Ali Awad: Creating a Growth Mindset for Financial Freedom

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Ali Awad discuss:

  • How to get engagement on your company’s social media.
  • Mindset and the future of law.
  • Hanging around others outside of the law field to learn other forms of business.
  • Delegating low level tasks and firing yourself every step of the way.

Key Takeaways:

  • If you’re trying to get business from social media, make sure your page is public and you are giving valuable content, not just posting ads.
  • Your law firm is a business, not a law practice. Run it like a business.
  • You need to determine, are you self-employed or do you have a high-paying job? How are you working in and building your business?
  • One great employee is better than 3-5 mediocre employees, and will make you more than 3-5 mediocre employees ever could.

“You need to be willing to try things that are uncertain when there is potential for massive success.” —  Ali Awad

Connect with Ali Awad: 

Website: https://aliawadlaw.com/

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceolawyer/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aliawadlaw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ceolawyer/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ceolawyer/?hl=en

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business 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

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, lawyer, business, atlanta, advertising, clients, attorney, educate, page, tires, mindset, social media, law firm, work, day, years, check, run, grow, literally

SPEAKERS

Narrator, Steve Fretzin, Ali Awad

 

Ali Awad  [00:00]

In that they need to get out of their comfort zone. But you also need to be willing to try things that are uncertain. And I think what we like is comfort. But what we thrive on is certainty. And if you allow yourself a little bit of discomfort, you still might want to hold on to that certainty. But you need to be willing to try things that are uncertain when there is potential for massive success.

 

Narrator  [00:31]

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.

 

Steve Fretzin  [00:54]

Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin. As the announcer just mentioned, I think you heard that enough at this point, but hey, listen, it’s another beautiful day here in Chicago interviewing people from around the world. Trying to get you the information on how to be that lawyer someone that’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker and your you may not get a better guest than the guy I’ve got for you today. His name’s Ali Awad, he is the CEO lawyer. And this is this is a story that you’re not going to want to miss. So hopefully you got your seatbelt on, and you’re ready to go for today. How’s it going, Ali?

 

Ali Awad  [01:30]

Man, I’m just so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Steve.

 

Steve Fretzin  [01:33]

Yeah, I’m jazzed we had an unbeliever, I think our our pre podcast interview was supposed to go 15 minutes, I think we talked for 45. Because everything you and I talked about just got me more and more jazzed up about having you on the show. And I’m just fascinated. So if even just giving your background and your bio is going to blow some people’s minds, but if you wouldn’t mind doing that, I normally say Reader’s Digest version, but I’m gonna let you run with it a little bit, because it’s, it’s too cool. So take it away.

 

Ali Awad  [02:04]

All right. My name is Ali Awad, and I am the CEO lawyer. Now I say that I get my clients a lot of money because I’m a car accident attorney. But really what I’m known for is Instagram, I started putting out Instagram content back in 2016, even before I started my law practice, and I just realized that there was a disconnect between professionals, and how consumers connect to those professionals. And growing up as an immigrant in the Bible Belt in Dalton, Georgia, in a Muslim household, Arab speaking Muslim household, it was just hard to fit in. So not only do you not feel like you belong in your community, or in the your own neighborhood, because everyone is either Mexican, or, you know, on the other extreme, super conservative. There’s no access to professionals like you would want. And when I realized that there was this gap, like there were there were these, obviously, politicians are huge on social media. There’s these doctors that are super famous on social media, there’s business gurus, coaches, health, fitness experts, like literally almost every other industry has been taken care of on social media, and they bridge the gap so that people have access to those professionals. And I realized that we needed that in the legal community. So in 2016, after being about being an entrepreneur for, let’s say, 16 years or so, I decided to start the CEO lawyer page on Instagram, I’ve been giving out free legal advice and business advice consistently for the past five years. And now, you know, I’ve been blessed to build a law firm that has 40 employees. We’re doing eight figures consistently every year. And it’s all been because of social media, just giving people that free legal advice and connecting them to a professional, and just being honest and normal. You know, I rarely wearing a suit and tie, I don’t want people to think I’m a suit and tie guy. And I just I want you to feel like you have access to me. And I think that’s going to be the trend in the future in all industries. And I was just lucky enough to start a little early. So that’s the short and skinny about me. But you know, obviously, there were seven different companies before I became an attorney, that were ecommerce businesses, you know, martial arts growing up and becoming a black belt with, you know, five siblings and learning how to change tires at the age of seven. And, like, there’s just so much other stuff that happened behind the scenes, which is why I feel so thankful and grateful to be able to work with my brain instead of my hands. Because if you’ve worked manual labor, you know, it’s, it’s not sustainable.

 

Steve Fretzin  [04:36]

And you know, Lee, a lot of the lawyers that are coming out of law school in the last number of years, and I’ve talked to some professors, and the professors are saying like, they have no knowledge of marketing, no knowledge of business development, some of them have never used a checkbook, right? They’ve never written a check. And these are people that are going to now get into the legal space in the business world, and it’s gonna be very difficult for them to adapt and compete against someone that like us has been an entrepreneur since he’s nine years old, and has you know, has been driven ever since. So what I mean, what what should they be thinking about right now, and I normally wait till the end to give advice or get closer to it. But I feel like we could just jump right in.

 

Ali Awad  [05:17]

Well, if you’re on social media right now, and you visit your page, and the very first thing is that it’s on private, and you’re in business, that’s a problem. It’s literally like having a business with the front door locked. So first, if you’re trying to get business from social media, make sure your pages on public. Next, if your page is a series of advertisements, and every single day or every week, you’re posting content, that doesn’t really give value to people, it’s more just letting them know that you’re here and you’re advertising to them. And especially if you’re a lawyer, you’re like, well fight for maximum compensation. No one cares about that shit. So don’t post that you’re not It’s not you don’t want social media to be advertised to, you go to be entertained first, and maybe educated second. So if you can package it up in such a way where you can get people excited to be on your page, now you’ve got something. And third, finally, once you’ve created content of video that captivates your audience. So that makes sense that people actually want to engage with, and I have a, you know, a secret strategy for how I like to get my videos engaged with first, the first three seconds, I want to grab your attention. So I’m putting my hand out there, I’m using props, I’m doing whatever, I can stop what you’re doing right now and listen, right, we try to get people’s attention within the first three seconds, so they don’t bounce off. Second, we try to keep our videos, you know, around the 62nd mark, because people have a short attention span, you don’t want the videos to be too long. And third, we don’t always have a call to action. We just give people the free information. Hey, I’m in the roofing industry. And I want to tell you three ways that you can increase the longevity of your roof 123, or, Hey, I’m a car mechanic. And a lot of people say that they rotate their tires every 5000 miles, I’m going to show you the truth about how to lock you know, get long term effects from your tires, whatever it is, give people that value. And the point of that is when you have that good video, don’t be afraid to put money behind it. Don’t be afraid to run it as an ad to boost it to your followers and to friends of your followers and to look alike audiences put money behind it. Because even with the 1000s of videos that I’ve created, there are a handful that I would call Rockstar videos. And those are the ones that I’m still running as ads to this day. So those are the three things, make sure your page is not private, it’s public, and it’s a business or professional profile. Second, make sure that you’re creating captivating video content for people grab their attention. And third, don’t be afraid to run it as an ad. That’s what you should be doing on your videos. And the more you do it. And by way, I messed that up a little bit. The second one really is don’t advertise, just educate and entertain. But those are the three main points. And I think if if you look at your page, and you audit your Instagram, your Facebook, whatever it is right now, and you realize that you’re advertising all the time, your page doesn’t have that much activity that must action, and you’re rarely running anything as a sponsored or boosted post. There’s it’s no secret why you’re not succeeding on Instagram or on Facebook, or on Tik Tok or wherever. It’s the same on all social platforms. It’s a place to be social, not a place to advertise,

 

Steve Fretzin  [08:26]

right. It’s called Social for a reason. And, and I think that there’s also a difference and we want to just maybe have a quick conversation about lawyers that are going B to see versus lawyers that are going b2b. So like someone that’s dealing with General Counsel, someone that’s dealing with CEOs of major corporations or just you know, people in the mid market, they might have a totally different strategy or mindset about about how they’re going to use social media. Can you talk on or touch on that?

 

Ali Awad  [08:54]

Yeah, so obviously Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, these are great for b2c businesses, for business direct to consumer, which is, if you’re, you know, an attorney, a personal injury lawyer, immigration attorney, criminal defense attorney, right, any one of those industries where you want to go direct to the consumer, and you can educate them and get them to hire you for those services. Those are great platforms. That doesn’t mean you should just forget about LinkedIn. LinkedIn has always been the be to be sort of world. If you are in the corporate world, or if you’re a real estate attorney, for instance, and you rely on other agents, real estate agents to get you those businesses get you get you those closings, then you want to educate on LinkedIn, don’t advertise to people don’t cold message them without having already built some sort of brand recognition. And a great way to do that is if you know who your referral partners are, like you’re looking for real estate agents. Maybe you can teach them something that no other lawyer has shared with them. Yeah, you make a little bit more money. Like where do they get better quality clients

 

Steve Fretzin  [09:59]

then That is so spot on alley because they’re, they’re wondering, the real estate attorneys are wondering how do I get in front of real estate agents? How do I, you know, network with them, I don’t have business to give them yet I’m asking them to give me business. And if you can do something unique and educate them on something or be a value, add in some other way, that could be the reciprocal point that needs to happen for you to get them on your team. Look,

 

Ali Awad  [10:25]

people do business with those that they know, like and trust. So they’re not going to trust you, unless they know you. And like you first, the way that you get them to know you is by putting out content that makes them want to engage and actually watch and consume, they’re not going to get to know you as easily if all you’re doing is just advertising in their face, I read a statistic the other day that there’s over 35 or 40,000 advertisements per day, on average, the typical American consumer, and of those 35 to 40,000 advertisements, people need to make, you know, several 1000 decisions per day, where do you think you fit into that mix, if all you’re doing is advertising, but if you put out some valuable content you get in front of people, you show them how you’re adding value to their lives, and I hate using that buzzword value, but like, think of it as I’m going to make your life better, easier and more profitable by watching and consuming my content. And if I can do that for you, then you’re going to reciprocate by following me by getting involved on my page by maybe opening my message when I am ready to do that call to action. That’s the difference. And so I think if they if you want to get people to know like and trust you first get them to know you by creating captivating content that they’re going to want to engage with. And then they’re going to like you when you establish yourself as an authority figure that’s really just looking to help other people and not necessarily looking for them to hire you. And then they trust you in the consistency of it all. Because you’ve been there. It’s old, faithful, I can rely on you, you can sure as hell rely on me, when you open up Instagram and Facebook, and you’re in the Atlanta area, you’re gonna see my face. That’s why I can’t go anywhere in public now without people recognizing me. And it happened in a couple of years, because I’m in your face. It’s annoying. My hustle is annoying. My grind on social media is annoying. And it shouldn’t be. That’s how you get in people’s faces. But guess what? They’re not going to forget me. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:24]

So let’s let’s, let’s take a step back. So I think from from, you know, marketing, networking advertising, you know, we can talk about that for that’s, you know, that’s a whole show right there. One of the main things I wanted to get out of you today was really about your mindset, because I speak to lawyers, not only every day all day, but I also have had over done over 120 podcasts at this point. And I’m telling you without blowing smoke, and you know, this, you’re incredibly unique. And your mindset is frickin powerful. So I want to talk to because the lawyers that are listening to you talk about of educating and entertaining and putting out, you know, doing all this stuff, like they can’t even get like to the front the front of doing any of this stuff. Because their mindset is I’ve got work to do. I’ve got to crank out hours, I’ve got the billable. And we know that that’s that’s a short term vision of the future. So let’s talk about your mindset. And let’s talk about the future law and how that aligns. Go. So right,

 

Ali Awad  [13:27]

let me let me let me do this first. So if you haven’t all of my page, if you haven’t checked me out at CEO lawyer on Instagram yet, then I invite you to check out my page, you don’t have to follow me unless you feel like it’s actually valuable to you, I’m not gonna get offended. I want you to look at my page and see how my posts differentiate from other people. Why you think I’m winning at the social media game compared to everyone else in my industry as a personal injury attorney, the biggest law firms in Georgia, the biggest law firms in Georgia are spending $10 million a year in advertising. And we’re blowing them out of the water in terms of our unbelievable growth trajectory, the amount of cases that we’re signing up the amount of revenue that we’re closing, because we’re playing in a game that they’re not competing, you were competing in 2030, and they’re playing in 2010. So by the time they figure out what’s happening, it’s already way too late. And I’m already on to the next thing. So let me talk a little bit about mindset. My mindset is first, as a business owner, I run my law firm like a business. I don’t run it like a law practice. I’m not looking to litigate every single case to fluff my ego. Most of you as personal injury lawyers are advertising to other lawyers. When you start saying your registered trial attorney bar certified litigator to no one cares about that. You know what people care about, that they can trust you. And that you can get them the most amount of money as quickly as possible. That’s what people care about. So four years ago, I was dead broke, I was living in an apartment with a friend of mine, paying 300 ollars a month in rent, running my law firm from the trunk of my car. So this is not too far removed, when I know the value of making that extra five or $10. I’m still that same kid that was plugging tires at page eight and my dad’s mechanic shop. And just so I can make that quick few bucks. You know, if a car came in, and I tried to sell them on one use tire, I wanted to upgrade them to all four, I’ve literally changed with my bare hands, over 20,000 sets of tires, before I became a team before I turned 18. So I know what it’s like to do real manual labor. And most of you as attorneys, and as professionals, don’t realize how good you have it. You know why? Because you’re only hanging around other lawyers, stop hanging around other lawyers, go hang around car salesmen go hang around real estate agents, go hang around roofers and people that are actually working and hustling to get these clients in, and to work with their bare hands. And then you’ll realize how much harder other people need to work. And with real manual backbreaking labor, compared to you. And then tell me that you can’t be thankful and grateful for the opportunity to work as an attorney.

 

Steve Fretzin  [16:30]

Well, we’re the idea that they’re, they’re saying how busy they are, they’re, you know, they’re just they’re so busy billing hours. And I’m not, I’m not denying that, that there aren’t lawyers that are super, I work with the lawyers that are billing 60 hours a week. But it’s because they’re generally because they’re taking in the work that other people are going in hustling for. And they’re doing, they’re doing the, the manual labor of the legal work in this in this in this case, they’re not going out and getting business in generating their lifestyle, their future lifestyle, they’re just cranking out the work that comes their way. And it’s, it’s unpredictable. And it’s, it’s, it’s not really what gives you balance in your life, or gives you real, like I just wrote an article called, don’t do what you love to do, do what you love to do for other people. And the whole point of that was that you need to have your own clients, so you can work with those clients and get the satisfaction of changing lives, not just cranking out work. So I don’t know if that works with him what you’re saying, but um, look, you have

 

Ali Awad  [17:29]

to, you have to realize whether you own a business, or whether the business owns you, you have to determine whether you’re self employed, or you just have a high paying job. Okay, I’m not saying one is better than the other, you just have to have a real reflection and analyze what’s actually happening in your organization. Most lawyers just have high paying jobs where they’re self employed. And here’s the litmus test. If you can take three months off and your income doesn’t change, then you own a real business. Otherwise, you’re most likely just self employed. Now, I’m not saying I have a flourishing, well oiled machine that just works like, you know, like butter. We’re getting there. We’re improving every single day. But as a business owner, if you want to build a lifestyle, where you don’t have to be involved every single day, naturally, you need to delegate and fire yourself from the tasks that are not worth your time. So if you’re a solopreneur, or you just have one to five employees, we’ll look at how you’ve categorized their work. Some of those employees are not necessary. Some of them, you put them in there just because Oh, I really liked this person, or I want to, you know, have them in my organization, or they’re just really, really cheap. And so I can afford them. I despise cheap employees, I run away from them like the plague. Because I’ve learned and you will quickly learn that one great employee is better than three to five mediocre ones. And depending on the value of your business and the size of your transactions, one great employee will make you more than three to five employees that are mediocre ever could. So in the natural progression of becoming a business owner to going from as a salesperson or self employed to that entrepreneur that’s building a business, you need to first learn how to delegate all of the low level tasks, things that are not worth your time that don’t require much critical thinking and advanced knowledge. You don’t need to be that educated to scan a document and save it to a file. You don’t need to be that educated to put together my mail and send it out and put a stamp on it. You don’t need to have that much skill to organize my files alphabetically. You don’t need to have that much skill to clean up the office and just be around and offer water, tea, coffee, whatever, you know, whatever tickles your fancy to people that come into the office. You don’t have to be that educated to send out a group bulk message or a bulk email. You know, you do have to have critical thinking skills if you’re trying to come Vince a client to hire your firm, or to hire you as an attorney. That’s not a low level task. And most of you have the wrong person answering the phones, when it shouldn’t be you, I was handling my own calls up until I was bringing in 6070 cases a month on my own. And then I had to build a seven person intake department just to be able to keep up with the volume. And just now finally, we’re getting to a point where seven people can literally do the work that I was doing myself, but better. So delegate the low level tasks, make sure you know what’s a low level tasks and what isn’t. Fire yourself every step of the way. Fire yourself from that what you were doing the day before, that’s the only way you can grow. And if you want to know what’s not worth your time, calculate the value of your time. It’s the amount of hours you work last year. And the amount of money that you made last year, divide the amount of money by the amount of hours you made 200 grand last year, you work 2000 hours, your time’s worth $100 an hour, if all you do is 12 $15 An hour tasks, you can never outpace your time you have 168 hours a week, if you want to sleep seven or eight hours a night, you have 90 to 100 hours or so left in the week, let’s take some new time we got to eat, we got to take care of ourselves, you can grind it out at 70 to 80 hours a week, and be just fine. But if all you’re doing is low level tasks, you’re going to stay and you’re going to feel like you have that glass ceiling. So delegate first fire yourself from that which is not worth your time or so that you can focus on things that are better for your organization. And third, do a business audit, look at the quality of your clients? Are you taking everything that walks in the door? Or are you actually calculating the amount of time you’re going to spend on this particular case, comparing it to how much your time is actually worth and forcing yourself to grow. Because you can’t work 170 hours a week. You can only work as much time as you’re awake realistically, right? And you don’t want to cut out sleep sleeps important you got to eat right, you got to survive. So if you want to grow, you got to start cutting out some of those clients that are not worth your time. And if you’re taking hourly work at you know, $250 an hour is like oh, well, it’s okay. As long as I’m making $250 an hour, I don’t care. What about all the time to set up that file and all the additional work that you’re not monetizing, and you’re not profiting from then what? And at $250 an hour? Can you afford to hire another attorney to do that same work for you? And will they do it at the same level and competence and competence. And then what if they end up quitting, and they decide to take those business those clients that book of business with you, then what you’ve built a good paying job for yourself. And it’s so totally okay to do that for 20 3040 years. But if you want that financial freedom, you have to follow those three steps, delegate, fire yourself, audit your business to make sure that you’re getting high quality clients that you really want, and that are pushing you to grow. And if that means increasing your prices to phase out some of the lower dollar clients because they don’t fit within your organization. That’s what you need to do.

 

Steve Fretzin  [23:11]

Yeah, I mean, that’s all goes to your initial point of this has to be run like a business and the saying in businesses, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And most people aren’t taking the time to measure anything, their hours, their time, their money, none of it. So they just go along year after year thinking everything’s fine, when in reality, it probably isn’t.

 

Ali Awad  [23:33]

That which gets measured gets improved. So don’t expect your weight to go down. Physically, if you’re not weighing yourself and measuring and keeping track of what you’re consuming. Same thing with your income. Same thing with the amount of clients you bring in. Same thing with how you’re managing your employees, you have to measure them. And you don’t need some fancy organization and some, you know, some advanced chart right to keep track to focus on the fundamentals. What do we care about? How many clients do we bring in today? How many clients to bring in this month? How many calls did we make on the clients? Did we lose? What was our revenue numbers? Like? You know, those are those are key performance indicators. You start with just the first couple, and then add a little bit more to it over and over and over again. But most of us just put everything into one pile and say, Look, I’m just a lawyer, I’m going to you know, put it all together in one pile and think I’ll do everything that’s required. And then I’ll have one paralegal that basically handles everything else. That’s not a real business. That’s that’s relying on your paralegal to do attorney work. So it’s not a sustainable model.

 

Steve Fretzin  [24:35]

So let me let me let me just recap. So we’ve talked about some key elements with social media. We’ve talked about some key elements with that with monetizing your business and making sure it’s running like a business. But the other piece that we want to we want to hit before we wrap up our 30 is about mindset and we talked about mindset earlier, but you have a very unique mindset of how you stay positive and how you function at a very high level? Can you talk to that for a few minutes?

 

Ali Awad  [25:04]

Yeah, so if you’ve ever traveled to a third world country, then you know, people don’t have it as good as you have in the United States, okay, they have to work a lot harder for a lot longer to get a fraction of what you can get like that. So I have a lot of family members that are overseas that don’t have US citizenship, they’re very similar to me, a lot of them are smarter, better looking, they’re more physically fit and active. They literally have everything that I have, except for opportunity. So when I come back to the US, and I see that this is still a country where you can work two full time jobs at minimum wage, and save up money by living below your means for a couple of years, and be able to buy a house and a car, and basically everything else that you need and take care of all of your financial needs, from working minimum wage or just like, you know, basic jobs, it really makes you think, how can I fail in this kind of organization? How can I fail in this kind of system, if you’ve traveled when you’ve seen other people, but if all you’ve seen is just what’s in this little bubble and this microcosm of well, you know, the government doesn’t want to help us out. And you know, COVID really set us back now. Now, those are just excuses, exposed you COVID exposed your business and expose your vulnerabilities. And if you are on the way out, then it just expedited it, and if you’re on the way up and expedited that as well. So I encourage people to travel and see how other people are living. I lived in China, I lived in Mexico, I lived in Brazil, I’ve lived in all these different countries. And I’m telling you, if people in other countries work 7080 hours a week regularly, and no matter what they do for the rest of their lives, they cannot afford to buy a house. And you can do that with all these government funds, and FHA loans and everything else. You can’t not be grateful. You have to be grateful, you have to be thankful. So for me, it’s disrespectful, if I don’t put in the work, and I don’t put in the effort every single day, because there’s people that would literally die. And you can see that from the people that were just stuck on that plane leaving Afghanistan and falling to their deaths. There are people that would literally die to be in this country. And you want to sit here and complain about what the President is doing, man. Forgive me with all that nonsense. I don’t have time for that. Yeah, okay, you have the most opportunities that you could ever possibly want. Right here. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one of the best, all you need to do is just get to work, cut out the laziness, stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. Minimize your lifestyle a little bit so that you can slowly catch up, learn how to save, cut out all of the unnecessary luxuries and get to work, I promise you in two to three years time, your life will be drastically different. If you turn off the TV and open up a book, once a week, once a month, I promise you, it’s going to change things. And that’s it, you have all the opportunities right here. So in my mind, I feel like I’m not doing enough. I wake up every morning and I feel like man, I could have done better the other day, I really I don’t feel like I’m working enough. I really don’t. But I know that I’m building something for my wife and my family. And I don’t, I don’t want to get this twisted guys. I take a lot of vacations, I spend a lot of time with my wife, I get to see my family whenever I want. I have decent relationships with friends, because they’re not too many friends. But the ones that I do have are closely knit and closely tied to me. I enjoy myself. But when it’s time to work, it’s time to work. And most of you care so much about that work life balance. It’s more just where does my life go? And how does work sort of fit into it, when it shouldn’t be? How do I plant myself and build that foundation for the next 10 to 20 years. And if I have to make some short term sacrifices for long term gain, and get that delayed gratification, and that’s what I need to do that I’m not so if you’re happy, if you’re happy, that’s okay. If you’re not complaining about your finances, and everything is great, then this doesn’t apply to you. But if you’re if you’re not happy with your finances, or your lifestyle, or the way things are, and I promise you most of it is because you just need that mindset shift.

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:17]

But that’s that’s it, you just nailed it, that there’s a discomfort with making a change in the short term to affect the long term people would rather not make that that change, whether that’s health, whether that’s business, whether that’s whatever, it’s just easier to just kind of stay with what’s what’s going on, when in reality. That’s exactly why that social

 

Ali Awad  [29:37]

media is working. Yeah, that’s exactly I’ve been saying it for years, no one is going to take money away from something that is working and put it into something that’s speculative. Social media has always been speculative until I came around and proved otherwise. But I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t afford to be on billboards and radio and TV. So I just arted boosting ads from my phone for $5 apiece, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And now we spent a quarter million dollars a month. Next year, we’ll spend a half a million dollars a month. And the year after that we’ll outspend the number one law firms in Georgia. And the year after that, we will be number one in Georgia. That’s what’s going to happen.

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:15]

But but the point is that the short years sometimes have to have some short term struggle and change and in chasing after what you desire to get the long term effects, and many lawyers sitting back listening to this, they haven’t made that move yet. They’re still in the weeds, they’re still in the quicksand and the muck in the mire. And at some point, every lawyer is going to have to make a decision because the future of law is changing. And I did a infographic, what’s it called, like a survey, I’m on LinkedIn about it. Like all these things are happening AI, the deregulation of law firms, all these things coming up the pike, and lawyers are sitting around just kind of dealing with what’s in front of them everyday not thinking about the future. But I think you’ve nailed it in in that that point that you’ve got to take some short term moves to get the long term effects.

 

Ali Awad  [31:06]

Where you’re, you’re 100% Correct, in that they need to get out of their comfort zone. But you also need to be willing to try things that are uncertain. And I think what, what we like is comfort, but what we thrive on a certainty. And if you allow yourself a little bit of discomfort, you still might want to hold on to that certainty. But you need to be willing to try things that are uncertain when there is potential for massive success. And right now, if you continue to do the same things over and over again and expect different results, you’re going to wake up one day and realize it’s just not working anymore, and you’re going to have to shut down and go work for someone or really drastically change everything that’s going on. But if you start taking 5% of your time, 10% of your time now, putting it into uncertain things. And uncertainty could literally be in stock market, real estate, crypto, whatever. You know, I say social media, I say spend some time creating content and building a brand. You only need 50 to 100 True loyal followers to make a dent in any sort of market. That’s where you need to start.

 

Steve Fretzin  [32:19]

Beautiful. Well, Lee, thank you so much for all your wisdom and your passion and your drive. Let’s take a few minutes and hit the three best of how does that sound? Let’s do it. Alright, man. So Atlanta. I haven’t been to Atlanta in a long, long time. What’s your favorite play? You’re gonna go out and have a night out? You’re going to have a great meal. What? Where are you headed?

 

Ali Awad  [32:39]

First thing is don’t pronounce the second T in Atlanta. Atlanta. Yeah, it’s Atlanta. Yeah, we’re gonna know you’re not from here. All right. No one says no one says what is it? Hotlanta either. I did one of my ads a few years ago. Is that heartland? Yeah. So where’s a good place to eat? Yeah, man. So there’s so much great food in Atlanta. It really depends on what you like. But we’ve got some really good southern food here. So I would encourage you to try southern food. There’s there are a lot of different restaurants but it’s really by like demographic by by like geographic, sorry, geographically, if you’re in South Atlanta, like around the airport and that southern area, or West Atlanta, that’s where you’re going to get some good fried chickens and collard greens and some mashed potato you’re gonna get some good southern foods. And then if you go up north, like in Duluth area of i 85. The best Korean food that you can get Korean barbecue Korean everything. And then there are some restaurants that can combine the two. There’s one place that I really like it’s called C now I’m gonna forget, but it’s literally attached to a convenience store. It looks like just some one getting place, but it combines Korean cuisine with Southern food and hospitality. And they’ve just got some amazing food. So you really can’t go wrong in Atlanta. Just depends on you know what you’re looking for.

 

Steve Fretzin  [34:11]

Okay, so I’m gonna plan on eating some some good southern food and Korean food. What are some other things I’m coming there’s one thing I have to do in Atlanta when I’m visiting. What is that?

 

Ali Awad  [34:22]

One thing that you have to do when you come and visit Atlanta? I don’t want to say all the normal touristy stuff like the Coca Cola factory and like the aquarium and all things everyone does that. I think checking out a game at the Braves Stadium in Atlanta, you know, baseball game. Yeah. And then kind of wandering around that area for food. It’s North Atlanta. It’s not downtown, but it’s kind of like a safer an up and coming area. Or checking out the BeltLine, like spending a day just just riding a bicycle or renting out one of those little scooters on the BeltLine, and stopping by and just trying got all those little? Those great mom and pop shops and ice cream stores and things like that, especially if you go to there’s just one just one area. See now. So there’s Krog Street Market. Kr O G. Krog Street Market is probably what I would say is a go to, and it’s attached to the Beltline. It’s kind of the other side of town from the Braves stadium. But just depends on what your style is. Right? And you’d like to just sit and relax, watch a game, or do you want to be in the city in Atlanta and get a vibe for the culture? So Croxley is definitely one of the spots, especially if you’d like to eat.

 

Steve Fretzin  [35:34]

Okay, I like all that. I’m gonna definitely in what are people in Atlanta doing now? Like, what’s what’s a hot thing that people I mean, other than it being hot? What, what are some of the things that are that people enjoy doing that that’s an activity that’s, that’s hot right now.

 

Ali Awad  [35:49]

A lot of people are moving in. I’ll tell you that. Yeah. You know, I think a very a very popular activity really, in Atlanta is going to Lake linear, are going to the Acworth Beach, which is like another like cars with Carters Lake, there’s there’s two major lakes sort of in Georgia, Metro Atlanta. And so just spending a day on the lake and checking out the boats and checking out all the houses there, especially if you go for like Fourth of July or labor day or something like that. That’s definitely an experience. But people are just trying to chill by the pool and go to the lake and Atlanta right now in the wintertime in the summertime. So that’s, that’s where you’ll find most Atlanta, folks.

 

Steve Fretzin  [36:29]

All right, well, I’m gonna have to make a journey down there and visit with you and check out some of that great food and in scenery and all that but listen, Ali, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom and your your attitude and your mindset. I think, you know, being a young attorney, there’s a lot of attorneys, even older attorneys, 40s and 50s that could learn a lot from just listening to you and your attitude and the way that you look at business in the business of law. And just really appreciate you taking some time for for doing the show.

 

Ali Awad  [36:57]

I appreciate it my friend. Thank

 

Steve Fretzin  [36:58]

you for having me. Awesome. And hey everybody, thank you for spending some time today with us and you know, hopefully you got it you’re getting a step closer every time you listen to this show to be that lawyer someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care be safe be well.

 

Narrator  [37:17]

Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for grilling a successful law firm. 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