Maximum Lawyer

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This episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast features Jeremy Danielson, a real estate law firm owner from Des Moines, Iowa as a featured speaker at Max Law Con 2025. Jeremy offers an in-depth look at how he revolutionized his firm’s decision-making by building an AI Board of Advisors, using custom GPT personas modeled after renowned business leaders such as Steve Jobs, Mike Michalowicz, and Andrew Ng.

Jeremy recounts how, during a critical cash flow crisis, he turned to his AI advisors for guidance. By simulating the perspectives and expertise of these influential figures, he was able to identify and resolve key marketing tracking issues, streamline and optimize his firm’s financial operations, and successfully launch six new premium service offerings. Jeremy details the process of designing and refining each AI persona to reflect the unique strengths and strategic thinking of their real-life counterparts, allowing him to “consult” with a virtual roundtable of experts at any time.

He emphasizes the profound impact this AI advisory board had on reducing the sense of isolation that often comes with law firm leadership, enabling him to make faster, more informed decisions with greater confidence. As a Max Law Con 2025 speaker, Jeremy encourages fellow law firm owners to harness the power of AI-driven advisors not only to solve immediate business challenges but also to foster ongoing innovation and resilience in their practices.


Timestamps
  • 00:04:37 Financial Crisis and Tyson’s Advice
  • 00:05:55 Marketing Blind Spots and Steve Jobs AI
  • 00:08:46 Implementing AI Advice for Marketing
  • 00:10:13 Preparing for Mastermind with AI
  • 00:11:29 AI Coaching During Personal Crisis
  • 00:12:40 How the AI Board Works
  • 00:14:13 Profit First Confusion and Mike Michalowicz AI
  • 00:17:23 The Power of Asking for Help
  • 00:19:00 Concrete Outcomes from AI Advisors
  • 00:20:37 Business Transformation and Personal Impact
  • 00:22:02 Encouragement to Build Your Own AI Board


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Resources:

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.

881 - Jeremy Danilson

Jeremy Danilson 00:00:00 Go on this journey with me. Picture this. It's 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. You're sitting at home in front of your computer, staring at a problem you've never encountered before. Maybe it's a complex client issue outside your usual scope. Maybe it's a technology roadblock that's stopping you from understanding the effectiveness of a recent advertising campaign you started. Or maybe yet it's a cash flow crunch. It's worrying you about your ability to make payroll next month. We've all been there. That moment when we realized that law school didn't prepare us for this, for running a law firm. When you feel the weight of every decision, every team member counting on you, every client trusting you to have answers you simply do not have. But here's what I've learned. You don't have to figure it out alone. The game changer isn't just asking for help. It's having that help available for you exactly at the time of need. Whether it's at the office, at home, or even in your car. My name is Jeremy Danielson.

Jeremy Danilson 00:01:30 I own a real estate transactional real estate firm in Des Moines, Iowa. And today I want to share with you how I built what I call an AI Board of advisors, virtual versions of business icons like Sheryl Sandberg for operations, Steve Jobs for innovation, and Mike McCall with this profit first experience. This approach has transformed my law firm from those lonely late night stress sessions to rapid problem solving that moved us from cashflow crunch to setting monthly revenue records in just five months. So let's dive in. All right. We're going to go back to March. Come back to March of this year with me. I was staring at a credit card bill much higher than normal, and cash flow was so tight that I couldn't pay it in full as I normally did. My chest tightened. My heart sank, and I felt like I was failing my team and my family. I didn't know what to do next. Instead of sitting alone with all of that anxiety, I decided to take one small step forward to try to make this situation better.

Jeremy Danilson 00:02:50 My first call was actually with Tyson. I was sitting at my kitchen table. We were on a Google meet and Tyson asked me a question that really jolted me to my core. He said, Jeremy, are you thinking big enough? I got to my feet after what felt like I was hit with a haymaker. I thought for what felt like an eternity, and I told him that my words on a recent podcast appearance with my wife, Sarah, were not consistent with the firm vision I had designed last year. Looking back now, that conversation with Tyson. Sparked something in me an urgency to learn. An urgency to act, but with intentionality. I didn't know it at the time, but the seeds for a premium real estate offering from my transactional law firm were planted at that moment in that conversation with Tyson. This idea could unshackle my firm from the commodity pricing trap that so many law firms fall into. I was energized, I was excited. I got to the enclosure. I was excited, but then I hit a speed bump.

Jeremy Danilson 00:04:12 I logged into our CRM, ready to check results from a recent Facebook campaigns that we had started, and I saw nothing. No clear leads. No reliable data, just blank spaces where the answers should have been. I was flying blind with no instruments. Money was going out the door, but there was no way to see if the plane was even in the air. I kept bouncing between ads Manager and HubSpot trying to match leads to contacts. Really? Like a detective without fingerprints. My wife asked me, Jeremy, are these ads even working? Honest. Truth was, I had no idea. So I went to my Steve Jobs AI advisor. The custom GPT I created to think like the Apple founder. I laid it all out. Steve, I don't have visibility into what's happening. Click through rate. Number of leads, ROI. Why can't I see this stuff? Steve didn't waste a word. He said first principles. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Where's the UTM code that tells HubSpot exactly where each lead came from? UTM code, I asked.

Jeremy Danilson 00:05:48 He said yes. The tag on the ad link. Without it, you're flying blind. I want to pause for a minute. Who here other than the other than my marketing companies know what a UTM code is? How many of you were like UT? What? Excellent. So a lot of you were feeling like I was. Here's the simplest way to picture it. A UTM code is like a shipping label that tells you you stick at the end of an ad link. It tells you where your pec. When. When your package arrives, it tells you who sent it with the label. HubSpot can tell me this person, this lead came from that Facebook ad. That's the difference between flying blind and having radar. Okay, I said to Steve. So either our labels are broken or they're missing. And he nodded. But here's the key. Jeremy, don't become the technician. Be the conductor. Get the right people talking. And that advice was gold for me. Instead of drowning myself in technical jargon, I took one small step forward.

Jeremy Danilson 00:07:08 I connected Ivan, our HubSpot expert, with the marketing agency, and gave them one clear directive. I told them every ad link must have the proper UTM label so HubSpot can read it. Here's the best part. Within a few days, the fog began to clear. We went from blindfolded to X-ray vision. Suddenly, I could open HubSpot and I could see exactly which ads were giving me which leads, and then which leads, which ads weren't performing. What would have taken me months to learn on my own? We were able to move forward on and figure out in a matter of days because I wasn't alone. A few weeks later, as at my kitchen table again meeting with my AI board, this time I was trying to create a hand out for the Max law hot seat session in July in New York City. For those of you familiar, I've met many of you at these masterminds. These are where we gather in person to bring our biggest problem or challenge and discuss it and get help from from each other.

Jeremy Danilson 00:08:23 I had planned to ask for help in developing these premium real estate offerings from my fellow law firm owners, but I didn't want to waste valuable time in the room. I wanted to create a handout for everybody to familiarize themselves them with my firm's current offerings and pricing to really preserve time during that hot seat for real innovation. After only an hour, I had to hand out in my hand. The day before, I got on a plane to New York City and my hot seat nerves vanished. I felt prepared, confident, and ready to engage with my peers about scaling my firm. Here's what drove home the versatility of this AI Board of Advisors approach. The most unexpected coaching session I had wasn't at my office. It wasn't at my car or I'm sorry I wasn't at home. It happened alone in my car, driving down the interstate to Indianapolis to meet a family member in need. Earlier this summer, my older brother was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I was on my way to spend a couple of days with him before the surgery.

Jeremy Danilson 00:09:40 We were going to play golf and I was going to stay after to help take care of him, help him transition from the hospital to home and help him get on his feet again. It was a heavy drive. A lot was on my mind and even then I wasn't alone. Before I left, I had built a Ted talk advisor on this very talk. I opened it in voice mode and as I drove, the advisor was coaching me in real time on this talk. It prompted me with a story, spine, method, main idea, turning point, transformation, and it pushed me to give the key points of this talk. And then it gave me feedback. What did I hit? Well. What did I miss? It really felt like I had a live coach in the passenger seat next to me on the way to Indianapolis. That's when it hit me. It's not what your advisors know. It's the versatility of how you can ask them for help, even on a lonely drive to an emotional family moment.

Jeremy Danilson 00:10:49 I had guidance, structure and encouragement right there with me. Each step coach. All of you, my peers or AI. took me from stress to action. The isolation was finally broken. And that's the point. Whether it's a marketing problem at your desk, hot seat prep for mastermind, or a lonely highway drive heading to a family emergency, your advisors are available instantly. But what actually is an AI board of advisors? It's simpler than you might think, but more powerful than you'd expect. For me, it's custom GPS, Gemini Gems, or saved grok chats modeled after different brilliant business people. For example, my Steve Jobs AI advisor. I created a custom GPT with this exact persona. You are a virtual innovation advisor modeled after Steve Jobs. Your role is to help a residential real estate law firm stand out from competitors. Your personality is creative, perfectionist, client obsessed, and visionary. Push boundaries, integrate technology, and craft unforgettable client experiences. This isn't generic AI advice. This is strategic guidance tailored to my specific business challenges available at the moment of need, without scheduling conflicts and when your most urgent need is right there.

Jeremy Danilson 00:12:47 My Mike Mikhailovich Profit First advisor help me solve a nagging doubt about my profit first implementation. I had a suspicion that my owner's comp and tax buck bucket percentages weren't quite right. Too much of the money from the owner's comp bucket was going towards Texas. I wanted to figure out if this was a doubt that needed to be addressed with my CPA or not. So I asked Mike to help me review it. He requested some information from my most recent pay stub, gross pay, withholding amounts, Medicare, Social Security taxes, plus a little bit of information from a past tax return, estimated tax payments to help me analyze it. Mike agreed that the the percentages weren't right. They weren't reflecting the amount of money going to my actual compensation. This validation, and here's the key, gave me the confidence to take this conversation to my CPA with a clear proposal about restructuring, my withholding and my tax payments, so that the tax bucket under profit first would accurately reflect only the taxes I pay for my quarterly distributions and withholding would only reflect the taxes I pay with my W-2 wages.

Jeremy Danilson 00:14:14 The ability to take that seed of doubt, unpack it, and explore it with my AI advisor. Organize my thoughts and confirm my suspicion. Allowed me to go to my CPA much more confidently. We got on the same page very quickly, and we agreed to make these changes effective January 1st in 2026. A favorite speaker of mine, Ed Millett, talks about the power of one more. It's the idea that extraordinary results and personal breakthroughs often come from making just one additional effort, decision, or positive change, even especially when it's the most difficult. And here's what I've learned that I want to share with all of you today. Asking for help is truly a superpower. Whether it's from coaches like Tyson, masterminds like Max law, or an AI board of advisors. Self-confidence comes from keeping promises that you make to yourself. Every time I show up for guild accountability calls on Mondays and Fridays. Jump in the cold plunge or give blessings to my boys before bed. I'm building the mindset that it takes to be a stronger leader.

Jeremy Danilson 00:15:41 My AI board reinforces this by helping me follow through on commitments and maintaining momentum. When human support isn't readily available, innovation moves faster with AI partnership. The premium service concept I talked about a couple minutes ago. From Tyson's initial spark to a concrete hot seat presentation in just days, months faster than my old approach of trying to figure out everything by myself. So does this approach actually work? Let's talk about some concrete outcomes. The HubSpot tracking issue that Steve Jobs AI diagnosed. Instead of months of missing data, we identified and fixed the problem in days. One conversation with my AI advisor led to connecting the right experts, implementing simpler tracking, and suddenly having better visibility into our marketing ROI. Mike Mikhailovich, financial advisor help me untangle a profit first confusion, and it gave me the confidence to restructure my compensation and tax strategy. My automation advisor modeled after Andrew Ng, founder of Coursera, Teacher of Millions about machine learning, tackled a different challenge. Help me identify our financial blind spots. I asked him, why does our cash flow feel unpredictable when we're doing steady business? He guided me through building specific HubSpot reports to track our payment cycles.

Jeremy Danilson 00:17:24 What we uncovered was eye opening. It was taking an average of 28 days from the time we completed the title exam to receiving payment, but I didn't have any visibility into this problem. Andrew's systematic approach helped me uncover what felt like a random cash flow issue was actually just predictable payment delays that I could plan around. Here's the bigger picture. By August, just five months after that credit card bill moment I shared, we launched six new premium real estate offerings offerings designed specifically for those real estate transactions. We escaped the trap of commodity pricing, and now we get paid for the value we provide to our clients. My firm celebrated ten year anniversary this past March. In August, we set a monthly revenue record. This room will appreciate this. More importantly, that revenue record was also a profit record. The speed of this transformation from financial stress in March to new revenue streams by late August comes directly from having that guidance available to me when I needed it. No scheduling delays, no hesitation about bothering busy people, and no dwelling on problems hoping they're going to solve themselves.

Jeremy Danilson 00:18:57 That's not the real win, though. It's not just business metrics. It's showing up stronger for my team, for my family, as a husband and a father. I'm no longer caring the weight of every problem, every business challenge by myself. You have more energy for the relationships that matter most in your life. Picture your law firm. Six months from now, you're facing a complex challenge. Maybe it's a difficult client situation, a technology integration, or a strategic decision about expansion instead of that familiar pit in your stomach. You feel confident you have a board of advisors ready to help you through the problem, each bringing a different perspective, each available instantly. You're never alone. This is not about replacing human connection. Tyson and I talk frequently. I attend every Max law mastermind and I learned from thought leaders like Ed Millett and Jason Silk. It's about having support available in those crucial moments when human advisors aren't accessible, accessible by pushing for one more, one more call, one more act of kindness, one more day of perseverance, you can transform setbacks into opportunities and unlock new levels of growth, both personally and professionally.

Jeremy Danilson 00:20:36 Today, I'm asking you to experiment. Try to build one AI advisor. Pick a business leader you admire and create a detailed persona around their expertise. Give it specific context about your practice area and challenges. Then use it. Ask it those questions that you would hesitate to bother someone else with at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night. To help you get started. I'm sharing the exact prompts I use for Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg, Andrew Yang, and my Ted talk advisor. You can access them through the QR code on this site. Download them, customize them for your practice, for your challenges, and begin building your own AI board today. Don't worry if you miss the QR code. Find me. I'll be here today. Tomorrow. I've got it on my phone for you too. Jason Silk talked to us earlier today. He's famous for his relentless, solution focused concept. This becomes easier when you're not carrying the burden alone. Every step forward builds momentum. Momentum builds confidence. Fellow law firm owners.

Jeremy Danilson 00:21:57 Your AI board is waiting to be built. Your next innovation is waiting to be discovered. Your confidence is waiting to be unlocked. Thank you.