the same thing . But I get frustrated very quickly with talking to more than four people , and so if I interview four , I'm probably going to hire one of those four , whether or not they're the right fit .

My wife is much more patient , so she runs ours now , and then we made a real practice of making somebody come in and interview with the rest of the team , Because one time I almost hired a paralegal who'd been incredibly rude to two people on the team and I just walked around and said what do you think about her ? And they were like , no , don't hire her .

And so had I not asked , I would have introduced toxicity into the office , and so now that's just a part of our process , Like you have to come by and sit through and interview with probably about a third to half of the team before we're going to make a decision on hiring for you .

I was just saying and in that piece too , the hiring is very hard and every segment and business or marketing's hard advertising , selling , doing the legal work , teaching people , building systems and hiring is one of these verticals and it's okay to not be the best at it and say I've got to get better or I need to find someone to work with or partner with to

help me with it , because I think in that entrepreneurial space of I have to wear every hat . We can't be A plus at everything . It's just the nature of that's not possible and hiring is a big ego check .

I think at times to go I'm not great at this , tracy is way better hiring than I am and seeing because I want to elevate people beyond where they want to be elevated . And so I always see folks and I go , oh my gosh , we could get you here . You don't even know you're that good and take them there . And they don't always want that for themselves .

And Tracy's a better filter of what's the role , what do we need ? Can they do it ? Will they fit in ? And I'm always being pulled into all these other ends of what we could get them to do in five years .

And we have such hesitation to have those hard conversations with our people because I'm only running a 15 person firm and so every person is a critical piece that I need to find somebody else for and plug them in .

But we do such a disservice to our companies by keeping people in positions where they don't belong or by not elevating or by not having those hard conversations , and then two or three years down the line , everybody's frustrated and by the time the person ultimately leaves or gets fired , the rest of the team goes what the hell took you so long ?

So the better you can get at having those hard conversations earlier in the growth curve or earlier in the problem curve with employees like , the better off you're going to be .

You need to already be implementing and it's a lifelong journey . You're always going to get better and be learning it . But it's don't say let's flip the switch and pay attention once you've got your first or second person in , because you screw these things up . It will poison your firm . You can take steps backwards . You'll just stagnate when you don't know why .

It's the team side of it and that's all baked into the leadership .

And so what kind of marketing do you guys have out there in the world to hold yourself up as the firm to come to or Western Pennsylvania trust in estates ?

We also , then , do a lot of being a resource where , when folks are actively looking and trying to ask those questions , that they come to us and then we can build out the narrative that we have that walks them through .

You look , if this is who you are , this is what you're looking at , we're the right fit , and we have found through the years , then , whether it's digital marketing , relationships , referral based , we're a leader at doing this and doing it well , and so part of it is having the conversation with someone who you said working backwards , I don't even know if I need

to do this or should I , or they're just not even aware . So there's the awareness component of those introductions to say let's talk for free for a few minutes and just learn about you

. The legal zoom , diy side . That's a split of do you believe you know more than we do ? And if you do , knock yourself out .

But I can tell you from experience how many probate cases we've taken in messy trust administrations or the trust administration that still must be probated , because someone thought that they knew what they were doing and you quickly just showcase .

Look , if you nail it , you're right , you're going to save a lot of money , and if you screw it up , you're going to squander tens of thousands . That's your decision . Nine out of 10 times people go . You're right . I don't know what I'm doing and once in a while ago , I think I can figure it out . I'm going to commit 100 hours to learn this .

Have at it . And so that's how we partner with folks is when they have a need and they understand , we can build the comfort . We love helping those folks , but there's a level of I don't want to be for everybody People that don't respect attorneys .

They don't value what we bring , and the being there for their family when they're gone is really what we do , right . The will or the power of attorney or trust , that's just the document .

What we really do is the peace of mind , knowing that when you're not there and your family is in mourning , they have someone to come and say what's next , and that plan has already been designed .

Like most people who step into that administrative role have to find all of the bank accounts and the assets and the car and the 401k and the life insurance plan . Are you on that model or are you on okay , one and done kind of thing ?

We just purchased and have been working with a software company to get this vault system to now move into a subscription model where we can be in front of people for the long haul of staying up to date , being able to make these updates and keep that relationship ongoing in a more , I think , conducive manner where before we've really been relying on them coming

to us . We can now be proactive . So cool that you said that we are rolling that out . That should be implemented in front of all of our clients and past clients .

Who could I speak with ? Because this wasn't on my radar . I just didn't know that was an option two years ago and now we've been fleshing it out . Who could we partner with to do it really top notch for our clients , realizing that this is going to be a game changer because we can have a better relationship , which is what we enjoy .

And then the work on the backend is so much easier because , instead of the hunt of what's where , what changes did mom and dad make since the 16 years we worked with them ? It's been so ongoing . It's really just easy now to carry out those final steps .

I find other folks who then think similarly . And then when we engage in offline discussion , you go hey , we started doing this four years ago . How about you guys ? You go , holy crap , I did not know that was a thing and I think it's my filter to find folks that think outside the box .

So how do you decide what's the next thing that I need to tackle in the next quarter , or a month or week ?

Really , it's an acknowledgement of where am I today , where do I want to be in 90 days , and then how am I going to segment that out into 30 and 60 day milestones and then day-to-day , week-to-week activities to get me there . So that's the framework I attached to every single thing that I do .

And then I just have my running list of projects and new ideas and then I just have a way to tag them from high impact and high effort or high impact , low effort or low impact and work through that matrix .

So then when I come up to , hey , I've got timer bandwidth , take a couple more things on , I've got this pre-built out list , I go you know what it's time to do ? The next two or three , let's map that out for a 90 day run and now let's start implementing .

And went okay , what's the thought behind that ? She went I just think that's going to be the big shift up to really help us hit that next gear . She goes you're always saying what got you here won't get you there . Is that the shift ? And so we were talking and I finally went . You're right , it's scary , it's big .

It's not really about being at the beach house for a month . It's about the fact that I can envision down my mind everything that right now I would have to do for that month and I can perfectly see the list . And there's even more that I'm not thinking about right in this moment and I have to get every one of those things off my plate and went .

I'm 100% in , this is going to be the biggest thing we've ever done . So that's what we've been structuring . We've got the list of what needs delegated and what , oh my gosh , I could delegate this tomorrow . I was just not doing it and then went this okay , this is a .

Now , this is a person I need to go hire and this is the skill sets they're going to need to do these things . Okay , great , let's start figuring out the hiring and the , the bandwidth , and how much more revenue do we need to then , you know , be able to get this person in ?

And so it's been now building this very intentional system gearing up for next summer , to allow us to step back from day to day , week to week activities and focus on month to month , quarter to quarter , year to year .

So what are the numbers that you would need to know on a weekly basis from your firm if you were stranded on a desert island and couldn't make any changes to what the firm was doing ? What are the numbers you'd have to watch to let you know when to come back ?

We have a way that we track deadlines , so making sure that we're not getting past due on those or that's not . The wheels aren't falling off on the deadlines . That is keeping the typical metrics of proactivity . For that . The next one would be our flow then of business coming in , and when we scope it , we know a value to that .

So understanding , is that coming in and is that the margin that we like to see higher over what we're getting done every month ? And then bake that back from more sales perspective . How many closings are we having ? How many leads and conversations are we having ? And then just general P&L , what have the expenses been ? Making sure that would all target .

I feel like if I saw that and they all understood why I needed to see that and the why behind each of those numbers , I think that would be my desert island numbers .

But right now it's still a lot of individual and group because of an end one and one's up . It may not be that they are not being productive .

They may be waiting on someone else to give them approval or to remove obstacles for them , and so that's that bigger picture again of leadership , of look , if someone's stuck or they're not being productive , do they have the ability right now to be productive ? And we've had times where not .

If everybody drafts and somebody reviews and they're not reviewing it and then getting it back to get out to a client , that third step glides to a halt , and so it's making sure those things incrementally keep happening .

Do you have that same problem in your office ?

I have to trust other people . I have to allow them . They are talented . Someone else can sign off . There's another attorney here who put their name on it and make sure that they understand this tax return , but they can sign it . Someone else can meet with the client . Someone else can have final say .

And giving that control up and truly delegating to people is the most empowering thing you can do . That's the only way you grow , because otherwise at some point you're tapped out . That's where burnout happens . I think that's why so many attorneys have burnout is because they go I must do everything . You don't .

You literally chose to , but it's a big mindset shift to understand you don't have to if you will delegate .

I know that you're running a group and I think it's a state planning lawyers , but talk about the benefit of having kind of a safe space where you can come with your vulnerability and come authentically and share the problems that you're having in your firm with other lawyers .

And so then when you create that room , you say , look , I've got a problem here . The person across from you goes we solved that six years ago

. It's not actually that hard . You're missing two steps , that's all it was . You realize that what's holding you back isn't typically all-way like these huge amounts of work . It's just sometimes you can't see the force through the trees . There's just this little step or just this . If you look at it from a little bit different angle , you'd see it .

They give that perspective because they've been there before , and so that's why I like the mastermind is when you put out this is what's working for me and this is what's not , you instantly get hey , what works for you doesn't work for me . But I've solved your problem . That's having a dialogue with share , with the greater group , and that's what goes around .

We don't do area exclusivity , at least not right now . I'm huge on abundance mindset and not some of that just keeping it all to me . I used to be very scarcity minded and so I do challenge folks to say I put my stuff out there for anybody who wants it and wants to participate . I do want other people that will share that same mindset .

I can give you all the advice in the world , but if it's not taking you in a direction where you are actually going and where you're going is different than where I'm going and the next person down the line it doesn't do you any good , and so the benefit to me of these groups has been being on what we call the hot seat and having people ask questions about

okay , that's what you're doing , I get that . Why are you doing it and what do you think it's going to achieve ? And is it actually taking you any closer to the goals that you've been telling us that you want to get closer to ? And so what's the format that you all use in your group ?

Right now , what we typically do is , whatever the topic is , I want everybody to contribute for a minute or two around around the room .

In this thing that's working or this thing that you have figured out , whether it's what's the best system you have , what's the number one question or set of questions you ask when you're hiring people , what is this big criteria piece in showcase , what works and what is everybody's bringing different things that works for them and that they're taking pride in and

they're excited , right ? I'd love to start with something positive that I'm working on and that's what then goes never been able to figure that thing out that you have solved , that you have working for you . Could we talk about it ? And then we start spurring the discussion and we limited on . We're not trying to go down 35 minutes on a rabbit hole .

Sure , now we know who the players are to say hey , could we kick into a subgroup Anybody who wants to know more about questions for hiring ? Let's go set up a little subgroup , some one-on-ones , it might be two or three people , it might be a little sub zoom in a week and all of a sudden you go .

I didn't even know , people knew how to do this or it solved this and that's been the fun

part that we just . Our last one was on ways people are getting clients in . People are running high six and seven figure firms completely differently and folks are going . You're running seven figures on these two marketing channels that I haven't even started , yeah , and I'd love to share what works . It took me seven years to figure this out .

I'd love to teach you so you could get up quicker and you go . That is the power of mastermind .

It's striking that balance between I need to have all of these channels , because all of these channels have worked for somebody else , and no , I need to focus on the thing that I'm doing at an 80% and raise that to a 95% and systematize it and give it to somebody else before I go and grow on the other things .

I don't want to forget about that thing just because the new hotness came along from the last call I was on . Those things may go down further on the list and that's what keeps me honest about moving forward on what I find to be big game changers .

I'm also going to write the 80-20 rule of is there something I can put a moderate level of energy into and get a large return ? I do want to focus on those things and so if somebody comes up with you could get this turned on with X effort , with some guidance and you will , you can get X more leads , and I can . I know I can close them .

Let's explore that , because I would much rather go into spending 20% effort to get 80% output than grinding to get from that 80 to 82% Percent . You can spend so much effort to keep growing that and it plateaus at some point , and so I do like to pick up the big headers at times .

I'm a Mac guy , so between that and just the baked in notes and things , I love that if I have an idea right after this I can type it up on my phone , it's on my iPad , it's on my computer , it can be in front of me to then triage it and bend it back into the big list later . So I don't like to over complicate .

If you're a pen and paper or journal or the little old there's three by five little notebooks or things , a pocket notebooks yeah , do what works . I think too many people will go . What app are you using on your iPad ? It's not about the app , it's about do you have a way to take information and implement ?

And too many folks always want to focus on the wrong part of where success comes from . But the morning routines you know what's your morning routine Right Now ? It's not your routine , it's the fact that I have one , and I have one that works for me and gets me geared up for a successful day . That's the secret sauce .

It's not my actual steps , and sometimes I don't even like to get into them , and it's because people will hinge on . Oh , so you take a cold shower this many days a week . That's what that's where your success comes from . No , it has nothing to do with that . It's just the fact that , for me , I like getting into a shower , that I go .

This is going to suck , and then I like having that win . That's the only reason I do it . It sucks every day and that's why I do them . That's not really where success comes from . It's a mindset piece for me to go .

I got to win . All ready this early in the morning . I got a big win . I did something I didn't want to and I overcame it . Why can then overcome that proposal I don't want to build ? Or I can overcome the hard conversation at work I don't want to have why ? Because I've already started stacking wins .