Maximum Lawyer

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Are you a firm owner struggling with hiring top talent? In this episode, Tyson shares a personal story about hiring and professionalism. Tyson encourages listeners to look beyond surface-level traits and trust their intuition, highlighting that true professionalism is revealed in small, everyday actions.

After buying a new car, Tyson provides some insights on first impressions for the hiring process. When Tyson called the dealership, he encountered an individual who had amazing phone training. This individual asked him all the right questions, anticipated his answers and overall showed Tyson what smooth, client interactions can look like. After receiving a text from this person asking about a job at his firm, Tyson reflects on professionalism and what to look for when hiring good talent.

When it comes to hiring for a firm, it is important to assess fit and look at certain qualities in a candidate. When looking to hire, sometimes you might find someone that checks all of your boxes and might actually be a really good fit. But, it is important to find someone that takes it to the next level. To determine this, you look at those deeper qualities. Do they have the character needed to do well and represent your firm well? This might be the most important quality, so if someone does not have it, you need to re-evaluate.

Take a listen!

  • 4:12 Reflection on First Impressions and Hiring Process
  • 5:42 Cialdini’s Principle and Breach of Professionalism
  • 10:21 Employer-Employee Relationship and Professional Courtesy
  • 12:29 Timing and Judgment in Professional Interactions
  • 15:43 Assessing Fit and Deeper Qualities in Hiring


Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 

Creators and Guests

Host
Tyson Mutrux
Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

What is Maximum Lawyer?

Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:13 I want to tell you about a really interesting story that I had last week. a couple weeks ago. So the day before Thanksgiving, I bought a new car. And, it's one of those things where I bought a Tesla because it's got the full self-driving, and the technology is just absolutely amazing. I can drive from door to door. It's, zero interventions for me. It's absolutely amazing. So part of this story is, I am I thinking, okay, what I want to do, what I want to do with my trucks. I really love my truck. And Tesla didn't really give me a very good offer on the truck. And I was like, okay, maybe, maybe, maybe I'll, you know, trade it in through Carvana or CarMax, or maybe I'll sell it independently. And then I had this idea. Well, you know, maybe I could keep it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:04 I can park it at the office. I can even put some signage on it if I wanted to. don't know if I'm going to do that, but I could just rent it through Turo, and I'm like, oh, this is maybe this is the way. And I talked to my cousin, and my cousin was like, yeah, I make decent money. And I'm like, okay, well, this is this could be something. And I go to put it on Turo and there's a recall. And so I'm like, all right, you apparently you can't rent a car in Turo with an open recall. So I call the Ford dealership, and I. And I call to get it in to get the recall taken care of. And I'm on this call with with this, I guess rep. I don't know what her actual title is, but she's absolutely amazing. I'm talking and anticipating my questions. so she is answering my questions before I can even, you know, get to them because they're already.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:06 She's already covering everything. Extremely detailed. very empathetic. So she is you know, she's all the telltale signs of a great phone person, right? Just really amazing. And and I'm to the point where I am like, wow, can I can I try to hire. Can I try to hire this person? So I start to say, is at the end of the call, like the call is actually done, we're we're done. And I, I say, hey, can I ask you a question? She said, sure. I said, you are phenomenal on the phone. What is there some sort of phone training that that you've been through or that they put you through at the dealership because you are really phenomenal? She said no. She's like, I've just been doing it for 20 years. And and so I'm just I really enjoyed doing it. And we have a nice little chat about all that. And she asked me what what I do. And and I told her I was like, you know, the reason I'm asking is because I'm always looking for really good phone training, and because we have a lot of our people that are remote and they're all over the country.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:11 And I, I'd love to be able to, you know, you know, get get them some phone training. She's so very abruptly she says, it was almost like someone was like listening in on the call. It was interesting. She says, can I get your cell phone number? I, that way you can get, you know, text alerts. I I'm thinking, sure. Okay. It was just an abrupt point in the conversation was really interesting. little did I know that she was texting me at the time. I didn't see it because we were. She and I were talking. I wrap up the call, and, she sends me a text, and the text is asking me if, there if we are hiring. And so I'm going to read this to you. She says, Hi Tyson, I hope this isn't weird. My name is. I'm not going to say her name on here. We just spoke. I set your service appointment for. I'm not going to say the dealership name.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:12 I want to inquire if your job is hiring and. It was a really interesting experience for me because I went from thinking, okay, this person is perfect on the phone. Clear communication. She is really confident without being pushy. she's she's able to build that instant rapport. And the moment I read the text message, and especially the moment I realized that she sent it while we were on the phone. Like, everything changed for me. Like, the whole my whole thought process about how good of a candidate she might be and how good of an employee she might be, completely shifted. and that's where There's it's. I was kind of blinded by that first impression. And I think sometimes in the hiring process, we get blinded by that first impression and how, we can tend to overlook other things because of how good of a first impression. That's why we have a pretty thorough hiring process for, because of that, that, that one thing. And but it is really interesting how how she really screwed it up, because I would have totally tried to find a position for her had that not had happened.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:42 It's kind of like that, that Robert Cialdini, principle, the principle of liking, and he says people who who we like influence us until a breach of professionalism breaks the spell. And that's really what happened. It was that she had sort of she had this great initial first impression. The professionalism was all there. She had met all those benchmarks and then she just in an instant, she broke that professionalism. And it really just kind of, ruined things. And if you think about the bad hires, I wonder how many of those bad hires you've had are because you've you've been put under the spell of that first impression, and then you ignore all the red flags along the way. we've all been guilty of it. It's one of those things where we've all done it. We we there was one thing that we liked about them, and we ignored all the other things. I hired a friend of mine because I. Even though I knew all of the red flags, still, there were certain things I thought, okay, this could work out and ignored all the other ones.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:59 So, we have to be very careful about those interactions and how they how they can really affect affect us in the hiring process. it was really kind of interesting because I've, I've had this conversation with Becca. I've had this conversation with a few people, though, about this conversation because it was very perplexing to me. and it wasn't I've had some time to think about it since I wasn't. I was so confused by the interaction because I'm thinking like, okay, what would I hire this person still? Like, I really kind of went back and forth because the candidate was so she was so good, I couldn't call her a candidate. I guess she's technically a candidate now. because we've not turned her down and she's even sent me her resume, and she has all of the she has all of the, pedigree, I guess, of a of a good candidate. But she it seems like she's lacking that character. And something I was telling Becca like, because I have that question in my mind about it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:05 It's that she can never be a she can never work here. That's when I said, well, she just that one thing, that character part of it. She just can't. Can't work here because of that part of it. If you're on the clock because I part of this is like, I can I have no problem with her reaching out. None whatsoever and inquiring. I'm a little I have a lot of pause about the whole idea of her using company data to do it, but if I set that aside for just a second, if she had maybe texted me after hours or something, or shot me an email, maybe, or even if it was during business hours, but the fact that it was during an actual phone call that she was having with me, while she was getting paid by another employer, that is where it's that's where, it really was icky. I felt really kind of icky about that. There I was having another conversation with, with a client actually just a couple days ago, and we were talking about how she's, she's worked at, a, a chain restaurant for 42 years.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:20 Okay. So there's this one particular, as a server, she's worked as a server for 42 years at this particular chain restaurant, and she's talked about how, you know, there's been sort of a shift in, in, in hiring and employees and all that. And it was kind of interesting cause she was talking about how, it's gone more like, what? What can I do for you? And it's more of what can you do for me? mindset. And so. I kind of got that. I've kind of, sort of had a chance to kind of process all of this. And it it does seem like that, that that person I was talking to, maybe she was more of the, you know, what can you do for me? you know, leave you on the drop of a hat. And I'm also not blinded by the fact that there are a lot of attorneys. A lot of business owners have this whole idea that, that almost like you, you own the person and you control the person.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:21 That and I don't have that mindset at all. I think that that's kind of a ridiculous mindset. but because the reality is, is that you could fire that person at any point. And so I don't I think that from if we're being fair, we can't have the whole, you know, can't really get upset whenever someone you know, decides to, to leave, you know, like, I think that's just part of the that's a natural part of owning a company and owning a business. But you also have to understand that they can drop on a drop of a hat, leave you at any moment. And the way they do it matters. I do think that that from a and I don't know if, if, if this is maybe something we could add to our, our some of our questions in the hiring process about how you left and how you left. How you informed your employer. I had a I had a really good conversation with a mastermind level guild member just yesterday, and we were talking about how, he wanted to do he wanted to give, his one of his local firms, one of the I don't know if they're considered a competitor or not, but he's one of as a professional courtesy.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:32 Let them know that he was, you know, had was going to make a job offer to a certain candidate. And the conclusion we had kind of come to was wait until she accepts the offer. And because you don't want to hurt her job prospects. because there is a the way you do things does matter. Right. and he he wanted to make sure that they knew. Hey, I wasn't poaching. She applied here. And I think that that is I think that's a wise decision that that he wanted to do that. But the ultimately the the way you do it matters the wrong way would be, you know, reaching out in advance and then getting her fired. And that could make it way worse. I think doing it after the fact, after she's, you know, accepted the job, doing it that way. It just as a as a courtesy and making sure that the candidate knows to not, you know, put in put in her two weeks notice until after he's had a chance to make that phone call.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:29 all of that, the timing of it matters to a big part of this is timing. So when to do certain things and to me, it shows. Whenever she texted me in the middle of a phone call. It just showed lack of judgment. And judgment is really important with what we do. So there are little things that we can look to in this whole process to to test certain things, even if it's not technically part of the process. But, looking to her judgment, just it seemed like a very poor, poor decision to do that. And I, I wonder I do wonder what other people think because I that's why I've run this by so many people since. because I was thinking, well, maybe I'm overreacting a little bit, and I don't think I am. After having a chance to kind of think about a little bit, I don't think I am. I think that I'm on the right track because there is there's just right ways and wrong ways of doing things, and I just don't think she took the right approach.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:26 It's I'm very sad by it because I really wanted to in my mind, I think the where I struggled with it was I really wanted to try to find a way to hire this person because she was so good at her job. But then you started to question her judgment and maybe even her character. That's where it's like just that's a that's a that's a deal breaker. because you're looking at me, you're using words like judgment and integrity and professionalism. She had all the professionalism until she broke it. I think that she did break some, some integrity there because she's getting paid by another employer and trying to, you know, using using that as a way to get other job, really use really poor judgment. self-control. You know, there's there's just lots of things, having that, you know, reading the room that I heard of, that sort of having that boundary awareness, really important. so that's it does remind me of that Stephen Covey quote. the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing, the main thing for her at that time was to get me get my appointment schedule and taking care of the customer.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:40 Okay. And she forgot about the main thing. The main thing. She made the main thing. Her and the main thing should have been the customer. And she forgot that part of it. so. Yeah, it's, it was an interesting. It was a really interesting conversation. hopefully you get something from this. I think that the main thing is to when you are kind of when you recognize that you could be blinded by those first impressions, but you have to start to think about things like fit, you know? Or is there a good fit? You know, are they going to be a good fit with the firm? And I she, she checks all most of the boxes, but not not those most important boxes. you know, and like having a good. Another thing to kind of think about as like, like having, like a vision of what? Not a vision, but sort of an idea in mind as the, the ideal person that you weren't working in your firm. Like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:43 So we're looking for peeps, you know, looking for the person that passion for what we do and I don't. It's one of the things I don't know if I if that person would have had a passion for what we do. She definitely had energy and she has the ability to energize others that she has that stuff. she can execute. Right. So there's she's got that edge that we're really looking for. So that's those are things that we, she met many of the boxes, many of the boxes. but you need kind of go that next level deeper, you know. Does she have that that character that we're looking for? I don't think so. You know, I really don't think so. And having that judgment is, it's so important with what we do. Really, really important. So, but that's all I have for this week. it's one topic. one topic. I wanted to talk about the story of this interaction that I had that was, just kind of a really interesting thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:40 And so I plan on doing a little bit more of this. We're, talked about each week about some, some, you know, interactions that I've had or some decisions I've had to make and, kind of assess those from a business standpoint. So that's, that's what I, I plan on to do. But just to kind of wrap things up, like first impressions matter. They really do. But but second impressions are usually the ones that reveal the truth. So keep that in mind too. Okay, so first impressions, they definitely matter. But, keep your eyes open for those second impressions. another one is hiring intuition. I think it's one of the most undervalued, undervalued business skills that you can have. So we'll definitely work on that because. Or have someone in the firm that can that that is really good at that really, really important. you know, remember like professional boundaries and boundaries, those are, those are things that create the trust with your clients, with your referral partners, with other employees.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:44 So that does matter. So being able to maintain those boundaries is important. so and then listen to that weird gut feeling that you have. That's usually right. It definitely is. And if it feels a little icky, it probably is a little icky. So that's all we have this week. Have a wonderful week, everybody. Go out and crush it. We will see you. See you buddy.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:07 Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time at the monthly guild hot seat.