In this episode, Steve Fretzin, Steve Seckler, Stuart Baum, Sharon Ve, and Chuki Obiyo discuss:
- Finding your why and narrowing your niche.
- Building good relationships.
- Doing what you like to do to develop business.
- How much time you should spend on your business development.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding why you don’t like to do something can help you to find new avenues of business development and relationship building.
- Challenge yourself in new ways and you will unlock potential you didn’t know that you had.
- Practice more self-compassion. Attorneys are inundated with expectations from others. There needs to be a time commitment to understand what one is passionate about and can commit to.
- Just being the best lawyer does not mean you are automatically the best business developer.
“If you don’t have a reason to grow your own practice, you will not get away from your desk to do the things you need to do.” — Stuart Baum
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
Practice Panther: https://www.practicepanther.com/
Episode References:
- Book: Getting Things Done by David Allen: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity-ebook/dp/B00KWG9M2E/
- Book: Atomic Habits by James Clear: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-James-Clear-audiobook/dp/B07RFSSYBH/
Connect with Steve Seckler:
Website: https://www.seckler.com/
Email: steve@seckler.com
Podcast: https://counseltocounsel.libsyn.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenseckler/
Connect with Stuart Baum:
Website: https://www.largerpond.com/
Email: stuart@largerpond.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartbaum/
Connect with Sharon Ve:
Website: https://www.theinspiredattorney.co/
Website: https://www.sharonve.com/
Email: sharon@theinspiredattorney.co
Show: https://www.theinspiredattorney.co/podcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCctDNiTtEByHBIH5sPOczZg?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonve/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheInspiredAttorney/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theinspiredattorney/
Connect with Chuki Obiyo:
Website: https://www.vedderprice.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chukiobiyo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lawchuki
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuki_law
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] Stuart Baum: If you don’t have a reason to grow your own practice, then when you get up in the morning, you’re going to look at your to do’s, you’re going to start… Doing work and building out that document and that contract, and you’re not going to get away from your desk and do the things you need to do, because you don’t have a reason to do it.
[00:00:22] 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.
[00:00:44] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, welcome to Be That Lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin and your host, as the announcer mentioned. Hope you’re having a fabulous day. Um, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know this is all about helping you to be that lawyer. Someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker.
[00:00:58] Steve Fretzin: And boy, oh boy, do we have a treat for you today. We’re doing another amazing double session of Be That Lawyer Coach’s Corner. We have some of the top legal minds, uh, in business development and marketing time management at getting your attitude straight, uh, from around the country that are going to be here to share their wisdom.
[00:01:17] Steve Fretzin: We’re going to be taking live questions from a live audience who’s with us and, um, it’s just going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have laughs. We’re going to learn stuff. And, uh, and don’t be shy if you’re, if you’re in the wings, uh, to ask some questions, cause we’re going to make it happen for you.
[00:01:30] Steve Fretzin: We’re going to make sure you walk away with a page of notes and five to 10 great takeaways that you could start implementing right away. I think most of the people that are on the, all the people that are hit with us today would, would say, we’re not going to be talking about, you know, 20, 000 foot strategy, you know, methodology things.
[00:01:47] Steve Fretzin: We’re going to be talking about actionable, tactical things that you can do to grow your book of business. So. That’s really what we’re going to focus on. And obviously we’d love to get into this, but we always, of course, have to thank our wonderful sponsors who we love. Um, we’ve got Steph with Moneypenny and Steph, you want to say hello and tell us a little bit about Moneypenny real quick?
[00:02:06] Money Penny: Yes. Hello everybody. I am Stephanie Vaughn Jones from Moneypenny. We are the virtual receptionist and live chat experts supporting law firms like yours every day to ensure you never miss a new lead. We help you maximize your time effectively whilst delivering an exceptional and personalized service to your clients.
[00:02:26] Money Penny: It’s really simple. You divert your inbound calls to us and your Moneypenny receptionist and their team will answer the calls and transfer the caller to the right place or take a message. Our managed web chat service works in a very similar way, so all of your chats are just the overflow. And live chat is an awesome way to capture and convert more leads via your website.
[00:02:45] Money Penny: And it offers a really discreet way for customers to communicate with you in real time. If you would like an exclusive two week trial, then please feel free to contact me directly and quote, Preston. And you can reach me on SVJ at moneypenny. com. Thank you very much.
[00:03:01] Steve Fretzin: Stephanie, what do we think of those phone trees?
[00:03:03] Steve Fretzin: We love phone trees.
[00:03:06] Money Penny: They’re okay if they work and if there’s a person at the other side of them. But technically Moneypenny will answer the call and give you a human voice every time.
[00:03:14] Steve Fretzin: Honestly, I was hoping you were going to say phone trees suck because they do and we hate them. So Moneypenny is the way to go, everybody.
[00:03:21] Steve Fretzin: Steph, you agree? Thank you. Yeah, most definitely. Just going to get a nod with me. All right, that works. Haha. All right. Fantastic. We’ve got another great sponsor. We’ve got Anthony with Practice Panther. Talk to us about it.
[00:03:32] Practice Panther: Absolutely. Thanks, Steven. Thanks for having us all here today. We are excited to be a part of Coach’s Corner and hear from some of the industry’s best and brightest.
[00:03:40] Practice Panther: As many of you probably know, Practice Panther is the all in one practice management solution trusted by tens of thousands of attorneys to efficiently manage and automate their firms. Our native feature set is packed with cutting edge functionality that allows firms to streamline intake, automate workflows, manage billing, process payments, and more without ever leaving the platform.
[00:04:02] Practice Panther: This can all be done with just a few clicks of your mouse because Practice Panther is the most intuitive and easy to use legal software out
[00:04:08] Steve Fretzin: there. Yeah, and I’ll tell you that’s, oh, I’m sorry, there’s more. There is more because we’ve been longtime
[00:04:14] Practice Panther: friends with you, Steve, and we want to help support law firms so they can easily accomplish their goals and focus on growing their practice.
[00:04:20] Practice Panther: It is why we’re going to offer a unique discount for all the listeners here today. 50% off for your first three months, head over to practice Panther. com slash be that lawyer to learn more and book a demo with our experienced practice
[00:04:32] Steve Fretzin: management advisor. Nice. That’s great. I love discounts with my name attached to them.
[00:04:36] Steve Fretzin: People can think, can think kindly of both of us. I was going to say that the feedback I get on practice Panther pretty regularly is it’s the easiest to kind of set up and get into real quickly versus, you know, taking a ton of time and training and effort to get started. So kudos to practice Panther.
[00:04:53] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot, Steve. Awesome. And we would not be, be that lawyer without Greg with LegalEase Marketing. How’s it going, Greg? Hey, Steve. Thanks for having
[00:05:02] Legal Ease: us. I legally is marketing. We help the right firms get the right attention from the right people. So we make sure that you’re utilizing your CRM in the best way to leverage that data that’s coming in through all of your intake processes and have actions on the back end and automations on the back end to help you nurture relationships.
[00:05:21] Legal Ease: A whole lot better, because we all know you only work with people you like, so you need to have more people like you. No one cares about your firm, they care about you. And so really it’s about building that book of business through really smart information that you’re collecting through your processes.
[00:05:35] Legal Ease: So, if anyone has any questions, we’re always available, LegalEaseMarketing. com. And as always, thanks for having us,
[00:05:41] Steve Fretzin: Steve. Yeah. And people are always complimenting me on my, um, amazing automations and all the ways that I’m connecting and making sure I get people into my podcast and following through. And that’s all legalese working with Lawmatics and getting my automations squared away so I don’t even have to think about it.
[00:05:57] Steve Fretzin: So great stuff there. Love the sponsors and I appreciate you guys so much, uh, being a part of the show, you know, week after week, month after month. Um, but we’re going to get into the weeds now on legal business development and marketing and all that for lawyers and, um, we’ve got a fantastic panel today.
[00:06:13] Steve Fretzin: Um, you’re going to get to know them through, uh, their answers and their responses and the way they’re, they’re handling the questions that are going to be coming our way. Um, we’ve got Chukyabio, who is the managing director of business development at Vetter Price. We’ve got Sharon V, the inspired attorney, Stuart Baum, who’s the president of Larger Pond Marketing and Steve Seckler at Seckler Attorney Coaching.
[00:06:34] Steve Fretzin: And um, again, all of their information, websites, et cetera, is all going to be in the show notes and you’re going to learn about them and you’re going to love them because I do and they’re fantastic. So we’re going to get into the weeds and the easiest way to go is, is to just kind of show me your hand.
[00:06:48] Steve Fretzin: Let me know that you’re interested in answering the question. You can do that through the emoji or through your actual physical hand. And then, uh, I’ll let, uh, kind of let you, you know, that you’re up and then who’s on deck. And that’s how we’ll kind of get through these answers one by one. And again, if you’re sitting as an attendee today, this is the time to start writing into the chat.
[00:07:06] Steve Fretzin: The things that you want answered today. And I’ve already got three ready at the ready, but we’re going to get another three to five, I hope. Uh, post it up so that we’re ready to go. All right. The first one I have, uh, is pretty standard and pretty much, you know, what we’re dealing with every day, which is how does the busy attorney get started with business development?
[00:07:25] Steve Fretzin: Like how does somebody who’s busy billing hours, doing all the attorney work, actually get started to start building that book of business or continue building the book of business? I have some followup questions on that, but what do you guys feel is the best way to just. Flat out, just how do I get started doing it?
[00:07:42] Steve Fretzin: Who’d like to start? Jump in on this one. All right, Steve Seckler. Let’s go buddy.
[00:07:49] Steve Seckler: I have a hunch that a lot of you are having trouble. The rest of my panelists are, uh, wondering if they should answer the question cuz of the same thing that I was thinking, which is there’s a lot of ways to get into this and it doesn’t really matter that much where you start, but I think for younger attorneys, the starting point should be starting to develop a niche, trying to figure out what it is that you wanna focus on, who you’re trying to serve.
[00:08:14] Steve Seckler: And a lot of that is just by experimentation. You could do that also by looking at what are some of the partners who you admire. If you’re a junior lawyer in your firm, uh, what they’re doing and trying to emulate them as a young lawyer. Again, I’m focusing just on the young lawyers. I’ll leave it to the rest of the panelists to kind of go in the other direction.
[00:08:34] Steve Seckler: Um, you know, the great thing about being a younger lawyer is that there isn’t a lot of pressure generally to generate business. So just connecting with your college friends. Thank you. Your law school friends and your friends who have gone into business, just getting to know people in the communities that you’re interested in doing work.
[00:08:52] Steve Seckler: That’s a great way to start. And then finally, I think that a very obvious thing that a lot of lawyers do when they’re getting started is to start doing some writing, maybe a little bit of speaking to start to develop a niche.
[00:09:04] Steve Fretzin: Really good. Sound advice there, Steve. Thanks so much. Let’s go to Stuart.
[00:09:09] Stuart Baum: Yeah.
[00:09:09] Stuart Baum: Great, great ideas there. On that, um, so I’m going to go in a different approach. I mean, I’m going to turn on my inner Simon Sinek here and say, start with the why, uh, one of the things I work with on the Younger Associates or Young Lawyers is why do you want to develop business? What’s in it for you? What are your goals here?
[00:09:25] Stuart Baum: Um, and then put together a quick game plan. I mean, When you think about why have business and I mean the idea of talking to the other more senior lawyers who’ve grown their practice and are in the positions where you want to be and say, I want to be like her or I want to be like him. Why is that? And then, you know, they’re going to say, here’s what I got out of it.
[00:09:45] Stuart Baum: Um, for me, one of the big things is, and I say this, I know you’re all going to take it the wrong way, but I do. That is, I think the idea is, I think, I think the income partner is dead right now. I think you’re either an associate or you’re, or, or you’re a real partner at a firm because income partners, we can find them while they’re making good money there, you know, as things get slow, they’re the ones that are slowly moved off of the corners.
[00:10:13] Stuart Baum: Um, but if you’re an equity partner, it’s because you control your own business. It’s because you control your own career. You now have, you know, you’re an entrepreneur that has control of your own future, you know, growth, which firm you go to, you get to make those decisions. And that’s generally one of the big reasons why you want to have your own business, why you want to have your own, why, why you only have your own practice.
[00:10:36] Stuart Baum: And you just absolutely find the niche, find that thing you’re good at that separates you. Um, And I’ll double down on that because it’s really fabulous advice past the why is, you know, we always say it’s like, Hey, I know a lawyer, everybody knows a lawyer, we know millions of them, but do you know the one that can really knock this specific pitch out of the park?
[00:10:57] Stuart Baum: So that pitch comes across the plate, you want that lawyer behind the plate swinging at it, be that lawyer to channel the name of this that can hit that pitch out of the park and let people know that if you’re looking at that type of curveball. I’m your person, that niche you talk about, and then speak to those specific things.
[00:11:15] Stuart Baum: But as I say, it starts with the why. If you don’t have a reason to grow your own practice, then when you get up in the morning, you’re going to look at your to do’s, you’re going to start doing work and building out that document and that contract, and you’re not going to get away from your desk and do the things you need to do because you don’t have a reason
[00:11:33] Steve Fretzin: to do it.
[00:11:33] Steve Fretzin: No reason, no motivation. It’s pretty straightforward. Good stuff there, man. How about Chuki?
[00:11:39] Chuki Obiyo: Yeah. Yes. So I completely resonate with what Steven and Stuart have laid out. Uh, right. And I do think, you know, I even sort of took some notes, uh, in that regard. So Steve, this is something you and I have talked about, right?
[00:11:50] Chuki Obiyo: One of the secret sort of superpowers that attorneys have is documentation. So I would say start there documents. So I, what does that actually look like? So put together a plan, just, you know, put pen to paper and that plan could start with, Okay. A passion statement or a mission statement. And just, you know, picking up on some of the items that Stewart and Staple talked about, maybe there’s some principles there that you could have as part of that plan.
[00:12:19] Chuki Obiyo: It doesn’t have to be overly sophisticated, maybe just a couple of bullet points. But I think what that documentation exercise does for you is it creates an automatic accountability channel where once you see that written plan, in some ways, there’s a social contract that you’ve made with yourself about really put it in a time, the effort, the commitment to start to drive some progress in your business development efforts.
[00:12:45] Chuki Obiyo: So I would just say document,
[00:12:47] Steve Fretzin: yeah. And I think there’s probably some form of a, of a attitude or emotional or, or, um, you know, mindset piece to it. And I just wonder if, if Sharon’s got an opinion about that, how’s that for a setup, Sharon?
[00:13:01] Sharon Ve: I love what you said, VFC. So I will say, I love everything that everyone said.
[00:13:05] Sharon Ve: And for sure, like there has from like a mindset piece, I was, it kind of goes into what I wanted to share is just discover who you like to serve, discover what you love to do. And once you can get into that place where you’re like, this is who I love to serve. This is what I love to do. And you can get yourself charged up about that.
[00:13:27] Sharon Ve: Then you can get yourself charged up about all those amazing people that help those people that you serve, because no matter what we do, it’s all about people. And it’s all about relationships. One of the most important lessons I learned. Is that good people hang out with good people. And the same thing is with business development.
[00:13:45] Sharon Ve: Like, look at this group of people that were, we’re here together today. And that is because of the relationships that we’ve curated. And so when you can also going from that, when you can discover who your ideal client is, you can get excited about it, but also like from like a mindset perspective, also allow yourself.
[00:14:05] Sharon Ve: To create, um, a mindset that, you know, when you’re going into these interactions with people that it’s going to be an amazing interaction. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s working out for the best. And I think always, it’s good to try and see the best in people in the sense of giving people the benefit
[00:14:24] Steve Fretzin: of the doubt.
[00:14:26] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I was going to throw in one more that, that I only came across maybe in the last few years, but it’s really been a game changer for my clients and that is. Find someone that, and this goes to a number of your points and Sharon in particular, that find someone who has a similar attitude, that has a similar type of goals, that, that you can become what’s called an accountability buddy with.
[00:14:46] Steve Fretzin: So if there’s two people that are associates, partners, whatever the level is, doesn’t really matter. You’re both committed to growing the book of business. Say, Hey, let’s meet every Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock for an hour. And let’s show up on a zoom. Let’s say what we’re going to do, sending out emails, working on LinkedIn, whatever it might be.
[00:15:04] Steve Fretzin: Let’s mute, let’s come back in 45 minutes, 50 minutes, whatever, say what we did and accomplished. And what you’ll find is everything then falls, kind of rolls downhill from there, because you took care of some of the main stuff that you needed to knock out that normally would have absolutely not normally would have absolutely been pushed down to not getting done that week.
[00:15:24] Steve Fretzin: So having some accountability, someone that has to show up for you and that you have to show up for might be the trick to getting started. And keeping consistent with it, so some, some great points there, um, Steve, I’m going to, I’m going to move on to the next. Now, here’s the interesting thing. I’m taking the answers and the question that we just did, and we’re not stopping there.
[00:15:42] Steve Fretzin: I’ve actually got 2 follow ups that I want to, that I want to go through. So we’ve talked a lot about planning and attitude and accountability and the why and all this great stuff that I think is really important. But one of the challenges I know lawyers have is that there’s so many different approaches to business development.
[00:15:59] Steve Fretzin: There’s so many different things that you can do. Is it playing golf? Is it lunches? Is it a podcast? Is it writing? What is it? And I wanted you guys to kind of chime in on what, where you think a good place is for someone to start or where you feel is a good A good use of a lawyer’s time when there’s a hundred different things to do.
[00:16:17] Steve Fretzin: What, what are you guys seeing are the ones that are getting the best sort of, um, um, response and reaction and results. And Steve Sackler, you want to start us off again? Uh, yeah,
[00:16:27] Steve Seckler: thanks. And I neglected to say at the start that I so appreciate you doing these things, Steve. It’s so great to have. So many great people to learn from and we all really, really appreciate that you’re inviting us.
[00:16:38] Steve Seckler: And as I’ve said in the past, Steve Preston is the king of coopetition. So one of the things that I just, uh, wanted to react to is something that Chuki said. But it actually relates to the question that you just asked also, Steve, which is that there are tactical questions about all of this. There’s sort of like the high level, you know, as Sharon was saying, who do you want to be?
[00:17:01] Steve Seckler: As Stuart was saying, what is your why? Chucky said document, and when I, when he started to say document, I was thinking, oh, he’s going to talk about documenting the conversations you’re having with people. And, you know, for somebody like me, maybe some of the people out there have great memories. I don’t.
[00:17:17] Steve Seckler: And so I’ve really, over the last few years, gotten really, really serious about documenting, writing things down, keeping track of people’s family members, even the nature of the conversations that I’ve had, because it’s so easy to circle back to people and completely forget all the things that you spoke about, especially at my age.
[00:17:36] Steve Seckler: So, uh, in terms of what you should be focusing on, which tactics do you use? Again, it’s, it’s the same. It’s, it’s also, this is also a tactical question and it goes back to your why, which is your what? Like, what do you like doing? You know, so one of the things that I always talk to the people that I’m speaking to, if I’m talking to a group is, you know, I ask people, how many of you like playing golf?
[00:17:59] Steve Seckler: And then if there are 10 people, the room. Two people raise their hand, I’ll tell the two people that raised their hands, go play golf. It’s a great way to spend a lot of time with, with people and get to know them. I don’t play golf. I would be like Eeyore on the golf course with a dark cloud over my head.
[00:18:14] Steve Seckler: So I’m never going to play golf. I love posting on LinkedIn. I have a podcast like Steve Fredson. I like writing. I like doing these presentations. Some people are deathly afraid of presentations. So it’s finding the techniques and tools that feel most comfortable and authentic to you tactically to sort of mirror what feels most authentic to use strategically about who you want to serve.
[00:18:37] Steve Seckler: Yeah, I
[00:18:37] Steve Fretzin: think putting the why and then the what, and then you’re really getting into the things that you’re most comfortable with. Let’s go to Stuart and then after that we’ll hit Sharon.
[00:18:46] Stuart Baum: Let’s see if I can get it right this time. Success. No, yeah, I mean, thanks for, thanks again. I also want to say the same thing as Dean said is appreciate you doing this and, uh, you know, I’m, I’m excited to learn from other people here because we all have part of our game and we all get better every day by listening to other experts.
[00:19:03] Stuart Baum: So thrilled, thrilled this conversation. Um, You know, we, we, it’s called, I guess. The hedgehog theory to get to what we’re just talking about is a triple Venn diagram of what are you good at, what do you enjoy, and what makes you money. And if you put that into business development, it’s like, what do you enjoy doing in business development?
[00:19:22] Stuart Baum: Um, if you put me on the golf course, I think I would be Eeyore as well here as I wouldn’t enjoy it. I always tell people I’ll see you at the 19th hole and I’ll be there early. So, you know, hurry up. Um, because I enjoy sitting around with drinks and chatting with people. Um, and then it’s like, well, does that work for me?
[00:19:38] Stuart Baum: The good news is that works for me. It helps me get business. So, you know, I bumped into, I’ve been working with a lawyer for years and he doesn’t like writing. He doesn’t like networking. He’s a little bit awkward, but he’s really good on the stage and very specific groups back to that find your niche comment made earlier is really good at that.
[00:19:58] Stuart Baum: So he can go to. Literally like a bankruptcy convention, take talk on a small stage and if three or four people say, Hey, something you said made me think I need to hire you and leave with business. So he enjoys it. He’s good at it and it brings in the matters. And so for him, and the things like Steven, we talked about this before, there’s 400 things you can do.
[00:20:20] Stuart Baum: And every lawyer in the corner office will say, If you do what I did, you’ll get what I got. 100% untrue. You are not them. You don’t have their network. You don’t like whatever it is. Golf angle. We’ll rag on golfing today. You don’t like golfing. So there’s no way you’re going to get business on the golf course.
[00:20:36] Stuart Baum: Getting your country club buddies because you don’t have country club buddies and you don’t like golf, but you really like sitting at a bar drinking and talking about wine with other people that like that brings in the business. Go for it. Do it. It’ll work. But if you sit at your desk with a, with you on your computer typing one on that contract, you’re never going to get new business.
[00:20:57] Steve Fretzin: Really really good stuff there, Sharon. I,
[00:21:01] Sharon Ve: I’m just gonna interject and say it’s funny that everyone’s riding on golf when the Masters is this weekend. Um, just a little side note, um, but yeah, like, rounding out the discussion with that, what I want to also say is that one of the points that Sura brought up, look at what you don’t like to do, and that, I think, one of the easiest places to start is what do I not like to do, and then it shows you also what you like to do, but then I will challenge you and say Look at what you don’t like to do and then start asking yourself what and how questions like, how does it make you feel?
[00:21:32] Sharon Ve: Uh, what do I not like doing about it? Because just because you don’t like doing something doesn’t mean it won’t be something that you won’t, that you won’t enjoy. It’s quite possibly that there are hidden fears there that you just don’t know and you haven’t explored yet. And there could be a gold mine behind that opportunity.
[00:21:50] Sharon Ve: So I would challenge you to also put yourself out there and experience new things and allow yourself. To challenge yourself, um, in those ways, um, because once you start doing that, you could unlock potential that you didn’t know was there.
[00:22:05] Steve Fretzin: Spot on, spot on. Chuki? Yes.
[00:22:08] Chuki Obiyo: So just in the spirit of gratitude, Steve, uh, again, a million thanks for how you continue to be at the tip of the spear for legal business development.
[00:22:16] Chuki Obiyo: So I wanted to make sure we register that. It’s funny the last time I was on Steve, I called you to the Godfather of legal business development. So now like a new thing is a king of, uh, so what’d you say? Or is it Steven? King of
[00:22:29] Steve Fretzin: co op petition. Oh yeah, co op petition. That is interesting.
[00:22:34] Chuki Obiyo: So we keep inventing new words to describe Steve’s just, uh, ability to drive insight.
[00:22:39] Chuki Obiyo: So one of the things that I’ll say on this, I mean, this is really important. So when we start to think of. And just picking up on one of the questions in the chat. So things to avoid from a business development perspective, I think it makes sense to practice a little bit more self compassion. I think attorneys are inundated with expectations from management, expectations from clients, expectations from colleagues.
[00:23:03] Chuki Obiyo: I mean, it’s just a lot. Right. Oftentimes in that cloud, it’s very difficult to really figure out what you’re truly passionate about. So I think we should just register the fact that there’s got to be a time or prolonged time commitment to really figure out what one’s truly passionate about. I don’t think it’s a month exercise or a six month exercise.
[00:23:21] Chuki Obiyo: I think it takes years to really drill down on that. So I did just want to. Insert that point, Steve, just from a long term perspective, as opposed to a very kind of short term
[00:23:30] Steve Fretzin: angle. Yeah. I want to mention something, uh, Rudy’s in the, uh, uh, in the, in the, uh, attendees here today. And he, he meant just doing a good job goes a long way to getting and keeping business.
[00:23:39] Steve Fretzin: And there’s absolutely no one that’s going to argue that point. I will say something to add on to that, though. Um, I thought for years, um, my father’s a retired lawyer, 88, Larry, the lawyer down in Marco Island. And, uh, I interviewed him on my show, um, on the show, uh, the 200th episode, if you guys want to check out my interview with Larry, the lawyer was quite fun, but I always thought because he was the smartest guy in the room and I thought because he was the best lawyer in town that he just, that’s how we got business.
[00:24:07] Steve Fretzin: And then it’s interesting in the interview, it came out that he was building relationships at the courthouse. He was building relationships by being the president of the, of my, of my school board when I was. Going up in junior high and everything. He was the president of the school board that he was actually doing a lot of relationship building and networking.
[00:24:24] Steve Fretzin: It just wasn’t called that. So I think that it’s, it’s the bare minimum to do a great job. That’s the baseline of what I think you need to be successful. Then on top of that, with all the great comments mentioned about finding your like alley, finding your angle, where you’re going to fit in, that’s going to make.
[00:24:44] Steve Fretzin: Sense for you to build relationships, to grow business, to get your brand built, et cetera. And for some people like Steve Seckler, right. It’s LinkedIn and the podcast for others. Uh, the 19th hole Stewart, right. You’re out there, you know, waiting for everybody to come off drunk so you can talk to them about working with you, you know, whatever we had to do.
[00:25:01] Steve Fretzin: Um, the, the, the followup to this, to this, um, question, cause I mentioned it was now like a three parter was all right, this all sounds great. Business development, finding an approach, finding your why going after it. But, but finding the time and like, how do we split up our time? And I think this was, um, a great question asked, I want to say by Carrie, um, about how do you decide how much time to split up or how do you figure out like how much time you should insert into the business development marketing piece versus just kind of winging it and hoping that things go well, Stuart.
[00:25:38] Stuart Baum: I think Steven had his hand on, I don’t want to
[00:25:40] Steve Fretzin: like go first. So no, no, you’re going to go. And then I’m going to make him second. Cause he’s gone first twice. And I don’t want to, I don’t want to seem like a, you know, a teacher.
[00:25:47] Stuart Baum: I will come back to the, uh, the time thing, um, but I do want to say as I played this experiment with two law firms that I had a privilege in sort of using as guinea pigs early in my career, the experiment was, I had all the lawyers there tell me who the best, best lawyers at that firm were, the best draftman, the one that if you had a contract, you would give it to and say, need to write a document, who would you give it to?
[00:26:11] Stuart Baum: And then who are the best business developers? It was not the same list. Thank you. So being the best lawyer does not mean you are the best business developer. Um, and so I keep hearing is like, you know, doing a good job. It’s, it’s the only thing to Fretsky Fretson’s point. It is the anti and as someone who consumes probably more legal than I want.
[00:26:33] Stuart Baum: I think most people do. I don’t know what a good job is until it needs to be tested, and when it needs to be tested, then I learn, hey, that was actually a much better job than I thought, and yet, people get referrals, whether or not they do a great job, so, I sort of push back on that, because I think doing a good job is nice, but it is not going to get us back to the, do the, the marketing thing.
[00:26:58] Stuart Baum: Um. As far as finding the time, it’s less time than you think. If you block out two hours for business development to set up lunches, breakfast, write that blog article, prepare that speech, set it up, two hours to get started, lock it in every single week, set up maybe 30 minutes early in the morning, 7 a. m.
[00:27:19] Stuart Baum: You’re going to send out emails early to connect with people using the documentation that you were told to set up before. Hey, how do you know? I know that you’re excited about the masters. Did you, you know, whatever, just that type of stuff that will get you started. Um, And then the last thing on this is back to the why is that the numbers we’ve built out in years of looking at the ROI of this is generally you can expect two and a half times better return to your business development than to your billable hour.
[00:27:52] Stuart Baum: So when you do the math on it, the hour you spend on business development, even if you’re not great at it, is worth two and a half times more to you in the short term, just getting the matters in the door. Then is actually billing the matter. So it’s the why of easy to say, I’m going to work on this document because I know I can make X hundred dollars.
[00:28:11] Stuart Baum: However, multiply that by two and a half. That’s the value of spending an hour
[00:28:15] Steve Fretzin: on business development. Well, so you’ve got the, you’ve got the business development, two and a half time rule. Then you’ve got the billable hours where they make their money. And if maybe there’s all the other stuff, right. That we, we’re not going to get into now, but like there’s all that other stuff.
[00:28:28] Steve Fretzin: That’s floating around. That’s, that’s, that’s probably the biggest problem of them all. Uh, Steve, you want to take a shot? There’s a
[00:28:35] Steve Seckler: theory in, in coaching that, you know, people, we’re all about making change. We’re getting people to make change. And if you just scold somebody and tell them you’re not doing enough, you’re not doing enough push ups, that’s not going to motivate people.
[00:28:50] Steve Seckler: You got to get them thinking about the vision. And it’s not hokey. It really is. It’s, you know, it’s the mindset stuff that we’re talking about. So once you start thinking more about and having a vision of, well, I really would like to be that lawyer. Okay, now you could start thinking about how do I get there?
[00:29:06] Steve Seckler: So that’s actually a really good starting point. Uh, and then of course, what Stuart was saying just about blocking off the time. Um, you know, you’ll be more motivated, but don’t think about, I have to generate a million dollars this year. It’s like, am I going to lose a hundred pounds this year? I can lose maybe a pound a week, you know?
[00:29:27] Steve Seckler: So you start off with smaller goals and breaking it down into smaller goals that you could accomplish in 30 minutes of the day or three hours a week.
[00:29:36] Steve Fretzin: Good, good advice and sound. Uh, let’s go to Sharon. When we’re talking about
[00:29:41] Sharon Ve: this is look at your priorities, you know, you can just like what Steve was talking about with his dad, what his dad did is he found ways to develop business that was harmonious with the life that he was living.
[00:29:52] Sharon Ve: So it can be It can be an investment in your time that also works with the life that you’re living. And then also, I will ask you also to look at your motives when you’re speaking to people. We all know that conversation that we, I think we’ve all had that conversation with someone. Or basically they’ve just reached out to you just because they simply just want you for something in terms of like business development.
[00:30:13] Sharon Ve: There’s really, it doesn’t really seem like that person wants to develop a genuine connection with you. Um, it just really feels you kind of feel used after the call. I’m not, I think we can all relate to that. And I think if you also approach these situations from the motive of, like, I’m genuinely interested in getting to know this human being, what can I do?
[00:30:32] Sharon Ve: How can we find ways? Um, to work together. How can I find ways to support them and I can utilize my superpowers? To their benefit, um, then also that investment of time is so much easier to invest because you’re excited to do it.
[00:30:47] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. It’s always easier to do things if we’re either going to enjoy them or we feel comfortable doing them and we don’t have to necessarily, you know, change the whole world to do it.
[00:30:56] Steve Fretzin: So right on the money. The thing about time from my perspective is it’s like the, the most important resource a lawyer has, right? So if you’re not finding every opportunity to be efficient with your time, and I would say to go so far as to say, you know, study time management, you know, read, getting things done, read atomic habits, become a student of time management, because if that’s how you’re judged based on billable hours and based on a building business through the time that you have allotted to do that.
[00:31:25] Steve Fretzin: And you’re just kind of winging it day after day without any kind of real way of managing time and being efficient, then you’re really not. You know, is billable and is, is, is productive as you could be. So I, every client I work with, I send getting things done is like part of my curriculum. Like you need to learn this because how are you going to do the stuff?
[00:31:44] Steve Fretzin: And then the other thing I just want to share is I’ll ask a lawyer, like, you know, how many hours are you billing a week? Does that ebb and flow? And if they’re saying, Hey, I’m billing 30 hours a week. I go, and how many hours can you devote to business development a week? Oh, I can devote 10. All right. Can you do any more than that?
[00:31:58] Steve Fretzin: Yes. No. All right. So now we have 10 hours to work with. How are we going to make that the most effective time possible to bring in the business, the largest deals, the most interesting deals, the best people, whatever it might be. So I think it’s really about, about understanding how much time you can allot for it and set aside for it and then work, work that through to figure out like what the results could be if we leverage that time, like effectively.
[00:32:24] Steve Fretzin: Well, listen, everybody, that’s going to wrap up part one of the two part series of Be That Lawyer Live Coach’s Corner. I want to thank you for joining us, and hopefully you got a lot of great takeaways to help you be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Take care, be safe, be well, and we’ll talk again soon.
[00:32:45] Narrator: Thanks for listening. To be that loyal 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.