In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Zack Glaser discuss:
- Challenges lawyers face in creating processes and procedures (and in documenting those).
- Understanding how to use your email and other business products.
- Creating efficiencies for both your, and your client’s, convenience.
- Paying others to utilize your time in higher level tasks.
Key Takeaways:
- A project management software is at least as important, if not more important, than your case management software.
- If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product. Paying for the product allows you to have a business agreement with the company and typically comes with higher confidentiality.
- If you don’t have a practice management software, you are already doing the work, it’s likely just less efficient and less organized.
- A CRM will save you time and money, if you use it right, in spaces like e-signing, and in the integration of your law practice management system.
“You have time. So go do those higher level tasks. Go out and make it rain. Go do those things that are going to get you more business, and still pay somebody to do those lower level things, or use technology to do those lower level things, because you can’t pay somebody to go get you business.” — Zack Glaser
Connect with Zack Glaser:
Website: https://lawyerist.com/ & https://tech4lawyers.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zackglaser/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Zack_Glaser
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, lawyers, business, email, clients, crm, practice management system, zack, legal, technology, automations, zach, south dakota, talking, link, pay, solves, money, running, software
SPEAKERS
Zack Glaser, Narrator, Steve Fretzin
Zack Glaser [00:00]
What technologies do I have to draw workflows for how we work? What technology? Do I have to create my operations manual? How do I create an Operations Manual? And where do I keep it? You know, we both know that. You’ve got to have your procedures documented and in order to run the business, and I get the question of, yes, I get that, Zach. Literally, what do I need to be using for that?
Narrator [00:28]
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 [00:50]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin. Your host, I hope you’re having a lovely day. Listen, we are all about being that lawyer, someone who is competent organized a skilled Rainmaker, and, you know, every week I’m here to try to help you to understand how to be a better practitioner, how to be a better business developer marketer, and in some cases, learn about legal tech and try to really understand that there are efficiencies and automations that can make your life easier and better. And they’re not all for you. But maybe there’s a few that are. So one thing I tried to do is bring on Greg gases, you know, and today is no different. I’ve got Zach Glaser Who is it? Legal tech advisor, and he’s living in South Dakota, is that right?
[01:34]
Yeah, yeah, the bustling metropolises of South Dakota? Absolutely. It’s like Chicago, but different, right? Just like it except replace the people with corn. And that’s, that’s it,
Steve Fretzin [01:45]
corn to your left corn to your right. All right, we’re gonna before we get into the weeds on your background, I’ve got a quote that I think is really important for us to talk about before we get into the weeds on legal tech. And it’s a quote by Albert Einstein of all people, it is Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited. Whereas imagination embraces the entire world stimulating progress in giving birth to evolution. So I don’t know when I hear that I just think about the fact that you know, people know a lot of things doesn’t necessarily make the world better. But imagination and creativity and progress and evolution, that’s really where we kind of have to go in order to survive and thrive. So what does that quote sort of mean to you, from your perspective?
[02:31]
Yeah, so I love this quote, this is the first time I’ve heard it, but I love this, quote, knowledge is, to me useless without imagination, you know, it’s knowledge is just the history, it’s, it’s the documentation of things that have been done. And without imagination, we’re, we’re not gonna be able to do anything new, we’re not gonna be able to solve old problems, we’re not gonna be able to make things better. We obviously need the knowledge in order to be able to do that. But But that’s, that’s what that says to me is that the imagination is the thing that moves things forward. And knowledge is kind of just history.
Steve Fretzin [03:09]
And unfortunately, I think a lot of law firms, you know, when lawyers are kind of working off of past knowledge, you know, things were great, 10 years ago, things are great. Now, they’ll always be great, that’s working off the history, working off the knowledge, but they’re not thinking about the future and imagining what it could be like with COVID. Or imagine what it could be like, with virtual people working virtually or automations that are happening that they’re not up to date with. And that could really impact them in a negative way down the road.
[03:38]
Right, I was talking with Kim Mayberry of nakliye. Earlier this week, we were talking about creating automations. And he had was discussing past state, current state and future state of your of your automations or your workflows and things. And so to me, knowledge is past state and current state. You know, and we don’t want to say there, we never want to stay there. And and imagination is is future state, it’s that, that place that you’re going to that’s going to make you faster, it’s going to make you more efficient, it’s going to make you more productive. So Zack,
Steve Fretzin [04:13]
I agree. And I, you know, I think we’re going to be getting into some pretty heavy, you know, content today around around the future and in that imagination in the progress. Give a little background. So my audience understands kind of where you’re coming from on the legal tech side.
[04:27]
Yeah, so I am, my title is legal tech advisor at lawyers media. So lawyers.com I write the reviews of the legal technology that’s presented on there. I write a lot of the legal technology articles. And I also implement a lot of the technology that we have on on kind of our user side on our personal side of of our website and things like that. We have a lot of outside vendors that do more than me, but that is part of my role there. I used to and still kind of do You run a company called Tech for lawyers. That is, it advises attorneys on how to use legal technology, and even legal tech advisor. But in a in a practical way, I always try to write blogs that say, Here’s literally how you can do this thing, as opposed to, we should use templates. Okay, well, yeah, we know that we’ve been using boilerplate for, you know, since 1066. Sack, how do I actually create a template in Microsoft Word. So things like that. And I think all of this came from, when I got out of law school, I went practice with my father in collections, which is a, the margins in collections are so minut, that you have to be very efficient. And so I had to build up a machine in order to run the company. And I realized I liked building the machine more than I liked running the company, or even practicing law. And so that’s kind of how I got into this side of the legal area. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [05:58]
well, interesting background, it’s, you know, it’s, it always fascinates me when people have an aha moment when they’re in a business or in a job. And they say, you know, what, out of everything that I’m doing, you know, this is what I really like, and I, I talked to, you know, a lot of the managing partners I work with, they have that epiphany where they go, you know, what I, I really, you know, it’s fine doing the work, but that’s not really my passion, my passion is, you know, building the business, or it’s, you know, scouting for new talent, or, you know, just going out and getting business. And so, I think you have to find your passion, you have to find kind of like what angle of it you can be successful in and enjoy. Because, you know, people hear me say, you know, you only get one shot at this thing. So don’t don’t just suffer through your life, being miserable, doing things you don’t enjoy, really, you know, think about, you know, what you should be doing, that’s going to make you happy, that’s going to make your life kind of, you know, worthwhile, and maybe how you’re helping people. So Well, that was a long way to go. But what are some of the main challenges that you’re seeing in the in the legal profession today that we’re going to be talking about technology solutions that a few minutes, but what are the challenges that they’re having? where technology is so crucial?
[07:04]
I used to answer that question with organizing your files, law practice management system, something like that, like keeping, keeping your cases sorted out. And that still is a massive portion of running a law firm. And it is something that not everybody has figured out and that a lot of people are interested in. I mean, like, look at the we’ve got unicorns out there, like Clio. I mean, that’s, that is obviously a thing that people want more of and want to learn more about. I’m coming to realize that organizing their office, and documenting their procedures and documenting their processes and drawing out what’s in their head, about their businesses, outside of actually practicing law, is something that people are really starting to look into. And so we’re talking about just drawing workflows, What technologies do I have to draw workflows for how we work? What technology? Do I have to create my operations manual? How do I create an Operations Manual? And where do I keep it? You know, we both know that you’ve got to have your procedures documented, and in order to run the business. And I get the question of, yes, I get that, Zach, literally, what do I need to be using for that? And so I think this kind of planning aspect, outside of just the the legal practice portion is becoming bigger in my mind, or at the very least, I’m running into more people that are
Steve Fretzin [08:34]
asking that question. So just to clarify, you’re you’re suggesting that a law practice should be run like a business? I? It is, that’s confusing to me. I don’t understand that’s not right. It is business of law, I guess, oh,
[08:52]
that’s exactly right. You know, and I think that’s a thing that I, it took me a while even running a law practice to recognize one of the first things that I got into when I started helping my father with his firm, was I started looking at the practice management systems that we could use. And yes, that is an integral part of what you’re doing. But, you know, a project management software is at least as important, if not more important, than your case management software. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [09:24]
So those are some of the challenges that the that the legal space, you know, lawyers aren’t really driven by that process of the business process that other businesses know they have to be in now law practices are coming around and lawyers have to think about that. And then on top of that, that organization structure and how technology influences efficiency, right. Okay. So what then are sort of the must haves as it relates to you know, organization, as you mentioned,
[09:56]
the first thing that to me, anybody is really going to buy it And this is any business at this point is going to be a it’s easiest to say an email system. But it’s really your your business software, your base business software. And it comes down to basically one to one, one thing. Are you more comfortable with Google? Or are you more comfortable with Microsoft? And they both cover for the most part, the same things? At least as as it relates to lawyers? And so do you like how Google does things? Do you like how Microsoft does things, once you make that decision, you have your email, you have your basic calendar, you have a task manager of some sort, you know, it may be more basic than what you want, you have a place to store your files, you have a document creator, you have a good portion, you could even have your phones and your internal communications out of this. And so, to me, that’s the first decision you make. And it’s really just based on preference for the most part or preference of your, the people that are in your office if you already have kind of your office running.
Steve Fretzin [11:04]
And I think either way, there’s also a bunch of add ons, things that either come with it or things that you could add on to that give a quick example. And this, I think, is for Gmail and for Outlook, but I use a thing called Boomerang, that is, I think, five bucks a month. And essentially, you know, when I send out an email, and I want to know if someone read it, or I want to know if someone opened it, or more importantly, did they reply, if they didn’t reply, I don’t want that to hang over me or forget about it. So I set up a thing, you know, hey, if they don’t reply within three days, then it’ll go to the top of my inbox with a note saying, hey, there’s no reply. So it’s just it’s just those simple things that don’t allow me to forget or to miss place, a connection or communication that I’m trying to have. And now that’s just a piece of it. But you know, that, for me, that goes with every single email I send out, and it’s become a habit for me to to use it.
[11:58]
I love that one. Because that is a question that I get all the time from lawyers is how do I check in on something that I’ve done? You know, and for me, I’ve sent that email out, boom, checked off the task list, we’re good until it comes back. But it’s gonna come back, it’s obviously going to come back well, no, it’s not, somebody might not answer and then you have three months down the road, and you didn’t take care of this thing, because your client didn’t get back to you. So I like boomerang a lot. And the one of the biggest things I like about it is that you pay for it. I have a good friend in Nashville that has a time management company down there that says, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Hmm. And that’s true for me. And that’s not so much a I don’t like being the product sort of thing. But that’s a that’s a confidentiality issue with attorneys. So if you’re using a product like Boomerang, and it’s free, you probably aren’t going to have a business a quote unquote, business agreement business relationship with them. And that might have some HIPAA issues that might have some PII issues that might have some, some confidentiality or attorney client privilege issues. So I like boomerang because it is not crazy, expensive, but you are paying for it. And so it’s likely that you have a lot more confidentiality there as well.
Steve Fretzin [13:13]
Yeah, so adding on to email, whether it’s an add on or something that comes with that, are there are there one or two things that lawyers need to really have in their email system to make sure that it’s organized for their business?
[13:25]
I had a friend of mine sent me a text the other day that said, Zack, I didn’t realize that Microsoft rules could do so much. It’s like, yeah, yeah, they can do an amazing amount. And Google can do the same, same thing. And this is why I say it’s just whatever you’re comfortable with. But knowing how to use the product, like the actual built in stuff, I love the add ins to both of them, there are some amazing add ins, but knowing how to use the product specifically. And I think, knowing how to use Microsoft rules for your email of, okay, when I when I do X, or I think more importantly, when an email comes in, from this sender. Make sure you bold it, or something like that, put a flag on it. And the sender is a court. Email comes in from from this court in this jurisdiction, it goes to the top it stays on the top rules like that. And those are simple things to iterate into. And all of a sudden, you’ve got a really, really robust set of rules that are helping you run your your office, from your email. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [14:29]
I like that a lot. The other thing I’ve added on and this is I don’t this isn’t, this is something I just put in my emails, but I think it’s getting bigger and bigger every day is the auto scheduling. So the old days, I was emailing us and saying, Hey, man, let’s get together for a podcast. Let me know what works for you, then you just wouldn’t respond because you didn’t want to deal with it. Of course you would, but other people wouldn’t. And then I’d have to send another email using my boomerang. Hey, you know, I reached out to you a week ago. I haven’t heard back but I’d love to To give me some dates, or here’s some dates that work for me, then you say those dates don’t work. And they go back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, we either give up or we make it happen. But either way, how much time do I have involved in that. So now we’ve got things like Calendly, we’ve got things like acuity, and now they’re even bringing some of those into internalizing them within some of these systems. So now I send a link, you click the link, you find time in my schedule that I’ve made available for that, for that schedule, or for that link, or whatever. And I’m finding it incredibly efficient.
[15:32]
You know, from my perspective, using your link even and I do this from from my side also. But from my perspective, using your link, it was much more efficient for me to do that as well. Yeah, that’s the thing that I think a lot of a lot of users think of they think, Oh, I mean, how do I look? When I send a link? Now I’ve put now I’ve made them do something? Yeah, you did make them do something. And it takes less effort than what you were going to make them do. The what I think some people think is the quote unquote, polite way,
Steve Fretzin [16:00]
right now, as I say that, that issue? Yeah,
[16:03]
I think that idea is going away. Because I, I’ve gotten to where I’ll send an email and say, Hey, it’d be great to schedule with you, if you’d like, feel free to use my link. However, if you just want to send me a time, I’m happy to do it, you know, the old fashioned way. And usually by calling it the old fashioned way, I’ve been kind of like, I’m into No, I’m not.
Steve Fretzin [16:24]
It’s very, very gentle and polite, very polite.
[16:28]
But I know a lot of lawyers that are that are saying, I can’t do that. Because I feel rude. And telling someone to use my link. Well, I’ve asked people to send me their link. I had somebody today on Facebook, that was like, yeah, yeah, that’d be great to meet, send me your link. We’re starting to assume that’s there. I love that and the user experience just for your own edification, your user experience was great.
Steve Fretzin [16:48]
Well, thank you. That’s good to know. And, you know, I think sometimes it’s about the language, you know, I help lawyers with language all the time, which is interesting, because they’re like, you know, the language Smith’s of the world. But when it comes to relationships, when it comes to soft way of saying something, my wife will tell you to, like, that’s my, if I have a gift, that’s my gift. Because when her you know, she’s got to have a tough conversation with her dad or something like that. She’s always what do you what do you think, how, how should I angle this, but what I’ll say around it is, you know, in order to be really efficient with how we get together, or in order to, you know, for your convenience, here’s a link that will really help automate and streamline how we get together without the back and forth. Well, yeah, that sounds great streamlining, without the back and forth, I like that, I’m going to click that link. So I think sometimes it’s the product. And sometimes it’s the setup, but I think that’s really a big part of it. Any other email tips or ideas before we move on to the next point?
[17:45]
Yeah, and this one actually, kind of will probably go into a lot of different platforms. But Text Expander Text Expander is a platform where it is basically souped up, copy and paste, you create these forms that you can then put in your you create these snippets that you can put into anything that is on your computer, or your phone or whatever, you install the program on your computer. And the snippets are coming out of that program. And so you can put it in your email, you can put it in a document, you can put it into Slack, you can put it into a text message, if that’s how your computer is set up. But you also have this platform installed on your phone. So those same snippets, you can put into your email on your phone, you can put it into a text message. And I have seen people actually create entire leases. Out of these of these snippets. For me, I have a snippet that is like my introduction, you know, when I’m sending a cold email with somebody to get them to meet with me about their legal tech, and it says Hi, I’m Zack laser. I’m the legal tech advisor at you know, lawyers.com I saw you on and then it stops. And because I know that I want to set myself up from I saw you on and then I get to go and I type in slash ZG L so it’s Zach Glaser, Leedon, you know, and then that whole thing comes up, and I could do it on my phone, my email, yeah, oh, but
Steve Fretzin [19:07]
I definitely need that. Because there’s a lot of repetitiveness to what I’m sending out and I need to get that automated I what I’ve been doing is like saving stuff in a draft and then copying and pasting and that’s sort of been my my hack. But how do you get how do you get the text extender? Is that part of the rules? Or what does that
[19:24]
know? So it’s a product called Text? expander
Steve Fretzin [19:28]
expander I wrote that none of that I said it wrong.
[19:31]
And so you just go to I believe textexpander.com Actually, I have a review on lawyers that that reviews it and talks about it but yeah, you just go to text expander.com and and download it. There’s it’s one of those services, that’s freemium. And so you you get a well I guess it’s it’s free trial. It’s an extended trial and then you pay for it and it’s, it’s reasonably inexpensive and I I will forget about it when I’m talking to lawyers. And then they’ll all say, what’s the piece of technology that you’ve used that you think you use the most? And many, many times I get text expander.
Steve Fretzin [20:09]
Really cool. Love it. So what’s the next it must have that lawyers need to consider?
[20:16]
I think mostly, and this is in the legal space, specifically not a running the business space, but mostly a law practice management system of some sort. And that’s because if you do have it, or don’t have it, you have it. And so don’t have a law practice management system by default. If you if you don’t have something like Clio, or smoke ball, or file binder, PracticePanther, or something like that, yeah, then you’re doing all those same things with your Gmail suite, or your your Microsoft suite or an Excel spreadsheet, or your CRM or cell or something like that. So you’re already solving these problems that the practice management system solves, and probably not doing it as efficiently as the LPS would do. Right? It’s old school. Yeah, and it’s, you know, to me, a practice management system solves three of about five problems. So one is going to be client management, another is going to be matter management or case management, then you’ve got project management slash task management of some sort, then there is document management, and then there’s going to be the counting. And so it is at least three of those, and many of them do all of those things. And so when you think about that, you think, Okay, well, I’d like even if you don’t have the lVms, I’ve solved all those things. I’ve got this thing that does this thing that doesn’t. And those connections, those integrations between the all five of those platforms are usually leaves something to be desired, unless you’ve really put some time into it.
Steve Fretzin [21:52]
And are the lawyers that don’t have the practice management systems? Is it generally because they’re just like, Oh, my God, that’s too overwhelming to change. It’s too overwhelming to install, and train and learn and do it myself? Is that the reason? Is there an alternative to that? Meaning? Maybe your associate does it? Or maybe your assistant does it or something like some way to buffer it? Because I think that fear might be overwhelming for for some, especially solos or newer, newer startup type law practices.
[22:21]
Yeah. So I think there’s that. Absolutely. I think that’s the biggest issue. The other is, am I going to get my money out of it? Yeah. Is it worth X amount, right. And I’ll tell you in, in my practice, when I was practicing, we paid $800 a month for law practice management system, you’re probably not going to pay that unless you unless it’s really, really specialized in this was very, very specialized. But I think the other is, there have been a lot of people who have either used or seen what I call the legacy platforms, which are on premises, they’ve been installed on the on the the firm’s intranet. And they do okay, but they are they do very well, but but they don’t do some very specific things. And so the longer that leaves, their larger firm goes, I’m not using that. I can just do this with Microsoft, or I can just do this with Google and, and they kind of worked, they boiled frog. At the beginning. They can do it with Google, you know, the Google workspaces or Microsoft, and then they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and they never have a point where they say, I need to get a practice management system, it would be much more efficient and much faster for me.
Steve Fretzin [23:32]
Yeah. And I think we all agree that, you know, there’s, there’s a number of things that I consider kind of low level tasks, you know, 25 to $40 an hour tasks. And software solves a lot of that and hiring a good assistant hire some of that, but no lawyer that spending X amount of hours, 1020 hours a week or a month, even handling all the bookkeeping, handling all the details of of running the business through old school methods, or even running their own software. Maybe they that can be delegated, I think might be a mismanagement of time based on what they’re charging on the billable hour, where their time should be best spent.
[24:11]
100%. Yeah, that’s, that’s the thing is, you know, but the problem that people come to is, well, the thing I have Zack is time, I don’t have money. You know, I don’t have capital to expend on this. And I agree with that, like, I get that. But with that mentality, you’re always only going to have time. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [24:37]
Well, that’s also you know, going back to my space, a little bit of a business development issue, because if you don’t have money, it’s because you’re not developing business. And you have all that extra time to just work in the business and handle the software and that kind of, you know, becomes a big part of your day and you’re dealing with bookkeeping, because you don’t have the clients. So we got to flip that right. We got to work on our marketing, business development technology all together. They’re get into a position where the money’s flowing in like crazy. And then you start, you know, delegating out to a virtual assistant to a real assistant in house, whatever, to get this managed for you bookkeepers
[25:11]
things. That’s exactly right. Because you know, the the idea behind what you just said is, okay, well, I’ve got time. So many people say I’ve got time. So I’m going to do these low level tasks, because I don’t want to pay somebody for these low level tasks. Yeah, you have time. So go do those higher level tasks. Go go out and make it rain, you know, get go out and go to, you know, go speak at the SBA, go go speak at a landlord tenant conference, go do these things that are going to get you more business, and still pay somebody to do those lower level things or use technology to do those lower level things. Because you can’t pay somebody to give get you business, or you can pay somebody to help you. But But you’re not going to be able to pay somebody to go out there and be the name of your firm the face of your firm and bring in clients.
Steve Fretzin [26:02]
Yep, exactly. All right, we’re on the same page with that, what would be the final because we only have time for three, what will be the final it must have that law firm small law firms primarily mid market maybe need to have?
[26:15]
Yeah, so I think kind of going along with this, go get clients sort of aspect of it go make sure you have business, a client resource manager, a CRM of some sort something like law Maddix, I think that’s one of the best in class, in my mind, you can use something that’s not law specific, if you’d like. But something like law, medics will not only track your intake, so your case is coming in, you put it through a workflow, you put it through a specific, you can see where everything is gone. They’ll also track your marketing efforts. And so okay, I had Facebook advertising, I had Gmail average or Google advertising. And you can track where your cases are coming from, what your investments, what your marketing investments are bringing you. But more importantly, and I knew this is a this feels bad sometimes. How much are your clients worth you? How much do you make on them? What is your ROI on this specific type of client? Because when you do get clients, and if you if you’re just sitting there and you and you have tons of time, and you’ve just kind of get some clients here and there, you got a little bit of time to think about these things. But if when you do get clients and you do get busy, and you say I have more money than time, hopefully that’s where you are. Where do you want to put that money to continue having more money than time, where’s your smartest investment and so a good CRM is going to help you understand where your good clients are coming from.
Steve Fretzin [27:41]
Yeah, and I’m on La Maddix, myself as a non lawyer primarily for two reasons. One is to learn it to be able to help my clients, you know, integrate a software like that. Number two, is it’s managing a lot of stuff for me that I never had managed. So it is doing that automated scheduling in a in a neater way. It’s allowing me to customize contracts to send out so it’s all esign versus having to go back and forth and scan and print sign go back that’s doing that. Also marketing drip campaigns. Yes, I’ve got people that decide not to work with me, which is fine. I’m not a good fit for everybody. But how do I stay in touch with them over the next number of years so that maybe when they’re ready to come back, if they want more, I’ve got some new things going on, right, keep producing content and sharing with them as a way to keep in touch that isn’t happening. There are lawyers that are not talking to their clients. They’re not dripping marketing on them. They’re not engaging them to get them to so they can stay top of mind. And la Maddox is really, you know, shout out to Matt Spiegel and mimetics mean, what a great platform for not only, you know, tracking your pipeline, but also all the automations that they’ve added into it. And I’m going to have to give him a shout out and talk to him soon. Because I don’t even know that he knows that I’m on the platform. But anyway, I interviewed him on the podcast, but I haven’t I’ve done a terrible job of keeping in touch so maybe I need to I need to leverage automatics to keep in touch with thematics that’s a weird twist. That’s an irony. That’d be an irony. Right?
[29:10]
I think I think so. Yeah. I usually when somebody says that was ironic I go that was coincidental. Because nothing is ironic. Everything’s went to No, that’s actually irony.
Steve Fretzin [29:20]
I might have nailed it. I might have no irony. Right that I I’m not gonna get into it. So I think you’re right that that a CRM so so what’s your take that on and just you know, maybe a minute left and then we’re going to hit the three best stuff, but on a CRM like what’s the main value that that a lawyer that is that’s never used one before that seems scary. It’s another software on top of the practice Panther that was a soft, the smoke ball, whatever that now they’re adding an additional, you know, layer of software,
[29:49]
two places where a CRM is going to save you money, okay, it’s gonna pay for itself. One you already hit on which is the signing contracts. So when I get When I get a client, and even if I did client the old fashioned way, they walk into my office, I put their information into into the CRM, I still have an E, you know, I can still have an E signed contract, and we’re done. I send them a text message, they sign it, we’re done with all their information is put in by them, potentially. And then the other is that many times law Maddix for somebody’s CRM is going to integrate with their law practice management system. And so they put in fine information once and then it just imports into the system, it keeps track of it. And so right there, you can you can look and say that saves X amount of time for my assistant or for myself, a day, a week, a client, whatever. And then you say, is that worse? The amount of money that I’m paying for it, I would venture to guess it is?
Steve Fretzin [30:51]
So to give an example, you mentioned earlier that my link integration, the link I sent you to schedule this podcast with me took you through a number of questions it had you import your photo ID, it did a bunch of things, okay, it set you up in my calendar, and we’re rockin and rollin. And then now all your content and information is in my CRM, I don’t have to go in and insert your phone number, your email, it’s all there. And I can work off of it. So oh my god, how much time is that saving me? And then I’ve got your information to use it. However I see fit to keep in touch with you in a way that doesn’t take time.
[31:28]
And I was gonna have to give you that information anyway. Yeah, usually it was going to be Hey, Zack, can you email me the answer to these questions? You know, and Ryan, you might wind up spelling my name wrong. Or you might wait, wind up transposing? You know, two letters in my email or something like that. Yeah, I was gonna have to go through that process one way or the other. Yeah. So now it saves somebody time, you know, the world has has become more efficient. Because of that. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [31:55]
All right, man. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and having this really great interactive conversation about legal tech. And let’s move on to the three best of now you’ve got a very interesting situation because I’m interviewing people in LA and New York and Miami and they’re telling them all these great places. You’re out in South Dakota and I don’t think you’re you’re you know, in Sioux Falls like you’re, you’re you’re just what near Iran, South Dakota.
[32:19]
That’s gonna be the biggest city that anybody really no
Steve Fretzin [32:22]
population. What? 20,000? Maybe? Yeah,
[32:26]
yeah, I think Sioux Falls is like 200. Okay, right. The town I’m actually in when I leave. I think they have to change the pot. I think it’s that significant of a decline.
Steve Fretzin [32:39]
There’s a guy there at the edge of town you live in here. It’s got the paintbrush. Yeah.
[32:44]
One of those little clickers, you know, yeah. It’s, and then it doesn’t change until I get back. But yeah, I’m about 45 minutes away from from here in South Dakota. And yeah, just out in the middle of nowhere. A lot of land out there. A lot of a lot of land, tons of cows, tons of corn, tons of soybean and it’s peaceful. It’s nice. It’s a fantastic place to be.
Steve Fretzin [33:06]
And so what are you doing? I know I always ask people for restaurants and I am worried that you’re not going to be able to say that they’ve got a five star Michelin rated, you know, restaurant. And yeah, just outside of here on. What are what are you doing for good Chow?
[33:21]
Well, so in the summer, there is a joint that opens up in a town about 30 minutes away from me that does ice cream, milkshakes and fried chicken. Ooh. And I like all three of those. Yeah, it is. It is fantastic. But it’s only open basically during the summer. And they they they know what they’re doing. Because they are packed
Steve Fretzin [33:42]
by focus, right. Focus on three things. Ice cream and chicken. Yeah, it’s
[33:49]
Yeah, so I go there. I’ll get a whole chicken and the Elvis, which is bacon, banana and peanut butter milkshake.
Steve Fretzin [33:59]
Oh my god. That’s weird. Okay. Oh, yeah. But it’s good. But really? Yeah, yeah, the a cheeseburger on a Krispy Kreme and people thought I was not so nice. It was actually pretty good. So you never know. Yeah. Oh, thank God for state fairs. This kind of junk goes down. Frying a Snickers bar and crazy stuff. Right. So cool. So So I’m coming out to visit we’re gonna get some ice cream and chicken. And then what are people doing in South Dakota? Like why are people coming to South Dakota other than to see you know, some of the some of the monuments and whatnot.
[34:31]
Yeah, so hopefully it’s to see family because then then you wind up at a place at a at a you know, there’s not a lot of tourists are here and it’s a good place to kind of sit put your bags down and there’s a little coffee shop or something like that. It is you’re probably going to see somebody you know, and with that. There’s a lot of space, a lot of places to sit and just hang out and it is quiet. It is peaceful out here. My parents came and visited and they just we went on the back porch and just kind of hung out for for hours. Now, if people come to visit, I took a plane in yesterday I was traveling from Atlanta to here, got off the plane in Sioux Falls, South Dakota after about two and a half hour flight that drive three hours home. So that the play Madden was less than half my trip now. But the people that were on the plane with me were all pheasant hunters. And so there’s a lot of there’s a lot of hunting up here in the west side of South Dakota and people love it, they have a really good time. And if you like bird hunting, if you like pheasant hunting, then I would suggest to come up this way. If you don’t like that, a lot of prairie. It’s just it’s
Steve Fretzin [35:49]
just like quiet. You just want to get away from from all the hustle and bustle and just be in a quiet place where you can get your thoughts together and hang out and enjoy some ice cream and bacon peanut butter shakes.
[36:03]
i So I’m from well, I spent a lot of time in Memphis. And so when they when they had an Elvis, I was like, ah, yeah, that one’s for me. I gotta get.
Steve Fretzin [36:12]
I don’t care what’s in it. But you know, I’ve got that in connection now. Yes, I gotta do it. Listen, man, Zach, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom and just a delight to talk with you. And I’m looking forward to using my CRM to keep in touch with you, as well as picking up the phone once in a while. But thanks so much. If people want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way?
[36:32]
Yeah, they can probably find me on Twitter or LinkedIn, Zack underscore Glazer or at Zach underscore Glaser on Twitter and LinkedIn. Probably also Zack Glazer. Yeah, they can usually just, yeah, they can use their their I think they’re, they’re just a couple of us out in the world. Okay, but Steve, this was absolute joy. Thank you very much for for this this great conversation. I appreciate it.
Steve Fretzin [36:56]
I’m enjoying it as well. And hey, everybody, thank you for spending some time with Zach and I today. This is this is you know, look, this is the future we need to consider technology and automation and how to make our lives easier. And yeah, there might be a little bit of pain in making some changes. But that’s no, that’s the price of admission to get really organized with how you run your law practice. Am I on the money with that Zack? Absolutely. 100% on the money. All right. Thanks again, man. And thank you all for being here and being with me on the show. And you know, again, you be that lawyer someone who’s competent and organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody be safe and be well.
Narrator [37:36]
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