When people think about the word “coach,” it’s usually in the context of sports. For example, Phil Jackson is the Coach of the Bulls or the Lakers. For the past 25 years, coaching has become widespread in the business world as well, with most top executives and rainmaking attorneys utilizing coaches to get to the next level. The reality is that it’s not only very difficult to see your own challenges without an expert set of eyes helping you.
As a lawyer coach for over 18 years, it’s been my life’s work to help ambitious lawyers dramatically grow their books of business, many becoming equity partners, moving laterally to a better firm, or gaining the confidence to go out on their own. What sets FRETZIN aside from all other coaches is that we incorporate lawyers’ coaching and training into one program. While identification of one’s legal business development gaps via coaching is part of the solution, helping lawyers actually solve these issues is another.
What Does a Lawyer Career Coach Do?
Every private practice lawyer either has a job or a career in law. If your yearly objective is to do everyone else’s work, keep your head down, and retain your job from year to year, a lawyer career coach is probably not for you. Alternatively, if you are interested in a career filled with new challenges, experience, and control, you may want to consider obtaining help from someone like Steve Fretzin.
A lawyer career coach is someone that can not only talk through your options but advise on which makes the most sense based on your experience, abilities, and interests. For example, some lawyers aren’t interested in the law firm politics that sometimes accompany working at a firm. A good coach will help you to improve your current situation or start planning for a departure to greener pastures. Whatever the case, it’s important to find a seasoned coach who you feel comfortable talking and collaborating with before engaging.
How Does the Process Work for Lawyer Career Coaching?
Once a lawyer has met with Steve Fretzin and gaps have been identified, the most important next step is for the lawyer to commit to resolving the issues found. Like any coach and player, the coach is only as good as his player. When a lawyer decides to work with FRETZIN, it’s like burning the ship behind you. We will now partner to accomplish something truly special together. There are only two offerings that we provide to get highly motivated attorneys to the next level.
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One on One Lawyer Coaching
While one on one lawyer coaching is always at the forefront of legal business development coaching, FRETZIN is unique in offering three pillars of the program.
- You will enter a Zoom training class held once a week for six months to learn and hone all the skills necessary to be a business development assassin.
- You will work directly with Steve Fretzin as your coach to build a solid plan, overcome time management obstacles, improve performance, and have the accountability to make business development a priority.
- Steve will also act as your advisor on emails, meetings, and scripting to ensure you handle your business development activities wisely. Even debriefing a past meeting can be eye-opening when your coach is involved.
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Peer Advisory Groups for Lawyers
This program is only for successful business developers and rainmakers who have completed the FRETZIN program or have excelled at legal business development on their own. Many of our members have books from 1-10 million in yearly originations. Elements of this program include:
- Collaboration with other successful attorneys on growth best practices
- Sharing issues and overcoming challenges through crowdsourcing within the group
- Interacting with legal expert speaker brought in to educate on growth and organization
- Work with Coach Steve Fretzin as he will be on retainer as a part of the program
This program takes lawyers off their proverbial islands and provides a confidential environment to be open and honest with a group of truly amazing people. The results speak for themselves with a 96% continuation rate after year one has concluded.
What Should You Look for in a Lawyer Career Coach?
To be clear, FRETZIN provides career coaching exclusively for private practice attorneys. You may be a solo or reside at one of the big national firms, but having a positive direction for your future is critical to fulfillment and enjoyment in one’s life as a practicing attorney. A few things you may want to look for in a lawyer career coach may include:
- Structure: While some coaches fly by the seat of their pants, others have a structure for helping you obtain the results you are looking for. A great question to ask would be, “Tell me about your program’s structure?” Speaking with existing or past clients is another way to help ensure the structure is a good fit for you. FRETZIN’s structure and syllabus is second to none in the legal business development coaching space. Just ask us about it.
- Accountability: Of all the tasks that lawyers are asked to accomplish in a day, business development is the one that generally gets pushed down to the bottom. It’s just easier, quite frankly, to focus on the work. This impedes any lawyer’s ability to grow a sustainable and sizable book of business. Due to the nature of FRETZIN’s programs, there are a number of ways we hold our clients accountable to achieve their goals year after year. Personal accountability to your coach or to a group of peers makes it very difficult to broom your biz-dev commitments under the table.
- Perspective: FRETZIN specializes exclusively in lawyers and not in every type of business or industry. While we do help lawyers in every practice area and at all sized firms, our methods are proven effective for every client we engage. Being specialists means that we have seen it all before and have the answers you may be missing.
- Method: Lawyer career coaches generally have various methods of helping you accomplish your goals and fulfill your dreams. Since they never taught you business development in law school, it’s easy to fall into the trap of pitching, convincing, and solving to get business in the door. Think about it, if you hate being sold to, why would you go on a “pitch” meeting and try to convince someone to work with you? The FRETZIN method was created to be soft, nurturing, and non-sales-y, to ensure lawyers actually can enjoy business development.
Contact Steve Fretzin, Lawyer Career Coach, Today!
If you feel like you have the motivation and potential to grow, we should talk. All 30-minute consultations with FRETZIN are complimentary. Since we teach “Sales-Free Selling,” you will never be sold anything. Rather, we will simply have a conversation to see if taking the next step forward makes sense. The relationship between a coach and a coachee is very personal, and both parties have to be engaged for success to occur. If you’re ready for our chat, please complete the quick form below.