In the midst of a global pandemic that has challenged the wits of many entrepreneurs, Victor Medina celebrated revenue growth of 75% in 2021.
Medina is a Pennington, NJ-based lawyer specializing in estate planning who is a Certified Elder Law Attorney as well as a Certified Financial Planner and registered investment advisor who leads two thriving firms in those areas, as well as a national technology conference. The Managing Partner of Medina Law Group, President of Palante Wealth Advisors LLC, and founder of the MacTrack Legal technology conference says his approach to growth has always been to master the art of business.
Victor Medina and his team at Medina Law Group switched to the Apple ecosystem in 2006 and have been using Mac-focused CRM Daylite ever since.
“It’s table stakes that I’m a great lawyer, but that’s not enough.”
“I think the reason I’m successful as a business owner who is a lawyer is not about my legal technical skills. It’s table stakes that I’m a great lawyer, but that’s not enough. The reason why I’ve made progress is that I’ve made it a priority to work on my leadership skills,” he said.
One of the pillars of his success was a decision in 2006 to commit to the Apple ecosystem, and an Apple-focused CRM software app called Daylite.
“Apple’s the better platform for someone who doesn’t want to spend money on information technology as a separate line item,” said Medina. “I get better longevity and reliability from the hardware and am better insulated from viruses on the software. The iPad tablet and iPhone are excellent extensions of what Apple’s accomplished with the Mac. They’re utilities that don’t get in the way, and, at least when I started, there was also a hip factor to going with Apple.”
Victor Medina loves using the Daylite iOS app to keep track of communications, bolstering his relationships with clients, partners, vendors, and more.
Daylite designed with small business owners in mind
Medina landed on Daylite soon after he started his law firm. “Daylite’s not a CRM that’s specific to the legal market,” he stated, “but it was designed with small business owners in mind, and like I said, I think one of the secrets to business success is to master the art of business.”
As the creator of MacTrack Legal, the only national technology conference for Mac-based attorneys, Medina has also been able to attract Daylite as a conference sponsor and “bend the ears” of the CRM’s development team to the needs of attorneys over the years.
“Daylite’s long-time involvement in MacTrack legal has also given me insight into the breadth and depth of the software,” said Medina. “Daylite’s always done project management, contact management and calendaring very well. But after deeper dives I’ve learned more about its capability to leverage my business in very interesting ways.”
Daylite user permissioning allows scale across three parallel businesses
As an example, Medina cites Daylite’s ability to do user permissioning, where certain teams have access to only certain parts of the Daylite database that tracks and provides helpful alerts for client projects, opportunities, contacts and task lists. “As we’ve grown from 3 to 10 employees over the last few years, Daylite has allowed us to easily scale and work across three parallel businesses.”
Medina also uses Daylite to organize his time on yet another business he’s involved with on a consulting basis called Atticus Inc., where he mentors young lawyers on practice management.
Activity Sets follow business processes to conclusion with built-in quality checks
Among his top Daylite features, Medina says the first one that has continually set the software apart from its competitors is the ability to manage client projects using the Pipeline feature that breaks out defined Activity Sets that his team members follow to bring a project to conclusion. “When you combine a well thought out business process with the tools in Daylite, you can include quality checks that always make sure we are in line with client expectations,” he said.
Daylite’s Pipelines and built-in Activity Sets provide quality checks to ensure Victor Medina and his team are consistent throughout the projects.
Daylite also has created its own ecosystem of plug-in developers that Medina admires. A German company called iOSXpert has a Daylite plug-in for Kanban boards. A Kanban board is a workflow visualization tool that helps you optimize and streamline your processes. Medina’s team can see which tasks are still open, which are already being processed, and who is currently responsible for each task. Overdue tasks are made more prominent, allowing the team to identify bottlenecks or delays immediately.
Daylite’s plug-in Kanban boards help Medina’s team visualize which tasks are still open, which are already being processed, and who is currently responsible for each task.
Public and private calendaring helps business owners
Medina also makes good use of a Daylite Calendar feature that allows him to block off time in his Calendar both publicly and privately, so team members can see the detail behind a Calendar item only where it’s relevant to shared projects. “This is a great way for me to run three companies with different core groups,” said Medina. “Some managers belong to one core group, and some to two of them. They only see what they need to see, while I have my overview of all three organizations and all the projects we’re tracking along with my involvements.”
Victor Medina takes full advantage of the Daylite Calendar by sharing appointments with the appropriate team, so team members can only have access to information they need.
He also said that during one of his ear-bending sessions at his MacTrack Legal conference, he was able to convince Daylite’s developers at Marketcircle Inc. to bring the Daylite Mail Assistant to iPads and iPhones for an integrated view of email and related Daylite project information on all Apple devices. “I can now run all of my companies on my iPad or iPhone when I need to,” he said, “and that’s an invaluable feature when I don’t want to be tethered to a laptop everywhere I go.”
Medina added that Daylite’s ability to work in the cloud made the pandemic requirement for his team to work remotely a seamless transition: “All of our client information was synced and we were able to thrive as we worked outside of the traditional office environment.”
Daylite cloud implementation made for seamless remote work transitioning
Daylite also helped fuel Medina’s spectacular business growth in 2021. “The world of estate attorneys was all about being in a conference room for formal signings,” he said. “With the pandemic we had to get serious about doing digital, remote signings where clients get all their paperwork. This in turn allowed us to expand our geography for clients. Business is going very well, and our team has grown from 4 at the start of the pandemic to 10 people to handle all the work.”
About the author: Tucky Wong is Marketcircle’s Senior Marketing Manager. With a wealth of Marketing experience that spans nearly two decades, her expertise has become an invaluable asset in the world of small business empowerment as she’s the great mind behind impactful content and strategies. Tucky’s commitment to empowering small businesses ensures that every strategy and piece of content resonates with the spirit of growth and achievement.
