Legal Mastermind Podcast · 2025-03-24 · 28 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
37 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Joel Ankney has spent 33 years in law practice, the first 12 at large firms and the last 21 running Ankney Law as a solo practice. His most successful growth strategy has been publishing books: his first on buying small businesses became his best marketing tool, generating speaking engagements at Columbia Business School and University of Illinois MBA programs, plus attracting clients nationally. Before books, he used micro-content strategies like targeted blogs distributed to email lists built from networking events. Ankney emphasizes playing "small ball" - lots of singles and doubles - rather than swinging for the fence. He attributes his transition from big law success partly to his confidence in handling complex projects, but found the small firm community far more collaborative and supportive. Key insight: he initially feared needing to broaden his service offerings to six or seven practice areas, but learned instead to narrow focus and deepen expertise in his core niche, avoiding the temptation to chase quick-money areas like estate planning without real expertise. His approach aligns with the "affordable losses" mentality - trying things briefly, then cutting what doesn't work.
His first book on how to buy a small business became his best marketing effort, attracting clients across the country who read it, securing speaking engagements at Columbia Business School and University of Illinois MBA programs, and generating podcast interview opportunities - despite the original goal being to provide value to clients, not sell books.
Stay narrow within your genuine niche rather than expanding to six or seven practice areas out of fear; Ankney initially took on unfamiliar work that he lost money on, then learned to cut those projects and focus on what he was experienced and interested in.
He did in-person networking including lunches and startup pitch nights, created micro-content through targeted blogs for different audiences (creatives, small businesses), and sent weekly emails to a list built by collecting business cards and asking permission at networking events.
Big law gave him confidence to handle complicated projects and break complex work into manageable pieces, skills that translated to client confidence in his solo practice - though he had to unlearn the competitive internal environment of large firms.
The second book on starting freelancing businesses, published during COVID, was good but didn't generate the same level of attention as the first book; he attributed this partly to there being less differentiation and fewer gaps in the market for that topic.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains a handful of practical observations - using revenue data to discover a mismatch between marketing positioning and actual practice, the 'affordable losses' framing for experimentation, and stumbling onto the ETA community as an untapped audience. However, most of the runtime is consumed by conventional advice (network in person, hire a CPA, pick a niche) with little density of truly novel claims per minute.
I had been marketing myself as a startup business attorney, and we realized that a big part of our practice was doing acquisitions and sales of businesses and we hadn't been marketing that
I've tried lots of things, and you know, we've we've tried things for a very short period of time, and we've I call them affordable losses
The core theses - niche down, publish a book for credibility, play small ball on marketing, don't try to be everywhere on social - are well-worn advice that circulates freely in every small-firm marketing conversation. The 'affordable losses' concept is borrowed from effectuation theory. Nothing here is contrarian or genuinely first-principles.
I never really tried to hit, you know, swing for the fence. I never tried to hit a home run. I just tried to play small ball, lots of singles and doubles
it's an attention economy, and it's hard for somebody who is small and has a small budget to buy enough attention because you're competing with people who have a lot bigger budget
Joel is a genuine long-tenured practitioner with a real track record - 33 years in practice, 21 as a solo, three published books with demonstrable client-acquisition results. However, he operates a small solo firm, not a scaled organization, which limits the operational depth he can offer to B2B operators trying to grow beyond the micro stage.
I've been practicing law for a little over thirty three years now, and in that time I spent my first twelve years of practice at a couple of big law firms, and then I left and started my own law practice about twenty one years ago
I've spoken at the Columbia Business School to one of their NBA classes. I've spoken to the University of Illinois Business School in one of their NBA classes
There are some concrete anchors - ten-year project data review, twelve to fourteen podcast appearances from one book, speaking at named universities, the ETA community as a named niche - but the episode conspicuously lacks any financial figures, conversion rates, client volume, or revenue impact numbers, leaving the most actionable claims unsupported.
we had a son who was in between high school and college...We decided to have him do some research to look at ten years worth of projects that we had done in the law firm
I think I've been on about twelve or fourteen different podcasts about small business merger and acquisition work
The host asks a series of broad, open-ended background questions with no follow-up probing, no challenge to any claim, and no attempt to extract specifics when the guest speaks in generalities. The interview functions as an unstructured PR monologue rather than an interrogation of ideas.
Could you give our listeners a little background on yourself?
What advice would you give to a law firm who needs to get to that next plateau and how has that changed in the last fifteen or twenty years.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Joel Ankney is an Attorney at Ankney Law. Joel works with clients to protect their interests and make informed decisions when buying or selling small businesses. He also helps people start, operate, buy, and sell Main Street businesses and buy, sell, and lease commercial real estate. Ankney Law has helped clients close hundreds of deals in diverse industries. The firm will guide you through your deal by helping you negotiate, draft, and review all deal documents, from the Letter of Intent to the Purchase Agreement to the ancillary Closing documents.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
1 - >
Speaker 1: When I started my own practice, this small law firm 2 - > community is much more collaborative and much more supportive. I 3 - > had people who when I said I wanted to open 4 - > my own practice, not only did they take me to 5 - > lunch to answer my questions, but I had one friend, 6 - > for example, bring a copy of his profit and loss 7 - > statement to lunch with them and say, hey, here's my 8 - > P and L just so you can understand what your costs, 9 - > not only the categories, but what the estimated cost might be. 10 - >
Speaker 2: And I just thought, you know. 11 - >
Speaker 1: How incredible that somebody would share that information with me 12 - > to help me get started on my journey. 13 - >
Speaker 3: You're listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast, presented by Market 14 - > My Market, the go to podcast for learning from the 15 - > experts and the legal community about effective ways to grow 16 - > and manage your law firm. 17 - >
Speaker 4: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Legal Mastermind podcast. Today, 18 - > my guest is Jewel Ankie, who's an a tern at 19 - > anky law Joel, Welcome to the podcast. 20 - >
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on. 21 - >
Speaker 4: Could you give our listeners a little background on yourself? 22 - >
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that'd be great. 23 - >
Speaker 1: I've been practicing law for a little over thirty three 24 - > years now, and in that time I spent my first 25 - > twelve years of practice at a couple of big law firms, 26 - > and then I left and started my own law practice 27 - > about twenty one years ago. And during that time, I've 28 - > learned a lot about, you know, how to promote my 29 - > practice and promote myself and build a brand. And one 30 - > of the main ways I've done that is through publishing 31 - > some books that have really boosted my kind of my 32 - > recognition and my brand in a specific practice area. 33 - >
Speaker 4: For anybody out there listening, who is an attorney who 34 - > might be thinking about publishing a book, what guidance would 35 - > you give them? 36 - >
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think that I probably do things because I 37 - > just don't know how difficult they will be. And I 38 - > had always wanted to write a book. And as I 39 - > look back, I've written three books now, and as I've 40 - > looked back, I've kind of been able to, in hindsight 41 - > see that I've approached it with kind of a three 42 - > step approach. One is just to find some inspiration for 43 - > writing the book. And then once I have that inspiration, 44 - > is to kind of hone in on the idea of 45 - > what I want the book to say, who I want 46 - > the book to speak to, and what kind of results 47 - > I want from the book myself for my practice. And 48 - > then finally it's the implementation, and that's really the grind. 49 - > That's where I'm coming up with a writing discipline and 50 - > working through the logistics of editing the book and then 51 - > actually getting it up on Amazon and publishing it. 52 - >
Speaker 4: You said you have three different books. What were the 53 - > themes of those books? 54 - >
Speaker 1: So first book, the idea came from actually having I 55 - > have four sons, and I had a son who was 56 - > in between high school and college. 57 - >
Speaker 2: And. 58 - >
Speaker 1: We decided to have him do some research to look 59 - > at ten years worth of projects that we had done 60 - > in the law firm and the solo practice, and to 61 - > see if we could simply identify where we were, you know, 62 - > what kind of projects we were working on, where we 63 - > were making our money, where we're getting those projects from. 64 - > And as a result of that, we realized that we 65 - > had been marketing ourselves a particular way. I had been 66 - > marketing myself as a startup business attorney, and we realized 67 - > that a big part of our practice was doing acquisitions 68 - > and sales of businesses and we hadn't been marketing that. 69 - >
Speaker 2: And so. 70 - >
Speaker 1: With that information, then I started to do some searches 71 - > on Amazon and realized that there really weren't very many 72 - > books on how to buy a small business, especially books 73 - > written by lawyers about the legal side of that process. 74 - > And that's where we came up with the idea. We 75 - > just thought, you know what, we're going to write this book, 76 - > not because we wanted to sell books, but because we 77 - > wanted to provide a resource to clients and potential clients, 78 - > something that would differentiate us. So that's how we came 79 - > up with the idea for the first book, and it 80 - > was I mean, it's been my most successful book I've done. 81 - > Not only have I sold a lot of books, and 82 - > again that's just secondary, but I've been interviewed on a 83 - > number of podcasts about that topic. I've spoken at the 84 - > Columbia Business School to one of their NBA classes. I've 85 - > spoken to the University of Illinois Business School in one 86 - > of their NBA classes. And I've gotten clients from all 87 - > over the country who have called me and asked me 88 - > to represent them because they read my book, and so 89 - > that I couldn't have anticipated that result, but it's just 90 - > been amazing, the best marketing effort. 91 - >
Speaker 2: Or tactic I've ever adopted. 92 - >
Speaker 1: So then the second book was really the idea that 93 - > I had for the first book. I thought I would 94 - > write a book on how to start a small business, 95 - > but there are hundreds of those books out there. But 96 - > then the when COVID hit in twenty twenty, again we 97 - > looked at our kind of our some of the expertise 98 - > we have inside of our law firm, and we thought, 99 - > you know, we represent We've represented a lot of people 100 - > who are starting freelancing businesses, whether they're consultants or graphic designers, 101 - > web designers, content creators. And so because of the pandemic 102 - > and the lockdown and the transitions from office to work 103 - > from home and all those types of things, we thought 104 - > it would be a good time to write a book 105 - > to help people out who were reps thinking about using 106 - > that time and space and maybe even just that the 107 - > you know that this state of the economy to open 108 - > a freelancing business. 109 - >
Speaker 2: And so yeah, we put that book. 110 - >
Speaker 1: Out, and that book from you know, if you compare 111 - > the first book in the second book, the second book 112 - > has been good, but it hasn't been as if you 113 - > want to call it successful. It's been it's brought us business, 114 - > but we haven't had the same type of attention that the. 115 - >
Speaker 2: First book got us. 116 - >
Speaker 4: What advice would you give to a law firm who 117 - > needs to get to that next plateau and how has 118 - > that changed in the last fifteen or twenty years. 119 - >
Speaker 1: Well, your your question helps me reflect on maybe what 120 - > I did during the first you know, five or six 121 - > years of my solo practice, where I initially started with 122 - > just your your very kind of basic in person networking. 123 - > You know, invite people to go to lunch with me 124 - > or breakfast. Make sure that I'm showing up at all 125 - > the local networking events or they may not be networking events, 126 - > but they may be you know, events like a pitch night, 127 - > a startup pitch night or something like that, just to 128 - > be in the crowd, just to interact with the people 129 - > who are in the same industry that I'm trying to service. 130 - > And that's kind of how we started. And then before 131 - > we wrote any books, we did some what I would 132 - > call it kind of microdos content creation or writing. 133 - >
Speaker 2: I had a couple of. 134 - >
Speaker 1: Different blogs that had you know, fairly short life spans, 135 - > but they had some themes to them. I had one 136 - > blog that was for creatives, and then you know, I 137 - > had another blog that was for small businesses and just 138 - > doing that writing those you know, creating that those small 139 - > doses of content and then just using my existing email 140 - > list to distribute that those small doses of content to 141 - > my clients and to people that I had met during 142 - > the week. I mean I used to have a practice 143 - > where I would collect business cards during the week from 144 - > whoever I spoke to, and I would ask them, can 145 - > I add you to my email list? And then on 146 - > Friday I would send out an email to all those 147 - > people that would have a link to. 148 - >
Speaker 2: The latest blog post. 149 - >
Speaker 1: And it sounds really kind of you know, nuts and bolts, 150 - > but it worked really well for you know, six or 151 - > nine months, until it kind of the interest kind of 152 - > died out and we. 153 - >
Speaker 2: Moved on to the next thing. 154 - >
Speaker 1: But I think overall, what I would say is that 155 - > I never really tried to hit, you know, swing for 156 - > the fence. I never tried to hit a home run. 157 - > I just tried to play small ball, lots of singles 158 - > and doubles and just let them accumulate until you know, 159 - > we got more and recognition locally, and then you know, 160 - > figure out what we and for us, books were the 161 - > next thing, because that aligns with what I like to do, 162 - > who I am, and how I like. 163 - >
Speaker 4: To teach basically, So you came from big law and 164 - > then pivoted to opening your own shop. What were some 165 - > lessons that you learned in big law and what were 166 - > some things you had to throw by the wayside. 167 - >
Speaker 1: I think that the one of the things that I gained, 168 - > probably the biggest thing that I gained from being inside 169 - > a big law firm was just the confidence that I 170 - > could take on complicated projects and serve clients well and 171 - > provide them with the you know, the value that they 172 - > needed to reach their objectives. 173 - >
Speaker 2: I was. 174 - >
Speaker 1: In the law firms that I worked in, I was 175 - > given a lot of responsibility pretty early on in my 176 - > career for some pretty niche types of project, and in 177 - > some instances there wasn't really anybody inside the firm to 178 - > provide a lot of supervision or guidance. I did some 179 - > really obscure like in one law firm I was, I 180 - > did these really obscure kind of anti trust filings, and 181 - > and that just gave me that confidence that I could, 182 - > I could deal with clients, I could you know, present 183 - > that confidence to them so that they. 184 - >
Speaker 2: Would feel comfortable engaging me. 185 - >
Speaker 1: So I think that's probably the biggest thing that I 186 - > took from big law and just the all the you know, 187 - > along with that confidence, the ability to kind of take 188 - > a complex project, break it down into pieces, and manage 189 - > those pieces towards the objective. The things that when I 190 - > left Big Law that were surprising to me. One of 191 - > the things that I loved about leaving Big Law was 192 - > that I could try lots of stuff. 193 - >
Speaker 2: I could do. 194 - >
Speaker 1: You know, if I had an idea, or if I 195 - > wanted to license a piece of software or something like that, 196 - > I could just do it and there wasn't anybody to say, 197 - > you know, you can't use that piece of software on 198 - > our system because it's not compatible and we can't support it, 199 - > and things like that, or you can't use that that, 200 - > you know, that piece of hardware on our system, or 201 - > something like that. So I love that idea of being 202 - > very nimble and being able to do, you know, try stuff, 203 - > try lots of stuff. And I've tried lots of things, 204 - > and you know, we've we've tried things for a very 205 - > short period of time, and we've I call them affordable losses. 206 - > You know, at some point I say to myself, Okay, 207 - > I can suck this loss up and I can move 208 - > on to something else. So that's those are probably the 209 - > biggest things that I've felt. The other real freeing thing 210 - > that that I was really surprised at was that the 211 - > the law firms I worked at were wonderful. I treasure 212 - > that experience. I really learned how to be a good lawyer. 213 - > But the big firm environment can feel very competitive internally, and. 214 - >
Speaker 2: Even if the firm. 215 - >
Speaker 1: Is wonderful and has I think, a really good culture, 216 - > it's still high pressure, very competitive. And I found that 217 - > when I started my own practice that this small law 218 - > firm community is much more collaborative and much more supportive. 219 - > I had people who, when I said I wanted to 220 - > open my own practice, not only did they take me 221 - > to lunch to answer my questions, but I had one friend, 222 - > for example, bring a copy of his profit and loss 223 - > statement to lunch with him and say, Hey, here's my 224 - > P and L just so you can understand what your costs, 225 - > not only the categories, but what the estimated cost might be. 226 - > And I just thought, you know, how incredible that somebody 227 - > would share that information with me to help me get 228 - > started on my journey. 229 - >
Speaker 4: So do you have any advice for anyone who's going 230 - > from a big firm starting their own smaller firm. 231 - >
Speaker 1: That's a great question, because I think that there's a 232 - > at least for me, there was this this fear that 233 - > I wouldn't be broad enough, that if I were too narrow, 234 - > that I might not be able to make enough revenue 235 - > to sustain myself and grow. And so when I first 236 - > started my solo practice, I you know, I probably well, 237 - > I did. I took on some projects that were really 238 - > on the fringe of my area of specialty or my focus, 239 - > and I, you know, I did Okay, I made my 240 - > way through them, and my client was fine, but I 241 - > lost money on those projects. And so it wasn't really 242 - > a geographic scope that I was looking at, but it 243 - > was really more of a you know, inside the big 244 - > law firm. I did like three things, and I thought 245 - > that when I opened up my solo practice, I would 246 - > probably need to expand that to like six or seven in. 247 - >
Speaker 2: Different areas of the wall. 248 - >
Speaker 1: And you know that some of those things, after a 249 - > little bit of time, I realized that I could cut 250 - > them out and I could get rid of them, and 251 - > I could then you know, focus more time on growing 252 - > the types of practice that I was really interested in 253 - > and also very experienced in. So I would say that, 254 - > you know, when you start a small practice, a solo practice, 255 - > you're going to be tempted to try and expand your 256 - > service offering, and you may even be tempted to say, okay, well, 257 - > I know. One of the things, at least that I 258 - > see in my social media feeds right now that is 259 - > getting pushed to me is that the state planning is 260 - > a practice that anybody could just pick up and start 261 - > and start a profitable law firm. At least that's how 262 - > it's advertised or marketed that. I don't think that's the case. 263 - > But if I had, you know, if you've never done 264 - > a state planning before, and you're going to start from 265 - > the beginning because you think it's going to be a 266 - > quick money maker or it's going to become a revenue 267 - > stream quickly for you, I don't think that's necessarily. You know, 268 - > you're still going to have to have all that ramp 269 - > up time to learn how to do it, and to 270 - > find the clients and and and and you know. So 271 - > that's I think that's the the tendency is to have 272 - > this fear that you need to be make a much 273 - > broader service offering, maybe not geographically, but you know, just 274 - > based on the types of legal services that you're going 275 - > to offer, become more of a generalist, for example. But 276 - > I've found that it's been better for me to just 277 - > try and stay within my niche and and and just 278 - > promote that and build that. When I published my first book, 279 - > I had never heard of the it's called the Entrepreneurship 280 - > through Acquisition ecosystem or community. I had never heard of 281 - > this concept. And the University of Illinois picked up my 282 - > book to be used in their Entrepreneurship through Acquisition class. 283 - > And when the professor contacted me and said, hey, you know, 284 - > would you be okay with us using your book in 285 - > our class? I was like, yeah, but you got to 286 - > tell me what ETA is. You got to tell me 287 - > what entret And this was seven years ago, and so 288 - > as he explained it, I realized that that was a 289 - > community that I didn't know existed, and it was a 290 - > community that was interested in my book. And so we then, 291 - > you know, geared a lot of our messaging toward that 292 - > community for a number of years, and that was our 293 - > opportunity and we jumped on it. 294 - >
Speaker 4: You have helped people start businesses, and one of the 295 - > things that you stress a lot is building a support team. 296 - > Can you explain that process. 297 - >
Speaker 1: Well, I think that a lot of us who start 298 - > businesses have a tendency to feel confident enough to do 299 - > everything ourselves, and that may just be built into our personalities. 300 - > I certainly feel that way myself. 301 - >
Speaker 2: I've become kind of almost a. 302 - >
Speaker 1: Jack of all trades as far as setting up, especially 303 - > when I started my business. You know, I thought, well, 304 - > if I don't know what, I can learn it and 305 - > I can do it. And so some of the people 306 - > that I added to my team very early on, I 307 - > added a CPA that was probably my first person that 308 - > I called in was a CPA, because I realized I 309 - > didn't know that I had to make all these tax 310 - > filings every month and every quarter and every year, and 311 - > make all these payroll tax payments and things like that. 312 - > And so I found a CPA who was very like 313 - > flexible in the way that she worked with her clients. 314 - > And so I just called her up and said, Hey, 315 - > can I buy two hours of your time come to 316 - > my office a list of like fifty questions I want 317 - > to ask you? 318 - >
Speaker 2: And she was great. We did that. 319 - >
Speaker 1: She taught me some things, but then I realized that 320 - > there were things that I could turn over to her 321 - > and pay her to do those things, and it would 322 - > be I'd be making money because I could, you know, 323 - > bill more for my time than I was paying her 324 - > for her time. And so a CPA was my first ad. 325 - >
Speaker 2: I think. 326 - >
Speaker 1: I mean, when I first started, I had I hired 327 - > my own web designer and that went really well. He 328 - > helped me. He was also a commercial photographer, so we 329 - > did a photo shoot for my website. And we also, 330 - > I mean this is years ago, so we had print 331 - > brochures because we had print brochures at the big law firm, 332 - > so I thought, I need print brochures for my small 333 - > law firm too, so we did that. Since then, actually, 334 - > my wife has been I mean, in the time that 335 - > our practice has been open, my wife has gone back 336 - > to school and gotten a degree in marketing, and she's 337 - > my marketing She's sitting in the next room listening to 338 - > me to make sure I'm doing okay. 339 - >
Speaker 2: But she has been wonderful. 340 - >
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from her, and she handles a 341 - > lot of the marketing side. So I think it's important 342 - > to have a marketing person on your team, and they 343 - > can have different roles. One of the biggest roles that 344 - > Jennifer plays with me is that she's a sounding board 345 - > for me. So I have lots of ideas and then 346 - > she can take her education in marketing and help me 347 - > refine those ideas. And then also sometimes I mean we 348 - > have we do these kind of informal morning walks and 349 - > a lot of times we talk marketing while we walk. 350 - > And one of the mantras I guess is that I 351 - > remind her to keep telling me is don't do don't 352 - > do anything drastic, you know, don't I always have like, 353 - > let's do something really big, let's try something big, and 354 - > then she helps me scale it back down. But I think, 355 - > I think marketing is really significant to have somebody on 356 - > your team who can help you with generating marketing ideas 357 - > and then also executing them as well. 358 - >
Speaker 4: What would your advice be to a lawyer who's just 359 - > starting out and has a marketing budget. 360 - >
Speaker 1: What I've seen is that it's an attention economy, and 361 - > it's hard for somebody who is small and has a 362 - > small budget to buy enough attention because you're competing with 363 - > people who have a lot bigger budget. And so I 364 - > think it's good to try two or three things at 365 - > a time where you can try and build or attract 366 - > some of that attention to you, and that may be 367 - > you know, for us, for example, I'm not on a 368 - > lot of I'm on social media, but I'm not promoting 369 - > my practice on a lot of different channels. I think 370 - > there's this tendency just kind of this fear of missing 371 - > out and you feel like you have to be everywhere, 372 - > and in my experience, that becomes very overwhelming, not just 373 - > from a you know, a dollar budget perspective, but also 374 - > from a time budget perspective as well. And so we've 375 - > tried to pick and choose the things, like you say, 376 - > We've tested a few things. We found that LinkedIn works 377 - > really well for us because a lot of the people 378 - > who are listening to us or who want to hear 379 - > from us are on LinkedIn, and that's where they go 380 - > to to find, you know, information or to engage in 381 - > conversations and things like that. Books have been great for us, 382 - > and we use we we kind of repurpose the books 383 - > by using excerpts to create content for a blog, you know, 384 - > a blog on my website. And I'm testing right now substack. 385 - > Substack is a new thing that I'm I'm looking at 386 - > and we're going to test it in a couple of 387 - > different ways, but it's fun. 388 - >
Speaker 2: It's what we do. 389 - >
Speaker 1: I write a lot, and so that works really well 390 - > for me. And then podcasting, I mean, frankly, we have 391 - > had ideas about launching our own podcasts, but we found 392 - > that we really enjoy being on other people's podcasts and 393 - > providing information that way. And I think, you know, for 394 - > the first book, I think I've been on about twelve 395 - > or fourteen different podcasts about small business merger and acquisition work, 396 - > and it's been a lot of fun, and it's been 397 - > it's helped me get, you know, grab that attention, and 398 - > it doesn't cost me hard. 399 - >
Speaker 2: You know, I don't pay to be on. 400 - >
Speaker 1: A lot of podcasts or anything, so it's the budget 401 - > from a dollar perspective is very low. 402 - >
Speaker 4: You seem to be really open to new things. Do 403 - > you just come across something new and say, this is 404 - > something new, I'm going to learn it. 405 - >
Speaker 1: I Well, I'm fortunate because I kind of have a 406 - > built in support group. I have my wife, but I 407 - > also have a my youngest son, and I have four 408 - > sons who are They're all adults and they all are 409 - > in different professions, but I bounce a lot of ideas 410 - > off of them. Substack For example, one Sunday evening, I 411 - > was with my youngest son, he's twenty two, he's a videographer, 412 - > and he I said, you know, it would be really 413 - > cool if I could find I have I've been writing 414 - > a lot, and it would be really cool if I 415 - > could find some sort of a platform where I could 416 - > serialize my writing. And he said, oh, you want a 417 - > substack And I was like, I've never I mean, I 418 - > think I've heard that term. I've heard about it, so yeah, 419 - > I just I'm a very curious person. So I just 420 - > looked into substack and got myself an account and started 421 - > poking around and setting things up and watching some YouTube videos. 422 - > There's plenty of, you know, information out there to kind. 423 - >
Speaker 2: Of teach yourself. 424 - >
Speaker 1: But that's kind of a lot of our ideas spring 425 - > from the questions that. 426 - >
Speaker 2: We ask ourselves about. 427 - >
Speaker 1: You know, here's a I mean another interestingly, another question 428 - > that we had asked ourselves was how do we with 429 - > all the work and the inquiries we're getting from the 430 - > first book? Is there a way is there a platform 431 - > for us to refer those people out to other lawyers 432 - > across the country. Last week I came across overture and 433 - > I then listened to the podcast episode that you guys 434 - > did with them, and you know we're going to be 435 - > talking Wednesday, So I'm like, you know a lot of that. Yes, 436 - > I'm a very curious person, and I'm also a person 437 - > that I think asks a lot of questions to myself 438 - > and looks at things from the perspective of, you know, 439 - > how can I frame the issue or the challenge, and 440 - > then once I frame it, how can I find the answer? 441 - > And how can I learn about it? And a lot 442 - > of times You're right, I do try and take a 443 - > lot on myself. That's a perhaps a weakness that I have. 444 - > But other times I'll look to you know, I have 445 - > a couple of sons. I have one son who's very 446 - > good at audio editing and he audits a podcast for me, 447 - > and he's going to audit or edit my audio book 448 - > for the next book. 449 - >
Speaker 2: My wife helps me. 450 - >
Speaker 1: I have my son, the other son, who's a videographer, 451 - > so I've learned to kind of get them involved as 452 - > well instead of trying to learn everything myself. There's no 453 - > way I want to learn how to use Adobe Premiere 454 - > Pro to edit video. I mean, it's really fascinating, but 455 - > I'm better at practicing law. 456 - >
Speaker 4: Well, Joel, we're just about out of time. I'd like 457 - > to thank you for the time he spent with me. 458 - > Are there any parting words or books coming out that 459 - > you can point our listeners towards. 460 - >
Speaker 1: Well, we got in touch because I just published a 461 - > book a couple of weeks ago called Raincatcher, And it's 462 - > really it's not a how to market your law practice. 463 - > That's really not what it is is. It's a book 464 - > about experiences that I've had over the last thirty thirty 465 - > plus years about marketing my services. It's really more of 466 - > a memoir approach to say, you know, here are things 467 - > that I've tried, and here's what the results have been 468 - > for me. And there's some themes in there and stuff. 469 - > So we're really excited about that, and that's the latest 470 - > book that we've published. We're not sure, like what's going 471 - > to happen with the book. It's not a book that's 472 - > going to bring me more legal work, I don't think. 473 - > But it was a book that I felt that I 474 - > really wanted to write to share the experiences that I've 475 - > had and hopefully give people maybe some hope or some 476 - > tips or some ideas or that will help them along 477 - > the way. 478 - >
Speaker 4: Any email or website you would like to point people towards. 479 - >
Speaker 1: They can find me by just typing my name in 480 - > Joel Ankney dot com and it'll take them right to 481 - > my law firm website and all my contact information is there. 482 - > But they can reach me on LinkedIn too. I'm very 483 - > active on LinkedIn and if they have a pretty unique name, 484 - > so if you just type it in, I should pop up. 485 - >
Speaker 4: Sounds good, Joel, thanks for the time. 486 - >
Speaker 2: Thank you, it was a pleasure. 487 - >
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Legal Mastermind podcast, presented by 488 - > Market my Market. You can check out additional episodes and 489 - > recaps at Legalmastermind podcast dot com.
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