In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Adam Kosloff discuss:
- Setting goals and creating habits.
- Building a process to create your content consistently.
- Repurposing your content creatively.
- Evaluating the platforms for content and content creation based on your audience.
Key Takeaways:
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- Having unresolved tasks on your to-do list will continue to nag at your brain and keep you discontented.
- Not all content creation is right for every single person. Find what is in sync with your firm, your life, and your likes.
- You can use the hacks to get people to click or read, but you want to make sure you’re saying something of value and unique to you.
- Not all marketing has a direct ROI. Building a reputation as an expert in your space or creating content that can be repurposed and leveraged can be equally as important.
“The people who really succeed are the ones who like to have this as a habit, and can sustain it either me, or someone I delegated to do this.” — Adam Kosloff
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Episode References:
- The Secret to Success Podcast – https://www.s2spodcast.com/
About Adam Kosloff: I’m the founder of Virtuoso Content, a legal content agency I grew out of my own freelance career writing over 50,000 web pages and hundreds of books. I’ve also written for movies and television, including working as a staff writer for comedian Mel Brooks on Spaceballs: The Animated Series. On the side, I’ve written a popular blog on the keto diet, been a keynote speaker at nutrition science conferences, toured the world as a semi-pro a cappella singer, and defeated the former U.S. chess champion, all while raising three kids.
Connect with Adam Kosloff:
Website: https://virtuosocontent.com/
Cell Phone: 818-601-6747
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-kosloff-2346623/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtuoso-content/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Steve Fretzin: Hey everyone, listen up real quick. Before we begin the show, I’d like to present my Be That Lawyer Challenge. If you’ve ever wondered how much more you could be making as an attorney, I challenge you to meet with me for 30 minutes to discuss your law firm. If I’m unable to identify ways to bring in more business for you, I’ll pay your hourly rate for our time together.
[00:00:19] Steve Fretzin: I’m just that confident. Go to Fretzin. com to accept this challenge and hope to meet you soon.
[00:00:29] Narrator: You’re listening to Be That Lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
[00:00:52] Steve Fretzin: Hi everybody, this is Steve Fretzin, uh, Be That Lawyer. How you doing? It’s good to, uh, have you here as, uh, a listener, hopefully a loyal listener. If you’re enjoying the show, getting value week after week, twice a week, don’t be shy. Tell people about it. Give us a kind review. Give us a thumbs up, a star or something, and, uh, help us get the word out.
[00:01:09] Steve Fretzin: We, we really feel like this show is doing great. We, you know, hit a hundred thousand downloads a while back, and we’re continuing to. To drive things up my goal for you as a listener is to just continue to help you be that lawyer someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker and that is absolutely going to happen today because I’ve got someone in the wings named Adam.
[00:01:28] Steve Fretzin: That’s going to give you lots and lots of good ideas. How you doing Adam?
[00:01:32] Adam Kosloff: Hey, nice to have you. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.
[00:01:35] Steve Fretzin: You’re going to say thanks for having me on like it’s your show. Like you want to take over the show and interview me. I’ll leave you, but you know, all right, maybe we’ll do the last five minutes.
[00:01:42] Steve Fretzin: I’ll let you interview me. Uh, it’s actually not a bad idea to have somebody come on my show and interview me and see what happens. But, uh, we, we, as you, as you are going to find out, Adam, and everyone that listens to this show knows, we always start off with our quote of the show. And I just enjoy this.
[00:01:56] Steve Fretzin: And I, I asked some people about it. They said, I said, what do you like about the show? What do you not like about the show? And they said, oh, the quotes. We love the quotes. Big quote people apparently listening to the show. So here’s one by Paul Graham. And it’s the popular image of the visionary as someone with a clear view of the future.
[00:02:12] Steve Fretzin: But empirically, it may be better to have a blurry one. So what, that’s a interesting quote. And I’m curious, first of all, welcome to the show. Second of all, why
[00:02:21] Adam Kosloff: that quote? I love that quote because it’s first of all, I love counterintuitive. Everyone thinks one thing, but you should do the other thing. And you know, some of that stuff is nonsense.
[00:02:29] Adam Kosloff: This one actually really resonates to me because we’re in a very goal centric culture. I think a lot of lawyers are taught goals, too. And, you know, if you need goals, you need to have some kind of thing to establish to work with. Because we’re goal oriented creatures. We’re humans. But, I think the problem in that is if you have a goal, first of all, entirely along the way, you haven’t achieved it.
[00:02:45] Adam Kosloff: So you have this sense of lack. I haven’t done it. And that’s psychologically draining, and it actually prevents you from achieving the goal. This is what the people say. I believe it. But beyond that, there’s this… Yeah, and there’s part of that, that deeper program is the founder of Y Combinator, which is basically the Harvard business school for startups.
[00:03:01] Adam Kosloff: So he’s a pretty famous person in this world, multimillion for help with like Uber, but they do that. The idea is that you do not know what you do not know. And so the way you need to course correct, and if you’re so focused on a goal. It’s very precise. You may go in the wrong direction. You may ignore what you should, you should, uh, be paying attention.
[00:03:21] Adam Kosloff: And it’s kind of like there’s a, in the management world called what’s get, what gets measured, gets manic. But the converse is what doesn’t get managed, doesn’t, doesn’t get measured, does not get manic. And sometimes what doesn’t get measured is actually very important. And so having a blurry vision, Keeping kind of a loose grip like, you know, hold on loosely, but don’t let go that I think seems like a very good idea Not only when you’re going to practice or law firm, but in general trying to deal with life’s problem So that that’s fine.
[00:03:48] Adam Kosloff: I love that.
[00:03:48] Steve Fretzin: Was that a boston reference? Hold on loosely. Don’t let go
[00:03:53] Adam Kosloff: Is that a boston? No, it’s a 30s, 32 special
[00:03:59] Steve Fretzin: special special. Oh my God. Wow. All right. So the rock and roll fans are enjoying that. Uh, I was, I was, I wasn’t off by that much. I feel like Boston 38 special. They’re kind of in the same genre, 80s, 80s rock.
[00:04:10] Steve Fretzin: Really, really cool. And I think what, what people are moving to Adam, at least what I’m, I’m, you know, I was, I’m always been a goal guy. Let’s set a goal. Let’s set a goal. Let’s set a goal. And what I’m looking at now is more people are looking to create habits. Thanks. And if you create the proper habits, the chances and likelihood of hitting the goal go way, way up.
[00:04:28] Steve Fretzin: So you may not have to set, I’m going to hit this number and by the state and all that, it might just be, Hey, can I create habits that are going to get me to that number? In a more without without that pressure of I got to hit that number. I got to hit that goal
[00:04:41] Adam Kosloff: Yeah, and you become more in control of your happy now Listen, I think this is just in the ether right now this idea of like habits are better than goals I mean, there’s been many famous books about atomic habits, I believe yeah, like it does make Yeah, and because it’s like you’re able to control your happiness like I can take a cold shower every day, you know And and brag to my wife about it and she’s like please shut up about the contact
[00:05:02] Steve Fretzin: I dunked myself in an ice bath.
[00:05:03] Steve Fretzin: No, no one wants to know about, you know, that you dunked in yourself. So I think, you know, let’s start at the beginning. People want to understand, you know, who’s this guy, Adam. Um, it’s Adam Kozloff. He’s the CEO of Virtuoso Content. Give us a little bit of your background and, and, and leading into your, you know, kind of be that lawyer tipping point in your career.
[00:05:22] Steve Fretzin: Okay.
[00:05:22] Adam Kosloff: So my background is really kind of eclectic. I went to Yale and got a degree in geophysics and I was going to be like a molecular biophysicist or physicist. But then I was in these singing groups, this a cappella group called The Whiffin Poops, we got to tour around the world, and I got to write That was so, so fun!
[00:05:37] Adam Kosloff: That’s so cool! That’s so cool. Yeah, but I wrote these little sketches with my friends and I’m like this is much more fun than science So then I I decided to like after I graduated to go into comedy writing So I went to came to la and I started writing working for the producer of the simpsons and Futurama And you know got got assignments and got I wrote and sold movies and I ended up uh, actually writing for mel brooks Which is like maybe the highlight of my tv writing.
[00:06:00] Adam Kosloff: That’s pretty
[00:06:00] Steve Fretzin: awesome. That’s pretty amazing.
[00:06:02] Adam Kosloff: Well, yeah, you know, and he was so nice and uh But like, you know, I was getting these, like, the animation gigs kind of hither and thither, and I, on the side, I had to have a day job, because like, I was, you know, getting paid something, but not enough. And so I started writing for the web.
[00:06:15] Adam Kosloff: I started, then I fell into writing for lawyers. My dad was an environmental lawyer in Connecticut, and just a brilliant guy, very curious, loved arguing for sport, and so did I. So my brother and I, we enjoy, like, you know, legalistic kind of discussions. And so I felt like a natural fit for the law. And, um, And so then I just, over time, turned my freelance career into an entrepreneurial, uh, business.
[00:06:35] Adam Kosloff: And I didn’t intend to do this. But over the way, I’m like, you know what, I gotta, I gotta, um, pivot. Because I started having children. I’m like, well, maybe I can turn this into an actual company. And so I learned entrepreneurship. And now I have a team of about 70 writers or so. And we have about 70 regular clients.
[00:06:52] Adam Kosloff: I’m trying to grow. And I feel like on the cusp, I’m like, can I, you know, 5x it? And it’s definitely possible. And, uh, you know, the whole thing with my company, Virtuoso, is the idea of like, can we do content without suffering? I think a lot of lawyers suffer needlessly, and it’s just like, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a process because you’re like, well, there’s so much to the process of writing content that it’s not very obviously apparent.
[00:07:13] Adam Kosloff: And then when you get into it, you’re like, Oh, you’re, it’s just like, I think, you know, editing briefs. It’s like, there’s the, the details are really annoying. And so can we build a process that makes it so easy that someone’s like, just do it, like get it done the way I want it in my tone of voice and my, you know, style.
[00:07:27] Adam Kosloff: And so that’s what, that’s like kind of our
[00:07:28] Steve Fretzin: North star. Yeah. And there’s, there’s a reason why you’re in business and a reason why people write for lawyers. I think there’s a, there’s a lot of anxiety and fear, and maybe it’s the profession, the perfectionist lawyers mindset. But why are lawyers generally like afraid of creating content and putting stuff out there?
[00:07:45] Adam Kosloff: Well, I mean, the perfectionist thing is one thing, you know, it’s also like, alike with a lot of products and internet marketing, it’s a lot harder than it seems at first. There’s all these promises like, well, you can do this, you know, use this chat bot, use this. And it’s always harder. And so they get burned.
[00:07:59] Adam Kosloff: And at the same time, there’s this feeling of like keeping up with the Joneses. Like, well, you know, you see your friend or your competitor and they’re way ahead of you on SEO or what have you. So then you feel like, well, I’ve got to keep. So it’s just this, this sense of like, Real discomfort and it’s it’s difficult to solve and the problem is just it’s just generally hard to solve
[00:08:15] Steve Fretzin: it Yeah, and I think the other part of it is that they’re afraid of making a mistake, right?
[00:08:22] Steve Fretzin: You put something out there and it isn’t right that isn’t perfect and it’s a mistake and then then you’re not gonna get the response You want or it’s just they’re just so busy It just seems like something that just keeps getting put off and put off and put off and I’ll get to it tomorrow and it Never never happens Yeah,
[00:08:36] Adam Kosloff: we were talking about the getting things done, uh, um, idea before the show about like how if you have something on your mind that’s not addressed, it kind of, it nags at you and distracts you and makes you depressed.
[00:08:47] Adam Kosloff: And it’s like, I want to have a book. I want to have like my LinkedIn profile redone. All these little things that are on your to do list that you never get to, this is really annoying. And so that adds to the stress. And then a further thing is. I think a lot of lawyers are excellent analysts, but in order to kind of really kind of rise to the top on Google, there has to be a sort of like constant creativity that you’re throwing out there that’s out of the box, which is some, some lawyers, not all, but some don’t feel as comfortable being super creative in that way.
[00:09:14] Adam Kosloff: And so it’s helpful to have outside writers and that then you’re kind of like just doing what everyone else is doing and it’s harder to get results. That makes.
[00:09:22] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, it does. It does. And what’s, what’s the best. Yeah. Yeah. Content to put out there. I mean, there’s so many options. Obviously, I’m doing a podcast which produces audio and video and also written content.
[00:09:37] Steve Fretzin: Others are going to just do blogs and or maybe they’re going to write for a publication. Like if you had a like, I don’t know if it’s based by practice area or what someone’s trying to accomplish with it. But can you break down the different types of content that might be interesting to a lawyer and why they might want to pick one or over another?
[00:09:53] Steve Fretzin: Yeah.
[00:09:55] Adam Kosloff: That’s a deep question, you know, and I think there’s one thing is that there’s just dozens of ways to get content from TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, to creating a book, to creating a podcast, to being on people’s podcast, you know, to creating a blog, having just static website content. And so, and everyone’s got their own recipe.
[00:10:14] Adam Kosloff: And so, okay, well, what’s the best one for you? And there’s what’s I don’t have a particular answer.
[00:10:22] Steve Fretzin: I wish I did. I have, I have one that maybe, maybe might get us into a flow here because I think there’s some things that are just flat out painful to do. Um, like attending a big networking event. Nobody, you know, there’s some people that just that, that turns their stomach that they got to walk into a room with 200 people.
[00:10:39] Steve Fretzin: I think content’s the same way. There’s some type of content that might be very easy and, and unscary to do, and there’s others that are just, they’re never gonna get done because they’re just, they’re just too monumental or, like writing a book, that to some people, you might as well say go climb Mount Everest, I mean it’s that, it’s that big of a deal, so I think people have to A, figure out like maybe what they might enjoy doing, and like what, where’s the barrier of entry, Maybe not quite as horrifying.
[00:11:05] Adam Kosloff: That’s a great have like your circle of like, what do you really like to do? What’s like in, in, in, you know, in sync with the premise of your firm or your practice or your kind of your, your purpose in life. But then also, you know, one thing that really does not get enough attention in the content world is consistency.
[00:11:21] Adam Kosloff: And this is what I found from just working with like, I mean, you know, thousands of clients. The people who succeed are the ones who kind of go. You know, you have to pivot along the way, see what’s working, what doesn’t, look at your metrics, what have you, but the people who kind of do it consistently. So it’s like when you’re doing this, like you might want to ask yourself, okay, I want to be on Instagram or I want to blog or whatever.
[00:11:40] Adam Kosloff: Can you sustain this for months or years without, because a lot of people will get very excited and they’re the great writers, some of these, or they’re great, this, they’re good on, on YouTube. But then they fall off. And it’s the people you really succeed are the ones who like I can, you know, have this as a habit and sustain it.
[00:11:56] Adam Kosloff: Either me or someone I delegated to. Yeah.
[00:11:59] Steve Fretzin: So again, the other thing is, you know, there’s a reason you’re in business. There’s a reason my podcast production company’s in business. Sometimes it’s not about you actually doing all the legwork. So I’m recording this right now. You and I are, are talking, we’re having a great time.
[00:12:14] Steve Fretzin: And then I’m going to send this to my podcast from a production company, turnkey productions in LA. They’re then going to have to do the editing and the production and all the stuff that I don’t want to do and by the way, shouldn’t do, um, because that’s not my skill set and that’s not where I enjoy spending time.
[00:12:31] Steve Fretzin: So I think there’s, there’s also maybe a misnomer that they have to do everything when in fact it also might be, there might be less that you have to do than you think.
[00:12:38] Adam Kosloff: That’s true and this is, I mean, my bias because I have a team of writers, you know, and when I look to try and do something now in my business, I am like, well, what team can I use to help?
[00:12:47] Adam Kosloff: Because I can’t do it all. And it’s like, if you actually graph out, like you put yourself in like a, uh, business diagram, you’re at the center and rules you have to take on for even just something simple as like a podcast, you’re going to have all these spokes upon spokes. You can never get it done.
[00:13:01] Adam Kosloff: There’s not enough time. And that leads to feelings of overwhelm. In addition to running a law firm. I mean, so it’s like part of it is the way to get yourself out of that, that spider diagram is to find people who are competent. One example is I recently hired someone to do a video sales letter now. I could get this I could probably DIY it I can use use an AI but I’m like I would want just an expert who’s doing knows how to do this Like I don’t want I’ll pay the money I don’t want to learn all this and it’s like because it’s like your time is not right as you’re saying
[00:13:31] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, for sure for sure The other thing I wanted to ask you about is the importance of repurposing.
[00:13:37] Steve Fretzin: Um, there’s, you know, just as an example, I, you know, I wrote a, I’ve wrote a number of books, the most recent one, legal business development is a rocket science to everybody in case you’re wondering, uh, it’s available on Amazon, a little self promotion there. Actually, I’m, I’m just in the, in the, in the, in the back end of, um, of getting that, um, audio book done.
[00:13:54] Steve Fretzin: So that’ll be something that’ll be promoted, but that’s an example. All right. So I wrote a book. It’s now out on Amazon. You can get it in a Kindle version or regular, or now I’ve got repurposing that for the audio version. Right. I also did a bunch of videos where I gave away a chapter a week for 51 or 52 weeks, did a video, took me two minutes to do the video, that then created a social media post.
[00:14:18] Steve Fretzin: So I was able to get 51 or 52 social media posts, one a week out, just basically explaining the chapter of my book, what’s in it, why you should do it. Here it is, by the way. And then if you want to buy the book altogether, here you go. And it went off so well, I was getting lots of positive comments, I was getting lots of engagement, people were really excited to like hear what I had to say about each chapter, and I think that’s something that people don’t realize that this is a gift that keeps giving if it’s done
[00:14:43] Adam Kosloff: properly.
[00:14:44] Adam Kosloff: That’s amazing, and that’s a great idea, so I’m glad that worked out for you, and yeah, that’s the idea, it’s like kind of being creative about repurposing. One thing that we do is I do what’s called a blonde book. Where people want blogging and so like let’s structure the blog for the next six months so that you know We’re going to do 24 of them at the end of that We can easily repurpose it into an ebook and then you can use the ebook as a lead gen magnet
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[00:16:55] Steve Fretzin: stand out. Let me ask you this. I mean, there’s a lot of different ways to write blogs and get it out in a newsletter and there’s things that I’m noticing, like when I’m on YouTube, I’ll see someone do a video. And they’ll have words that are all in caps and it really draws my attention, like same thing with subject lines, like how you work subject lines and how you title something five ways to, or, you know, this is how you, or how it gets built or whatever, why people should any tips on, on writing to help draw.
[00:17:30] Steve Fretzin: In an audience or to draw people to we want to read that content.
[00:17:34] Adam Kosloff: Yeah I mean, there’s all sorts of like psychological hacks. I mean who doesn’t like a listicle? I mean, this is why like buzzfeed became huge and I I know I know I do these tricks too But like when i’m like free time i’m like, oh show me the 23 celebrities that like, you know failed this week You know, it’s it’s fun.
[00:17:47] Adam Kosloff: So yeah, you can use these kind of hacks I would say, you know the deeper more true answer, right? And this is why like I like all gram vlog and some of these other people It’s like, it’s when you have the true insight, the authentic stuff that you can’t get from anywhere else. And then you, then you can do the tricks like, you know, seven things no one knows about weight loss.
[00:18:08] Adam Kosloff: But you have to have something to say. I think fundamentally, like, you know, yeah, you can, you can, you can play with people’s minds by using some of these hacks, but I think ultimately, like, do you have something really interesting, unique to say? And if you do that. You know, I mean, this is, uh, this is, this is what the, the marketing gurus really say, and I, I believe
[00:18:29] Steve Fretzin: the other thing I wanted to mention, if you know, even this comes back to what we kind of where we started, we’re coming full circle around.
[00:18:35] Steve Fretzin: It’s. About developing habits. Do you have some some two or three ideas or tips about how someone who wants to create content a can get started and then be how, how do they stay consistent? How do they not let it fall to the wayside or get busy and just give up on something that end may end up ultimately helping them build their personal brand,
[00:18:57] Adam Kosloff: right?
[00:18:58] Adam Kosloff: Well, let’s just start with someone if it’s yourself, like not using a company because use a company is a whole different thing.
[00:19:02] Steve Fretzin: No individual person’s great.
[00:19:05] Adam Kosloff: What you need to do, and this sounds a little bit, I don’t mean to say it’s unapathetic, but I would say set the bar low. Not like super low, but you want to think about this as compounding interest, right?
[00:19:15] Adam Kosloff: What’s something you can absolutely, you know, first of all, you gotta pick something you know will apply. You wanna do Instagram, you wanna do LinkedIn, whatever feels natural, you know, that you can do. Start low so that it’s like, that’s not going to tax you too much. I can, I can do, I can record a YouTube video two minutes a day about, I don’t know, car accidents, motorcycling.
[00:19:35] Adam Kosloff: My thought whatever then you stick to that habit you and train it you get it good and then you kind of over time you kind of beat your own score because you’re your best control you know what you do you’re trying to compare yourself to someone else not going to work but you compare yourself to what you did yesterday and so you’re trying to say over time okay well this is working this is not working I hate this I like this and over time you kind of I can take on more.
[00:20:00] Adam Kosloff: I can outsource this. And that’s how you get going. You start with something that’s not going to make it so hard for you to do where you’re like, this is doable and I like this and I could talk and I can create content intelligently about this particular. And then you, you know, you, you’re not expecting massive results right away.
[00:20:18] Adam Kosloff: You’re just like, well, I like this. I can do it. And then over time, you’re going to say, you’re going to, you pay attention to the feedback from your environment and yourself. Like, ah, I hate doing this. It’s taking too much time or You know, I’m getting, I’m getting this, this kind of post I did really resonate.
[00:20:34] Adam Kosloff: And then you, you, you, it’s a matter of, it’s a, it’s an iterative process. You start small that you can do. You take a shot, you reassess, you change it and you go from there. And with the mind of the eye of thinking, like. You know, if you want to think and keep the ultimately ROI, like how’s this eventually going to get you branding or clients, but more lines of like, can I do to sustainable?
[00:20:57] Adam Kosloff: Sustainability is such an important thing that people don’t do when they’re
[00:21:00] Steve Fretzin: doing content. Yeah. And that’s really the name of the game. I mean, I see people that start an end podcast or start an end blogs, and I can see the dates where they started and see the dates that I, you know, I might ask them about it if I’m interviewing them for my program to like, find out like, Hey, what happened here?
[00:21:15] Steve Fretzin: And I think a lot of it is, is that the discipline and the habits, one other suggestion, and I do this on the business development and marketing, you know, personal branding front, social media front all the time, is I try to take my clients and put them together as accountability buddies. So we get together and anybody can do this.
[00:21:33] Steve Fretzin: I’m not giving away, you know, any crazy secret that I came up with. I mean, this is what people do when they work out, they go meet someone, work out with someone and leave. And then they’re committed because they know that they’ve got to be there for someone else as well. And so the idea that I could get on a call with you, Adam, um, say, Hey, in the, you know, in the next 30 minutes, I’m going to do a blog post and, or I’m going to write, you know, two or three, I’m going to write, write a blog post, or I’m going to post two or three things on social media.
[00:21:59] Steve Fretzin: We’re on a zoom, we hit mute, whatever, we go away for 30 minutes, we come back, what did you do? What did I do? Now, every single week, for 30 minutes, at least I’m making it a focused effort to get something done. And that accountability, it might, for some people, be easier. I don’t need that for myself, because I’m so frickin driven every day that if I have a gap in my schedule, I get excited that I can post something or have that, like, open, opening to, to create content.
[00:22:27] Steve Fretzin: Lawyers aren’t the same. They’re really busy and it’s very hard to carve out time for business development and that personal branding. And so, I think getting someone else engaged and involved in that is a really good trick to, uh, to make sure that it gets done and know that you’re accountable to someone else.
[00:22:42] Adam Kosloff: That’s a great point. I mean, I would say there’s two other things, like, advice for lawyers in particular, I think, might struggle because lawyers tend to be very smart and perfect. One of them is, like, and this is the key to all great, like, content writing and I think all art is, like, to not be afraid of the bad first draft.
[00:22:57] Adam Kosloff: Very important to be able to throw it out there and just be like, okay, well, this is, I don’t love this, but I’m going to get it done. And then you iterate over time versus like perfectionism out of the gate. Very, because perfection out of the gate is going to ruin you. Other thing that’s important to know is that you have the ability to stop.
[00:23:12] Adam Kosloff: Like you should definitely take the shot and go for it. But after a while you’re like, I can’t do this. It’s not working. Don’t be afraid to quit. I think, you know, there’s a time to quit. There’s, I’m not the point, but there’s some, sometimes quitting is the right move. With content, I mean, I’m saying like, I mean, obviously, like, when people stay with me for a long time.
[00:23:28] Adam Kosloff: But, you know, even with that, it’s like, there’s times, there’s a season for everything, and so, not to be afraid to, like, it’s, you’re not, it’s not a life
[00:23:35] Steve Fretzin: center. But I would also talk to other people that are writing for that publication, or that are doing a podcast, that have experiences in what you’re getting into.
[00:23:45] Steve Fretzin: And ask them what their secrets are. How’s it going? How long have you been doing it? How’s it working for you? I mean, not all marketing has a direct ROI and I’ve been writing for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin for eight years. Do I? People call me all the time. Steve, I can’t wait to work with you. I read your article in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
[00:24:00] Steve Fretzin: I mean, that’s not happening. Okay. Yeah. Why do I keep writing for that? Well, because what’s happening is I’m building up a reputation. As, and I actually got, um, um, nominated for an Illinois press association award last year. I mean, or this year, the summer, I don’t know when it was, it was recently. And, and, but that’s, that’s not the only part of it.
[00:24:19] Steve Fretzin: The other part of it is I’m able to repurpose that though, that column on my blog, I’m able to, you know, leverage that. And it just adds, everything adds up, podcast, books, articles, blog, I mean, I’m just, you know, just, and everything piles up to where you’re really becoming known as the, and I hate to use the term thought leader, but that’s kind of what, what people are aiming to do.
[00:24:43] Steve Fretzin: And if you’re not putting out content. Uh, you’re kind of maybe losing the game to other people who are. There’s a
[00:24:50] Adam Kosloff: great, uh, kind of relevant story that, uh, we’re kind of where I read this maybe in another podcast. We’re talking about like songwriters, right? So, how, what does it take to write a great song?
[00:24:58] Adam Kosloff: And they took two groups of, of great pop songwriter artists. And one of them, they said, okay, you’ve got one week, I want you to write, you know, two amazing songs. You have the whole week, write the best songs you can. And then the second group, they said, write as many songs as you can. We don’t care if they’re good or bad.
[00:25:13] Adam Kosloff: Just throw them out. Right? And then at each group, they created this thing. They had some statistics, right? And then they measure what songs people really like, what songs are a joke. And the people who wrote, who didn’t care, who just went for quantity, their songs were better than the people who spent the whole time doing.
[00:25:30] Adam Kosloff: And they’re the same exact quality, but caliber songwriters. I love that. It’s just like, it’s you throw stuff against the wall.
[00:25:37] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And again, I don’t think you have to go into it blind. And I think, um, What I wanted to kind of wrap things up with, though, was to ask you a little bit about how to, how to evaluate the different platforms of content and content creation for platforms.
[00:25:53] Steve Fretzin: Based on maybe what you’re trying to accomplish, maybe based on where your audience is, I think that’s something that maybe people don’t think about is, look, I can do TikTok, you know, all day and have fun with that, but that’s not where the lawyers are, you know, that’s where my teenager is, for example, just as a, you know, I know there’s, there’s adults on TikTok, but I’m just saying like LinkedIn, LinkedIn.
[00:26:12] Steve Fretzin: For me, reaching lawyers far better than Facebook, where most of them being risk averse and realizing it’s just a huge waste of time, you know, don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. So… Can you, can you talk to that for, for a minute, wrapping things up here today?
[00:26:30] Adam Kosloff: Yeah. I mean, listen, I think, I think that really you want to know where your audience is.
[00:26:33] Adam Kosloff: Like if you’re because, you know, people are like professionals and you’re doing like, you know, business law. Sure. You’re not going to go on TikTok, but I wouldn’t be so didactic either, especially if you’re like, if you have a very, you’re, you love TikTok and you’re on it all the time and you think it’s, and you think it’s funny, you enjoy it.
[00:26:48] Adam Kosloff: Well, okay, and you’re a car accident lawyer or whatever, or even, you’re even more, you’re more buttoned up, you’re doing like, business insurance, well, maybe you could be the business insurance lawyer on TikTok, which is really funny, and there’s other business, you know, insurance executives who are going to watch that, so, I wouldn’t, I, I would pay attention to that, but also just pay attention to your own journey, because if you have, if you’re, if you’re neutral, then go for the platform, which seems more likely, but if you’re like, I have a particular bench, or I love this platform,
go
[00:27:11] Steve Fretzin: for that.
[00:27:12] Steve Fretzin: Well, that also goes back to something we said earlier, which is like, Follow what you enjoy if there’s something that you enjoy like I enjoy talking and interviewing and having conversations like this I mean, where is the podcast in my whole life? Like I’ve been not doing this up until three and a half something years ago and before that what was I doing?
[00:27:29] Steve Fretzin: Well, I was writing and I was doing all this stuff, which is great I enjoy that creative process but not anywhere near as much as this now This is this is where I feel most comfortable and at home and I’m able to demonstrate Not only my expertise in most cases, but also just, you know, kind of bring out my personality, my authenticity that may not quite get there in the writing.
[00:27:48] Steve Fretzin: And by the way, who’s reading, writing, you know, is very different than who’s listening to podcasts and in their car driving into the, into the, into the city for, you know, for the day. Um, they’re just different, you know, just, I think it’s much more accessible these
[00:28:02] Adam Kosloff: days. Yeah, and also you’re good on camera and you like doing it, so it’s like, it’s like, you, you kind of found this, but you might not have found it, had you, you had to choose right out of the gate, you kind of probably was an iterative process, you’re writing for these things, you’re writing this, and you’re like, oh wow, like, wait a minute, this is super fun, and you go with that.
[00:28:17] Adam Kosloff: Yeah.
[00:28:18] Steve Fretzin: Well listen man, let’s wrap up with um, with something I want to check out, you mentioned your game changing podcast is The Secret to Success with Eric Thomas, and I felt a little bit, Not a shame but like embarrassed that I know eric thomas because like if you said tony robbins okay well i’m right and so tony robbins he was that you know the original coach or whatever motivational speaker walk on calls talk talk to us about secret to success eric thomas.
[00:28:42] Adam Kosloff: Well, I listen to mostly Eric Thomas YouTube videos, but his podcast is the same. He’s this guy, he was homeless, and a high school dropout, and all these terrible things happened to him. And he kind of pulled himself up on the bootstraps. He’s now like, you know, super great motivational speaker, you Google motivational speaker on YouTube, he’ll pop up.
[00:28:57] Adam Kosloff: But I love, you know, he’s like, he… LZU, and he’s just like, you know, a lot of his message is very commonsensical, but it’s like, you know, you gotta take risk, you know, you’re, you’re in charge of you, you should be at beast mode, you should be like, 100%, it’s kind of one of these, like, it’s like you’re, like, around steroids, like he’s yelling at you, but in a way that makes you feel good, you’re like, yeah, I can do it, and I, I just, I like having that, like, it’s like a moon and coffin.
[00:29:18] Steve Fretzin: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So again, you know, you’re looking for that, that jolt of, uh, adrenaline, uh, check out a secret to success with Eric Thomas. Hey, um, Adam, as we wrap up, I want to thank our, our sponsors of course, get staffed up, um, doing a great job, uh, for the lawyers that need that full time assistant. You know, that could be a marketing assistant that could be, you know, an actual admin.
[00:29:40] Steve Fretzin: Uh, they pull them right out of Latin America and they’re, you know, half the price of what it would be locally. Of course, Overture. law, who’s killing it on helping lawyers, uh, ethically be share and GetVisible, who’s just a terrific marketing agency. And if you check out my website, bretson. com, everybody, um, you can see some of, uh, GetVisible’s great work.
[00:29:59] Steve Fretzin: And, um, Hey man, thank you, Adam, for being on the show and sharing your wisdom. I think, you know, it went by quick. I was like, not sure how fast it was going to go. And it seemed like about 10 minutes, but it was actually about 30. And if people want to get in touch with you, they want to hear about Virtuoso content.
[00:30:14] Steve Fretzin: They wanted to say, everything you guys just said is great. I want to outsource. That’s okay too, right? So they just say, Adam sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. I better call him. What’s the best way for them to reach you?
[00:30:24] Adam Kosloff: I mean through my website and I can also give my cell phone if you want, but
[00:30:27] Steve Fretzin: either way.
[00:30:28] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, give everything. We’ll also put your show notes.
[00:30:30] Adam Kosloff: Sure. My website is www. virtuosocontent. com and my cell, please don’t share widely with spammers. Okay, I should probably get a different number. It’s 818 601 6747. Why, what’s
[00:30:46] Steve Fretzin: wrong with the number? Like a special number? You like an 800 number or something?
[00:30:51] Steve Fretzin: No, no, no, no, no, no. All right. Uh, well, listen, thank you, Adam. Again, I appreciate you, uh, coming on the show and sharing your wisdom. Um, really great. And well, you and I will keep in the loop, right?
[00:31:01] Adam Kosloff: Absolutely. And this is so fun. Thank you so much for having me on. This is great.
[00:31:04] Steve Fretzin: All right. Good stuff, man. And thank you, everybody, for spending some time on the Be That Lawyer podcast with, uh, with Adam and I today.
[00:31:10] Steve Fretzin: I think content has become, you know, content is king, used to be cash is king, now it’s content is king. And it’s really, you know, how are you competing? You know, we can talk business development, we can talk marketing, personal branding. Ultimately, you know, you’re either doing it or you’re falling behind. I mean, I don’t think there’s a, there’s…
[00:31:26] Steve Fretzin: You know, uh, uh, an award for second place or third place in most cases. So you’re definitely want to consider some of the things you heard today and it’s all helping you to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized and a skilled rainmaker. Take care everybody. Be safe, be well, and we will talk again very soon.
[00:31:47] Narrator: To be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin. com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.