JUPITER, Florida — What does it mean to be limitless? That’s the question Josh Konigsberg, Partner & Co-Founder of Law Firm Marketing Pros, poses to Val Torres, Director of Operations for 8 Figure Firm, in Episode 14 of the Behind the Bench Podcast for Lawyers.
Torres — who holds a dual Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Business Law, has also now completed her Master’s degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology. She is a Kolbe Certified™ Consultant, and an award winner of the Business Elite’s “40 Under 40” Award— her journey and principles of Ambition, Drive and Discipline embody her success.
Having worked in the legal industry for 15 years, she’s held many roles, from receptionist and case manager to paralegal and catastrophic claims to Director of Operations. However, regardless of her position, Torres notes that she was always pursuing education, heeding her mother’s advice that, “Anything you dream, it’s always yours, and the one thing nobody can take away from you is education.”
She received her Kolbe Certification in Arizona. Used for hiring and promotions, this approach focuses on the strengths and the instincts of an individual, for example, “What do you normally do when problem-solving?” “Will you solve problems the way that I need?” “Are you a fact-finder?” As Torres says, it’s about putting the right individual in the right role. In her work, her Kolbe Certification helps her connect law firm clients with the right consultants.
“We want to see where your strengths are, but how you do that in a natural instinct, so that we can put you in the environment where you are going to thrive and do things the way that you would normally do them if you could be who you are every single day,” she explains.
“You’re not only using Kolbe just for new hires. You’re actually using them for new clients, so you get the best possible match, and therefore the best possible outcome for your clients, I love it!” Konigsberg remarks.
“I’m utilizing it in every aspect,” Torres confirms. “We do it for hiring because you want to know who you’re bringing on for the team. If you’re upleveling anyone to leadership roles, you want to also utilize that across the team so that you understand what strengths live somewhere. A lot of people will say, ‘I want to be a leader’, and they don’t know what that means, or ‘I want to take over operations,’ and they don’t know what it takes. When you look at their Kolbe, you’re able to understand: ‘Will you problem-solve the way that I need you to?’ ‘Will you be someone that needs to be more creative?’ and you’re more into the marketing role because you’re more of what we call a quick start. You have a lot of ideas coming out. Or are you more of a fact finder, which is another set of the numbers in the Kolbe, which means that you’re more research- based. You’re going to need all the facts. You want to make sure you grab the right individual with the right role. And that’s how you utilize it across the organization.
“The last piece that I am bringing and utilizing it for is our clients, making sure that they’re connected to the right consultant, not only by style, because there is a process that we all use, but you want the style, and you want the individual to communicate in a better way. If I know what you need, I’m able to speak to you in that way. If you’re a bigger factfinder than I am, I need to give you more information for you to make decisions, so I need to make sure that I speak to you in how you need it for us to both have a better relationship.”
As the interview progresses, Torres explains that an Industrial Organizational Psychologist is a new concept, bridging the gap between business and psychology, optimizing the full potential of individuals, making sure that you hire the right individuals and place the right leaders in the right roles and look at the aspects and methods humans need in a business setting. “What can we do to make sure that your people, who are your biggest assets, that they are the valuable piece to your organization and that they optimize everything from process to policies and procedures, but also how do they level up and scale your business? Because your people being leveraged — that is what’s going to get your business to scale,” Torres says.
As far as the Top 40 Under 40, she explains that it is an elite business award she was nominated for. “They were just selecting leaders who have done and are transforming through the 2024 year and seeing what’s going to happen. I’ll be representing both the Director of Operations of 8 Figure Firm and myself as an industrial, organizational psychologist,” she says, admitting that she’s “keep her fingers crossed, hoping for the best.”
“At least I’m in a room full of leaders nationwide, which is an awesome opportunity,” Torres adds.
When asked about other awards, she recalls receiving the Best Winning Community Project for a high school blood drive and the Latino Leadership Award from a college professor for being a top Dean’s List student.
“Can you talk a little bit about your role as the Director of Operations and Business Portfolio Consultant for 8 Figure Firm? What does Business Portfolio Consultant actually mean?” Konigsberg asks.
“At 8 Figure Firm, founded by Luis Scott, there are three pieces to our portfolio: our foundations, our intention, and our transformation piece. You’re going to literally see a tangible portfolio where you understand your business on every aspect, marketing operations, legal and finance. You’re going to have a blueprint of what your business is, what it looks like, every single piece of streamlining possibility.
“Then you’re able to look at the gaps, assess, but also optimize on any piece that you need to continue to scale. The business portfolio does that for you. It’s a blueprint of your whole business. And then as a Director of Operations, that’s where the fun comes in. And I call that fun in a good and a bad way, because some days, like any other job, are very stressful. But to me, something I like to tell people is, ‘I don’t have a job. I have a career, and my career is to make sure that I help run this business and that everyone comes out with what they need.’
“Everyone has unique special qualities. We have marketing individuals, we have assistants, we have consultants, we have finance, HR…all of those different roles. We want to make sure that everyone is pulling their unique style and opportunity to come in the firm and make it better.
“But then, in the operations it’s also the hard part which is leadership, and that is every single day making sure that you learn how to speak to someone being self-aware, making sure that everything gets handled to our clients’ satisfaction, our finances are in order, and our HR people are taken care of.
“If you are a Director of Operations or looking for a Director of Operations, there are three things I look for: ambition, drive, and discipline. If you have those three things, that’s the formula for a great Director of Operations.”
“Well-said. Your journey from receptionist to your current role at Eight Figure Firm I find incredibly inspiring, especially at such a young age,” Konigsberg replies. “How did you leverage your early roles to develop the skills necessary to lead a team like 8 Figure Firm and consult with multi-million dollar law firms, and I know some of them are multi-eight-figure firms?”
“I think it is the formula I mentioned: the ambition, the drive, and I’ll add an extra piece there. I think it’s the hungry part of it. As an individual I was always someone who said, ‘What else can I do?’ ‘How can I get to the next level?’ ‘How bad do I really want this?’ And as I continued to rise up as a leader, it was definitely very helpful to have people who believed in me, sometimes more than I believed in myself. Sometimes there were people who didn’t believe at all, and like, I say, part of leadership, and in my role and my journey, I needed those failures, and those setbacks and obstacles for me to push, to want more and to do more. So, going from being a receptionist and learning the ropes, that person at that time believing in me and saying like, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ ‘How can I get you more?’ And it was always education. It was always sitting down and listening. I’ve been in mediations, depositions, doing litigation work myself. So all these things that a lot of individuals either don’t have the opportunity to do, or they don’t look or search for that. I think if you want it, you can have it. You just have to do the work because it doesn’t come knocking at the door.”
“That’s right. So, what motivates you to work so hard to be successful?”
“Definitely my background. My upbringing was always about being the best and being into a role that, like you want to be proud of that role like, ‘Who are you? And then, of course, you have all the labels that society gives you, but you have to use them because it’s the true reality which is a female. I’m Latino. I’m originally from Columbia. All these things that when you come to a different country, and I migrated here when I was 8 years old, all those things become either obstacles or they become opportunities. It depends on how you look at them, and for me, part of my brand is called limitless, and there’s no limit that will ever get in my way to get whatever else I want. So from a very young age, I learned that. I continue to self-teach and follow those principles for myself and say, ‘What else do you have to do?’ ‘Do you have to work harder?’ ‘Do you have to study more?’ ‘Do you have to just do more hours?’ Whatever it takes. How do I get into those rooms that I might have been told you can’t be in those rooms. And, interestingly enough, yesterday I posted something. NBC, I believe, or some news outlet, put out some statistics, and there’s only one Latina in executive C-suite roles in the United States nationwide.
“It was a very wow moment for me, because I’m doing it. And I don’t look back, and I don’t look at statistics, and I don’t label the things. But looking at it and saying, ‘Wow, I’m part of that 1% nationwide that can say I hold a C-suite opportunity, and I am going to make it better and give other people the opportunity to do so.’”
“So let’s tell the audience. What is your brand?”
“Limitless. So the word itself very much tells the story. And it’s basically making sure that there are less limitations to your every day; making sure that anything that is limited, whether it’s a society label, whether it’s a medical condition, whether it’s a crisis trauma, anything that can or will set you back. How do you remove from that by having a mindset that can take you to the next level, and part of that is understanding and being self-aware as to ‘How much do I want it, but what do I do to get there?’
“And part of my story does come from failure and from trauma and from downfall and back in the day. I did have my own moment where I was deep down. On the whole, some people don’t like to talk about it. I’m very open about it, because I am in psychology, and I had to get into that very dark place that I did not know how to come out of and say, ‘Who am I?’ I was this leader. I was this great person. People were like, ‘You know how to talk’, and ‘You know how to do all these things’, and they were just so shocked when I went into this very tiny, square black hole that I call it, and thankfully my mind was the thing that got me there, and my mind is what got me out of there.
So that’s where limitless comes from. I’ve been down to the bottom that people don’t like to talk about, but I was able to crawl back out and be at a better stage of where I am now by being able to practice these concepts. Don’t let any single thing limit you — have the ambition, have the drive, have the discipline to say, ‘I want and need more in my life.’”
“I love it, and I say, you can’t have darkness without light.”
For more insights on how to become limitless, listen to the full interview below.
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