In this episode, Steve Fretzin, Walt Hampton, David Ackert, Chuki Obiyo, and Liz Wendling discuss:
- Staying consistent in your business development amidst the whirlwind of life.
- The top automations that are saving automations time.
- Scheduling made easier.
- Removing email as a friction point.
Key Takeaways:
- Block time for you and your tasks, not just to accommodate others.
- Your calender communicates your values. What you schedule time for is what you value the most.
- Consider listing out a singular date option, then linking your calendar if you are hesitant to move to the automated scheduling.
- ChatGPT should not be used for blog articles on your website. You want your blog to sound like you.
“We’re all busy, toddlers are busy, we have to create that time and make that time and the more you tell yourself, you’re busy, the more you start to believe that and the more you stay in the pinball machine.” — Liz Wendling
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
Practice Panther: https://www.practicepanther.com/
Episode References:
- ReMarkable2: https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2
- PipelinePlus: https://pipelineplus.com/
- Calendly: https://calendly.com/
- Acuity: https://www.acuityscheduling.com/
- Doodle: https://doodle.com/
- SaneBox: https://www.sanebox.com
- ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
Connect with Walt Hampton:
Website: Summit-Success.com
Email: Walt@Summit-Success.com
FREE eBook: summitsuccess.lpages.co/the-power-principles-of-time-mastery
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/walthampton
Publishing Resource: http://summitpresspublishers.com/steve
Connect with Liz Wendling:
Website: https://www.therainmakingcoach.com/
Books: https://www.therainmakingcoach.com/lizs-book/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizwendling/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lizwendling4
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/insightbusinessconsultants
Connect with Chuki Obiyo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chukiobiyo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lawchuki?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuki_law/?hl=en
Connect with David Ackert:
Website: https://www.ackertinc.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidackert/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidAckert
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
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] Liz Wendling: We’re all busy. Toddlers are busy. We have to create that time and make that time. And the more you tell yourself you’re busy. The more you start to believe that, and the more you stay in the pinball machine.
[00:00:16] 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.
[00:00:38] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody. Welcome to Be That Lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin. Your host, as the announcer mentioned. And you guys didn’t hear that if you’re live today, cause we’re doing it, Be That Lawyer Live again. We’ve got an amazing panel of top experts in legal business development and growing your law practice that are here today.
[00:00:55] Steve Fretzin: I’m going to introduce them shortly. If you guys are coming to this for the first time as an attendee and as a listener of this show, this is where we take interactive questions from a live audience. The toughest challenges, frustration. Juis are having with business development, marketing, time, management, growing your law practice in the most efficient, effective way possible, and try to get you answered from the top people in the industry.
[00:01:20] Steve Fretzin: So, That’s what we’re going to do today. If you have questions, and I hope that you are all prepared with questions, if you would please put them in the chat right away so we can get this. We can’t do the show. If there’s no questions, we’re just going to sit here and look at each other. Uh, no, we’re not going to do that, but, um, I would have really appreciate that type of interaction.
[00:01:37] Steve Fretzin: Um, why not? You’re here. You’re, you’ve got issues and challenges. If you’re looking to learn something that maybe can help you improve your business development efforts. Be more efficient with your time. Why not? Not a bad idea. Okay. So that’s what we’re going to do. And let’s start off by introducing our sponsors.
[00:01:53] Steve Fretzin: We’ve got three amazing sponsors for Be That Lawyer, starting with Greg, who is with LegalEase Marketing. Greg, you want to say hello and tell everybody about what all the amazing things that LegalEase does. Awesome. Thank you
[00:02:04] Gregory Eisenberg: guys for having us. We are so excited for these events that you’ve been throwing, Steve, these live events, they’ve been really, really educational and love being a part of it.
[00:02:14] Gregory Eisenberg: We help promote events like this. We help really focus your content direction. But more importantly, we figure out how all of that is going to work with the data that you’re collecting from potential new clients and existing clients and past clients. So, working with your CRM, working with connecting that into your marketing efforts to make sure everything works together for your firm.
[00:02:35] Gregory Eisenberg: So, we’re here with Legalese Marketing. We’re happy to keep supporting your efforts, Steve, and being a part of it. So, thanks for having
[00:02:41] Steve Fretzin: us again. Fantastic. Thank you, Greg. And thank you, legalese for being such a great partner. Uh, we’ve got Kelly here with Practice Panther. Good morning, Kelly. Hi, good morning.
[00:02:51] Practice Panther: Thank you so much for having us, Steve. We’re very excited to be here. Um, as many of you know, Practice Panther is an all in one platform that is used and trusted by tens of thousands of attorneys. We really want to help support law firms so that they can easily, um, reach their goals and focus on growing their practice, which is why we’re offering a unique discount today to all listeners of 50% off for the first three months.
[00:03:21] Practice Panther: So you can head on over to practicepanther. com forward slash be that lawyer to learn more and book a demo with one of our experienced practice management
[00:03:32] Steve Fretzin: advisors. Thank you so much, Kelly. And I hear on a regular basis how fast and easy Practice Panther is to use. And so I really appreciate you guys as a sponsor, as friends, as.
[00:03:44] Steve Fretzin: People that I can count on and I’ve been there since not the beginning, but with back in the David Baton days and when you guys were coming up and had a lot of fun with him. So thank you so much. And then finally, we have normally I’d say Steph with money penny and she unfortunately got pulled away with a family emergency.
[00:04:00] Steve Fretzin: So I can either do a female English accent to be Stephanie and David’s going. I’d like to see that and hear that. Hello, mate. I probably not going to work for Steph. She’s probably already mad at me for being so stupid, but. You know, Moneypenny is a two in one situation. They’ve got virtual receptionists, so if you have a receptionist that you’re overpaying, you may not need a full time receptionist, they’ve got the solution for you.
[00:04:25] Steve Fretzin: And most importantly, get away from those stupid, horrible phone trees and automated systems. Nobody wants to call a law firm and say, press one to be bored with this music. So get away from that and, uh, and get with Moneypenny. They also do, by the way, live chat on the website. So sometimes people come to my website.
[00:04:42] Steve Fretzin: They’ve got questions and there’s boom. There’s Moneypenny there with someone live ready to talk and answer questions. And try to convert someone from a conversation into a potential, you know, lead for me or someone that I can help with their business development. So, that’s Money Penny, and uh, Steph, you’ll tell me later on if you, if you felt I did, did you guys justice and service on that infomercial.
[00:05:03] Steve Fretzin: Alright everybody, we are now moving on to introduce our panel. And you guys would take 30 seconds to just share a little bit about what you’re doing. And then we will move on to our main event. So let’s start off with my good friend, Juki. Yes,
[00:05:15] Chuki Obiyo: Steve. Thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for your time investment.
[00:05:20] Chuki Obiyo: So
[00:05:21] David Ackert: I’m energized to be here
[00:05:22] Chuki Obiyo: and a bit about me. I coach and compliment warriors and leaders on business development. And that’s compliment with both an I and an E. And I’m honored to do this work. In house with Vetterprice, Vetterprice is a global business focused law firm. And speaking of compliments, Steve, I’d like to pay you a compliment.
[00:05:46] Chuki Obiyo: So Steve, you now have the status as the godfather of legal business
[00:05:51] Steve Fretzin: development. Wow. David’s not going to like that. David got into it before me.
[00:05:57] David Ackert: There’s plenty of room at the top,
[00:05:58] Steve Fretzin: Steve. All right. All right. There’s, yes, we’re hanging out at the top, holding each other’s arms up like champions. Okay. That’s, that’s very thoughtful, Chuck.
[00:06:06] Steve Fretzin: I appreciate that. The Godfather. All right. Now I’m going to do a stupid Italian accent and everybody will hate me for that. All right. Awesome. Let’s go on to my good friend, Walt Hampton. What’s up, Walt?
[00:06:16] Walt Hampton: Thank you, Steve. I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for the invite. I help lawyers grow and scale their businesses.
[00:06:21] Walt Hampton: I help them with stuff like actually creating real businesses rather than practices. I help them with recruitment. Of great talent, retaining great talent, dialing in standard operating procedures so that they have an easier life and make fewer errors. And my second book, The Power Principles of Time Mastery, all about finding more time in your life.
[00:06:44] Walt Hampton: I was a graduate of Cornell Law School, was the managing partner of a firm for 25 years. I know what keeps lawyers up at night.
[00:06:53] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and speaking of, you know, top of the mountain, how many tops of mountains have you been on? Well,
[00:06:58] Walt Hampton: ultra distance running and high altitude mountaineering are my passion. So I run like, I’m gonna run the Grand Canyon, again, 50 miles and 20, 000 vertical feet in a few months.
[00:07:08] Walt Hampton: And we’ve been on five of the seven summits of the world, and
[00:07:11] Steve Fretzin: counting. And I was telling Walt that, uh, I’ve been taking Pilates for three months, and I finally have stopped groaning when I get up from my Lego boy. So that’s where I am with my fitness, Walt. Uh, so there you have it. Let’s go on to, uh, to Liz Wendling.
[00:07:29] Steve Fretzin: How are you, Liz?
[00:07:30] Liz Wendling: I’m fabulous. Thanks for inviting me. I am the rainmaking coach for attorneys and the author of Consultations That Convert and the Rainmaking Mindset for Attorneys. And I have a legal consulting practice that focuses on teaching attorneys what it takes in today’s competitive market to convert more phone calls into initial clients and those initial consultations into retained happy clients who give referrals.
[00:07:56] Liz Wendling: But my second favorite part of my practice is I’m a law firm secret shopper and law firms will hire me to go undercover to give them the honest and in depth look at their practice. From the eyes of a real client, so they’re looking for evidence of why their expensive marketing leads are not turning into clients.
[00:08:16] Liz Wendling: So I take on the persona and the mindset of a real client and I analyze the whole experience and then report back to them the good, the bad, and the interesting that happened to me while I did so. And then they hire me to fix those gaps and help them convert more marketing leads.
[00:08:33] Steve Fretzin: I absolutely love that.
[00:08:34] Steve Fretzin: I think that’s the coolest thing and law firms have no clue. I’ll tell you a quick, quick story. When I was 16, I got a job selling shoes at Kinney’s. And if you’re under 40, you have no idea what that is. But it’s the great American shoe store in my boss, my manager used to tell me there’s a secret shopper that could come in any day.
[00:08:52] Steve Fretzin: He told me that for like a year and I somehow believed him with my, I was a moron, but, uh, at the time, you know, and, uh, so I was always at the front, you know, greeting people. I didn’t want to get into the store in trouble for, for not greeting people quickly at the front. So there you go. Mystery shopper.
[00:09:06] Steve Fretzin: Fantastic. And let’s go on to our last panelist today. The famous David Acker. How’s it going, David?
[00:09:12] David Ackert: Hey Steve, thanks so much for having me back, uh, really glad to be here.
[00:09:16] Steve Fretzin: Fantastic. You want to tell us a little bit about your practice and of course Pipeline Plus.
[00:09:21] David Ackert: Sure. So I’ve been in the industry for a little over 20 years now, helping law firms navigate business development challenges.
[00:09:28] David Ackert: And about 10 years ago, we developed Pipeline Plus, which is technology. It’s an app essentially that law firms use to track their most important relationships. If you work with any of the amazing coaches that are on the panel today, one of the first things they’ll tell you, Is that one of the keys to business development success is identifying who are those most important clients, referral sources, prospects, and making sure that you’re putting enough energy on those people.
[00:09:53] David Ackert: Well, Pipeline Plus is where you enter those people so that they stay top of mind. The app gives you recommendations on what to do with them to close business. So it’s a, it’s a great way to sustain the momentum that a good coach can get fired
[00:10:05] Steve Fretzin: up for you. Yeah. Absolutely. And, uh, it’s really hard to get them to track, whether that’s through a CRM or that’s just like, you know, pen and paper.
[00:10:14] Steve Fretzin: Like they’re really opposed to writing things down. I guess it’s hard enough to track time, right? Let alone, you know, this other stuff,
[00:10:21] David Ackert: David. Yeah, that’s right. The tracking and maybe we’ll jump into this a little bit today, depending on where you want to take us, Steve. But. I think, you know, one of the things that’s so important is when it comes to business development is preparation and discipline, right?
[00:10:34] David Ackert: You can’t get the results that you want unless you’re willing to put in the same level of diligence that you would if you were service, you know, helping serve a client’s needs. So you know, it’s like anything else you get out of what you
[00:10:45] Steve Fretzin: put into it. Wow. Let’s actually use it. Yeah. Jump, Rolf. Sure. Jump in.
[00:10:50] Walt Hampton: And I would just add consistency.
[00:10:57] Steve Fretzin: All right, then let’s just dive right in and let’s segue into the first question, which was not given to us by the panel or by the, uh, the participants today, but it’s just a natural progression of what we just mentioned. The argument is I’m billing hours. Okay. I’ve got more work than I can handle. I also, by the way, have a family and a trip coming up and all this stuff.
[00:11:18] Steve Fretzin: How am I going to stay consistent or even do business development at all when I have all these other pressures weighing down on me as it relates to being a successful lawyer, getting my work done and taking care of clients who’d like to, like to start on that. Let me, there we go. Walt jumped in real quick.
[00:11:33] Steve Fretzin: All right, Walt,
[00:11:34] Walt Hampton: hit us up. So the first principle is a mindset principle. You got to stop thinking about yourself as a practicing lawyer. You have to start thinking about yourself running a business that you’re the CEO of a business. That once you can embody the fact that you are not in the weeds all the time, but that you’re growing and scaling up business, you’re going to begin to identify the places of friction so that you can delegate those points of friction and stay in your zone of excellence.
[00:12:06] Walt Hampton: And within that principle, really learning to block and tackle time, block time so that you were not moving like a pinball in a machine all day long, but you’re blocking time for those highest and most important things. Yeah. And I
[00:12:21] Steve Fretzin: think we consider, you know, I’m meeting with you, Walt, and I blocked time because you and I have a meeting, but I’m not willing to block time for me and the things that I need to accomplish.
[00:12:31] Steve Fretzin: So I think that’s a big misstep right there. Let’s go to Liz and then we’ll hit David. We’re all busy,
[00:12:37] Liz Wendling: and I see every professional wearing the busy badge. They might as well put a name tag on that says, Hello, my name is I’m busy. We’re all busy. Toddlers are busy. We have to create that time and make that time.
[00:12:48] Liz Wendling: And the more you tell yourself you’re busy, the more you start to believe that, and the more you stay in the pinball machine. So it’s time blocking. It’s being consistent. And if you want to get something done, you make the time. When you don’t, you make an excuse. And that’s my favorite quote by Jim Rohn.
[00:13:05] Liz Wendling: You either make the time, or you make an excuse. That’s it.
[00:13:08] Steve Fretzin: So, uh. All right. Well, let’s give some tips and ideas, more tips and ideas, how to do that. Let’s go to David and then we’ll hit Chuki. Yeah. I really want to
[00:13:17] David Ackert: build on what Walt and Liz have said. So smart in terms of how you’re thinking about it, right?
[00:13:22] David Ackert: The way you’re relating to the problem is actually the problem. The problem itself is, you know, look, you’re a smart lawyer. You can navigate all kinds of complex situations. Certainly you can figure this out. And just to get tactical about it, business development doesn’t take that much time. Again, if you’re prepared and if you’re disciplined and if you’re consistent.
[00:13:39] David Ackert: If right now you’re struggling to even find time to have one lunch with a key contact every month, well then let’s just start there. If for you it’s a matter of, you know, look, I don’t know where to carve out extra time, well then don’t carve out extra time. You’re already talking to your client, tag on two minutes to the end of that call to explore additional needs that they may have.
[00:13:58] David Ackert: That’s your business development, it’s fine. You’ve gotta, you know, make this reasonable for yourself. But it starts with just putting some thought into what that might look like and then consistently doing it. Start small. Baby steps are fine, but you gotta take some.
[00:14:13] Steve Fretzin: Fantastic. Trukey?
[00:14:14] Chuki Obiyo: Yeah, to that point about baby steps, uh, let’s accelerate those.
[00:14:18] Chuki Obiyo: So I would say your calendar communicates your value,
[00:14:22] David Ackert: right?
[00:14:23] Chuki Obiyo: What shows up on your calendar, what stays on your calendar, that’s your value judgment, right? So that’s point one. Point two, specific to how you time block, I think it’s really important to Practice a little bit of self compassion. So I do think we have to empathize to some extent, right?
[00:14:41] Chuki Obiyo: So maybe there’s a prioritization system that you come up with as part of your self compassion strategy, right? What do you prioritize when you don’t have enough time? And then to that point, can you classify activities around time buckets? So you have your five minute tasks, you have your 10 minute to do’s that way.
[00:15:01] Chuki Obiyo: When you’re under massive time pressures, you can activate that prioritization system again with a little bit of self compassion. But to that point, though, I mean, your calendar communicates your value
[00:15:11] David Ackert: just
is
[00:15:12] Walt Hampton: what it is. Yeah. Steve, we’re going to just piggyback on Chuki’s brilliant observation there and it relates to Matthew’s question.
[00:15:21] Steve Fretzin: Oh, I was going to ask Matthew’s question. I was going to ask Matthew’s questions.
[00:15:26] Walt Hampton: So, so I’m going to piggyback on Matthew’s with Chucky’s brilliant insights. So when we’re calendaring Matthew, I love technology and you know, we have 13, 15 team members and we automate everything. But when we sit down at the beginning of the week as an athlete, as an ultra distant runner runner, who’s running a global business.
[00:15:47] Walt Hampton: I prioritize my morning meditate, I time block my morning meditation, my reflective time, my running, my core time, all of that self care practice, and it has to be done manually and thoughtfully and intentionally. And we need to open up enough space for that compassion and that self care that you key were, um, refers to, and that needs our date nights.
[00:16:12] Walt Hampton: Yeah, I happen to do business with my amazing wife and business partner and publisher. Uh, we, what you schedule, what you put on your calendar reflects
[00:16:23] Steve Fretzin: what you value. And I think one thing that I’d like to, to get into a little bit, and this, this is again with, uh, with Kerbis’s question that he put in the chat is, you know, we can, we can advise on different strategies and philosophies and theories about time management.
[00:16:41] Steve Fretzin: And, and there’s a buy in that needs to happen from the individual lawyer to, to do that and take advantage of it. But there’s also some automations that have come out in the last number of years that have been super helpful. And I’d like to just take a few minutes to talk through what we all agree. As panelists are the top three to five automations that are saving lawyers time.
[00:17:03] Steve Fretzin: And I’m going to start because I’m a, a greedy, a greedy pig about this one thing. That is the remarkable two. And if you think about all the paper and the notepads and the searching for stuff and how you’re managing your paper. It’s gone. I have no paper anywhere near me. I don’t even have a pen again.
[00:17:21] Steve Fretzin: Where’s a pen? I can’t find one All right. All I have is my remarkable to this everything’s backed up. Everything’s in Dropbox. I can put down notes I can everything’s in a folder. So I’m saying for me and my efficiency, you know, I’ve read Walt’s book I’ve done time, you know getting things done with David Allen I’ve got all that down Then the thing that was missing was all the post it notes and all the other stuff that I had all the you know all the paper So that’s my automation tip is, is grab it and somebody’s going to say, but wait a second, Steve.
[00:17:50] Steve Fretzin: That’s kind of expensive. Isn’t it? No, it is not. And if I’m a brain surgeon and I’m questioning the price of a scalpel, I’m not a very good brain surgeon. So respect yourself enough to spend a little bit of money on something that’s going to end up making you a lot of money and efficiency and, and, uh, getting rid of that paper.
[00:18:06] Steve Fretzin: So who’s got another, let me see some hands on, uh, some automations that you guys are using and talking to your clients about who’s got one they’d like to share.
[00:18:16] David Ackert: Well, one of the things that’s sorry. Well, then right over to you. Um, you know, one of the things that I think we need to recognize. There are a lot of technologies out there.
[00:18:25] David Ackert: Obviously, I’m biased on hours and I’m sure other coaches can give you suggestions on ones that they and their clients have used. But let’s not forget good old fashioned coaching, right? This is where, this isn’t a kind of automation, you have regularly scheduled sessions with a person who’s going to hold you accountable, who’s going to make the world stop for an hour or however long you’re talking to them, so that you can actually turn some dedicated focus on planning, preparing, and ultimately executing on these to dos so they don’t end up in the someday maybe list.
[00:18:56] David Ackert: So, you know, if you’re really struggling with this and you can’t seem to get yourself to carve out just a few minutes or figure out exactly what your approach might be, reach out to Walt, reach out to Liz, reach out to Steve, you know, Chuki, I don’t know if you work with folks independent of enterprise, but too bad if you don’t for lawyers who would want that, right?
[00:19:13] David Ackert: Because just spending some time with any of these folks will help you navigate this
[00:19:17] Steve Fretzin: effectively. Yeah, no doubt. Walt.
[00:19:20] Walt Hampton: Well, I was just going to kind of pull out of the particular to the meta and say, having a system, whether it be remarkable to Dropbox or you’re integrating around Outlook as many firms do, or you’re integrating as our company does around Google and Google Drive, having standard operating procedures.
[00:19:41] Walt Hampton: Steve, I did a presentation for one of your groups where I said, there’s a reason that the 17 year old hamburger maker in San Francisco makes the same hamburger as the 17 year old in London Heathrow, and it’s because there are SOPs. And the more we have operations as lawyers, we reduce error, we reduce friction, we reduce oversight, we reduce malpractice, we increase satisfaction and joy.
[00:20:07] Walt Hampton: So having some system in place will begin to open up a lot of time and regardless of what that automation is, having a system will make life a whole lot
[00:20:19] Steve Fretzin: simpler. Yeah, no doubt. Let’s go to Liz and then Chuky.
[00:20:23] Liz Wendling: Systems, processes, technology, fabulous when I’m working with a client, I want to get in their brain.
[00:20:30] Liz Wendling: I want to find out why they’re not using it. What the resistance is. What is behind the fear of putting things down and taking 100% responsibility and accountability for your practice. So I want to poke around their brain first, because I could tell you what to do. I can give you every piece of technology that’s out there.
[00:20:50] Liz Wendling: But if there’s something under the Surface that’s keeping you from doing that. We have to address that first and then you can go and use technology.
[00:20:58] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Break it down, then build it up. Good stuff. Chuki. Yeah, that’s an
[00:21:02] Chuki Obiyo: excellent point that Liz makes. And I think it also synthesizes really well with David’s point.
[00:21:08] Chuki Obiyo: So I do think there’s a people process systems, right? So Steve, your questions around the systems, I would actually rank the importance of all of those elements, people first process, and then the system. But then specific to AutomationNode, there
[00:21:22] David Ackert: are a couple of free tools and free resources that are out there that
[00:21:26] Chuki Obiyo: I think some attorneys don’t quite appreciate.
[00:21:28] Chuki Obiyo: So LinkedIn is a great way to automate your professional networking and staying in touch. So that’s one.
[00:21:36] David Ackert: Two, Google AdWords, to
[00:21:37] Chuki Obiyo: be honest, and Google Key Terms, you could actually follow different types of client profiles, different industries based on Google Key Terms that you get an email report. That’s free.
[00:21:48] Chuki Obiyo: And I do want to put a quick little plug.
[00:21:51] David Ackert: David mentioned Pipeline Plus.
[00:21:53] Chuki Obiyo: So it’s really interesting from a coaching perspective, the ability to have an automated way where you get reminded of your next action item as part of a client acquisition process is very illuminating, right? So once you sort of have that email hit your inbox, all of a sudden there’s an energy flow on.
[00:22:11] Chuki Obiyo: I’ve got to reach out to John. I really need to send that email to Sally. And then that gets that momentum going.
[00:22:18] Steve Fretzin: And I know David’s got, uh, one or two that he’s going to share, but I wanted to chime in real quick. The two that I’m most excited about in how it’s saving me time and lawyers that are at big firms may have more challenge with this than small firms is number one is like Calendly and Acuity.
[00:22:33] Steve Fretzin: Just automate your scheduling, schedule, you know, set up times and dates for certain types of meetings, any way that you want. And I’m not doing any of the back and forth anymore. Hey, what works for you? Oh, that day, this works for me. Going back and forth is just, I’m not doing it. And everybody that argues, well, no one’s going to want to click a link and look at your calendars.
[00:22:53] Steve Fretzin: Everyone does. Everyone’s becoming, uh, acclimated with that at such a level that I’m getting pushed back maybe once every, you know, six months. I mean, it’s really not happening at all. And the other one I wanted to mention was if you have a group that needs to meet you, something like Doodle, which is a free, uh, way, right?
[00:23:12] Steve Fretzin: Just, just to, Hey, I’ve got three people, four people. How do we set up this meeting today? Well, it was all done through Doodle. What were your, the dates and times that work for you guys that work for me? So these are things that are going to save a lot of the BS that goes on with scheduling and trying to get clients and prospects and networking folks, uh, together.
[00:23:32] Steve Fretzin: Okay. So those are my sense. Let’s go, David, then back to Walt.
[00:23:35] David Ackert: So, uh, Steve, I was, uh, one of the people who was very resistant to using Calibri links, right? I didn’t want to put the burden of the work on them, that was my thinking initially. But I agree with you, I found that actually there’s a broad acceptance of it.
[00:23:48] David Ackert: Here’s a little trick that I do just in case you’re talking to someone who has that sensitivity. I’ll usually say, Hey, I’m available next Wednesday, you know, at this time. If that doesn’t work for you, please select a more convenient time by clicking my link, right? So at least I’ve extended something.
[00:24:04] David Ackert: Yeah, the people who are looking for that rather than taking the time to list out nine things, none of which are going to work for them. So that’s one tip. The other one that I wanted to touch on is SaneBox. Sanebox, S A N E B O X, is a game changer, folks. The way Sanebox works, it does a bunch of different things, but one of the things that it does is that if I am sending Steve Bretson an email, right, and Steve is a prospect or a client or somebody that I need to hear back from, I can BCC two days from now, or like Walt suggests, seven days from now for my follow up, right?
[00:24:38] David Ackert: And if Steve responds to that email within two days or seven days or whenever I’ve set SaneBox for, then nothing happens. We’re in dialogue. We’re going to talk. If Steve blows me off, then seven days later, SaneBox puts that email back to the top of my email inbox so that it’s always top of mind for me and I can take responsibility for the results that I’m ultimately trying to procure with Steve.
[00:24:59] David Ackert: So really, really important. Otherwise you’re sending yourself emails or you’re, you know, keeping it on a separate list or whatever, and it’s just not very convenient. So I really recommend, uh, you check that
[00:25:09] Steve Fretzin: out. Yeah. And on top of same backs, there’s a similar product called the boomerang. And that works for Gmail and Outlook and whatnot.
[00:25:17] Steve Fretzin: So really, really good stuff. I mean, that’s, that’s just things that, that we just, we need to have to not let things slip through the cracks. All right, let’s wrap this question up with Walt and we’ll move on to our next question.
[00:25:27] Walt Hampton: All right, I’m going to just quickly riff off of David and then give my observation about the coolest new thing.
[00:25:35] Walt Hampton: I will go as far as to say that lawyers and principals should not primarily be in their inboxes. The inbox, your inbox, is someone else’s agenda for your day. Uh, email is the single biggest friction point for busy professionals. Uh, we have SOPs at our company where before I even see in, uh, email in my private inbox, two people on my team have already filtered what’s important, what’s not important.
[00:26:04] Walt Hampton: I see a handful of emails every single day and life is sweet. The coolest new thing is chat GB tape.
[00:26:15] Steve Fretzin: Yes.
[00:26:16] Walt Hampton: You can create your entire years of social media marketing content, your LinkedIn content. You can do so much on this. I actually had a cut, a conversation with chat GPT last week about a very complicated legal issue with a department of defense, a clearance issue, and it is extraordinary lean into this tool, friends.
[00:26:41] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, my only, the only caveat with ChatGBT is I was disciplined by my SEO company that it shouldn’t be used for blog posts on your website as Google is picking up on the algorithms around the way that it’s being set up. So, I’ve done probably four articles through ChatGBT and I think it’s not everything if I’m trying to have my voice and trying to have my…
[00:27:03] Steve Fretzin: Spin on it, which I always do, but it gave me some base of, you know, here’s five things and then I can just elaborate on the five things. Cause if they’re spot on or if they like in one case, it wasn’t, I just got rid of it and added my thing to it. So I think, but you’re right on wall. That is very, very slick, very slick.
[00:27:21] Walt Hampton: We say, give us a shitty first draft. What chat GPT does is it takes away the blank page problem. Yeah, here’s
[00:27:29] Steve Fretzin: the place to begin. It’s something to start. Yeah. Great. David,
[00:27:33] David Ackert: I was just going to tease and say, are you going to have chat chat as one of your panelists
[00:27:37] Steve Fretzin: next week? We might have to do that. We’ll have to check that out and see if it’ll show us all up.
[00:27:41] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, that’s it, sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sergio Brettson, gbt.
[00:27:47] Steve Fretzin: All right. That’s an internal joke. And when people showed up for the, the, some of the people showed up for this, for this panel today, they all came up as Sergio Fretzen. Sergio is my marketing director and I’m Fretzen. And so now we’re all Sergio Fretzen, you know, and if that happened, um, well, listen, everybody, that’s a wrap for part one of this two part series of Be That Lawyer Live Coach’s Corner.
[00:28:08] Steve Fretzin: Uh, please do not miss the next episode to continue this conversation with our awesome panelists, answering your toughest business development, marketing, time management. Um, thanks again, and hopefully this is helping you again to be that lawyer. Someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker.
[00:28:24] Steve Fretzin: Take care, everybody. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again soon.
[00:28:31] Narrator: Thanks for listening 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 developments. Development and marketing trends for more information and important links about today’s episode check out today’s show notes