In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Kory Kelly discuss:
- Talent as a capitalist market.
- What culture really means and what talented employees are truly looking for.
- Selling legal services online as the future of the law industry.
- Automation and productization of legal services within the next five years.
Key Takeaways:
- If you want to retain quality talent, you have to create a place that people want to stay.
- Ask what your team needs and give it to them to support them in their job.
- Everybody gets business through relationships. It is not unique to the legal industry.
- The future of legal services is going to be more hyper specific law firms that do one thing extremely well.
“Make your team a product that you obsess over.” — Kory Kelly
Connect with Kory Kelly:
Website: https://legalkarma.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/korykelly/
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Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
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Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, lawyers, law firms, legal, business, pay, software, legal services, money, companies, hear, culture, helping, resignation, cory, talent, legalese, years, figured, product
SPEAKERS
Kory Kelly, Narrator, Steve Fretzin, Jordan Ostroff
Kory Kelly [00:00]
Make your team a product that you obsess over.
Narrator [00:08]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer, coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:30]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer, I hope you’re having a terrific day. It’s a lovely day here in Chicago, if you’re not in Chicago, come visit us we have a pretty cool city. I’m not going to get into details, but it pretty much rocks. So in this show, as you know, is all about helping you be that lawyer, hopefully, it’s, you’ve been a listener for a while and you understand that it’s all about taking away little tips and tricks and ideas from the show to get incrementally better. Some people just want to snap their fingers and be 10 years ahead of where they are today. It doesn’t really work like that. And what we try to look for is, is gradual improvements over time. And obviously learning from people smarter than we are I do it and you should do it too. I’m gonna introduce Cory Kelly in a moment. He’s a second time visitor to the show, and one of my favorite people, but I want to thank our sponsors, legalese marketing, helping me with my newsletter, my email marketing, my law Maddix. They’re running on my website. I mean, the list goes on and on and on, can’t say enough good things about legalese, and of course, money Penny, who’s who’s also on my website, doing my live chat, and also does a virtual reception for law firms. So if you’re looking for receptions to answer your phone, I think, Cory, maybe you could help me out with this. Don’t people get lost in the phone chain? Like when you have an automated phone system? Don’t people because I know we’re all about automation. That’s who you’re you’re not going to be talking about automation. But isn’t there something about having a live person answer a phone and like, put you in the right direction better than a phone tree? Oh,
[01:59]
my God, when I have an urgent need. The last thing that I want to hear is like wading through like a list of options. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [02:06]
Press one for wasting time and press two for you suck and you’re going to waste more time press three. I got on the phone with somebody, it was a customer service. They said press three for customer service. Then they said we’re very busy. We can’t get your call, please go back on our website and fill out the form which I had already done. And I was like, Okay, where’s my gun? Where’s my head? We’ll put a to be. I mean, it was brutal. Anyway, so money, Penny, everybody that was an extended commercial for money. Penny doing live virtual reception. Good stuff there. Okay. So Cory, the quote that you submitted, and we’re gonna give you credit for it, and then we might backtrack, but the hardest part of your overnight success was the five years it took to get there. Pretty cool, man.
[02:50]
Yeah, you know, that I really was thinking about it just a second ago, when you said, like, think, you know, like, you’re 10 years out, you know, it’s still about seeing the incremental change. Yeah. People always really overestimate what they can do in a year, like human people always set these yearly goals, and then seem to never hit them. But I think what people never understand is like how much you can do in five years. And if you really, instead of, you know, like, get upset, because you’re not hitting these revenue goals, or seeing the internal change that you expected to see this year. But when you really kind of step back and think, no, if I look at what I’ve done over the aggregate, I’ve made a lot of change, and you’re in a very different place than you were. And so I think that comes with those things, too.
Steve Fretzin [03:35]
But but the truth of the of the quote is, you’re an overnight success, but it took you five years to get there. So we think people are successful because they came up with a product or a service or some idea that’s really, you know, game changing. But what did it take their whole career led up to that all the mistakes they’ve made, all the failures they made, led up to that moment where they figured out, you know, how to air pop popcorn, or how to bottle water or whatever, you know, contraption someone came up with. And we didn’t, you know, they weren’t an overnight success, just because they woke up one morning and said, Hey, hula hoop, you know. So, there’s that Cory Kelly is the CEO of legal karma. And he’s been a great, great friend of mine into the show, and I’m just so happy to have you back man. And you’re like the master of technology and legal I think, you know, when I think about all the different people I’ve met in legal technology, you just really really know your stuff. And I think it’s allowed you to kind of lead a really unique life in the legal space. Give a little bit of your background though piece I don’t know that people realize how much you’ve accomplished in this space and in just in helping develop in build communities.
[04:42]
Yeah, absolutely. So kind of a thing pinball machine have a career. I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since I can remember doing some work. Sorry, that’s my
Steve Fretzin [04:52]
that’s okay. I kicked mine out of the room.
[04:55]
So I started public speaking coaching. Interestingly enough, I got to coach some fantastic fortune 100 CEOs and local leadership here in Austin. And I became an intrapreneur at a company here in Austin, helping them build communities that they sold to Fortune 500. Leaders. And, you know, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, maybe like many lawyers who went to law school and came out and started the grind, and then are waking up to this, like, oh, wait a second, like, there’s a lot that I can do with my time and with these skills that I’ve built. And I was wanting to build a company that was really close to human liberty. And that was what originally attracted me to the legal space, you know, tech laggards. There’s a lot of work to be done. A lot of it is automatable. And then I came across a startling statistic that said that legal products were growing at a faster rate than the am law 100, which is a really startling thing to hear, I think, for anybody in the space. And to me, that means that the future of legal services is fundamentally changing. And so I set out on a weird, lonely six months of just obsessively reading about legal technology, interviewing lawyers, interviewing people who are getting into this productize legal service play, and just understanding what can I build to usher in law firms of the future? Like, how can I build a tool that helps lawyers fundamentally change the way that they deliver services? So that’s a little bit about my weird, I have like a weird public speaking rhetoric backgrounds, and then like change management, consulting, and to like this legal space. So I’ve kind of been all around. But I’m really loving the impact that we’re making in the legal industry. It’s special.
Steve Fretzin [06:49]
And we’re going to save some time at the end to talk specifically about legal karma. Let’s talk about the great resignation. And what it’s sort of meant to law firms in the current situation, and then how it will impact the future because I think we’re seeing some pretty dramatic shifts happening in the legal space. And I want to get your take on it. And then where, where we’re going from there. And I know, I have a feeling I know where you’re gonna go, but I can’t be. I can’t say for sure.
[07:14]
Yeah, so interesting, the great resignation at law firms. You know, when I, when I talk with lawyers, I think what I find most common that’s striking about, you know, I’ve worked in a lot of different industries I’ve worked in, you know, the big companies, small companies, tech companies, healthcare companies. And I think while lawyers are doing really important work, most of the time, the culture at law firms, for someone coming from other industries, where maybe talent is treated really, really well. I’m often very struck by the vibe of the culture at the firm. And so I think that’s one of it. I think this like, the way that people behave, when I watch them on calls, and I get to know their teams, sometimes I find interesting, I think so I could see a world where especially younger talents, that who many of their friends are going to tech companies, they’re getting these really generous packages, they’re also getting a lot of time off, they’re getting free food, they’re working from home, they’re getting nice technology, they’re getting free health care, you know, when you take really high quality talent like that, I mean, talent is a capitalist market. Also, by the way, like, if you want to retain quality talent, and the tech companies know this. And so if you want to retain quality talent, you have to make an amazing place to work, you have to create it, like a space where people want to stay if people are having to twist your arm to get software that makes their life better, and lets them focus on more meaningful work or if their computer is a Windows from 2008. And they have to wait 10 minutes just for it to boot up like these digital natives like why would they put up with that there’s so many better places for them to go. Like they don’t need to work at you know, Templeton and Smith PLLC. Stupid but
Steve Fretzin [09:22]
so so if I’m if I’m just like, taking what you said and just shortening it up a little bit, it’s it’s really about culture is king. And the great resignation has allowed people to really see that if they’re going to spend time in any work environment, it needs to be the right work environment. And so yes, it’s about money and getting paid what you’re worth and, and all that. But I think it’s really about the happiness in the job. And if a firm doesn’t have good culture, then I think it’s they’re really putting themselves at a disadvantage. So that’s a big part of I think, not only what the resignation has demonstrated to us, but I think it’s also going to dictate what the future looks
[10:00]
like? Absolutely. And let’s get really specific about like when people say culture, like we’re not talking about, like pizza on Fridays and
Steve Fretzin [10:10]
Fridays kind of pizza Fridays, you know, like, we’re not special Tuesdays.
[10:15]
Thursdays Yeah, that’s really like, not what people care about, like, you know what people care about, they care about money, and they care about time off.
Steve Fretzin [10:21]
That. That’s it. I liked it. I think it’s more than that. I mean, I’m speaking as a Gen X, er, we care about money, and we care about time off. But don’t you think like the millennials, and some of the other folks, they also care about the mission, they care about the community, like, they’re friends with the people they work with, it’s not just a work environment, get your work done, and go home. It’s like, Hey, I’m going in, I’m gonna, you know, I like hanging with these people.
[10:48]
So there’s a really, there’s a lot of studies done on this, and the top two, and then everything else is really far below it. Okay, on into our increase my pay, I don’t care for pizza. And I don’t care about being called a hero or being appreciated, like pay me six figures. Like, if I’m having to teach someone else how to edit a PDF, I should be getting paid more than they are. Like, I think that’s probably like the hot take for most like millennials, and Gen Zers is like if I teach you how to do simple software tasks, like, and there’s no reason I should be getting paid 50 to 60k a year like I should be getting compensated differently. And then the other is like, I want time off. Like I don’t want to like I’m here as a relationship. Like, I think like, that’s a really like I’m here to give you my time for compensation. So now I’m talking in aggregate, this is general terms. Yeah, there are one there are things that are directly below that, like, when I’m working like and let’s talk like, keep talking about culture, like what I mean by culture is not like, do we go bowling on Fridays? Like culture is like, do I have the tools that I need to be successful? Like? Or is the leadership team so cheap, that they won’t invest in things that make my job impactful? Like there’s really meaningful culture, like culture, we’re not like family at work. Like, I think like family culture at work is a really problematic display, because you’re not family, like you’re there to perform. And I think people understand that. But also, like, there’s so many companies that know how to invest in things that make their employees time worthwhile, like illegal karma, for example, like, if one of my team members is like, hey, I need the software, it’s gonna make my output from one to five. I’m like, definitely whatever you need, like no questions asked, like, get what you need to be successful. And it may be.
Steve Fretzin [12:42]
But I think that’s a great thing that you’re saying is that we’re letting law firm leaders know and you’re letting law firm leaders know that they need to ask what people need, but they also need to produce or give up what people need. So if they’re asking for a new computer, they’re asking for, you know, training, they’re asking for, you know, software, that you support that and you give it to them and help them be do better at their job. And that’s gonna keep them maybe in place versus someone who’s going to leave because they’ve been nickeled and dimed to death or because they they’re not getting supported properly.
[13:14]
Yeah, create a place where people want to share their time there. And when they hear about other places, they’re like, oh, wow, yikes, I’m glad I work at, you know, I’m glad I work with you guys. And not like what everybody else is experiencing, like, create that at your own practice. It’s doable, and it’s not that expensive. And what you end up saving on churn of employees is I mean, the source attribution is very clear. And then maybe like, you know, another thing about like, culture would be like, show people that you’re investing in them really clear track to development, like invest skills in them. So whether they, like there’s there’s a saying and that I hear very often in software companies, and it’s like the best cultures, build up their team, like somebody else wants to, you know, take them from you, like you make someone such an asset that their next job that they go to, they’re going to be amazing. It’s gonna happen inevitably. But that’s a place where people work where they have the opportunity to do the best work of their lives, and they feel like the person that they came in, and then the person that they are when they leave are different.
Steve Fretzin [14:27]
Yeah, I mean, I will give some sideline advice to that. One of the things that’s happening that you know about and I know about and everyone listening knows about is that associates are leaving to go on to other firms. And a lot of these associates are doing it for the money. So you’ve got that sort of nailed. But what we need to do is we need to start figuring out how to get keep associates happy, and we need to figure out how to keep them. Then there’s a term in the world for business called golden handcuffs. I’m not suggesting that’s what’s happening here. But if I’m a partner and I’m a Rainmaker I’m bringing in business, and I have an associate. And that associate is an integral part of my business of, of helping me produce the work, right. And I’m not giving that associate some kind of my origination something that’s making that associate more money than he would or she would on her own. Or that’s making that them feel good that they’re appreciated, and connecting them to me in the firm, so that they don’t leave. Because they’re getting, there’s an upside. I’m not saying for everybody, but I’m saying there’s a lot of lawyers that are acting like greedy pigs, they’re not appreciating their associates, they just expect them to do their job. And then they leave and they’re there. Now they’re going to have to do the associates job. And that’s happening, like in a record level. So I think I think that we need to start really thinking about, like, who works under us, and how we can make their lives better, so that they don’t leave? Is that, what do you think about that? And what kind of where I’m coming from?
[15:55]
Yeah, I think that’s exactly like other perspective of what I totally agree with, which is, it’s, you have to create a place where people want to be there. And if you don’t get that, then you’re gonna keep spinning out talents. And until you can really make investments, like as one of the thing and, you know, and I speak a little differently. And so I think what’s interesting about this is there’s no higher demand than software talent. And so I really resonate with where lawyers are coming from here, because I also experienced it engineers are as expensive or more expensive than staff from attorneys. They’re amazingly hard to train, they’re amazingly hard to recruit. I’m competing with Apple, Google, you know, I’m competing with really amazing companies to go work at. So I’m really, really sensitive to this topic. And I think that, like, why would they want like, these people are valuable and intelligent. they’re digital natives, they have a very different expectation. And they’re hearing all of their friends work at amazing software companies, making six figures getting lunches getting great holidays, like ping
Steve Fretzin [17:13]
pong table in the office, right? Yeah, ping pong. Where do I sign
[17:19]
exactly that? Interviewing their friends say that? And they’re like, Oh, why are you working? They’re like, yeah, don’t come here, like this is a way better place to be. And so I think like as law firms, so connecting that back, one of the things that I’ve heard many of my other co friends say, is, as the as a business owner, one of the products that you have to obsess over is your team. And like, make your team a product that you obsess over. And like make your team like when at legal karma, I really abide by the rule of I want everyone who works at legal karma to have the opportunity to do the best work of their lives. And when they’re here, I want them to feel really connected to what we’re doing. And I want them to have decision making power, I want them to have software that lets them grow and be better. I want them to have new computers. So I spend a lot of time building a culture. Well, you know, we give all of our employees, four weeks of PTO on day one, free health care, all of the holidays included. So that’s holidays, plus four weeks of PTO plus free health care, plus free and we also buy our team unlimited business books. So if they want any self development book, they just have to ask and we’ll buy it for them and mail it to them. We try to really bake in cost effective ways, like things that, you know, give people golden handcuffs, but it’s also like, it’s it’s a little more than golden handcuffs. It’s like, it’s about the money. But it’s also about like, why would I go anywhere else? Like, like we’re here. Now another thing that we do is we look at competitive salaries as they raise year over year, and every year, everyone automatically gets a bump in salary. That’s new and competitive. And we don’t like we don’t do the yearly review or like, quarter out on our like, we don’t do any sort of like 5% BS nickel and dime thing like every year everyone on the team, we do an evaluation, it’s very transparent. Everybody gets a salary upgrade based on what the current competitive salaries are.
Steve Fretzin [19:31]
You know, in the legal space, some lawyers are getting 100 $150,000 more today than they were a year ago or two years ago for the same work the same job. I don’t know if that has some strings attached. My guess is that it does. However, it’s also shifting and adjusting maybe the profit level of if I have an attorney that you know, I pay 200,000 But he’s bringing in and working on work that produces three times that so I’m making 2x or maybe two or three hex with that lawyer, as a product is producing that maybe that number has to change, maybe expenses have gone down or have spaces less than it used to be overhead is down, you know, they can afford that. But I just I was questioning on LinkedIn in a poll like how are our law firms if they have to pay their associates more than the partners are gonna say, Well wait a second associates making as much as me, I’ve been here 10 years, you got to Jack me up or I’m leaving. And so this whole it’s going to have a chain reaction. You know,
Jordan Ostroff [20:31]
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Steve Fretzin [20:54]
Hey, Steph, tell everyone what mani pedi does for law firms
[20:57]
where the call handling and life to experts and Moneypenny receptionist can ensure that your calls are directed to the right person seamlessly saving you time and money. Steve, did you know that 69% of people don’t like to leave a voicemail.
Steve Fretzin [21:11]
I did not know that. That’s a lot of business going away right there. Let’s cut to the chase. What are you prepared to do for my listeners?
[21:18]
We’re offering an exclusive two week free trial. If you’re interested in hearing more, you can call me directly on 470-534-8846. I mentioned that you’ve heard this ad on Steve’s podcast.
Steve Fretzin [21:31]
Very cool. Thanks. So I had asked you about the future and the future legal. And I’ve got some concerns about how law firms are going to function. If they don’t change in a positive direction in the next five or 10 years.
[21:47]
I think you’re hitting on something that I’m really passionate about, which is the delivery of legal services is changing. You know, I really think that like, antiquated law firm model of let’s basically build a pyramid scheme and rake people in on it and burn them out for 10 years and then fingers crossed they make partner and if not, thanks for your service. Good luck goodbye. Like I think that I think that model is I hope on its way out. And I hope that this exact pressure that everyone’s feeling right now is just like a symptom of a disruption that’s looming. And this goes back to the very first thing that I mentioned, which is legal products are growing at a faster rate than those old antiquated law firms. And there’s a reason for that, because they operate like software companies. And that is the future selling legal services online. Not in some old wooden easer law firm that someone pays millions of dollars for on the backs of $800 an hour billable hour to, like artificial value. Like it’s it’s a legitimate it’s where it’s a business where efficiency is rewarded, not looked down on which I think that’s a whole big,
Steve Fretzin [23:05]
it, let me ask I mean, I know it changes from practice area to practice area and from size company to size company, but there’s the product is ation. And the the way that the automation of of legal services, automation of software to help, you know, you know, legal services perform at a higher level. And there’s a way of setting up, you know, your whole shop online, so it becomes like a, you know, maybe a lower ticket, but it’s more like it’s more on like a factory producing through, you know, through web leads that lead into intake that leads into, you know, for example, like, then, you know, just like $1,000 for this or $1,000 for that. But then are we losing the relationship side of legal services in the sense that lawyers get business through relationships? Not necessarily some some can do it all online, but others get it through relationships? So how do you see that kind of playing out?
[24:02]
I mean, like, that’s not It’s not special. Everybody like Newsflash, everybody gets business through relationships. Like that is not like new, it’s not
Steve Fretzin [24:11]
new. That’s not something that just came up with. A smart I just came up with that, you know, I don’t know where?
[24:17]
Well I hear a lot of lawyers say that that’s why not not unique to legal industries, like, the truth is, is clients are tired of paying for template factories. And I think what when I feel really excited to pay my lawyer is when I’m in trouble, or I have a legitimate concern or question. And then I get on the phone with him for 15 minutes. Like I’m not I’m not on the phone with them because I want to be or because they’re my friend like I’m paying them at an insanely high rate and I’m looking at the clock at the 15 minute mark because I’m getting off the call at 15 minutes late so like we’re not buds like I get on the phone with them. I really like their point. First and competent and intelligence, and that’s what I want them to be for 15 minutes. And that’s it. That’s it. And then when I turn around and ask them, and I’m like, hey, I need an employee handbook. And they’re like, Yeah, that’s gonna be like, 10k. And I’m like, What do you mean, that’s going to be 10k? I know, you’re just gonna go fill out a template, open it up, edit it for an hour, and then charge me money for it. And I’m like, that is the, it is the most frustrating. And that’s the part I think it’s that part of it that I think is ripe for disruption. I think there’s lots of other parts. Like, when you’re, you know, when you’re working with your hive, all sorts of frustrations, like, even work. Yeah, I
Steve Fretzin [25:40]
can tell you, I’ve had some rough goes through, by the way. I mean, I’m gonna just gonna jump in. I had I had a terrific lawyer who was working with me on contracts. And he, he would talk to me for like, 15 minutes about life and my family and everything. And I never really thought about that he was charging me and then I got a bill. And I was like, There’s no way he’s charging me for this small talk stuff. And he sure enough, he did. I was like, Oh, my God. So the next time I got on the phone, I’m like, I’m like, Andy, cut to the chase. Tell me what’s up. Like, I learned my lesson the hard way. You know, I paid your bill. But you know, this is this is not working for me is I you know, if we’re friends, great, let’s be friends. And we can talk and then 15 minutes is on, you know, as I’m the house. But anyway. So listen, Cory, let me ask you, it’s the future of legal services as it relates to automation and product possession. Where do you see it going? Just in the next five years, I mean, just give give your future, you know, crystal ball scene of it.
[26:42]
So what we’re seeing now is, a bunch of either lawyers or league or tech entrepreneurs are sometimes both coming together to solve one really specific problem. For example, like divorces in uncontested divorces in California, or LGBTQ like same sex couple estate planning in Arizona, or like, it’s like one really specific thing that they build software around, that is expensive and time consuming. To build those things. Nothing in software is free, everything is expensive. And then they turn around and they sell illegal productize service. There’s all sorts of like funny names for these things. There’s like easy expunctions. And obviously, hello, divorce and little like Titan, some of them are running into UPL concerns because you can’t be a software company and sell, you know, you can’t give legal advice as a software company. We affirm it’s very specific, as you know. So I think in the next five years, we’ll continue to see that grow and expand and will start and I in my opinion, the future of legal services is hyper specific, individual law firms that when either by the county or state level, that become known for this one thing really well. And I think that’s the future of the next five to 10 years of legal services, I think we’ll continue to see these tech companies pop up. And that’s what legal karma is doing. Like we bring that power and implement it at the law firm level, so they can win that emerging market. That’s the whole thing we’re about.
Steve Fretzin [28:28]
Yeah, so let’s, let’s end the show with what we’re going to talk about game changing books in a moment. But talk about legal karma, give like your one minute infomercial, and then we’ll put that in the show notes as well as all your in your contact information. But you have a product. And again, you know, I bring on a lot of technology and people that have different products. But I really like your product. And I when I’ve seen it really is incredibly useful, because you’ve figured some things out that maybe others haven’t in your same space. So talk to that.
[28:59]
Well, you know, maybe if anybody wants to learn more about legal karma, Google it or go to our website, legal karma.io. And you can get the infomercial, but
Steve Fretzin [29:09]
it’s but it’s document. It’s with document automation, right? I mean, you’re taking documents and you’ve got a way of producing them faster, better, more efficiently than than doing it you know, on your own.
[29:21]
In so humble. Quiet. Well, I want to tie
Steve Fretzin [29:26]
it back into your prints. That’s
[29:29]
what goes back in. So what we’ve been talking about, yeah. And so basically what you can do as legal karma and legal karma is, is you take your common transactional documents, you know, we work with a ton of estate planning family, business firm corporate firms, and you basically create these products that it’s no longer one contract at a time, one client at a time, but rather how do I build these master documents that can handle multiple clients situations? so that I can provide the most efficient service for growing my firm and also for providing a compelling price point sparkline. And so this is what this is what productizing This is what software company. So that’s that’s basically what we do. But when I think about like the about what this podcast about, which has been about the great resignation, your associates that are leaving this, like culture issues like these lawyers that I mean, think about why you went to law school, like as maybe a potential partner that’s listening right now, like you went to law school way, but you know what, however long ago, it was probably because you’re bright eyed and bushy tailed, you wanted to make a difference in the world, you saw Big Blue Ocean in LA. And then you know, you went through the process, you probably got to know now here you are today, a partner, you’re making your money, but you also paid your dues. I think what’s really different is this new, these new generations don’t believe in that, let’s pay our dues vibe. Like they’re more like, I expect a quality work environment now. And they didn’t go to law school to Edit Word templates, and then turn around and charge someone an ungodly amount of money for deleting a few things out and like making, like some really simple changes. And I think a lot of that were in, there’s a lot of what lawyers do that isn’t that by the way. And I think that bespoke work is what you you want more capacity for but it’s like these, changing the article number after you did the legal claws, like throughout the document, like so much of that stuff is automatable. Yeah. And so that’s where we come in at legal karma, we come into your law firm, and we help you automate and operate like a software company. And I think that gets into this, let’s build law firms of the future. Let’s build, let’s build firms where people want to stay in work. And people want to work at software companies and companies that operate like software companies. And so that’s what we do. And so if you want to learn about document automation, and check us out, but you know, we give quality of life improvements to your staff, and we create products that you can sell on your website. And that’s basically
Steve Fretzin [32:12]
yeah, I mean, I teed you up for that. So there you go. I appreciate you finally jumping on board. I had to like pull it out of you. But listen, Cory Kelly, you, you’re terrific. Your Game Changing book is a fantastic one. And I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t read it. I totally cheated and watched a YouTube video about that in 35 minutes. And I thought it was terrific. Atomic habits. Why do you like atomic habits.
[32:35]
It teaches you about how to become the person that you want to be. And this is probably something that a lot of your people like, be that lawyer like that’s what your whole shtick is about, like, how do we be this person that we want to be? And I think the biggest takeaway from the book is you don’t rise to meet a goal, but you fall to the level of your existing systems. And I think if everybody understood that, you know, if you want to become a million dollar a year, lawyer, the goal is not to become a million dollar ARR business. The goal is how do I fall in love with customer acquisition? And how do I set my processes up in such a way that let me scale and you fall in love with that process? Not the goal, like the goal isn’t like everybody who fails has the same goal you do. But it’s the people that win that become that lawyer that that actually fall in love with the growth process.
Steve Fretzin [33:33]
I’m going to tell a quick story as we wrap things up. I have a chapter in my book, the business development isn’t rocket science. And it’s a chapter where I talk about, I went took a golf, you play golf, I play frisbee, golf, frisbee golf. Alright, so but I play golf not not well, and not often, but I went to a pro and the pro center. Let me see your swing, hit like 10 balls into the screen. And I did and he says, Do you enjoy your swing? And I said what he says Do you enjoy your swing? And I go, What do you mean? He goes, What do you think golf is? I said, Well, it’s getting the ball from here to there to get in the hole down. There he goes. Yeah, but but what’s the game. And he explained to me that the actual game of golf is the swing, that is the game, the fact that the ball goes where the better the swing, the more you enjoy the swing, the better the ball is going to go. And so to your point, it’s not about the end result of the score, or of getting it to the ball from one end to the other. It’s about the swing. And if you’re enjoying the swing, then you’re enjoying golf. If you’re not enjoying the swing, then you’re golfing, but it’s not the same game. And I was like, oh blew my mind. I was like holy mackerel. And I immediately said that’s what business development is. It’s not about getting to a million. It’s about the journey. The questioning the listening, the learning the way that you’re walking the buyer through a buying decision to see if it’s a fit. It’s all about that enjoyment. And if you’re doing it right, it is fun. If you’re doing it wrong, it’s painful. So I think that’s right In line with with what you’re saying you picked up from atomic habits and I thought it was a terrific video. Shameful I didn’t read the book but you know, maybe they’re getting paid on the on the video I don’t know, but it’s on YouTube everybody if you type in atomic habits ah Cory All right man. We’re gonna wrap up my friend thanks again for being on the show this you’re a second time are your two timer man. When you get to five you get a jacket. That’s what we
[35:22]
figured out. All right, like a jersey like we might get that you’re
Steve Fretzin [35:27]
maybe not a Jordan Jersey because that that’s my prized possession behind me, but we’ll figure out something. Just Thanks, man. Thanks for being you. Thanks for being such a great partner for me and for being on the show and sharing your wisdom and it’s always just it’s always a pleasure, man.
[35:41]
The feeling is totally mutual. I love your questions and I love your business and yeah, really glad to be here.
Steve Fretzin [35:47]
Yeah, we’re having a good time. Everybody thanks for spending some time with Cory and myself today. Again, you know great resignations upon us it’s what you do with it that matters and again enjoying the automation enjoying the way that you’re trying to try to make you know yourself and the people around you better. It’s all about being that lawyers you know someone who’s competent, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Hey, be safe be well, we’ll talk again soon everybody take care.
Narrator [36:16]
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