Set Yourself Apart

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

What if the real key to growing your law firm isn’t better ads—but better relationships? In this episode, Tyson Mutrux breaks down a powerful strategy his firm used to stand out in a crowded legal market: mapping the entire client journey. Instead of copying what other law firms were doing, his team stepped back and analyzed every interaction a client has with the firm—from the first call to the final outcome—to identify opportunities to create a better experience and differentiate themselves.

By carefully examining each stage of the client experience, Tyson realized that most firms overlook critical moments that shape how clients perceive their service. When firms intentionally design those moments, they can dramatically improve client satisfaction, referrals, and overall reputation. The process also forces firm owners to view their practice from the client’s perspective rather than the lawyer’s perspective.

In this episode, Tyson explains why walking through the client journey as a team is essential and how identifying key touchpoints can help your firm separate itself from competitors. The result is a clearer understanding of where you can improve communication, create memorable client experiences, and ultimately build a firm that clients talk about long after their case ends.

1:02 Why most law firms copy what other firms are doing
1:57 The importance of mapping the entire client journey
3:03 Why “who you know” creates more leverage than expertise alone
3:58 The mistake professionals make when trying to be known
8:49 Using referrals strategically within your practice area
10:32 How consistent relationship-building compounds over time
12:32 Why referral marketing works when it’s systematic
14:30 The importance of focusing on relationships before reputation

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 00:00:00 Welcome back to another episode of Maximum Lawyer. Today I'm talking about an episode. Fuck, I don't like that. I'm going to start over. Sorry. Okay. Welcome back to another episode of Maximum Lawyer. I just got off of an interview with another podcaster, Chris Dreyer, and he was interviewing me for his podcast. He's the owner of rankings Io, and we just had a really great conversation. And there was a part of it that I thought was great, and I wanted to talk about it a little bit, and it's something that we did with our firm that really helps us set ourselves apart from other firms. I think it would be really, really helpful for other people to hear about it. And so I'm going to talk about a little bit, because I've not talked about it in depth on the podcast before. I've mentioned it maybe a couple times, but I'm going to go in a little bit more depth. And the whole idea of this is setting your firm apart from other attorneys, okay? Your firm apart from other firms.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:02 This is not something that I think we do. I mean, as a profession generally. Well. Right. People tend to do the things that other people are doing. when Scorpion was big, everyone tried to get at Scorpion. When Fine Law was big, everyone was fighting. It was using fine law. This is a little different. Okay. Well we're going to talk about this a little different. And it all really started with this whole process where we went through the client journey as a firm. And it was a really, really interesting exercise. And I really I think you should seriously sit down and try to do this as a firm. And I would do it as a firm. You can do it as you're with by yourself if you want, but I don't think you're going to be able to grasp all the moments that need to be grasped and captured. and I'll explain why in a second. Because you'll start to you'll start to pick up why. Okay. If you. And here's how you kind of think about it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:57 If you break down every single part of the case from the client's perspective. And what I mean by that is, is every sliver of a moment that you can think of and think of it as like a Kanban board in a way. And the board that we had created was in Miro. Miro. we don't have the paid plan anymore. I've actually got it pulled up here. as it's I've got the free version, I can only access it. I can't actually edit it or anything, but, it's really, really helpful. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you how to set it up, and you can, you can create it in a spreadsheet if you want, because that's, that's basically what the setup is. But what we did is we thought about it from every little sliver from the client's perspective. Okay. Like what are they doing while they're at the scene of a crash? Like, who are the people that they're talking to? What are the things that they're interacting with? Okay.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:49 All of those little things. Okay. So you want to think about it from every single just sliver of from the moment the client's thinking about an attorney to the, you know, after they leave your office, after they're not they no longer have an active file. Okay. And the the the reason why this topic came up. Because he asked me. Because he was talking about how we really with our firm, we really kind of have this concierge model and, and he was asking like sort of some of the things that we do and how we came to those. And years ago we sort of created this like, you know, complete injury law and it, you know, it's part of the, the Bain firm. But the whole idea, the whole thinking is, is that every aspect when it comes to your case, we're going to help you out with it one way or the other. So if you can't get to the doctor because you don't have your car, we're going to pay for an Uber to get you there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:42 So like when we set up an Uber account, a business Uber account, and that way we could schedule rides for our clients, all that kind of stuff. So everything when it comes to a client's case and then being injured, we we helped take care of all of that. You know, we scheduled doctor's appointments every single thing you can think of. Okay. And how we did that, it was not something we just oh, what do we what should we do? Right. It's not something that's simple. We really. We broke it down. So column by column, so sliver by sliver, every part of the case. And we asked them questions. Okay. What is the client doing at this stage. What are what are they doing. And we we go into detail. We put everything down that everyone's thinking that they're doing it at that stage. Okay. So let's use the car crash as an example. So you're at the scene like what? What is it. What is it the client's doing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:36 The client's thinking okay. Am I injured? Okay. Is anyone else in my car injured? Is anyone else? You know, is the other vehicle injured there? Things. Should I call the police? Like, they're they're trying to just kind of assess the situation, all right? And then we go into what? And who do they interact with. So they're probably going to be interacting with drivers that are driving by. They're interacting with the police maybe paramedics, the other driver. Right. Everything you can think of while they're at the scene okay. And we go through what's the client thinking. And I went through some of the stuff that already the client's thinking like, you know, but you know all. I had a couple, you know. What? Do I need to go to the hospital. can I get this thing from the scene? Like, is this something that I can drive from the scene, or is this something? Am I going to need a tow truck driver? And you might be thinking, well, why would you need to think about this stuff? Okay, I probably just mentioned something just now.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:26 If you're a personal injury attorney that you may not even thought of, like do you have, let's say they call you from the scene if you're an injury attorney. My guess is that most of you have been called from the scene of a crash by a client, and they're kind of freaking out. They're stressed out, which is the next thing we ask about. We ask is what is the client feeling? So, like, what's going through their mind? Like, what are their emotions? But the tow truck driver, I bet a lot of you don't have a list of tow truck drivers that you could give to that client right then at that time. So their vehicle is not towed off to some city lot. I bet you don't have that. But now you now you do, because you're kind of going through this process with me. And so whether it doesn't matter if you're in a state planning or criminal defense attorney or personal injury attorney, family law, it doesn't matter. You can think about all these different actions.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:08 So, when it comes to the I talked a little bit about the the emotional side of things. So what's the client feeling? Well, at that point they're probably a little confused. They may be a little dazed because they're, you know, they're they're injured. They was in a crash. They're probably in pain. That's something that they're feeling. They're probably some of them are angry. They're pissed off that someone ran a red light, that that's that's something that's going through their mind right now. Really, really important. and then we kind of label this part, this part of the process. Okay. Who in our firm is going to be really who's going to own this part of it. And most likely it's going to be in this situation. It's going to be someone on the case, one of the someone on the CARES team. So some of the CARES team is going to be responsible for this part. what needs to be done from our perspective and, and in this scenario, most likely nothing's going to be done by us at this point, because the vast majority of people are not calling us from the scene.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:03 But there might be some. And so if they do call, what are we doing in that situation? Right. So what needs to be done by us? All right. And you list all the things that need to be done by your firm in that situation when they call. All right. And by the way, one of the one of the slithers down the road from this is like what the actual initial contact is with us. We go through all the exact same questions. They're on the phone with us. What? We ask the exact same questions with every single slither. So let's just go back though. There at the scene of the crash. Okay, opportunities. This is the gold. And here is where you set yourself apart from all other firms. What can we do that no one else is doing? Okay, what can we do that no one else is doing right? So they're at the scene of the crash. Now. In this situation, maybe nothing because they may not have called us.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:00 But if they do call us, what can we do that is different? Okay. And this is where you can really come up with some gold. Can you send a representative out to the out of the scene? I'm not saying you should or shouldn't. It's just an idea I just came up with out of my head. I just gave up. Gave you the idea of, like, the tow truck driver. Right. So you have a list of tow truck drivers. Hey, let me give you this list of things you should do right now. Okay. So you have your task list right there for the person. I need you to take some photographs of the scene. I need you to get a video of the scene. And it's best if you know, if you have an iPhone, you have an iPhone. That's great. Okay. When you hit record, they have that new feature where you if you tap the you can take photos as you're taking video. So I want you to go around and give them a list of things to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:43 So you have action items that actually you can do at this stage. And I'm going to read, some of the things that we listed years ago. Okay. that just were some ideas. And some of these may not apply because if they don't call, then, there's nothing we can really do. So, we didn't really ever institute this thing, but we had the, something that we call the client concierge service so we could get them in touch with the client concierge service to get them signed up with a rental car. if anybody wants to steal this idea. You go right ahead. I'm not not doing it. But, as a part of the firm, if they hired us on the scene, we could. We could totally do the exact same thing with our CARES team. Getting them set up with a rental company, getting them set up with a tow truck company. Tell them where, where to go when it comes to their medical, all that kind of stuff. So we we still we have the same we offer the same service.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:37 We just don't have that separate client concierge service that, that we have. so we have we have this idea. Drop it on. Clients. Welcome, team. That was that was an idea someone threw out. It obviously wouldn't apply in this stage, but, it might apply on a later stage. We have actually had things hand-delivered by team members before that. That went, really went over really, really well. another thing is, is we sent out the shock in all packages. If they were, if they called us the shock and all package would go out that same day. So the these are a few ideas. and then I know this may seem like a very small, small thing, but it's, it's one of those things where we start the text conversation with the person. So even if they don't hire us right then we're we're going to go ahead because the amount of information you're going to get while they're at the scene, it's going to be bang, bang, bang, right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:29 It's going to be pretty darn quick. So we start the text conversation with them. That's one of the things that might be different than a lot of other firms. I'm not saying it's you know, I'm not saying a lot of firms don't text. What I'm saying is, I think a lot of firms don't start that text conversation right then. And what I mean by that is, is like, here, I want you to here's what you do. You're probably going to get the phone because the police are going to arrive. I'm going to go ahead and text you. So you have our number, and I want you to ask us any questions. I'm going to send you all the things that you need to do while you're at the scene. I'm going to do that right now. I'm going to be right here waiting for you to text me. And if you need to call in, we're ready. So you start that text conversation. Most firms are not doing that. I promise you, the most firms are not doing that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:14 Most firms are just trying to keep people on the phone, try to get them, sign up right then when in reality it's not the most realistic thing. So instead you get that text conversation going right now so that you're not calling anybody else, and then you try to close after that. Right. That, that that's that's why that's different. So, I if I were you I and we've done this all the way from start to finish on our cases. I highly recommend that you do that same thing. So I'm gonna let me go through these questions with you again. So you have them and it's easy for you to take notes on this. So you start with what is the client doing what and who do they interact with. What is the client thinking. What is the client feeling. What needs to be done and by whom? What needs to be done? And this is by the that's the process ownership. So what needs to be done by whom. That's the process ownership that I talked about.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:05 And then tasks what needs to be done. Okay. So the first part was the process of ownership and the other parts the actual tasks underneath it. that one's kind of redundant, to be honest with you. And then again, this is something we did years ago. opportunities. What are we doing or what can we do that no one else is doing? Okay. What can we do that no one else is doing? And that's where you're going to find the magic in all this. And this is where you're going to set yourself apart from all other firms. This is the that's the part that's really, really magical. I guess I shouldn't wrap without saying this thing to a part of this too, is that we we had created our client avatar. So I think it's important for you to do this, that you know what your client avatar is. Okay? Our ideal client, it's Mary Green, 50 year old brain surgeon from Chesterfield, Missouri. She's married with two children, and she's very friendly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:55 She's got a 300, 500 policy with UIM and medbay. Okay, that is our avatar. Okay? That is who we want to target. That's our ideal client, right? that is a and there's a lot of reasons for that. And I go to that, into all of that, into another episode as to why that particular avatar is our client. but it generally it make it short. It means more revenue for the firm. So what it means. Okay. and it's a, it's a client that is typically very easy to deal with, right? And that's why we target that type of client. But that's all I have for you today. Shorter episode I actually thought I'd go a little bit longer on this one, but, I think I'm giving you what you need to know, and that's a that's about it. So, hopefully you enjoy this. You have any questions? We'd love to hear from you. Leave me a comment and I will respond to you. So make sure you do that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:46 I whether you like this or you hate it, I want to hear it either way. Have a great week everybody. Make sure you check out Becca's list for the best and worst vendor. So the best vendors and then the ones to avoid. Make sure you check out Becca's list. And if you're interested in the association, go to Max Lau Events comm for the events, and then Maximum Lawyer Comm, where you can find out more information on how to join us in the association. Take care. We'll be seeing you. I can't hit the the stop button.