Rick Martin: [00:00:00] I took a considerable pay cut when I left, the firm I was with in Austin and moved back home to Indiana where I grew up. It was a struggle for a year or two to kind of get my feet back under me, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. So that’s kind of when I came to him and I said tell you what how about I spend the IP practice off as a separate entity and you know any IP money that comes in that’s mine over there and I can spend that on what I want to spend that on specializing I think is really important to providing the best service you can to your clients because, you know, you’re the expert on, that topic, you know, because you’re living it every day. Don’t be afraid to try things, I mean you’re gonna fail you know not everything you try is gonna work but take it and learn from it and pivot and keep moving forward the hard part. I think about and where I’m struggling with a subscription plan is how to market that and sell it to somebody that hasn’t worked with me before.
[00:01:00]
Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I’m your host Jonathan Hawkins I’m excited to have my friend Rick Martin on the show today. He’s an IP lawyer in Indiana and I’ll let him introduce himself in a second, but you know, IP lawyer in my mind, that means some different things.
So some folks are out there saying they’re an IP lawyer and they just do trademarks and copyright, that kind of stuff. And then you’ve got patent attorneys. And I think Rick, you’re both right.
Rick Martin: Yeah, we pretty much cover the whole, intellectual property spectrum, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. we do them [00:02:00] all.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right, well introduce yourself, tell us where you are and tell us a little bit about your firm, you know, how many folks and, All that kind of stuff.
Rick Martin: Okay. so at this point again, and the name of the firm is Martin IP Law Group. We’re located in Evansville, Indiana, which is the Southwest corner of Indiana. Uh, time, it’s, a true, well, a solo attorney. I’m the only attorney in the firm. I have, two full time staff members and, and a couple part time staff members too.
So, Pretty small, pretty lean. again, we’re located in Evansville, Indiana, but, the types of cases we handle, and it’s primarily on the transactional side, acquiring patent applications for clients, registering trademarks, registering copyrights. We do some, litigation type stuff on the copyright and trademark side, but again, all of that is federal based law, so we do represent clients. Really all across the country, and because it’s federal, we’re not really bound by state lines on where we represent [00:03:00] clients. So I have clients, that I work with in California, in New York, in Florida, really all over the country. but the vast majority of them are You know, within 100 miles or so of here, but we do have the ability to go beyond there.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I see that as maybe both good and bad good. Cause you, you can represent somebody wherever, but bad because, it’s hard to focus all over the place. Right.
Rick Martin: It’s a nightmare for marketing. I mean, and again, it’s still, uh, you know, something we’ll probably talk about that later in the podcast, but man, it’s, hard to figure out where to focus the marketing efforts.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And so, okay. So you’re, you’re a patent attorney and so usually you got to have some sort of science background. and I believe you’re an, you are an industrial engineer, right? Undergrad.
Rick Martin: Yep. Yep. Graduated from Purdue university in 1990 with a BS in industrial engineering. Boiler up. by the way, yeah, we got the Hoosiers in basketball tonight, so we’re going to smoke them,
Jonathan Hawkins: Uh, nice.
Rick Martin: I should be a good game, but, it’s time to pay back for that football beat down they put on us this year.
Jonathan Hawkins: Do
Rick Martin: But yeah, so one of the things you have to [00:04:00] have, in order to be a registered patent attorney, it’s a separate bar exam that you have to take, before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office in order to applications there, and even to sit for that exam, you have to have an engineering or some sort of science or technical undergraduate degree even to sit for that exam. So that’s kind of a prerequisite for patents even if you want to practice in that area. And that really kind of limits the number of people that, are eligible for that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so I was an industrial engineering major too undergrad And I remember when I was in law school when I told people that they were all like, oh, you’re gonna be a patent You’re gonna be a patent lawyer gonna be a patent lawyer But I never wanted to be and I never was but you probably got the same sort of talk And did you always know you wanted to be go into sort of the patent IP space or was it just you were an engineer?
So you’re like, I guess I’ll do it
Rick Martin: Yeah, it’s really kind of, interesting story how, and I wouldn’t say I stumbled into it, but to some degree I did. my dad was [00:05:00] an attorney, so I always had this interest in the law and in being an attorney just from growing up around him and seeing what he did, it always interested me. had a job, an engineering job that summer between my junior and senior year of college and just absolutely hated it.
I mean, it, you know, I probably could have done, you know, a thousand other jobs within industrial engineering that I would have liked, but for whatever reason, I had the one job that was just, Turned me off to engineering and and you know at that point after that summer I decided so I’m gonna go to law school.
I said, I don’t want to do this engineering thing. I’m gonna go on to law school But at the same time I was kind of thinking but I don’t want to be a broke College student for another three years while I’m going through law school I really would like to find something where I can work make some money earn a living and go to law school both So, I would check from time to time the job board at Purdue to see, you know, what, what there was [00:06:00] coming up that might be a good fit for that.
Happened to, check the job board one day and saw that the U. S. Patent Office was interviewing for patent examiners on campus. Looked into that a little bit, found out that they had a program, at least at the time, where if you’re a patent examiner there, they would help with, tuition for law school if you went to law school at night.
So, signed up for the interview. Got the job, kind of the rest is history. so my law school path was law school at night, full time, patent examiner during the day.
Jonathan Hawkins: nice.
Rick Martin: So you pretty much different than most people, but
Jonathan Hawkins: you pretty much knew you’re gonna go into patent Law at that at that point
Rick Martin: I did, yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: So yeah, I had a similar experience in my industrial engineer. undergrad, we had I co oped, we had four quarters at our school and we would work to, and then go to school to, and my job was okay, but I knew I did not want to be an engineer when I graduated. and frankly, I, you know, this was before I graduated and I just, all right, I’ll just finish, get my [00:07:00] degree and then figure out what to do next.
so yeah, so, all right. So you worked as a patent examiner and then went to law school. And so after you graduated, what was sort of the next step?
Rick Martin: So probably to preface that a little bit, the night program is a four year program instead of a three year program, somewhere in, I think, latter part of my second year, early part of my third year, you know, and I would get calls from headhunters all the time saying, hey, you know, these law firms are hiring, do you want to go work?
You know, you want to interview here, you want to interview there, and a lot of patent examiners did that, that were going to law school, so probably about that time, I started kind of looking around, see what was available, ended up getting hired on with a, Houston, Texas based firm that had a D.C. While I was in law school, so I ended up in it just a little tiny firm called Fulbright and Jaworski You may have may have heard of them.
Jonathan Hawkins: So yeah, they’re not, they’re not too big. They’re not too big.
Rick Martin: no no, and then they’ve you know merged and grown and [00:08:00] expanded since but at the time It was probably one of the ten largest firms in the world worked in their D.C. office for the last year and a half of law school. And I had this vague recollection in the back of my mind when they did interview me, they had some, you know, lawyers from the Houston office did come up and conduct the interviews as well. So I interviewed with attorneys from the Houston office and the D.C. office. And I remember them asking me, so, if we decide we want you to move to Houston after you graduate, is that going to be an issue or a problem? And I kind of said, no, I said, I don’t really have any ties to Washington, D. C. You know, my family’s not here, so yeah, sure, whatever. And, wouldn’t you know it, a couple months before graduation, Houston office calls up and says, hey, we want you to come down to Houston.
So, that’s where I went. So I kind of followed them down to Houston, worked there for a couple years. ended up then, you know, again, you still get those headhunter calls, so I ended up moving from there, to another firm in Austin, Texas, which love the [00:09:00] city. but that was probably the turning point that made me decide I was done working for somebody else and I was done working for firm, you know. Big firms and it’s time to start my own practice or at least do something where I had more control over over My days and my time and the cases I took in the cases. I didn’t take
Jonathan Hawkins: All right, we’re gonna dive into that. Big law, they pay well, they’ve always paid well. And then on top of that, the patent lawyers always got a little juice too, I think, right? A little bit more, at least used to be that
Rick Martin: oh, yeah. Yeah I mean, yeah, it was I mean it wasn’t a pay issue for me. I mean paid well you know, we, probably, you know, and the patent attorneys probably made a little more than some of the other attorneys because it was a specialty niche area. and honestly, you know, this big firm has some security to it.
I mean, again, you’re working for someone else, so you never know. you know, when you might get a pink slip or, you know, be asked to leave, but you know, you’re not worried about [00:10:00] making payroll. You’re not worried about all the things that you worry about, you know, when you’re running your own, small firm, when you’re kind of a cog in the machine at a big firm.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. But I, probably hard to walk away from that big fat salary. Right?
Rick Martin: It was tough. I mean, I, I took a considerable pay cut when I left, the firm I was with in Austin and moved back, back, back home to Indiana where I grew up. It was a struggle for a year or two to kind of get my feet back under me, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. I mean, I was best one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Jonathan Hawkins: So before we pivot to you starting your own thing or going to work for yourself, basically, Austin. So, you know, Austin now is a huge tech. I mean, it’s the capital. It’s got University of Texas and it’s got a huge sort of technology software scene or whatever. What was the scene like there for startups and tech? Back when you were there’s
Rick Martin: I mean, it was pretty similar, just probably not on the [00:11:00] scale that it is now. This would have been in the, late nineties. so it was kind of booming and growing then too. A lot of the firm I worked for in Austin was a Silicon Valley based firm that had a satellite office in Austin. so, you know, a lot of the companies in Silicon Valley were establishing, presences in Austin at that time too.
So it was really kind of starting to take off and grow, that market there. So, you know, again, the firms there were growing and expanding. One of the problems I felt, you know, when I hired on at this firm in Austin, there were 20 attorneys in that office. I was there for one year before I left, and there were 40 attorneys when I left.
Jonathan Hawkins: holy
Rick Martin: doubled, doubled the attorneys in that office in one year. you know, so it wasn’t the You know, I hired on, I interviewed with a partner. There was one associate that was senior to me, two that were junior to me and the group that I hired into, [00:12:00] you know, really kind of respected, like them, thought, you know, these are good people for me to work with, you know, then they bring in two other partners in the IP group who I didn’t see eye to eye with and I didn’t like and didn’t enjoy working with and working for.
And that was kind of my push to say, okay, I don’t want to go somewhere else. I mean, yeah, I’m going to leave here. That was definite, but do I want to go somewhere else where that’s a possibility that that can happen again? And I decided I didn’t want to do that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I get it man. I get it. So real quick one other question about Austin Doesn’t have anything to do the law necessarily, but I’ve always been curious and I don’t know if you know the answer but you know obviously when talent starts to congregate in the same area it just sort of Becomes a thing so, you know got Silicon Valley got Stanford and all that and obviously it just keeps growing What was it that all of a sudden put?
Austin on the path to becoming sort of what it is today. I mean, what was the, I mean, why Austin versus. other [00:13:00] city is it, is it, do they have university of Texas have some sort of technology center or was it a certain company? Is that where Dell was from? I
Rick Martin: Yeah, Del was from Austin, so that probably drove a lot of it. You know, I think a lot of what drove it, honestly, is just the, it’s a beautiful city. It’s in the Texas Hill Country. there’s lakes, there’s all sorts of, at least what, you know, this is what drew me there. All sorts of outdoor activities and things to do, and it’s just a, you know, really just neat culturally, you know, great music scene there, you know, lots of outdoor activities, trails connecting everything, you know, I, I think they really did a good job there to make it be a type of city and an environment that people want to come to. so that I think probably drove it more than anything else.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever been there. I hear that it’s just like every five years, it’s different than it was before all these new people moving [00:14:00] in. But anyway, so you, you got to the point where you’re like, okay, I’ve had enough of the big law and all this. and so you decided to. Head back to Indiana, why there versus staying in Texas or something else?
Rick Martin: Well, and part of staying in Texas, again, I think I could have left that firm, gone to work for another firm, could have, you know, maybe left gone in house or, you know, any number of things that I could have done there. leaving there and starting up my, I didn’t feel that I had enough. presence there or enough, contacts really to leave and start up my own firm.
I think that was going to be difficult there. You know, going back home, again, I mentioned my dad earlier, he had a general practice, here in Indiana, and I had always kind of had in the back of my mind, I was interested in doing that. So, you know, at that point I decided, you know, I’m going to go home and Do the family business thing and go to work with my dad and I did that.
So for the next several years, I [00:15:00] did a little bit of everything, what we call door law. Anything that comes in the door, you know, we’re going to handle it. So I was doing criminal defense. I was doing, divorce work. I was doing civil litigation, estate planning, you name it. We were doing it. I was still doing some IP.
I had a few clients, again, that I had represented and done stuff for in Texas that came with me, picked up a few new clients here and there, you know, in the first year or two that I was back in Indiana, but never really enough that You know, I could felt like I could specialize again, at least not initially.
Jonathan Hawkins: So yeah, that’s a huge change going from big firm specializing in IP to all of a sudden doing door law and you’re doing a little bit of everything. That had to be a huge transition. How, how, how did you handle that?
Rick Martin: uh, and then the additional dynamic of, you know, family working with my dad. So, he’s really, he’s a great guy and easy, very easy to work with and was a good mentor [00:16:00] and helping me grow and get along in that area. but yeah, it was a big adjustment. you know, I, I got used to kind of, you know, after.
Five years of, I guess, big firm stuff. I had kind of set in my mind how things were to be done. and that’s not the way small firm operates. so I had to kind of change my thinking on a lot of things about, you know, how things work and, but it was a good thing and I think I brought a lot of good things, from the big firms too.
I mean, it was a great place to kind of learn how to practice intellectual property law, how to do, the things that I do and I wouldn’t have had that had I just gone straight into practice with my dad. I wouldn’t have had those mentors and those people to kind of train me and teach me.
Kind of the ins and outs of practicing intellectual property law had I just gone straight to that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you know, it’s, uh,
Rick Martin: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you know, the door law stuff. you know, I guess more and more nowadays, it’s, I think, more rare for folks to [00:17:00] quote, do the door law, although in the smaller towns, certainly, that’s still pretty prevalent, I think. you know, me personally, I think it would stress me out, you know, having to do a criminal case one day and then a family law case the other and a personal injury case the next day. There may be a real estate closing. I’d be scared that I’m messing something up, but you know, you learn a lot. I’m sure, I bet you grew a lot having to do that, making that switch.
Rick Martin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was definitely a learning experience and a growing experience. i’m happy that i’m not still doing it. and you know, the one thing that i’ve really noticed a difference of now that I And specializing in IP again, you know, I see other attorneys that dabble in IP trademarks primarily because you got to have the specialized background to do the patents, but I, I see attorneys around me that, oh yeah, we’ll do trademark stuff, you know, because it doesn’t require, you know, they consider themselves an IP attorney, and they’ll handle trademark matters, but they’re doing trademark matters and they’re doing all this [00:18:00] other stuff too.
So they’re not doing trademarks every day. I’m doing trademarks every day. And a lot of times I’ll have clients come to me that have used these other attorneys that dabble in it. and they make what I consider rookie mistakes, things that I can easily fix. Well, sometimes I can easily fix it. Sometimes I can’t, but, you know, they’re making mistakes that I don’t make because I do this every day. And so that specializing I think is, is really important to providing the best service you can to your clients because, you know, you’re the expert on, that topic, you know, because you’re living it every day.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I can’t disagree with that. So okay, so you come back to Indiana, you start working with your dad, you start doing the door law, but now obviously you, you’ve got your own firm that specializes in IP. So take me from. The transition, when did that happen? How did that happen?
Rick Martin: So that happened [00:19:00] probably if I’m thinking time wise, 2014, 2015, And I think some of the motivation behind it was we had kind of a, you know, and again, doing the door law and my dad was old school on advertising and marketing and doing anything like that. It’s like he wasn’t going to do any of that.
No advertising, no billboards, no, you know, you get your clients by referrals and referrals only. And just by, you know, you built your reputation and people just come to you because, you know, you’re the guy. which. In a small town, if you’re doing door lull works to some extent, but if you want to kind of specialize and grow, I don’t think that works, but kind of what prompted it for me is, you know, we hit kind of a lull where, you know, we had maybe a quarter where just things dried up and they were slow and I’m looking around for how do we fix this?
What do we do? And I think at that point I came across Okay. You know, some, some correspondence I had gotten from a [00:20:00] group called, How to Manage a Small Law Firm. And I went to one of their, events and ultimately joined and was, was a member of that group for a couple of years. And that’s part of what got me, you know, to, specializing in IP was one going, you know, going to their events, talking to the attorneys there, talking to the, uh, leaders there and the mentors there and them telling me.
At that point I was convinced, I think I wanted to specialize in IP, but I had myself convinced that I can’t do it, there’s not enough IP work here for me to specialize. I’ve got to do these other things because, you know, I’m going to take a huge pay cut jump out and specialize in IP. They convinced me, no, I think you can do it, and I kind of straddled the fence, so to speak, for a couple years.
The other thing that happened there, too, is You know, I wanted to spend some money on some marketing. I wanted to spend some money on these mastermind groups and things like that. And my dad wasn’t, you know, [00:21:00] he’s no, not interested in it. So you know, at that point I don’t have control of the firm, and necessarily complete control of the purse strings.
So he kind of vetoed me spending money on these things. He didn’t want, he didn’t want to spend, you know, the firm’s money on those things. So that’s kind of when I came to him and I said, tell you what, how about I spend the IP practice off as a separate entity and, you know, any IP money that comes in, that’s mine over there and I can spend it, I can spend that on what I want to spend that on.
And he said, fine, we’ll do that. So, you know, I, created a separate, uh, legal entity for the, IP practice, spun it off, you know, branded it separate. I actually opened a second satellite office as a kind of a test, for six months or so to see is this viable and did some promoting, did some advertising, did some networking and it started to grow.
[00:22:00] You know, the funniest thing, you know, because I was always in court doing criminal cases and divorce cases, none of the attorneys around town knew I did intellectual property. They just assumed, you know, they’re seeing me doing that until I specialized, until I kind of just pushed all that others aside and started branding myself as an IP attorney.
Nobody really knew what I did. So instead of referring cases to me, they’re sending them to attorneys in Indianapolis or, or St. Louis or Louisville or somewhere else because they didn’t know that there was a local IP attorney. so that was, it really kind of opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, I can do this.
Jonathan Hawkins: That is a huge point, communicating to the world what you do, and you got to do it more than one. You can’t, you can never stop. You got to continually tell people, Hey, I’m here. This is what I do. and that’s such a good example of, you know, you were there every day. They knew you. But they didn’t know, they didn’t know you did IP, and then once they knew, once you told them and kept telling them, then you started getting to work.
So, [00:23:00] so how big is Evansville? What’s sort of the greater Evansville population? You said you were nervous that there wouldn’t be enough work, and obviously you said you do nationwide stuff, but. You know, I’m sure most of it come or at least in the early days came locally. So
Rick Martin: hmm. Yeah, so
Jonathan Hawkins: how big is the town?
Rick Martin: the city population is probably 125, 000, probably metro area, you know, maybe 000, so not a really big, you know, big city. but the benefit I have here is I’m the only guy that specializes in IP probably at least a 60 mile radius of here, if not further than that.
So, you know, once I kind of established myself as that’s what I do and that’s all that I do. it was fairly easy to capture a lot of the work because now I’m the only guy here unless you want to send people, you know, to. Indianapolis or somewhere that’s, you know, two, three hour drive away, at least within the local market, you [00:24:00] know, I’ve kind of got exclusivity, if you will.
Jonathan Hawkins: so let’s talk about that. So, you know, the transition was not immediate, but you did start marketing it. And eventually you, you just branded it and that’s probably all you marketed while maybe you still did a little bit of the other stuff, but how long did it take to where you were comfortable enough to start turning away the door law stuff and only actually do.
The IP stuff.
Rick Martin: so I’m trying to think here. So I kind of let him off in about 2014 2015. I would say it was probably two years, before I was comfortable. Maybe almost three years. It was a couple years before I was comfortable. kind of just splitting, you know, kind of saying I’m not doing, you know, these types of cases anymore, or at least I’m not accepting new cases like that anymore. I still had some. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna wrap up what I’m doing, but probably 2017 2018 in that time [00:25:00] frame was when I finally made the decision. I said, okay, actually it was fairly easy early on. I’m like, I’m not taking any more divorce cases.
That was the first one that. You know, no more family law cases, way too much drama, way too much, you know, just difficulty in handling those cases. That was the first thing to go and that was honestly a big relief. I’m like, okay, good. This is nice. I’m not doing these anymore. Still continue to do the criminal stuff for another year or so after that.
but yeah, it was two to three years before I, really felt comfortable saying, okay. I’m done with that. we’re going to just focus solely on IP and then a little further down the road. I was still getting, you know, I was still essentially my dad was approaching retirement age, so I’m still managing both. And I’ve got an office in Evansville that does the IP work. I’ve got an office in a neighboring, county that does the door law work. So I’m bouncing back and forth between two offices, trying to manage staffs in two offices, and run two different [00:26:00] practices for about three years there, which was difficult to do.
I mean, it’s, much, it would be much easier if, if the two practice areas were aligned and you’re really running one firm just with two offices. I was running two firms, that did completely separate things for two or three years there. Dad retired at the end of 2019, and I, at that point, I tried to sell the practice.
had a couple potential, you know, offers there, but nothing that I, I thought was really a, a sustainable, you know, option. So at the end of 2019, you know, thankfully, right before covid hit, closed that other office. I said, I’m done, you know, shut it down and wrap things up.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s challenging enough to that was tough to do.
Rick Martin: Tough to do for a couple reasons. You know, it was my dad’s firm that he built and he’d been practicing for 50 years. and at the same time it was, you know, cutting off that extra income stream that was kind of nice to have.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So, [00:27:00] operating one law firm is challenging enough. You had to do two there for a while. So, yeah, that’s, that’s a lot, I imagine.
Rick Martin: Yeah, it was beating me up pretty bad. I, was, relieved to, be down to just one again.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. So you’re, you’re not in a huge city, but you’ve proven that, niching down can work, which is cool, cool to see.
Jonathan Hawkins: Let me ask you a little bit about your practice. So how do you bill and charge clients? What’s your, is it hourly? Is it flat fee? How do you do stuff?
Rick Martin: for the most part, we bill flat fees. So, particularly on the transactional stuff, all of that, I bill flat fee. You know, if I’m preparing a patent application for somebody, a trademark application, you know, a response to an office action, all of these are things that I’ve done enough times that You know, once I sit down, [00:28:00] take a look at it, I’ve got a pretty good idea how much time it should take.
And so I will, I’ll quote the client a flat fee for that project. And it’s usually within, I can give, give a range as to, you know, a provisional patent application is going to usually run between four and 6, 000. once I’ve talked to the person and got an idea of what their. you know, invention is, you know, I can set a specific fee usually within that range.
And that’s the fee. And I look at it, you know, if I can get it done in less time, you know, good for me. If I’m not particularly focused to get the application done. Well, clients shouldn’t have to pay for that. there, you know, I’m providing a not necessarily a product, but in some sense it is a product.
It’s a patent application, so they shouldn’t have to pay more just because for whatever reason, I wasn’t on my game that week and as efficient as I [00:29:00] usually am. So, yeah, I don’t like the hourly billing model and I use it. As little as possible.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so we’ve talked a little about, sort of subscription models. Is that something that you’re exploring? I want to hear your take on that.
Rick Martin: that is something that we’ve been doing for several years with a couple of what I’ll call select clients. And it seems to work very well for certain, startup companies all the way up to, you know, ongoing businesses that, that have IP needs if you’re a company that had, although we can tailor it really for anybody’s needs. But we do have some subscription plans where essentially, the client will pay a flat monthly fee and we will offer a of services as part of that flat monthly fee. and that may include, it will almost always include some regular proactive strategy planning with them to say, okay, you know, we’re going to meet once a [00:30:00] month, once a quarter, whatever the frequency is for the plan that you’re on.
Just a touch base, see where you’re at, see what you’re doing and so that we can. proactively make recommendations for where you need to go next with protecting your IP. that’s, I think, critical to every plan is that proactive rather than reactive approach. And that gives them the benefit of having somebody on board with IP expertise that can be with them every step of the way and identify what their needs are before it becomes. A problem, and be proactive about taking care of those things. beyond that, you know, it may be that your interest is only branding and trademarks. You’ve got some products and services that you want to brand and protect those brands. We can, you know, we can build a plan for that.
Maybe you have some, you know, an R and D department that’s building and developing new, new products and new inventions all the time. You know, we can build a plan that covers [00:31:00] that, that covers, you know, filing patent applications. you know, we even have clients that, you know, we have on these plans that are a step beyond that, that they operate internationally.
So we, not only do we handle. registering and protecting their, patents and trademarks in the U. S., but we have, networks of attorneys in other countries that will handle, extending those rights into, you know, Europe, into South America, into other parts of the world. So we can really do a lot of things with these, plans, and really kind of custom tailor it to their needs.
You know, the big benefit for them is, it helps them with budgeting and planning. it’s probably one big benefit to these What I’ll call the fractional ip council plan is what we call it But these subscription plans are you know, they can budget for they know that every month their bill is going to be 2, whatever the flat fee is And we’re going to provide the services.
They’re not going to [00:32:00] get a 20, 000 bill this month or whatever the case may be, and kind of have the roller coaster of, billing that they would have otherwise, we’re going to kind of flatten that out so they can plan for budgeting. And again, the other big benefit of it is, it’s the proactive service, not the reactive service in that we’re identifying issues and prob issues before they become problems and taking care of them.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m really interested in subscription plans, and I want to explore this a little further. So it sounds to me like, well, let me ask, do you have what I’ll call sort of off the shelf plans that sort of anybody can get, or are they all bespoke? depend to for each client depending on what their needs are or maybe combination of both.
Rick Martin: Yeah, probably a combination of both. I’ve got, I think I refer to it as the inter and they’re on our website. We’ve got kind of a couple different plans. And again, they’re all customizable within there. you know, we’ve got a startup plan that’s really kind of built. for again, startup company, somebody that’s, you know, maybe you’ve got, you know, you’ve got a [00:33:00] product you’re developing.
It might need patent protection. It might need trademark protection. And you might need, you know, you might need to form a, you know, an LLC or an S Corp or something like that to shield yourself. You know, we, we’ve got plans that cover. You know, these companies from infancy up to a certain point, and that take care of and advise them on their needs to get from here to here.
We’ve got a plan that’s specific for branding and protecting your brand. the one that I’ve used most often, we’ve got what we call the enterprise plan, and that’s the. full package that I just talked about. You’re getting your patents, trademarks. We’re meeting once a month to, you know, to stay on top of everything you’re developing and make sure we’ve got it covered, not only in the United States, but worldwide if you’re, into those areas too.
And, and that’s probably the plan that I’ve had the most success with and that, you know, I’ve, I’ve had the most. You know fun from my standpoint on too because it’s [00:34:00] you know, it’s just very rewarding to see You know these clients be able to take their ip portfolio and build it into something that brings value to that company
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Now, that’s that’s the key word So I am actively exploring and investigating how to put together Subscription plan for my law firm clients Uh, and so I talked to a lot of people and one of the challenges i’m finding there there are many but one of them is creating a a package That has, a substantial enough value proposition that the clients want it.
So, uh, you know, some, some clients will say, Yeah it sounds good, but I’m just not interested. And so, you know, one of the challenges I’ve had is, is creating the scope and the, and the value proposition such that it’s so compelling that they’re like, hell Yeah, I want to do that. So, you know, I’ve got lots of ideas and I market test those and, try to figure it out.
So how did you come up with. Sort of the value proposition number one and then how did you Communicate it to clients in such a way that they’re [00:35:00] like, yeah, I want to do that.
Rick Martin: Yeah, and and that’s it’s a great question. It’s a problem. I have to some degree too the Problem I have with it it’s easy for me to sell to clients I’m already working with, and that’s where I’ve had the most success in promoting these subscription plans because I, can go to them and I can look and say, well, last year you spent, you know, this much money with me and your bills were kind of up and down and all over the place and, you know, let’s flatten it out, let’s, you know, let’s be proactive, let, you know, this is going to be better for you.
And I can tell you every time that, that I’ve approached an existing client with this subscription plan, they’re like, where do I sign up? so it’s, and again, you know, them, they know you, it’s easier to build that plan for them. The hard part I think about, and where I’m struggling with a subscription plan is, you know, how to market that and sell it to somebody that hasn’t worked with me before.
And how to kind of [00:36:00] explain that they may have worked with another I. P. Firm or they may be working with another I. P. Firm. So to that degree, they might be able to grasp the value proposition in it. But that’s a tough nut to crack. And I’m still struggling with that one, too.
Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: it’s a great point and I think my experience is probably similar. I think for folks that I’ve worked with for a while, I think they, because you know each other’s relationship, it’s probably an easier sell, it’s that other, you know, I’ve had plenty of people just tell me, look, if I need you, I’ll hire you.
I don’t want to pay a subscription. and so part of it is like, well, you’re going to get all this value. You know, I’m on call and you get all this value, blah, blah, blah, blah. and I think I have in my mind, the package that would be compelling. And then I guess the last point is the price point. You know, you gotta have a good private, if you’re charging a gazillion dollars, doesn’t matter how much value you’re putting in there.
They’re not going to do it. so you got to price it right. But then on the other hand, you don’t want to price it. To cheat because then they, think they’re not getting any value out of it. It’s it is a tough nut to [00:37:00] crack and it’s one I’m working on. So we’ll need to talk more about that offline.
Rick Martin: But, I’ll tell you one thing that I learned early on with, probably the first first client that I had on this plan. And again, that client evolved, you know, they, I literally started with them, when they were a startup working out of their garage and grew into. You know, we, it was a race timing systems company.
They, they developed a system where, and this is back in the early two thousands, one of the first companies to come out with these disposable timing tags for, you know, these five K and 10 K races. Before that you had a big clunky thing that they strapped to your ankle and you had to stand in line and get it cut off at the end of the race.
Or they charge you 25 bucks for not returning it. They figured out a way to use RFID technology, put it into a disposable tag that costs pennies. and then you just, you know, you keep it. Then they figured out how to put it right into the race bib instead of on the shoe. And so they were constantly developing new technology on [00:38:00] it.
Of course, they’re, you know, running all these races or branding all of the stuff too. but I, you know, I started out with them on the first couple of patents and then this was, you know, 23 years into it when I went with them with the pitch to say, Hey, I’m rolling out this new, subscription plan. Are you interested?
And they basically said, hell yes. Where do we sign on? so that was the first client, but the thing back to my original, the thing I learned, they ultimately ended up being bought out by a bigger company and I stayed on with the subscription plan for about a year. With this, you know, new bigger company, Lifetime Fitness, which is out of, you know, Minnesota, bought them.
But when I was dealing kind of one on one with the guy that started up the company, he knew what I was doing. and, and I didn’t have to tell him what I was doing. you know, a year into it with the bigger company, I’m still doing all the work I did before, but they’re questioning, it’s like, well, what are you really doing for us?
You know, we don’t see the value in it. [00:39:00] So the one thing I adopted after that, and the lesson I learned, I think, was ever since then with all the clients I have on this plan, I send them a, an update once a month. And that’s a detailed report of here’s everything we did for you last month.
And from a planning perspective, you know, we’ve talked about this. Here’s everything we’re planning to do, next month. So, you know, when I put together a laundry list of 25 things we did for you this month and a dozen things we’re planning to do next month, you know, that reinforces that value proposition and say, we’re really, we’re getting something out of this.
this is worthwhile. So you’ve got to reinforce that with them, or they kind of yeah. Start to question it.
Jonathan Hawkins: I think that’s good advice there. I think that’s really good. And I think it’s cool. I’ve been in those races, man. So you represented the company and invented those things.
Rick Martin: Yeah, that’s one of my favorites favorite client stories and favorite experiences and again You know and I I talk about that in the [00:40:00] closing part of my book the benefit of them working with me not only to from the beginning but then in the subscription plan You know, we were able to build value into that company with their I.P. I mean, we probably had a half a dozen patents, and more trademarks than that on various things, when they got bought out and, you know, I can’t really talk about what the dollar figure that they got bought out for, but the founders were able to retire off of that and not work, you know, another day again, you know, and a good portion of what Lifetime Fitness was buying from them was the intellectual property, and that has great value to most businesses today.
I mean, if you look at, you know, Google, Apple, Microsoft. You know, most of their value is in their trademarks, is in their patents, you know, that’s what drives those companies and is what is of value, to those companies, not their inventory, not their [00:41:00] equipment, but the IP is, is, you know, we’re, we’re in, an era that’s where value is in companies.
And what we try and do with that fractional IP council plan is, is to walk them through that and help them build that value.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, Nike. it’s all in the word Nike, right? I
Rick Martin: Oh yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: it’s, well, you mentioned, you mentioned your book. So let’s talk about that. So I know recently, I guess, I don’t know exactly when, but you recently, maybe within the last six months. Publish your book. So talk about that. Well, what’s the book, and when did it come out?
Rick Martin: So the book, I just happened to have a copy right here. So, it is a how to build a multimillion dollar IP portfolio. It came out in, September toward the end of September of last year when it was released and, it’s available on Amazon. we also, and I think we sent you a link. So if you want to include it, we’ve got a link, on our website where people can go download a free digital copy if they want, or if you prefer the paperback copy, it’s available on Amazon for purchase there.
but yeah, that’s. kind of a little bit about that and
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk [00:42:00] about the book. So you released it in September. What kind of impact or can you tell what kind of impact has it had on your practice at all? You know, just getting the word out.
Rick Martin: yeah, I you know again, it’s Being an author kind of, you know other people’s eyes they look at you a little differently They’re like wow, you wrote a book. Wow. You’re an author You know, I I’ve again I got invited to speak places before but that’s kind of increased based on the book You know, I I had people, you know that probably have known what I do for a living for 10 years or more that are affiliated with the universities and stuff in the area and say, Oh, hey, saw your book.
I want you to come talk to our entrepreneur class, or I want you to come do this or do that. So, so it really kind of. Elevates your expertise in the eyes of a lot of other people. It’s funny because I didn’t really think, you know, it turned out to be to other people a lot bigger deal than I thought.
I don’t even think I told very many people I was writing a book. I mean, [00:43:00] you knew, people in my mastermind group knew. I don’t think I told my kids, you know, after it came out, they’re like, dad, you were writing a book. I’m like, yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s
Rick Martin: I don’t know. I just didn’t think it was a big deal, but it is.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I have a, YouTube channel and I put the, you know, these podcasts on there and I remember when I told my son had a YouTube channel, he was like, whoa, you got a YouTube channel? I was like, that big of a deal, but a book’s a lot better than that.
So, so you know, and I say too, from a marketing business development standpoint, it’s a hell of a lot, a lot easier to say, Hey. Check out my new book. I’ll send you the book then. Hey, look at, look at me, look at my website, look at, look at my firm, you know, it’s, it’s a whole different way to market. And I’m wondering, you know, how have you used it?
Have you full, I mean, so you’re only a few months in, so I don’t know if you fully know the impact yet, but how have you used it? You got speaking engagements, but how, what other ways have you used the book? To market your practice. Yeah,
Rick Martin: I have a marketing team here locally that I work with [00:44:00] and they do a fantastic job and we, you know, they took a bunch of promotional pictures. some videos and things like that. We’ve kind of been promoting that on social media and did some. paid ads on on Meta Google. We, you know, we did some of that.
And we ran those for about two months. We did a giveaway, you know, I was like, okay, I’m gonna, you know, first 100 people, that, you know, click on this link and give us your contact information, we’re going to mail you a free book, free copy of the book. And that blew up. I mean, we got a hundred people within about six weeks.
Of doing that. So that’s a hundred new, potential contacts, which was, you know, probably three or four times the normal leads we were getting in, in that timeframe, which created another problem. I don’t have somebody to follow up on. I needed to hire, uh, somebody because I’m busy doing all of [00:45:00] these other things, including the legal work.
I’m like, I don’t have time to follow up on these hundred
Jonathan Hawkins: You, you were that dog that caught the car, man.
Rick Martin: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, at that point I, you know, I, I was convinced I said, okay, this works. you know, writing a book was absolutely the right thing to do. and to kind of help, put me in the business out there and promote what we do and to generate leads for the firm.
but I gotta turn it off now. Because, we’re wasting the money because we don’t have, someone to follow up. So, shut that down, started advertising for, an intake specialist, and we actually hired an intake specialist. She just has finished her second week here. now and so we’re getting her trained up and probably another week or so.
We’re going to cut her loose on those leads to follow up with those leads. And then when we get caught up, you know, we’ll turn that advertising back on because it, you know, I think it was very effective.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. You’ve inspired me. You know, it’s on my list this [00:46:00] year to get a book out. So we’ll, we’ll see. You gotta hold me accountable. But let’s talk
Rick Martin: All right.
Jonathan Hawkins: let’s talk about process. and I know a little bit about it because I’ve asked you about it. But, you know, sort of for everybody else who might be thinking.
I mean, obviously great story. It works. you’re proof that it works. So what’s the process? How long did it take from start to finish? And maybe there, were some gaps in there too,
Rick Martin: there, there were some big gaps and I don’t recommend that, you know, the gaps part of it, but, how the book started and I think this is a great way to at least jump started and get things going. our mastermind group had a monthly challenge and this was, I don’t, is it, it was maybe 2 years ago in May, we had a monthly challenge and that monthly challenge was.
within our mastermind group to do something every day for 30 days. And, you know, each person got to pick, you know, what they were doing. You know, you might have some people which, you know, I’m going to record a video or I’m going to do this or do that. my commitment for that 30 day [00:47:00] challenge was I’m going to write, and I don’t remember what the number of words, that I committed to write, but it was, you know, I’d done the math and enough to have about a 120 page book.
I’m like, I’m going to write. You know, divide that by 30, and I’m going to write this many words every day, for 30 days. And most of the time I would get up, you know, what I would do is I’d get up 5 a. m., get my coffee, go down, sit at my computer, and I’d You know, right until I got it, you know, got enough words knocked out, you know, check in with my accountability group, my mastermind group there and say, done, got this many words written today, and then take off with the rest of my day.
Sometimes that didn’t happen every day. Sometimes I. Do it later in the evening. Sometimes I have to life happens and you might miss a day and then you double up the next day but but in that 30 days I had a Rough draft knocked out and in that short of a time period so it kind of helps you not to procrastinate, but I you know, I would [00:48:00] encourage again having an accountability group, when you do that if you do it that way because you know that helped too because I had to check in with them every day and say I did it or I didn’t do it.
so that’s a, that was an important part of it. but yeah, that’s the, then the gap came in because, okay, I got this first draft done and it was rough. I mean, because it was, you know, sometimes i’m just, you know, again, I, I didn’t, I had a you know, general idea of the structure of it on what I wanted to put in the book.
But I just sit down and write something every day. And so it really was not, you know, put together. Well, it needed a lot of editing. It was very rough and I got busy with other stuff and it kind of sat on the shelf for over a year or close to a year anyway, before I finally, you know, I think you guys in my account, you know, you gave me the push I needed to, uh, get it back on track and to go through and start editing the book.
And I, I did a couple. [00:49:00] Probably two or three rounds over a period of a month or two of editing myself before I then went out, hired a professional editor to then. Take that, do what I’ll call final editing to it, designing the cover, you know, the layout, all of that. I used, Word Association publishers.
I thought they were really good to work with, and they did a good job of putting it together. So, you know, that took another, you know, three or four months to kind of get all of that done before it was released in September.
Jonathan Hawkins: well, that’s cool, man. You’ve inspired me and it’s,
Rick Martin: All right.
Jonathan Hawkins: you’re getting good success with it.
And you know, it’s again for the other lesson here is, if you turn on the marketing machine, you better be ready. For the flow that’s going come your way.
Rick Martin: Yes.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s cool. So, you know, we’ve been going a while and there’s one other thing I wanted to talk about then we can wrap up.
so do you, you own your own building, right?
Rick Martin: yeah, I bought this building. I think I’ve owned it for three years now.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so that’s something that comes up a lot. you know, lawyers are [00:50:00] like, should we own a building or should we not? You know, some do, some don’t. You know, different camps and different. Approaches to that. but you, I mean, yours is pretty substantial. You, I mean, you got other tenants, right? It’s not just you.
It’s, it’s a decent building.
Rick Martin: Yeah, and I was looking I I kind of decided about three or four years ago I wanted to own my own building I and you know just to have the flexibility of that. I was honestly looking for something that was smaller than this building, but that maybe had an upstairs that, you know, you could do some living space in, whether that was an apartment that I use sometimes or if I rented it out, that’s kind of what I was looking for.
At the time that I stumbled across this building and it’s 12, 000 square feet. It’s a big building. and it’s not really set up for residential. And so I’m like, but it was such a good deal. I had to buy it. so bought the building, didn’t require a lot of, you know, work to move my law firm [00:51:00] into part of it.
and then, you know, then the big question was, what do I do with the rest of it? And for a year, you know, and I, it was one of those things, I knew the real estate market for office space was not good. This is coming out of COVID. you know, the, building that I had moved out of, when I bought the building was half empty.
And when I had moved in there five years before there was a waiting list to get into that building. So I knew the market wasn’t good for it, but I thought, well, if I can bring a tenant or two into that. you know, 10, 000 square feet that I’m not using without having to spend any money on it, then we’ll try it.
And it turned out exactly how I thought it would after a year. I think the realtor only showed it to three people in a year. It was there just really was no interest at all. And again, the entrepreneur in me, I had this idea in the back of my head that a good use of that space would be individual office suites [00:52:00] with some shared amenities, a couple conference rooms that they can all use when they need a conference room.
you know, shared common areas, bathrooms, kitchens, things like that, that everybody can use again. I had an idea that was a good use for it, but Didn’t have any solid, you know, data that said, yeah, do it. I had some because I, I knew of another person that had a similar concept across town and she was full and had a wait list.
So I had some idea that it was going to work, but it was to some extent a leap of faith because I went to the bank, borrowed some more money to, uh, transform that, you know, about 8, 000 square feet of the building into 15 individual office suites. on a hope and a prayer that I could rent them out, and we opened really about a year ago.
yeah, a year ago, February, I think, is when I put my first tenants in there. and by October, we had all 15 of them
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice man. Nice. Congrats.
Rick Martin: so the bonus there, I [00:53:00] mean, it’s, it’s a little bit, not too much. I, it so far hasn’t been too much of a hassle as far as, dealing with the tenants. Pretty easy to work with for the most part, but you do have some issues from time to time.
But, you know, it’s fun. to some extent, and it’s to me, it’s another asset. It’s, it’s something that’s, you know, 10, 15 years from now, when I retire and the buildings paid for, you know, it’s going to generate six figures of income for me for, you know, every year. It
Jonathan Hawkins: And I was going to ask, you know, what, what’s it like being a landlord? Well,
Rick Martin: its challenges. Um, you know, I have clients, you know, I’ve had them or the tenants, I’ve had them set off the alarm at all kind of ridiculous hours and, things like that. But, it’s usually not too bad. It’s, been an experience and I’ve learned, learning to cope with it.
But like I said, the, you know, the income and, basically my law practice is in here rent free [00:54:00] for the most part. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: that’s a great perk. That’s a great perk. so let’s wrap it up. But before we do, you know, for those out there that are, you know, have their own firms or thinking about their own firms, as you look back, you know, are there any pieces of advice that you would give them to help them maybe? up their journey a little bit.
Rick Martin: you know, yeah, I mean, I think I’ve seen you, I’ve seen Colin, some of the other guys in our, uh, heroes group with a great legal marketing gets there faster than I did or sooner than I did. I kind of came upon those groups a good 10 years or so after I’d been in, you know, practice for myself. So find other people that are like minded, you know, join a mastermind group or start a mastermind group.
And work with other people that are smarter than you or at least have other, specialties or, you know, knowledge than you and, you know, use that to help you grow because, you know, Again, they don’t teach us any of this in law school. And a lot of it, [00:55:00] you know, you learn by reading and by just, you know, trial and error and talking to other people.
So, so that’s probably the three things I would recommend is, you know, read a lot of books on. you know, leadership on, personal growth on, you know, marketing on, on just all of these different things that you can do to, you know, make yourself better and more aware of what it takes to do this. Find it, you know, a mastermind group, other people that, you know, can one hold you accountable and to kind of sometimes tell you not try that.
That’s a dumb idea. Or, you know, maybe you should try this instead. great resources there. Oh, and don’t be afraid to try things. I mean, you’re gonna fail, you know, not everything you try is gonna work, but take it and learn from it and pivot and keep moving forward.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. that’s huge. And you know, like you said, you learn so much from others you know, both people who are ahead of [00:56:00] you and behind you, they’ve tried things that you haven’t, and they’ve learned lessons that maybe you haven’t. and made mistakes and hopefully you can learn from their mistakes too.
some, there’s some mistakes, I think you can hear it and you. know it and you’re like, yeah.
I know that, but you sort of have to learn it yourself to really to really know it.
Rick Martin: We’ve all done that, I think.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, uh, well, Rick, man, this has been great. I appreciate you coming on. And you know, if I ever. By building, you’re definitely on my list of people to talk to.
So,
Rick Martin: Okay. Be happy to help.
Jonathan Hawkins: we’ll see, I don’t know. I have no plans to do it, but if I ever do, So, yeah, for people out there that, want to find you or, you know, maybe want to copy your book, where’s the best way to get in touch with you?
Rick Martin: So, and we can send you some links, I assume you’ll attach those, but, uh, our website is, IPSolutionsLaw. com, that’s probably the best place to find us. my email, rick at IPSolutionsLaw. com, so you can email me there, that’s the easiest, probably the best way to get in touch with us. also on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, [00:57:00] Twitter, you know, we’ve got accounts there that we can provide, links to as well.
The book is available, either, uh, digital download on our website, we’ve got a page there for that. or if you prefer the paper copy that’s available on amazon. So how to build a multi million dollar IP portfolio is what you need to look for on amazon, it’s available. I think it’s 16.
95 on amazon.
Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome, Rick, man. That’s good time. So, uh, thanks for coming on.
Rick Martin: All right. Hey, thanks for having me. Jonathan. Enjoyed it. Great chat
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