Why multi tasking should be illegal in law firms.

Dreaming up innovative startups is the easy part. Managing all your fledgling ventures is harder. Attorney Taylor Willingham, founder of WG Title & Law, candidly discusses his challenges steering a law firm, title company, real estate business, and legal tech startup.

Learn Taylor’s time-blocking routine that lets him handle client demands while progressing his side hustles. Hear how he sets boundaries by pricing his personal legal counsel above his other attorneys. Find out what happened when he finally admitted he should be the one selling his startup’s software.

If your creative ideas exceed your bandwidth, don’t miss Taylor’s real-world advice.  Multi tasking may not be illegal, but it certainly isn't productive. Listen to this entrepreneurial journey in the highly regulated legal industry and whilst it may inspire your own dreams of business diversification, take heed of his warning not to spread yourself too thin.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to this episode of the UnNoticed Entrepreneur. You're joining me, Jim James, and we're going to talk to an entrepreneur who has faced and is facing an issue that is common to me and maybe to you too, which is we love to start new businesses. And often the new businesses, the shiny objects are wonderful, but they create branding challenges and management challenges for us because we find ourselves running multiple businesses with multiple brand positionings.

How do you solve the problem of running multiple companies where you're the founder of all of them? Today, I'm gonna be joined by Taylor Willingham, who is based in a place called Guinea, just outside of Dallas in Texas. Taylor Willingham, welcome to the show.

Taylor Willingham (01:48.307)
Thank you for having me on.

Jim James (01:50.754)
Well, it's my pleasure and we're going to talk about that issue that faces, in a way, all of us as entrepreneurs, at least those of us that, according to the Michael Gerber emith, we are managers stroke entrepreneurs as opposed to self-employed practitioners. Tell us about the businesses that you run and how you've been overcoming the challenge of being central to more than one company.

Taylor Willingham (02:17.127)
So I'm an attorney by, that is my practice, my trade. So I have a law firm that I started, Willingham and Galvin. And over the years, I'm an entrepreneur. So I've started a bunch of other companies. The companies that continue to exist today is WG Title, Willingham or LLC. WG Title is a title company. And Willingham or LLC is my real estate company.

And the last is a company called EP firms that's hanging on by a thread. So those are the four that I currently run and operate.

Jim James (02:54.766)
I'd love to explain it being hanging by a thread. Deciding when to close down a business is another interesting topic. You've written five books though as well, Taylor, in various aspects. Can you just tell us about authoring and the role that being an authority through book writing has made a difference to your business?

Taylor Willingham (02:57.112)
Uh...

Taylor Willingham (03:20.419)
Yeah. So most people write a book for marketing purposes. Mine was actually, I got into it for the purpose of helping me focus on learning things that I felt like I, I wanted to know better than any other expert. And so for me, the first step was I just started writing. And as I started to write, um, I started to realize, well, other people, other attorneys are going to read this.

And if I'm not correct on exactly what I'm writing, I'm gonna be humiliated. And I don't like being humiliated. So one of the first things I started to do is I then started to research and made sure what I was writing was correct. And that first book, this one, Why Should I Care, I'll Be Dead, as I was going through, it helped me focus on exactly kind of the way I wanted to push my practice forward,

why I was doing what I was doing. And then I started to really understand my practice. And so I fell in love with that process of writing. And so I continued to write. That led to my next book, which was helping your parents with long-term care. I think I have it right here. This one, the most boring book ever written. But for me, it was extremely helpful. That book probably, if I could tell somebody, I redid it and

made it a lot more, a lot better with my fourth book. And then I wrote my most popular book. It's done really well on Amazon and different thing. And I think it's because I listened to what my clients were saying and said, I'm gonna write a book exactly with the question that they're asking me is, do I need a will or a trust? I try to put humor, interesting historical stuff in there. And then I redid helping your parents with long-term care and it's called Free Long-Term Care.

And that is the book that I tell people it's, it's difficult subject. It's not the fun, you know, uh, information, but it saves people hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of life of basically how to structure yourself. So if you end up in a nursing home, you don't lose everything. Um, but that process of writing those books for me, what ended up happening is I really learned the information.

Taylor Willingham (05:49.052)
There's one thing is you can say things and you can do things and really know your business, but when you write about it, it really hones in that focus on knowing your practice and your trade.

Jim James (06:02.466)
Taylor, what challenge did it create for you writing books because you become an authority, you become established as Taylor Willingham. Almost by definition, then people want to talk to the man who wrote the book and whose name's on the door of the firm. And ironically enough, you kind of lock yourself in, don't you? And if you want to be an entrepreneur and have multiple businesses.

It's almost a double-edged sword, isn't it? How do you overcome that problem?

Taylor Willingham (06:37.287)
Well, that is a problem I still deal with today. And, um, and I look at it as a wonderful problem because I remember back when I started and no one wanted to talk to me. And so I have to constantly remind myself that, Hey, there was a time. So I actually love what I do, but it does consume me. And when you get consumed at being, like you said, talking about the E-myth, the, the three different people that you have to be the entrepreneur, the manager, and

forgot what he calls it, the worker, the guy who does the work.

Jim James (07:10.509)
The self-employed practitioner.

Taylor Willingham (07:12.895)
And so when you're stuck doing all three roles, the business really can't grow very much. And it's a struggle and a balance that you have to fight through constantly. And so for me, I've really tried to hire a manager to help out that's to get off the, to solve that problem of me trying to be the manager. But when you have a small business, everybody just comes to you anyway. Like,

you can hire a manager, but then they just go around and come right to you and go, I have this problem. But when you're sitting there and everybody calls in wants to meet with you, what I finally had to realize I had to do because my calendar was like maxed out three months. Well, what ended up happening is it got maxed out when I got to these people, they're like, oh, I already went somewhere else, you were just too far out. And so,

one way I solved the problem was I started raising my consultation fee on me while keeping other people's consulates, my other attorneys lower or non-existent to help them get business. And so people that didn't want to pay the consultation fee, they're like, oh, well, you can meet with so-and-so. That helped out. And so that brought my calendar to a manageable point and it saved me from also the people who weren't really interested in hiring me to do the business. So that was one way we...

you know, scared me because I'm like, Oh, put consultation fees. People aren't going to call it, you know, people aren't going to sign up. And so that was one way I saw that.

Jim James (08:50.187)
That's interesting. Is it a case that the book enabled you to then generate a new price point for your time as literally the author, the authority for the business?

Taylor Willingham (09:03.267)
Yeah. And it's strangely found me business in ways that I, you know, about two weeks ago, a guy came in and he's from New Jersey and his mom had passed away and I did his mom's estate plan. And so when he came in, we were talking, he goes, Hey, I'm going to tell you something weird. And he goes, uh, you know, I, I was telling my coworker that I'm going to, uh, Texas in order to

Taylor Willingham (09:35.642)
And he goes, Oh, my mom's attorney was Taylor Willingham. And he's going to do the probate. And he goes, I have that guy's book. And he like pulls my book out. And he goes, he goes, how did you meet with that guy? And, and he's like, he goes, Oh, I just wanted you to know that story. Cause that book apparently does work. And I was, I was like, Oh, well look at there. We got something hundreds of miles away. I, I was like, Oh, I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital.

I didn't even know. But for some reason, people think if you've written a book that you're too hard to get into and talk to too. So you have this double edged sword, which I'm most people that's you know, we write books, because we want you to come to us and, and talk to us.

Jim James (10:09.602)
Yeah.

Jim James (10:16.774)
Yeah, yeah, there's some irony there, isn't there? But Taylor, we started out this conversation with, how do you be an entrepreneur and have multiple businesses when you're the name on the door? What's been your solution to that problem? Because you have four, admittedly one hanging by a thread, but four businesses that you're running, in addition really to the main business that you're running. How are you doing that from a marketing point of view?

Taylor Willingham (10:46.151)
So marketing wise, you really have to listen to how people find you and ask the question. I have a wonderful opportunity in that I meet with my clients and the people that come in all the time. And I notice things. So you know, first off, recently, the big one has been a next door app.

I never focus on it. I never go into it. I, four years ago, I set up my company there. And over the last year, repeatedly people have saying, oh, well in the community there, you're well known and everybody refers you. And so it was a shock to me that I spent all this time on Facebook. I spent all this time marketing on all these major social media brands. And here was an app, I just threw something up,

and it actually works the best. And about three days ago, I was like, on Facebook, fixing up my profile. And I'm like, why am I not on next door app right now? Working on that one that works. And so I stopped myself. I went over there, started building it up and now I'm focusing my efforts towards there because you get, you get into these habits.

On estate planning, I learned that's how you get business, is word of mouth. You have to build the reputation, it takes a long time, and it's just doing the right thing for people and offering excellent service. Then I noticed weird things. As I was doing people's estate plan, I noticed overwhelmingly that people that were coming in to do their estate planning were left-handed.

I was like, why is this? And like, because we have three ring binders and they're always complaining about the three rings. And so I noticed, and then I started asking, well, who made the decision to come in out of YouTube? Cause usually it's a husband and wife to do this. And they would go, well, they'd always point to the left-handed person. And so I started going out and maybe someone out there in your network can help me with this.

Taylor Willingham (13:07.943)
But I'm trying to figure out how you market to left-handed people because apparently they are the people who do their state planning. And I'm assuming it has something to do with the brain about being organized. And I tell people this and they start laughing. Yeah, he's or she's the organized one. And and so I found little things like that now I know. But how do I how do I take advantage of it? WG Title is completely different. WG Title.

Title companies, we are in one of the most competitive title company markets in the world. And my business was pretty small for a long time until I brought in Jamie Ellis, who now is the CEO and runs it. And she completely changed everything. And it was her obsession for perfection

on how you deliver. That changed everything. And so I guess I could tell the story. So...

Jim James (14:16.643)
Maybe just tell us what is title for those of us that help me to understand what is title.

Taylor Willingham (14:23.271)
So Title in tech in the United States is when you're buying a property, a house, we have to make sure that the person who's selling it to you actually owns the property. We identify all the liens that are on the property, make sure that they're paid off. And then we facilitate what we call escrow, which is we facilitate the money transfer. So no documents are filed or anything until everybody's paid and the actual transfer happens. I don't know in Great Britain.

Do you guys use a similar system?

Jim James (14:52.63)
Yeah, similar system, yeah, seems to take forever for them to find information, but in this day and age. But yes, okay, so exactly.

Taylor Willingham (14:58.268)
Yeah

Taylor Willingham (15:03.879)
So yeah, so that's a big industry in the United States. And so we had an issue where I had probably the best escrow officer, that's what they're called, that do it. His name's Michael Adams. And he just was known, our current Attorney General, Kim Paxton, was his escrow officer before he became the Attorney General. And he was fantastic. He was so good at doing the job.

Him and my struggle was all the other stuff, which is the, do you give a gift basket when you close? And like all the little things that men usually don't think about. Like we're like, well, it's our, we're gonna do our job and we deliver to you good title. And he's like, this is a female dominated industry. So we just didn't connect on that. So he ended up getting brain cancer.

And one day he just shows up in the office and he's limping and he goes, I don't know what's going on. And then come to find out he had a tumor on his brain. And luckily through that process, uh, he's healthy and good right now. And, uh, but during that process, I just hired Jamie Ellis and she didn't ask for any additional pay, didn't ask to do any, she just took over and

did his job and her job. And, you know, one day I was walking out of work and I'm like, like she's earned half of this company. It would be, I mean, it would be out of business without her. And so then I made the decision, I'm gonna give her half the company because she's earned it. And that's probably the best decision I've ever made and in business because she, once she became part owner,

then it reorganized that she was in charge. And she's been able to get us to a point now that last year was one of the worst years in the real estate market for title companies. And we made it through it very well. And.

Jim James (17:20.238)
Okay, so, yeah, so interesting. So as an entrepreneur, if you like sharing the business where you may be seeing the opportunity and someone else is able to do the operational side is a great learning. Yeah.

Taylor Willingham (17:34.072)
Yeah, you. Yeah, and realizing that sometimes you just don't possess the abilities that are really needed. Like, I don't have that ability to really see the fine detail of what needs to happen with a title company in our market.

Jim James (17:55.682)
Taylor, if there's one, if you like, mistake that you'd say that you've made from a marketing point of view, either with Taylor Willingham or with the titles business or over your many years as an entrepreneur, what would you tell me not to do? One mistake you'd say, Jim, don't do this.

Taylor Willingham (18:12.957)
Well.

Yeah, so the hanging on the thread of EP Firms is mainly because of me. And it's because I didn't want to be the marketer for it. I was trying to set up this, basically what it is, is as attorneys, we have a problem, and that is we have no real good CRM system that exists. There's a lot of companies that have tried to create them.

Uh, they don't really understand small law firms. They're programmers that create it. It's awful. And so I was like, I'm going to build one. So I hired a bunch of programmers. We started building this system. I was going to build the perfect system and I got it to the point of it functioning and then it became, now you got to market it. Well, in order to market, you have to pick up the phone and call people, call other attorneys and say, use this. And

I'm not used to that type of marketing. In law, you cannot pick up the phone and call people and ask for business. We don't allow that. So I kept hiring people to do it. And no one was having any success. I had a good friend that started a CRM system for pest control. And he came in and to show me like how you market it. And he sat down with the team and he started picking up the phone.

And to that day, it was like three months of marketing. We hadn't had one sale. He made three in an hour. And it became very clear to me that either I'm gonna have to pick up the phone and call people and market this and get it going with my sales team or let it go. That was like the decision. And then we were right there. And then that was 2022. And then everything blew up on us with...

Taylor Willingham (20:14.239)
uh, deciding to throw a interest rates to 8%. And I had to focus on my law firm and title company. And so it's still there. We're still hanging on, but the realization is if you want something to work, you are the marketer. If you, if you want to start a business and it's something that you have to accept and you have to do.

Jim James (20:37.094)
Yeah. As you say, really, you're the owner, you're the visionary, you are the brand and bring in those first sales, especially at the beginning of the company. Taylor, that's a good reminder, I think, for me as well. Taylor Willingham over there in Texas.

One piece of advice with all the businesses that you've run is that one thing that you'd say really does work, maybe it's the book writing, maybe it's something else you've done, that you'd say really, really helps to move the needle in terms of getting a business noticed.

Taylor Willingham (21:12.329)
Um, in marketing.

Jim James (21:14.134)
Yeah, remarketing or anything else.

Taylor Willingham (21:16.447)
Okay. So in order to really get noticed, well, one of the biggest things is your reputation if you are a professional. So that type of business, you listen to every major person out there and they'll tell you it's the service that you offer. I mean, that's really the thing that gets you above and beyond, but really, if I can...

As I've watched, I've met with a lot of business owners because I do estate planning and part of the estate planning is working with people with businesses and, and doing things and it's consistency of, of effort. It is the everyday pushing and working towards the goals that you want, because the reality is, is the way our world works, everything at every moment is growing or dying.

You neglect your business for a month, you're gonna pay for it. And it's those habits every day that you form of getting up, I get up at five, I make myself get up at five in the morning for the purpose. Now that doesn't work for everybody because in that four hours before any employee shows up, I have almost all my work done. And so when they're here, I can focus on them and getting those things done.

And I used to not do that. And I used to be trying to do my work and being annoyed by my employees and then I'd get angry at them. And it just didn't work. It wasn't effective.

Jim James (22:50.886)
Yeah, he has really, really sage advice, Taylor, that the consistency of showing up every day, that really it's relentless actually, especially these days when competition is so intense and technology, internet and AI are making the pace of change so rapid as well. Taylor Willingham, if I can ask you for a book or a podcast that you're reading or that you've written,

that you'd share that you think would be of value to me? What would it be?

Taylor Willingham (23:22.515)
Uhhhh

Atomic Habits is a great book. When I read that, that really, really opened my eyes to, oh, how to really start getting things forming and going. Tony Robbins' books are fantastic. His inner focus of you gotta fix yourself is very, very valuable.

I highly recommend as a business owner, if you can ever make his, unleash the power within seminar. I think he only does it once. I mean, he's getting older and he can't do as many seminars as he's done in the past. So, but incredible way of really getting to know yourself because that's really focusing. Um, and then, uh, Extreme Ownership is another one.

That was a breakthrough for me. Reading Jocko Willink book and you know, his first story of him. Having the blue on blue incident where they lost an Iraqi soldier to friendly fire and how horrific that was. And then all of a sudden him realizing. Trying to he's trying to point blame somewhere.

And I saw myself listening to the story like, oh, we have all these problems. Who am I gonna blame in the company? And he couldn't really put his finger on it until he pointed at himself. And that was, when I read that, I'm like, my struggles are me. When clients complain, it's my fault. When things go wrong, it's my fault because I'm the one that has to put it in. When you do that, yeah, it sucks at the beginning, but you fix it.

Taylor Willingham (25:19.927)
If you point the finger at another person, you don't.

Jim James (25:25.41)
Taylor William, the buck stops here, doesn't it, as an entrepreneur? If you wanna find out more about you and what you do, how can they find you?

Taylor Willingham (25:29.073)
Yeah.

Taylor Willingham (25:34.803)
You can go to my name, taylorwillingham.com. That will lead you to my other businesses, my books. And I try to keep up on the law and put things out. For example, this is for any U.S. business-based businesses. It's a very big thing. They passed the law starting January 1st, 2024. And that is the Business Ownership Information Act. You have to file by the end of this year.

Your ownership or substantial control in any business that you have If you don't do it by the end of this year It's a criminal act. It's very rare for the government in the United States to create a law that if you don't do something you're committing a crime and I'm scared about my clients because I keep throwing this out and people ignore my videos and emails. This is a way that you could end up owing a lot of money and potentially of a criminal I

of just not doing something, just not filing a piece of paper.

Jim James (26:39.15)
Taylor Willingham. Well, I'm in the UK, so I think we're blessed to not have that. We've got some other legislation here to worry about. If anyone wants to go, they can find Tayl Taylor, thank you so much for joining me. We've covered a lot of topics in a short amount of time. Kindred spirit and starting lots of businesses. Same page as you and also loving your wisdom and your insights. Thank you so much for sharing.

Taylor Willingham (26:43.649)
Yeah.

Taylor Willingham (27:05.423)
Hey, well, thank you for having me on your podcast.

Jim James (27:08.11)
Well, it's been a pleasure, hasn't it? Listening to Taylor over there in Texas, and his honesty and integrity and an acceptance of responsibility, really, some key messages that have come over for me today. And if you've enjoyed this show, do please rate it or review it on your player and share it with another entrepreneur who needs to hear the insights of Taylor and my other guests. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating.

Thank you for listening.