Travis Lee Howard. Operator, speaker, and author of Your Team Comes Last.
I’ve built thirteen companies and the leadership teams to run them. I’ve broken some. I let others turn toxic. Today I help run a plaintiff firm, and I spend the rest of my time on stages, screens, and mics, telling leaders what all of that taught me.
A ballroom. A breakout. A company all-hands where I was a face on the big screen. A podcast recorded at a mastermind. A clip someone watches in line for coffee. The room changes. The job doesn’t: say something true that people can use on Monday.
KeynoteMaxLawCon 2026The Two Machines, to a ballroom of law firm owners
BreakoutCX Summit 2026, CharlestonGift Givers & Firefighters, CLE-accredited
All-handsCase Status Summer SessionsRemote, on the big screen, to the whole company
KeynoteMaxLawCon 2026The Two Machines
PodcastMaximum LawyerRecorded at a mastermind in Arizona
Row sixWorth keepingSomeone in the room, saving it for later
Video podcastFree Business SchoolWhy your team should come last
“You don’t just hear Travis; you feel what he believes, and you leave wanting to be better.”
Jay Burchfield, Vice President, Partnerships, Case Status
“If you are evaluating whether he has learned accountability, our honest answer is that he has been teaching it to the rest of us.”
Each one is built for a working room: law firm owners, operations leaders, founders. All talks and formats
Every firm runs two machines. The Hard Machine is everything you can document: intake, systems, KPIs. The Soft Machine is whether your people feel safe enough to tell you the truth. Most firms only build one, and the owner quietly becomes the missing piece.
Culture isn’t the values on the wall. It’s the residue of what people experience every week. This session shows leaders how to read the culture they actually have, and how to stop fighting the same fires.
Founders are told to move faster, hire sooner, and scale harder. I did all three, and it cost me companies. The order that works is self, then customer, then the machine, then the team. The team comes last in the order, never in importance.
My dad died, and I stopped running the company.
Six figures a month to seven. 10x in a year.
I promoted someone on my team into the CEO seat and went back to the customer and the product. Same brand, same people, same market.
What changed: my role, not the roster.
I co-founded the firm in 2016 and stayed on the governing side.
Seven figures a year to eight. 4x in three.
By late 2023 it was time to scale, so I moved into active leadership and took operations. Revenue had been flat for two years.
What changed: who was accountable for the machine.
Different scale. Same variable.
Systems administrator or spoken word poet. Business attorney or skateboarder with tattoos. Fiscal conservative or social progressive.
I’ve spent twenty-five years refusing to pick just one, and building businesses that never will.
How conscious founders build without burning out. Advantage Media, April 13, 2027.
The order that works is self, then customer, then the machine, then the team. The book is the long version of every talk on this page.
“Give him the stage. He will earn it.”Paul Bamert, Chief Marketing Officer, Case Status
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