Catalytic Leadership

Sustainable Agency Growth Without Burnout, Bottlenecks, or Hustle

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 3 • Episode 115

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You’ve scaled your agency — but now you’re carrying too much, spinning too many plates, and wondering how to grow without grinding harder.

In this episode, I’m joined by Lindsey Busfield, VP at Optimize My Firm and host of The Personal Injury Marketing Minute. Lindsey is a leading voice in legal SEO — but what makes this conversation essential for high-performing agency leaders isn’t SEO strategy... it’s how she built a sustainable agency growth model by stepping back from burnout, clarifying her strengths, and structuring a team around what actually works.

We talk about team design that fuels performance, how to stop being the bottleneck, and the systems she used to scale from a small operation to a nationally respected SEO firm — all without selling her soul to the hustle.

If you’re ready to build with clarity, create capacity without chaos, and grow in a way that lasts, this conversation is your blueprint.


📚 Books Mentioned

  • Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel

  • Pete the Cat by James Dean and Eric Litwin

  • InvestiGators by John Patrick Green


To learn more about Lindsey and her work, visit OptimizeMyFirm.com or connect with her directly at lindsay@optimizemyfirm.com. You can also check out her podcast, The Personal Injury Marketing Minute, recognized by Attorney at Law Magazine as one of the best legal podcasts of 2025.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm so excited today to have Lindsay Busfield on the podcast. Lindsay is one of the leading SEO experts in legal SEO and content marketing. As the vice president at Optimize my Firm, busfield is behind some of the nation's most powerful law firm websites. While a dozen or so SEO agencies can tout the same accomplishments, busfield has become an industry disruptor by revolutionizing the client-law firm relationship. Rather than locking clients in with long-term contracts and over-promising results in time, busfield's company has completely done away with contracts which attorneys surprisingly love. Busfield is also the host of her own podcast, the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, which has been applauded as one of the best legal podcasts of 2025 by Attorney at Law magazine. Outside of business, lindsay is an avid pickleball player. She loves discussing how the sport fosters a unique sense of community, its impact on mental well-being and why it's rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing sports in the country. Lindsay, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Lindsey Busfield:

Thank you so much for having me Excited to be here.

Intro:

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

I can't wait to dive in and hear more of your story. So let's, let's start there. I'd love for you to share some of that with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Lindsey Busfield:

So I had a very similar background to a lot of the attorneys that I work with, actually. So my undergraduate degree was in philosophy from Center College in Kentucky, and with a philosophy degree there's a couple of options. You can either go become a lawyer or you can go become a barista, and I became a barista. I wasn't quite sure that I really wanted to become a lawyer yet and make that big investment and just wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life. So I went the Starbucks route and while at Starbucks I decided to go get my teaching license because I thought I wanted to grow up and be a teacher and became a high school English teacher and quickly realized that that was not the right choice. So I did that for about five years and loved teaching, loved the kids, but, as we all know, kind of the politics that are in the education system right now not the easiest. So while I was teaching, my parents were busy building an egg company with chicken eggs from their backyard flock of chickens and while simultaneously running a bed and breakfast, and they would use the backyard chicken eggs to feed the guests at the bed and breakfast and they realized that these were the best eggs that they had ever had and it was because the chickens were actually running outside and doing chicken things and eating grass and bugs and being happy. So they started an egg business that became a pasture raised egg company and was one of the first pasture raised egg companies in the nation and I had the opportunity to leave teaching and go help them grow this business and help them with marketing and special projects and compliance as they partnered with Amish chicken farms in the area. So my role transitioned very quickly from teaching to driving up and down the East Coast visiting Amish chicken farms and making sure that their organic certification was intact and that their humane animal welfare certifications were taken care of. And that kind of took over my life and so I was busy building the compliance program for this startup egg company and putting in the infrastructure for that and scaffolding it as it grew from one barn to now a company that has over a million hens at farms all across the country. So that was really my first taste of building an organization and really building my own program as a leader, learning as I went what had to happen and what had to be put in place to make this grow and be sustainable.

Lindsey Busfield:

And then from there I started traveling about 70% of the time doing audits, and that really wasn't where I wanted to be with my life. I was still, you know, pretty young, had just gotten married, wanted to have kids. What parts of this do I hate and how can I really hone my skill set and develop a career in the path that really resonates with what I'm passionate about? So I decided to essentially start from scratch.

Lindsey Busfield:

Realizing that I love the marketing and creativity, I took a temp job at a law firm in their marketing department, just so that I could learn the absolute basics of what marketing entailed in a field that, in the legal industry, that I had already had some interest in because of my philosophy background.

Lindsey Busfield:

So long story short, short story long. I worked for this company, this law firm in downtown Raleigh. I said yes to helping with their SEO initiative because nobody really had time for that and found that I loved SEO because it married the creativity and the writing from my English background and it forced me to solve problems and be competitive from growing a small business. I was able to pull in from that. I also have my project management certificate, and so it was project management and it was marrying together all of these things that I was already passionate about into this one really weird niche of marketing for law firms, and so that's kind of the story of how I got put into this really weird, unique world and then, by blessing, was able to meet my now business partner, len, and we have since been growing Optimize my Firm doing SEO for law firms.

Dr. William Attaway:

Amazing. You know I have heard a lot of stories, you know, on this show and beyond, of how people moved into marketing, how they got into that place. I think yours is one of my favorite stories, you know. I don't think I have ever heard of a story that got there via chickens. I think that's fantastic and I'm never going to forget that. Now. You know, there is no wasted experience, and this is something that I talk with when I speak, when I talk with clients. I believe every part of your journey is important because it made you who you are. You know and Optimize. My Firm is specifically focused on the legal field, so what is it exactly that you do for your clients?

Lindsey Busfield:

So what we do is very simple and yet very complicated. So all we do is SEO for law firms, and most of our clients are personal injury attorneys. We have a handful that are in different legal sectors, but what we do is SEO, and what that means is we develop content for their websites, and so this goes beyond, like the basic blogs that are never going to rank anywhere, that are like what should you do after an accident? Like all that stuff is just boring and been written 10,000 times. So what we do is we develop content for pages or their website that targets specific case types that an attorney might be looking for, or target a specific circumstance that somebody might be in as they're looking for an attorney. For example, most personal injury attorneys are looking for motor vehicle accidents and that those are the bread and butter cases that they are wanting to attract. So we develop content all about motor vehicle accidents. So, for example, car accidents, car accident attorney in XYZ city or hit and run accidents in XYZ city. We develop a hierarchy of content that starts at the basic type of motor vehicle accident and then gets a little bit more granular with every sub page that targets specific case types or questions that somebody might have after an accident, or resources that somebody might need, and then all of that leads to them hiring that attorney. So that's one major part of what we do.

Lindsey Busfield:

Another thing that we do is we source backlinks for the websites. Backlinks for those who are unfamiliar with the term are ways that you get your website mentioned by another website that's credible. That way, your website has a little bit more authority. So that's how Google decides if they have two equal pieces of content, whichever piece of content has better backlinks, google's going to rank that site higher. So a big part of our effort is getting quality content as well as the backlinks to that content, so that Google pairs those together and ranks it well when somebody is looking for an attorney or has a question about the type of case that they have. And then the other part of the SEO is working with Google Business Profile to make sure that that's optimized correctly. We help give our clients some guidance on things that they can do internally to get reviews and establish themselves as a great law firm in their area and attracting clients to them specifically.

Dr. William Attaway:

It sounds incredibly useful and like something most attorneys are not trained to do, and it's a bit overwhelming, I imagine, for them as they look at this and think, yeah, I see that I need to do it, but my goodness, and now, with the rise of AI, like, how does that play into SEO?

Lindsey Busfield:

So AI actually makes SEO incredibly important, because AI isn't just pulling their answers from nowhere.

Lindsey Busfield:

They're pulling their answers from content that's already out there, and so when you have your AI snippet come up and answer a question, you have exactly the websites that they're using to generate that information and it's essentially like getting an additional layer of free advertising if AI is pulling from your website.

Lindsey Busfield:

So a lot of people have concerns about traffic to their website dropping because of AI. Lot of people have concerns about traffic to their website dropping because of AI, but really it's not making that much of a difference to their bottom line, because if somebody is just asking this question to get a basic answer, like what is the statute of limitations for a car accident in Minnesota, that's not necessarily something that's going to be driving them to hire an attorney, but it's just going to be during their research process. If somebody is actively looking for an attorney, they're going to be using search terms, for you know where's a car accident lawyer near me and they're still going to navigate to that attorney's website from that and not just find what they're looking for necessarily in that AI snippet. But it is incredibly important to be developing the content and getting your website to rank so that you have more of a better chance of getting some visibility in that AI section itself.

Dr. William Attaway:

And that's where you come in.

Lindsey Busfield:

And that's where I come in.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that. You know, you have started over a couple of times, you know, and as you have done that, I would imagine there is something internally that has to happen in you to be able to adapt and to pivot and to deal with the very real ego that we all have when we start to hear that internal monologue, that voice telling us you should be wherever by now you should be. You know, like how did you navigate that as you have gone through the journey that you have been on?

Lindsey Busfield:

I would love to say that I navigated it with grace and poise and a big picture, you know. But no, there were a lot of tears and there was a lot of panic and it was a very real human experience going from even starting graduating college going. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life, because I don't know what the options are going to do with my life. Because I don't know what the options are and I think that there's a lot of opportunity to help college graduates, or soon to be college graduates, figure out that next step, because there was a major panic attack and thank God there were Starbucks, because I got health insurance and free coffee and that is a great catalyst to help get you to the next level, that's true. But then it's going in to teaching and realizing.

Lindsey Busfield:

You know, I'm creative in some ways and I love teaching in other ways, but didn't necessarily have the support that I needed to really navigate the uh, the infrastructure there, and I had a lot of student debt because I had just gone to school and I had just gotten my teaching license and that's a lot of money, and so I have to be faced with the reality that if I don't get out now, I'm probably never going to get out.

Lindsey Busfield:

I'm going to be a not so great teacher, which isn't helping anybody. But I also have to face the fact that I have this other problem that I need to solve while I'm moving forward, and that's another panic attack. But I took the steps and I did it because I knew that that was right for me, and then I had to start over again and figure out okay, well, I have some support in my parents, who have built businesses before. I need to trust their guidance and have a little bit of humility, because they are my parents and I have to go from realizing I don't know more than they do to maybe they know a little bit more than I do in this. Don't ever tell my mother I said that.

Dr. William Attaway:

I'll keep that on the DL.

Lindsey Busfield:

But going in and having to learn from scratch and learn to be okay with making mistakes, and that everybody does it. And I think that there is this layer that we put on this coat of saying that I need to be the best at this, going into it immediately and I need to know all of this immediately. And after I started over and started over and started over, I realized that we're all fronting that and everybody deals with this inferiority complex to some degree and that it's okay to not know everything on day one. Life gives you on-the-job training and if you can be okay with saying I don't know, but I'll find out, that is the key to opening up any door to any opportunity that you want.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that that. What a phenomenally excellent mindset. I just have to call that out because I think that teachable spirit that you're going into this with not putting on the posturing that you know at all, that you've got to be excellent from day one. Who is excellent at riding a bike the first time they get on? I've never seen that person yet.

Lindsey Busfield:

I'm still not great at it, I'm not.

Dr. William Attaway:

I've been on one in so long, I can't even imagine how bad that would be. The reality is, we have to learn and by maintaining that teachable posture internally, by making that choice, we set ourselves up for a much more healthy and sustainable pace and much more right-sized expectations of ourselves and, I think, of the people around us.

Lindsey Busfield:

Yes, and if we can have the right expectations of ourselves, we're not over-promising to the people that we are obligated to, and that makes a much more organic, transparent, healthy relationship, both personally, professionally and in all aspects of life, and it brings that anxiety level way down if you are honest with yourself, as well as with others of your capabilities, but also have the right mindset of saying this is something I want to look into further and I want to be able to help you with this. I don't necessarily have the answer right now, but let me get it for you.

Dr. William Attaway:

So good With Optimize my Firm fully, both feet into the marketing world. You are very aware that change is a constant, that this is an ever-shifting landscape is a constant, that this is an ever-shifting landscape. Has that been a struggle for you that you can't just like master this and now you've got it and you don't have to worry about it again, but it seems like every month there's some shift or some pivot you've got to make. Has that been challenging?

Lindsey Busfield:

It has and it hasn't, because it's actually kind of a misconception that with every algorithm you have to change course, Because you have to look at Google's bigger picture. What is Google trying to do? Google is trying to match their users with the best, most relevant, accurate information possible. So if you're already doing things the right way and putting accurate, relevant content out on the internet, you don't really have to change course. You just have to be creative and make sure that what you're doing stands apart from what everybody else is doing, because once you do something the right way, you're going to have a copycat see that and replicate what you've done, and so the only thing that you need to do is pivot to make sure that what you are providing to your clients, what you're providing to the internet, is creative and has not been done a thousand times before and is staying a step or two ahead of the competition.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's good. So let's talk about your growth pattern, your rhythms and your habits. Like you know, you have to lead at a higher level today than you did even a few years ago. Your team is looking to you to lead, your clients are looking to you to lead, and that same thing is going to be true three, four or five years from now. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new skills, the new leadership skills and marketing skills and everything else that you're going to need and your clients and your team are going to need you to have in the years to come?

Lindsey Busfield:

The bigger, most truthful answer is I'm really lucky. I have a phenomenal business partner who is a great trying to figure out the word hold on. He's a great partner for me because we balance each other out and we are a great creative pair together. So one of us will have an idea and the other one will build on it, and then we'll figure out how to implement this in a way that makes the most sense, and with his input and my input, we're able to come to an answer that is so much better than either of us could have come to on our own. And he is actually one of the best minds that I have ever worked with when it comes to looking at SEO and looking at strategy. And he is so discombobulated when it comes to staying organized that I come in behind and kind of create the organizational structure, and then we work together, put it together, synergize and get it done, and so we both really have a solid understanding of what our strengths are and we also know how to make up for each other's weaknesses. And so by finding a creative pair, somebody that you really balance well, with, that you compliment well, you can create something that's so much bigger than yourselves.

Lindsey Busfield:

And then the other piece of it is obviously the team that we have in place. So I have a phenomenal team of writers, of web developers, of backlink strategists, communication strategists, google business profile experts Like these are all some of the best minds in the industry and they all collaborate together to help build our business, and so, for me, my leadership style is more supportive. It's looking at I know that you guys know what you're doing. You know your stuff. How can I support you to help you build this to the next level and help you so that your skill sets are maximized and so that you stay interested and fresh in what you're doing? What kind of professional development are you interested in and how do you want to grow as an employee? Because all of those skills that they're picking up along the way are always going to come back and benefit our company and benefit our clients. So it's really harnessing the strengths, being aware of the weaknesses and putting it all together to help build something that is really great and organically stays ahead of the curve.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know a lot of people listening are thinking man, how did you find a partnership that was such a great fit Like? How did you find somebody that complimented like that? What would you say if they're sitting across the table from you?

Lindsey Busfield:

Dumb luck.

Dr. William Attaway:

That doesn't feel like an actionable tactical strategy. I'm just going to be clear.

Lindsey Busfield:

Not, but it's true. I was working at the law firm and had been working with their SEO. I was working at the law firm and had been working with their SEO, realized that I loved SEO, but the law firm itself wasn't a great fit for me. I had just had a baby. She needed some extra doctor's appointments, and driving to downtown Raleigh from Cary and going and making doctor's appointments it just wasn't going to work. So I took the skillset from the SEO and decided that I was going to provide this service for other companies, and the law firm that I was working at was actually one of the companies that I helped out. I was also able to pick up a couple of different partnerships in the area and it was great.

Lindsey Busfield:

I was enjoying doing it for myself, but realized that there were parts of business ownership that I didn't like. I didn't like doing sales, I didn't like doing accounting. All of this was just gave me a just a giant anxiety ball, and even thinking about it now I'm like, oh, this is awful. Um, so I realized, hey, maybe I don't want to own my own business.

Lindsey Busfield:

So I did a job for somebody needing somebody to do SEO, and Len, my business partner, had just posted saying that he needed a project manager for his SEO company that did SEO for law firms, and it was one of those where I was like I can't believe this job exists. So I reached out to Len and the next day we sat down, had coffee and the day after that I was offered a position as a project manager for his company and at that point it was him and one writer and that was it. That was the company. He had a handful of clients and he and this other writer were doing all the work for the handful of clients. But he really wanted to grow. But he knew his own weaknesses in staying organized and he needed somebody to help bolster him and keep everything streamlined, to make sure that the clients were getting all their deliverables and that was my strong suit.

Lindsey Busfield:

So I came in and then we collaboratively built this structure that was more scalable. And as we were able to make a scalable structure, we were able to bring on more clients. And then he and I just constantly were bouncing ideas off of each other for how we could grow and hire in new people. And that was six or seven years ago. And that was six or seven years ago. And now we have several dozen clients all over the country.

Dr. William Attaway:

We have a team of about 15 and have been enjoying the growth ever since. I love that. As you think about what's next, as you look into the future, what do you want most?

Lindsey Busfield:

That is a really, really great question, yeah, and I think the honest answer for that is I want to be able to look at my position and say what do I love most about what I'm doing and focus on that and then be able to delegate the rest out. So that is kind of the big picture idea of that, and then it's a matter of getting into the nitty gritty of actually answering that question, because the things that I love most, that I really thrive on, are strategy. I love business development strategy. I love coming up with new ideas of ways to get our name out there and figuring out the internal structures of how to build something that is sustainable and can grow long term.

Lindsey Busfield:

And then I want to be able to outsource the pieces that I don't necessarily love so much. So for me that would bring a lot of meaning and happiness and fulfillment to my professional career.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that.

Lindsey Busfield:

And then have time to play more pickleball.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, when I read that I thought my goodness, I just played for the first time a month before last.

Lindsey Busfield:

Oh yeah, I'd never played.

Dr. William Attaway:

It was so much fun and you know, obviously I was trying to learn as I was playing and the people I was playing with were fantastic they're great teachers but I thought this is so much fun I need to do more of this, and I haven't, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can see why you are an avid player.

Lindsey Busfield:

Yes, I absolutely love playing. I try to play at least three or four times a week. Wow, yeah, just because it's addictive, like once you get into it, like you get really into it, and I mean, and there are a million reasons why it's so great you know just from the community that you build being able to get outside, get some fresh air, get a little bit of exercise. There are a million benefits to getting out and playing.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, one thing I ask everybody, lindsay, is you know, obviously I like books, I love to read, and most of the people that I've talked to, whether it's audio books or paper books or digital Kindle books or whatever, they are constantly learning, and I don't think you're any exception to that. Is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening?

Lindsey Busfield:

Oh man, I am going to be so transparent that I haven't made time to read for myself lately. I have two little girls. I've got a three-year-old and a six-year-old, so a lot of my reading time is books.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's a busy season.

Lindsey Busfield:

It is such a busy season, but I am knee deep in the Bad Kitty book series.

Dr. William Attaway:

I remember Bad Kitty.

Lindsey Busfield:

Bad Kitty's great, and we've got Pete the Cat and we've got the Investigators, which is an investigative duo. That's a couple of alligators. So that has kind of consumed my reading time lately. Understandable.

Dr. William Attaway:

Oh, I love that and I appreciate the honesty and the transparency there. I think and I think it does illustrate a point, and that is that there is no such thing as a season that lasts forever. That's why it's called a season, instead of saying, oh man, I wish I could be in a different season One day I'll. To be able to be present in the season that you're in is a gift, and I love that you are doing that right now.

Lindsey Busfield:

Well, thank you, and I really try my best to compartmentalize my life and be intentional about how I spend my time and the time that I have with my little girls right now is so precious and to be able to add value to their lives by reading their books, as opposed to reading like the perfect pitch sales book yeah, it's gonna. You need to find time to add value to each part of your personality and that way, when all these parts come together, you have built a really whole, fulfilling life.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that Last question I'll ask you and this is one that I'm asking everybody these days If I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem right now in your business, what would you want that problem to be?

Lindsey Busfield:

Man. I think the problem that a lot of us have, especially as we are small businesses, is just getting the word out that we exist. There are a lot of these giant monster companies, and some of them do a good job, some really incredible minds that are putting their creativity and skills together to really help the good law firms grow in their communities and connect with the people who really need them. Just that additional visibility, that would be the big one that I'd like to solve.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's good, and I think a whole bunch of people are nodding their heads listening to this show right now because they feel the same way.

Lindsey Busfield:

I'm sure they do.

Dr. William Attaway:

Lindsay, I could talk to you for another hour. It's just so enjoyable and I love the journey that you have been on and that has brought you to this point, and I think that there again is no wasted experience and the next chapters are going to be your best ones. Yet I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more from you and more about what you're doing at Optimize my Firm. What's the best way for them to do that?

Lindsey Busfield:

Well, thank you so much. My website is optimizemyfirmcom. Feel free to reach out to me at Lindsay, at optimizemyfirmcom.

Dr. William Attaway:

Excellent. We'll have those links in the show notes.

Lindsey Busfield:

Thank you so much for this.

Dr. William Attaway:

Thank you for your time. Well, thank you for your time and for sharing so generously from what you've learned so far.

Lindsey Busfield:

Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

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