In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Katie Burke discuss:
- Building a brand for yourself and your law firm.
- Informing your network about what you’re doing.
- Developing strategic partnerships.
- Evolving and growing your network and business.
Key Takeaways:
- If you are interested in more than one, unrelated, area of law, there are ways to make both work, it just takes some creativity and tenacity.
- Repetition is the key to letting people know what you do. If they don’t have a connection to make a quick quippy phrase, you do not have to try and force it and make it disingenuous.
- Expand your circles. There are more people out there that you don’t know that could be helping to promote your business or send work your way and who you can help as well.
- Don’t be afraid to try something new and to reach for things that you love and have a passion for.
“Growing and changing and evolving your brand means keeping it fresh and keeping it out there. What you’re doing now, if you’re doing the same thing 20 years later, something’s gone wrong.” — Katie Burke
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
Get Visible:https://www.getvisible.com/
Episode References:
- Provisors: https://www.provisors.com/
- Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade: https://www.youtube.com/@flyonthewallpod
About Katie Burke: Katie Burke has practiced law in San Francisco for twenty years. She is the owner of Burke Law. Katie conducts workplace investigations, drafts and reviews premarital and post-marital agreements, represents individual clients in family law disputes, and mediates family law matters.
Connect with Katie Burke:
Website: https://burkelawsf.com/
Email: katie@burkelawsf.com
Phone: 415-997-6665
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherineburke/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burkelaw/
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] Katie Burke: Having done family law for so long, I thought it was all about everyone knows me. I have enough referrals. I have a lot of, you know, more referrals than I can process. That was the way I looked at it before. So I was not strategic in the least. Even though I do a lot of premarital agreements, so estate planners are good for me.
[00:00:18] Katie Burke: I just thought, well, everybody’s going to come across somebody who needs a divorce or, you know, something like that.
[00:00:28] 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.
[00:00:50] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, welcome to Be That Lawyer. I hope you’re having a lovely day today. Um, it’s a great day in Chicago. We got beautiful weather and we are ready to rock and roll for a show for you today. I’ve got Katie waiting in the wings. How you doing, Katie? Hi, Steve. I’m well. How are you? Good. Good. We were just chatting about podcasts and we’ve got one in common.
[00:01:09] Steve Fretzin: That was kind of, we’re going to talk about that a little bit later. Um, and as you guys all know, this show is all about helping you to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. And we’ve just hit 300 episodes. If you’re new to the show, go back and listen. We’ve got a bunch of really good ones.
[00:01:25] Steve Fretzin: And of course, uh, moving forward, you know, we’re just going to keep the momentum going with some really, really amazing interviews, starting with Katie here. And Katie, your, your, uh, quote of the show is really unique. I don’t think that we’ve ever had a quote like this before. That’s so sort of, um, ambiguous, like difficult to figure out until you hear like what’s around it.
[00:01:46] Steve Fretzin: So I’m going to say the quote and then, uh, and then I’d love to hear your take on it. It is. It’s Eddie would go. Yes. So yeah. So tell, did I even say that right? Eddie would go Or is it a question? Yes. Eddie would go.
[00:02:00] Katie Burke: Eddie would go. Alright. So I’m a surfer and yesterday I just celebrated my one year anniversary of surfing.
[00:02:07] Katie Burke: I took my first surfing lesson on Maui Memorial Day again last year. And Eddie ico, I, I dunno if I’m gonna, I’m gonna butcher’s last name. E D D I E A I K A U was a surfer. Um, I believe he died in the seventies and he was a surfer. He’s a big wave surfer in Oahu. And he was known for, he was also a lifeguard and nobody ever died on his watch and he had hundreds of saves, uh, to his name and the way he died was he and a bunch of friends went on a boating trip and there was some trouble and he went off the boat to swim, to save everybody and everybody who was on the boat ended up getting saved and he was apart from them, so he was not saved.
[00:02:53] Katie Burke: And the expression, Eddie would go, you see it on a lot of surf apparel and, you know, if you walk into a surf shop, you’ll see it now and. Um, it means there was never any challenge that was too big for him. I mean, big wave surfing can be 60 foot waves, be a hundred foot waves. And I certainly don’t serve and serve anything like that.
[00:03:11] Katie Burke: I do one to three feet, but it’s the idea is do it. Eddie would go. So I’m in my late forties and I took up surfing last year and it’s just been a really motivational quote for me in surfing
[00:03:23] Steve Fretzin: and in work. Yeah. And I mean, the way that I’m hearing it based on his background and it’s first time I’m hearing about him.
[00:03:30] Steve Fretzin: Uh, it sounds like he’s just a, like an absolutely selfless individual, someone that would, would, you know, again, making the saves, going into, into troubled waters to save other people and putting himself first, which I think, putting himself at risk first, which I think is maybe another aspect to it, not just, Hey, Eddie would go, you should go, but you know, it’s, it’s how to be self, maybe it’s more about being selfless.
[00:03:50] Steve Fretzin: I don’t know. That might be a, my own take on it. Yeah. And
[00:03:53] Katie Burke: not afraid, you know, really adventurous.
[00:03:55] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Okay. Well, really cool. So maybe that’s a great segue into the introduction for you, Katie. Katie Burke is the owner of Burke Law, and you are someone that has a pretty interesting background and we’ve got a great conversation scheduled for today around specialization and kind of the pros and cons, but also, um, some, some intricacies around that.
[00:04:16] Steve Fretzin: But give us your background leading up to law and in through kind of where you are today. And welcome to the show, by the way. Thank you. Thank
[00:04:24] Katie Burke: you. Thanks for having me. Um, I earned a BA in psychology at Fairfield university in Connecticut, and then my master’s in counseling. At Arizona State University and I was going to go from there to be a psychologist, get my PhD, and I changed my mind in the middle of my master’s and decided to go to law school.
[00:04:42] Katie Burke: So I went to law school at USF School of Law, university of San Francisco, and um, got my first job in 2002 in family law. Um, do you want me to go into the career or just the background? Yeah, go for it. Okay. So, um, practice family law. I’m still practicing Family law. Practiced for 20, well, since. 2002 and then last year I added workplace investigations to my practice.
[00:05:09] Steve Fretzin: Okay. And I think we’re going to get into that in a minute about, about that transit, not transition, but addition. And one thing that I know we wanted to talk about was lawyers struggle. I feel like with how to like personally brand themselves. I work with lawyers on that all the time. How do you develop a personal brand?
[00:05:27] Steve Fretzin: And it’s very difficult to do when you, when you do everything right, when you’re handling every year of litigation, every year of transaction or heaven forbid, both. Um, so how do you brand your, how did you brand yourself as a family attorney? How did you pick a practice area and then, then focus on generating momentum in that space?
[00:05:47] Katie Burke: It’s changed for me over time. So I was in firms before I started my own practice in April 2017. So, uh, it, it really, once I started my own firm in April 2017, it was kind of shaped by the work that came to me. Um, I think I had a very general website at that time. And then I started to become known for being able to handle really tough cases for people who were.
[00:06:11] Katie Burke: Divorcing a narcissist, you know, really sort of in any way marginalized and needing extra protection. So I had all this branding around being a fierce advocate. I did a lot of restraining order work, um, securing restraining orders for people. And I took a point of view at that time and just only did that kind of work.
[00:06:29] Katie Burke: So the branding part became easy because I just took it from what was coming to me and then built a brand around that and said, you know, I’m a fierce advocate. You know, protector, if you’re dealing with a narcissist, come to me. And then I did a lot of soul searching during COVID about, you know, how those cases came to me and whether that was something that I had set out to be, or whether that had just been what had come to me and.
[00:06:54] Katie Burke: Part of the results of the soul searching were to explore doing workplace investigations, which is an area that right around the time I started my practice in 2017. I also was very interested in and thought at that time I was going to completely switch into it and it just didn’t really take off then.
[00:07:12] Katie Burke: And then I, so I revisited it last year and decided I wanted to add it instead of replacing. But the thing about workplace investigations is it’s a neutral, it’s an impartial position. You’re investigating an employee complaint at work about discrimination, harassment, retaliation, something legally actionable like that.
[00:07:31] Katie Burke: And you are, the defense hires you, but they’re hiring you to be an impartial fact finder. So I had to really change my branding because I had to not only add to my website, but I also do workplace investigation, but I couldn’t have all that language about fierce advocate. And all of that, and that was all sort of part of a piece because I, I kind of wanted to get away from that really hard ed representation at that time.
[00:07:56] Steve Fretzin: Anyway, well, and the other thing that’s interesting about it is that you’re not doing two things that sort of fit together. Like people do real estate and estate planning, right? Or they might do divorce and they might do, you know, mediation, right? Which is right in line with it. And here you’re taking something that is pretty different.
[00:08:14] Steve Fretzin: And saying, look, this is what I enjoy. I don’t want to give up on the other, but I, I want to do this too. And that’s very difficult. That’s difficult to accomplish. And I think most lawyers would and have shied away from that. You kind of lean into it. So talk to us a little bit about that because that couldn’t have been an easy decision.
[00:08:33] Steve Fretzin: No, it hasn’t
[00:08:34] Katie Burke: been. It was an easy decision, but the process has been challenging. So, um, so I started practicing law in 2002 and right around 2004, I started writing and really what I would now consider investigative journalism, but I didn’t really have that language for it at the time. And I’ve been a writer.
[00:08:52] Katie Burke: Throughout my entire, you know, that’s almost right alongside my entire legal career and I’ve been published a lot in work that I’ve done that’s been based on mostly interviewing people about their lives. I have one published book interviewing San Francisco kids ages 5 to 9 about growing up here. I’m working on another book right now.
[00:09:10] Katie Burke: I’ve interviewed 40 San Francisco. I mean, not San Francisco women and non binary people who serve all over the world. About surfing and, um, and then the other thing I’ve done is minors council work in family law, where I do impartial investigations between parents who are in some sort of the child is my client.
[00:09:34] Katie Burke: So it’s interesting to me because some of the things that I do in family law have nothing to do with each other. For example, I do a lot of premarital agreement drafting. Which looks nothing like a restraining order. I mean, they’re completely, couldn’t be two different things. Even though the family code governs both of them, they’re very different sections of the family code that get touched on in either of those pieces of work.
[00:09:56] Katie Burke: So it, it’s been a marketing challenge because it’s easier for people to understand. You’re a family lawyer who does premarital agreements and restraining orders and divorce, you know, all these things that don’t really tie together neatly, but they have a, they have a, you can tie them in a bow. Whereas when you add this other practice area, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to people.
[00:10:18] Katie Burke: So it, it’s been a challenge
[00:10:20] Steve Fretzin: for sure. Yeah. So let’s talk about that because it’s, that’s, you know, this show is all about, you know, people overcoming those challenges and solving problems and. You know, I’d love to hear sort of what you ultimately came up with as it relates to how you’re able to get the personal brand around, you know, continued on the, on the, on the family side, and then with the investigation side.
[00:10:45] Katie Burke: The best piece of advice I’ve received on this was from a friend of mine who’s a civil litigator and employment defense litigator and real estate litigator. And he said, all the things I do actually have less to do with each other than the two things you’re doing, but they sound, you know, you can say, basically, civil litigation.
[00:11:03] Katie Burke: And he said, I think people just need to keep hearing it. Your network just has to keep hearing that you’re doing both things. Because I was really whirling at that time and trying to figure out how I’m going to. Get it into everyone’s head that I do both of those things because so many people thought I left family law, you know, or they were just completely confused altogether, or they challenged me on what are those two things have to do with each other.
[00:11:27] Katie Burke: Um, I had a couple of people say, I won’t give you work if you do both those things because I don’t, I don’t know what you’re doing all day. And to me, that didn’t really make sense because I had just tried building up a firm and having employees and. That is the thing out of my entire career that taken more of my time and divided my energy more, even though it was all family law, it was, you know, I was moonlighting editing work from my associates that I didn’t feel like was on par with the firm’s brand and, and what I care about.
[00:11:59] Katie Burke: So it’s interesting to be doing these two things and I don’t feel anywhere near as divided, but that could be the perception. So I love that advice to just. Keep saying it over and over again. I have a goal to do a weekly LinkedIn post where it just reminds people that I’m doing both. So that’s the sort of just starting.
[00:12:16] Katie Burke: I’ve done a couple of posts and I’ve had a little bit of a break, but I, I need to get back to doing that. So for me, the answer is repetition because. There’s not a really clever way to tie them together. It would be disingenuous, um, even though they feel harmonious to me. So for me, it’s just letting people keep remembering that I’m still doing family
[00:12:36] Steve Fretzin: law.
[00:12:37] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And I think if you do that through your marketing channels and through your networking channels, then people start to get it ingrained that, you know, you can do both. Do you, let me ask you this. Do you ever. Find that there are some people that are going to be better referral sources for one than the other and maybe just talk about that with them versus talking about both.
[00:12:55] Steve Fretzin: So, for example, if somebody is in the labor and employment space and you’re meeting them for coffee, do you even need to bring up the family? Stuff versus talking about the one thing that really connects you because they may have a direct need to refer you the investigations,
[00:13:12] Katie Burke: right? With someone like that, I would definitely bring it up, but it would be a very short part of the conversation.
[00:13:17] Katie Burke: And the reason I will bring it up is that when I do a workplace investigation, it’s always going to be subject scrutiny and the scrutiny could be, do you have some kind of bias? How experienced are you? So I want people who are referring business to me to know that, yes, I do this other thing where I’m actually representing one side.
[00:13:37] Katie Burke: Um, it’s not employment, but it is representing one side and there’s not a consistent one side in terms of position or gender or anything like that. But I still want them to know that. And then I also don’t want it to be assumed that for these whole 20 plus years I’ve been a lawyer, I’ve been doing employment law and workplace investigations.
[00:13:56] Katie Burke: So I want people to know who they’re referring the case to before they do. But aside from that, in terms of the marketing piece of it, once we get that out of the way, it doesn’t really matter. They don’t need to care about that. They just need to know what I’m doing in the workplace investigations world.
[00:14:11] Katie Burke: Same with the association of workplace investigators, which is where I spend a lot of my time. They all know I have this other side, this family law practice, but. They also talk to me most of the time about
[00:14:21] Steve Fretzin: it. But in some ways, it might actually make you memorable because if everybody’s doing workplace investigations or doing something in that space and you happen to have this other background that’s interesting, that might be something that also is sort of a differentiator for you because they’re, they’re thinking of you differently than someone who does that, you know, 10 people that do everything the same way, the same, you know, same process, same, same focus.
[00:14:43] Steve Fretzin: Right. I’m doing
[00:14:44] Katie Burke: work with a firm of counsel, uh, DCI group, um, Stacey Drescher’s firm, and She brought up to me, she said, you would be the perfect person for family business, some kind of family business investigation. And it’s true. I mean, my entire background is psychology and I’m very, very psychologically oriented.
[00:15:04] Katie Burke: So that’s why I say in my mind, these things are much more connected than they might seem on the surface, but for sure, anything involving families, which I think I have a personal opinion and theory that’s out there that we replicate our family of origin issues at work anyway. You know, so. The longer people have been working together, I think the more that’s true that you’re really just dealing with family dysfunction in a
[00:15:26] Steve Fretzin: way.
[00:15:28] Steve Fretzin: That’s really interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think I’ve, I’m working with attorneys that, you know, do multiple things. They, you know, very few just do one thing. And we want to, we want to, you know, make sure that, that they’re, that they’re infomercial, they’re linked in, you know, positioning statement, the way that they’re being, you know, thought about is consistent across the board.
[00:15:48] Steve Fretzin: And, and again, when they do too many things, it can be really challenging. So it’s always about how do we, you know, it’s not that, that we stopped doing the five things that we’re doing. We can always do the things that we’ve always done. It’s really a matter of how do you want to be remembered? How do you want to be.
[00:16:03] Katie Burke: And you brought up the employment defense litigator example, but another example is you and I are both in provisors and I’ve been known since April, 2018, which is when I joined provisors as the family law attorney in my group, and, you know, for a lot of people to go to. Name for that. So there was a lot of confusion when I started adding to my, you know, pitch, so to speak, but I also do workplace investigations and I got a lot of questions and, you know, people would email me and say, I know this isn’t you anymore, but I have somebody who’s going through a divorce.
[00:16:34] Katie Burke: So I said, that’s me, you know, so I had a lot of explaining to you. And that was really when I got my friend’s advice. They just let them hear it over and over again. They’re going to hear you thanking people for. Sending you divorce client. They’re going to understand that’s still what you do. And in a room like that, there might be two people who are good referrals for workplace investigations.
[00:16:53] Katie Burke: Most people wouldn’t even have a way in to give me that referral. But I still think it’s important for me to say it because I got it. They’re going to hear from other people that I do it. They’re going to hear me thanking people for those referrals. So it is a very unique thing. And it’s also brought people out of the woodworks to ask me, well, I kind of stay in my range too much, but I also do this and I also do that.
[00:17:13] Katie Burke: And it’s the first time I’ve ever heard that they do anything like that. And, you know, there is some, there are boundaries you have to have to be courteous to other people. I don’t have another workplace investigator in my group, so I’m free to talk about both. But these are people who don’t even have competition for those other things in the group, but they just didn’t feel like they could talk about multiple things without getting people confused, which I can relate to, but they really, from what I was doing felt like, I wish I were doing that.
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[00:18:44] Steve Fretzin: I mean, I’m more comfortable with two things than five things. Like there are people that say, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. They just ramble through. And I think our brains just are not wired for that anymore. They’re like, you know, fleas, we’ve got, you know, the attention span of, you know, uh, fleas and, and just like, it’s just, that’s not going to take.
[00:19:03] Steve Fretzin: So like, if people can remember two things about you, right. You know, where you’re from and your name, like that might be the two things or the two practice areas or the two, the two things that you specialize in. I mean, for me and my people listening to this, I’ve heard me talk about this repeatedly, but you know, I, I work with lawyers in two ways.
[00:19:20] Steve Fretzin: I work with them on, on a, on business development, coaching and training and a structured program to learn planning and process and how to do it in a, in a sustainable way. And I work with lawyers on the peer advisory where I put together. You know, groups of attorneys that are high functioning, you know, rainmakers to collaborate.
[00:19:39] Steve Fretzin: And so as long as people know me for those two things, and that’s it, I’m fine. But I want them to know both because I don’t want to lose someone that says, well, Steve only works with people who are looking to build the skills. Well, I already have those skills. I don’t need Steve. Well, no, I have another program, but you didn’t know about that.
[00:19:56] Steve Fretzin: Well, that’s shame on me. Exactly. Exactly. Well, very cool. And then, um, I guess this goes back to networking and, and, and one of the things I focus on is development of strategic, what I call strategic partnerships. Other people might know them as referral partners, but there are certain people that are better for you as it relates to family law, estate planning attorneys, financial planners, therapists, like it’s well known that there are certain types of people that are going to run across a family, you know, issue more than, um, Just some random, you know, attorney.
[00:20:32] Steve Fretzin: For example. Okay. Yeah. And then on the workplace investigation, same thing. So are you then targeting to meet with those people, even though, again, it’s two separate things, but there are certain people in each of those categories that are going to be better for you.
[00:20:46] Katie Burke: Yes, I am. And I didn’t use to because having done family law for so long, I thought it was all about everyone knows me.
[00:20:54] Katie Burke: I have enough referrals. I have a lot of, you know, more referrals than I can process. That was the way I looked at it before. So I was not strategic in the least, even though I do a lot of premarital agreements, so estate planners are good for me. I just thought, well, everybody’s going to come across somebody who needs a divorce or, you know, something like that.
[00:21:12] Katie Burke: And because of adding this practice area of workplace investigation, and then having to be very strategic in that context, and that context, it would be employment defense litigators and other workplace investigators, because there’s so much work that people are turning it away and giving it to other investigators.
[00:21:31] Katie Burke: Because I had to be strategic in that context, it really got me thinking, and this was around the time when I was thinking, how did I become known for this really hard charging domestic violence and really difficult family law cases? It’s because that was a huge, enormous need, and I was really, really good at the work, but that came to me before I decided that that’s what I was looking for.
[00:21:52] Katie Burke: So I realized that even on the family law side, where I feel like I know everyone, and especially once people got confused, And the referrals did go down a little bit in family law. I realized it’s actually better that I get in touch with people one on one anyway and be really thoughtful about who those people are.
[00:22:10] Katie Burke: And one of the, one of the types that I approached a lot were estate planners to make sure they knew I’m still doing a lot of pre marital agreements and post marital agreements. Uh, and I love doing them. So, I have become a lot more strategic on the family law side
[00:22:24] Steve Fretzin: too. Yeah, we’re talking a little bit about provisors and for those listening that are not familiar.
[00:22:29] Steve Fretzin: It’s a national networking, mostly B to B, some B to C, but mostly B to B professionals. And there’s, I don’t know, 8800 members and X number of states in many cities in Chicago and out by you. And ultimately, it’s one of the best networking platforms I think that’s ever existed. And I’ve run plenty myself, but I just, uh, I think, well, and the fact that they get us, like I’m a group leader, that they get us to run it while pretty smart, pretty good, pretty good model, uh, if you will.
[00:23:01] Steve Fretzin: But, um, what’s been sort of like the biggest value you’ve gotten out of either provisors or networking in, in just in, in growing your business and developing your brand. Um,
[00:23:13] Katie Burke: I think it’s, I mean, it’s the thing people say about, you have people going out and selling your services for you. Because they’re out in the world interacting with people hearing about the things that you would be perfect for, and you would never be meeting those people.
[00:23:28] Katie Burke: So for me, I mean, I have been very, very active in provisers and some other local groups here in San Francisco. And, um, it’s just amazing to me how much of the work comes from, you know, a, a colleague of a colleague of a colleague, for example. So it’s just really making your concentric surplus a lot wider.
[00:23:45] Katie Burke: And one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about networking as somebody who has lived in San Francisco since 99, I have lived in the city, stayed in the city, worked in the city is, you know, I always forget and then remember again that even though it feels like I know absolutely everyone there is to know And that can be in san francisco for sure But then it can be in family law in workplace investigation circles improvisers, you know, it can be whatever.
[00:24:13] Katie Burke: Um, it’s never true It’s never true. If you turn the camera a little bit another way You just have this lens looking out into this whole other body of people you haven’t known and maybe there’s some overlap there certainly is with Workplace investigators and provisors, you know, there are people I already know from provisors who are in the association of workplace investigators, but that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you never know everyone and you never have, you’re never all set.
[00:24:41] Katie Burke: It’s never like, okay, I’ve got all the referrals I want. It’s always growing and and evolving. Your brand means keeping it fresh and keeping it out there what you’re doing now, because. If you’re doing the same thing 20 years later, something’s gone wrong.
[00:24:57] Steve Fretzin: Well, and if you take into account, you know, AI and you take into account, you know, you know, more business people, um, you know, getting into, you know, getting into legal services in certain States and just kind of where, you know, the competition, I mean, where things are all headed, if you’re not on top of.
[00:25:15] Steve Fretzin: Your brand, if you’re not on top of, of delegation, if you’re not on top of, of how to be consistent in how you grow business, you’re going to fall behind. And I see it all the time because that’s the business I’m in. And I’m talking to attorneys that are falling behind or have fallen behind and it’s very hard to catch up.
[00:25:32] Steve Fretzin: So, you know, best thing you can do is, is get involved and get going now, wherever stage you are and start getting connected with, you know, the top networking groups, uh, associations. You know, start thinking about where, where your targets are targets being, you know, buyers of your services and connectors, right?
[00:25:51] Steve Fretzin: The strategic partners and the people that, you know, running into the kind of work that you need and developing those relationships. I think providers is a great way to do that. It’s a little bit like I was kind of joking with someone like, oh yeah, you know, I joined a fraternity because I, you know, I wanted to buy a bunch of friends, you know, you know, whatever that there’s a joke about that, which is, you know, kind of BS.
[00:26:08] Steve Fretzin: But. In provisors, it’s like you’re buying into a network that you have to work. I mean, you have, you can’t just join and that’s the end of it. The business rolls in, but when you buy in and there’s a fee associated and there’s time associated and you do it properly, you know, with intention and with giving and with helping man, anything’s possible, there’s a lot of work that can be thrown your
[00:26:29] Katie Burke: way.
[00:26:30] Katie Burke: Exactly. Exactly. And the biggest thing that I’ve learned about provisors for sure, but any of these business networks is that. These people become your friends. I used to think when I was much younger, there are the work people and the friend people. And I didn’t want those worlds to mix and it still can get really messy sometimes, especially with family law, because I need the boundaries between home and work.
[00:26:51] Katie Burke: But I mean, my colleagues have become my friends and that’s just what happens because you have so much in common. That’s who you spend time with. You’re both business owners. It just, you know, it, it, it’s amazing how that has
[00:27:02] Steve Fretzin: evolved. Yeah, well, really cool stuff. And so I think, you know, kind of final thoughts on, uh, on people, a, you know, specializing in B, you know, when you make a decision to.
[00:27:13] Steve Fretzin: Have multiple practice areas or multiple focuses that it’s possible that there’s, there’s a way through it, but you have to have some focus,
[00:27:23] Katie Burke: you have to have focus and you have to ask for advice along the way, which can be hard because there aren’t a lot of people doing, you know, two different things that don’t look alike, but.
[00:27:34] Katie Burke: A lot of the things that people would advise about successful business in general go through
[00:27:39] Steve Fretzin: right on, right on. So listen, we have a new, uh, new ish element of the show. We’ve been doing a game changing books now for, I don’t know, probably well over a year, and we’re going to update it a little bit to game changing book or podcast.
[00:27:54] Steve Fretzin: So we’re gonna add because i’m listening to podcasts all the time and i’m always interested in what’s hot what’s new what is someone listening to where they’re getting either entertainment value business education value something that’s that’s adding some enjoyment or pleasure or or self help in their life what’s the podcast that you’re into these days.
[00:28:13] Katie Burke: My favorite podcast is fly on the wall with David Spade and Dana Carvey. And it’s where they interview, uh, various past and present SNL, uh, characters, um, feature players, musician, guest hosts, whatever, anything tying back to the days of Saturday night live and they talk about the old days. And I listened to it because I absolutely love SNL and I love David Spade and I love Dana Carvey.
[00:28:39] Katie Burke: That’s why I started listening to it. But when you gave me that question for the podcast. I thought about it in terms of what I also get out of it, which is a very real piece of it, which is this, they don’t, they don’t purport to be giving workplace advice and they’re definitely not doing that. But there are so many things in their stories with people, especially when they talk to people who, well, when they talk to people who were up there same time, their same cast years.
[00:29:04] Katie Burke: And, and when they don’t, because they’re all talking about this one workplace and it sounds so incredibly horrible and stressful and anxiety freezing and at the same time, the absolute best thing most of them have ever done. I take so much inspiration from that because you look at a show like that and you think.
[00:29:22] Katie Burke: Well, those people haven’t made that so much fun all the time. And it’s not, I mean, if you listen to that podcast, it’s like, it, it, it’s hell sometimes and, but they love it so much. It’s just in their bones. And that just is so inspiring to me because I feel like that’s what work is. If you love your work, it’s going to be brutal and beat you up sometimes, but it’s also going to give you so much meaning and purpose.
[00:29:46] Katie Burke: So I just love hearing that from people who do something that they make it look so easy and fun. Yeah.
[00:29:51] Steve Fretzin: Well, thanks for being the first on Be That Lawyer to share game changing podcast. That’s, that’s, and that’s, we’re going to do that moving forward and continue to talk about that. And I really enjoy that show as well.
[00:30:02] Steve Fretzin: And I’ve listened to it for, for as long as it’s been on. And I just, I, yeah, I’m a big SNL fan too and I, I just get a kick out of all this, especially the stories, right? The war stories and the, the people that you maybe didn’t think were so funny, but they’re funny. Like, it’s just, they’re not, you know, you’re not seeing they’re funny up front, but they’re the funny writer, right?
[00:30:20] Steve Fretzin: That, that, that’s getting the bits done. Anyway, really good stuff. Um, before we wrap up, I just want to thank our sponsors, of course, Money Penny, MoneyPenny. And get visible, uh, check them out on our, in the show notes and, uh, and, uh, hopefully heard their, uh, their commercials earlier and get, you know, get, get with them.
[00:30:36] Steve Fretzin: And Katie, just thank you so much for being on the show. If people want to reach out to you for either workplace investigations for family law divorce, they want to just, you know, connect with you to network. What’s the, what are the best ways for them to reach you?
[00:30:48] Katie Burke: Um, my website is burklawsf. com, B U R K E L A W S F as in sanfrancisco.
[00:30:56] Katie Burke: com. Uh, they can also email me at katie, K A T I E at burklawsf. com or they can call me at 415 997 6665. Yeah.
[00:31:08] Steve Fretzin: Well, thank you, Katie, for sharing your wisdom. And again, it’s inspiring to the, especially to the, to the attorneys that either struggle to network or that struggle to. You know, Hey, I, there’s things that I want to do, but I just don’t have the guts or the moxie to do it and you pulled it off.
[00:31:22] Steve Fretzin: So who knows? Who knows? Thank you, Steve. Yeah, my pleasure. And thank you everybody for spending some time with Katie and I today on be that lawyer. Uh, hopefully you got some good takeaways and tips and ideas. I know I did my usual page of notes and, um, again, uh, helping you be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized and a skilled rainmaker.
[00:31:39] Steve Fretzin: Take care, everybody. Be safe. Be well. And we will talk again real soon.
[00:31:47] 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 development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.