#180: Stop Trying To Sell Yourself (Do This Instead)

Heather: Well, hello, hello everybody. This is Heather Moulder, host of the Life & Law Podcast. And I’m so happy that you are here today.

Today we have a special guest, somebody that I was recently introduced to and had to get on the show. And I’m going to do a brief introduction. But I think you’re going to love today’s conversation because we are going to talk about sales-free selling. And we’re going to talk about this with Steve Fretzen, who is a lawyer, business development coach and host of the Be That Lawyer Podcast – a podcast created to demystify the most challenging elements of growing a sustainable law practice through practical tips, fresh ideas and new methodologies.

Welcome, Steve.

[00:01:50] Steve: Hey, thank you, Heather. Happy to be here.

[00:01:52] Heather: Well, I’m super excited to have you here because sales-free selling. I’ve never said it quite that way, but it is something I speak to as well. And I said this before we got we hit record, but I think it’s important to say again. Actually, I find a lot of lawyers are pretty cynical when you say, yeah, no, you don’t have to sell that way to sell.

And they think of selling as this sleazy, salesy, pushy kind of a thing. And so when I found out this is kind of like what you’re most passionate about, that made me super excited. I was like, I’ve got to get him on this conversation. Especially since you’re actually not a lawyer. You’re more of a sales and marketing person. Like, you’ve been in that for a long time. And I think it’s important to hear these concepts from somebody not, not just a lawyer, somebody who’s actually done this for a long time. So before we get into the bulk of the conversation, why don’t you give a kind of a brief introduction as to who you are, what you do.

Why Selling Is Necessary

[00:02:45] Steve: Yeah, I appreciate that so much, Heather. I’m, you know, pretty dedicated to the legal community. I was pulled into it in the recession in 2008 and 9 and I had primarily focused on working with entrepreneurs and sales teams. And I had no idea the lack of education in undergrad and law school and at the law firm level that lawyers become amazing lawyers. But from the business perspective, totally hung out to dry. And so a combination of a need in the industry and having a sales free approach really connected me with, with everybody. And so I decided to push my chips in and be a full time lawyer coach back in 2009 and haven’t looked back. It’s been the greatest decision I’ve ever made.

I have a lawyer, a lawyer father who recently passed. However, we spent many years talking about lawyers in the law legal industry and I even had him on my Be that Lawyer podcast is my 200th show if people want to check that out. But you know, 87 years old talking about how, you know, he didn’t develop business, but we ultimately found out that he did and that he was doing it. He just didn’t call it that.

[00:03:54] Heather: Right.

[00:03:55] Steve: But, but you know, the idea that, that the business side of law is such a critical element to so many attorneys and that it isn’t really being discussed, it made it sort of was a perfect opening for me to step in, you know, many years ago to try to, to help this, these, these brilliant people take things to the next level in less time and with greater results, which has been been my passion.

[00:04:18] Heather: Yeah, it’s interesting to me and I don’t know if law school really is the place for it because law school is run by lawyers. They are teaching you the law, how to think. But you know, you don’t get anything in law school around how to run a business, how to grow a business, any of the con, the business concepts that do come into play when you start practicing, regardless of where you practice. And I like to tell, you know, my, even my big law lawyer clients because I, I work with, I’d say 40 to 50% of my clients are like big law type lawyers, but the rest are like solo or smaller shops. Right. But even the big law lawyers, they run a business if once they start to grow up a practice. And so it’s really important to think of it that way. And there’s no training on that. And it’s not just law school, though. There’s not a lot of good training out there in general.

Even though lots of law firms think they have that training, I don’t find that most of it is very good. It’s, oh, do what these other people did.

[00:05:16] Steve: Yeah, yeah, well, or, yeah, I mean, someone who has made it rain is telling associates how. How to make it rain. And, you know, they were, you know, they were glad handing it the private golf club in the 80s and 90s, and things are completely different now than they were then.

[00:05:34] Heather: Yes.

[00:05:34] Steve: And so, you know, just in. The worst was I interviewed a bunch of rainmakers years ago when I. Before I even had a podcast, and I asked them, like, what do you tell your young people about. Oh, you just got to get out there. All right, well, that’s super unhelpful.

[00:05:47] Heather: I mean, what does that mean?

[00:05:49] Steve: What does that even mean? And. And even if you told them how you did it, that’s not necessarily going to work with their personality, the timing, the way the world works now, women different than men, and all these different variables that were not discussed. So I think it’s so important. And I think there are law schools who have practice management classes that are bringing in people like you and I to talk about networking and relationships and some of the soft skills that need to be done, but not. Not again, at any real level. That’s gonna, you know, change the course for somebody to really understand how to grow a practice or a business around. Around the law.

[00:06:27] Heather: Yeah, no, that’s definitely. I do. It is nice to see that more law schools are starting to pay attention to this. That’s the starting place for it, but it’s still not enough. And I do find, though, too, that some of this is. Is. And I don’t know if you see this before, but a lot of lawyers have this mentality around, well, I’m not a business person. I didn’t go to business school. I didn’t get a marketing degree. And somehow they think they can’t do these things. And there’s a lot of mindset blocks there from them even being willing to look at it.

Why Lawyers Shy Away From Selling

Do you find also that that’s part of the problem, that their entire mentality around, you know, well, I was trained as a lawyer. I’m just here to practice, not anything else?

[00:07:10] Steve: Yeah, there’s. There’s a couple things at play there, I think.

Number one is, like, doctors Lawyers are put up on a pedestal because it’s such a noble, you know, I mean, without law, right? What. What is our world? What is our country? So, so that, that takes away. And, you know, sales is, is, by the way, way down here. It’s a sleazy car salesman. It’s the, it’s the life insurance salesman asking for, you know, all the names of people, you know, that they can go harass, you know, whatever the situation might be. So between that, in the ingrained nobleness of it and then the sleaziness of what sales connotation is, those are barriers. And then it’s like, hey, I never. That’s not why I became a lawyer to do this.

So we try to again, demystify that. Believe it or not, sales is a scary word. Okay? We call it business development and marketing. Anything make us feel better. Ultimately, it is an incredibly noble profession. Is incredibly noble. Because if you think about it, there are people that need your help. They don’t know about you. You’re not branding yourself, so you’re not getting in front of the people who need your help. And then you’re. If you’re not working with people that can, that can use your help, they’re not solving the problems that you can solve. So there’s a disconnect between what sales really is and what it should be and how it should be thought of. And that’s, that’s sort of the tip of the iceberg of what we could get into. But it’s.

And again, it is a learned skill. It is not something people are born with. There are no natural born rainmakers. There are people that have maybe more outgoing personalities.

[00:08:39] Heather: Yes.

[00:08:40] Steve: But I actually have found that some of my most successful clients aren’t the personalities. They’re the introverted lawyer who just needed process and systems and language. And once they have that, the whole world opens up. Because now they’re not scared of the unknown. They actually have a way of maneuvering it similar to how someone would run a trial or create an estate plan. It’s all becoming not robotic, but it’s becoming something that’s so ingrained in something that they can really internalize and that changes everything.

What Is Selling, Anyway?

[00:09:10] Heather: Yeah, there’s so much you just opened up there that’s so important, and I think it’s. Something comes to mind. A sales coach that I know likes to just say, look, you need to figure out what sales actually is. We have this disconnect, as you said, around what we think of selling as versus what a sale actually is. And if you look at a definition for a sale, it is merely the exchange of money for a good or service. That’s it. There’s nothing wrong or bad about that. If you’re exchanging money for a good or service that somebody wants or needs, there’s nothing wrong about that. And so I feel like that that’s kind of that first step if they need to understand and disconnect from that sleazy used car salesman. Because there are different ways in which you can sell, right?

[00:09:58] Steve: Yeah.

[00:09:58] Heather: And approaches to selling. And that’s where you know. And she likes to say, we just put up your. What are your guard. What are your sales guardrails? What do you feel comfortable doing and not doing? And why and what is it you’re trying to do? And how are you trying to help people? And so when you start to shift the mentality around what a sale is, I think then you can start getting into that next step of, okay, I can actually go out and do this and figure out how to do that.

[00:10:24] Steve: Yeah. And here’s the most interesting piece that it’s seen as. Like, I don’t. Like lawyers would say, I don’t ever want to be seen as a salesman. I don’t ever want to be salesy yet. Then when they actually get into business development and get out in front of people, what do they do? They go on a pitch meeting. It’s literally called a pitch meeting, which is all about salesy-ness, convincing, talking yourself up, thumping your chest.

Showing vs. Telling

And that’s what they’re being taught to do. Or that’s what they’re just sort of inherently realizing they have to do. And it’s completely backwards. So here we are saying we don’t want to be something, and then we go out and do exactly what we don’t want to be. And by the way, you don’t have to do that, because the way sales-free selling works and the way that sales should work today should be about building rapport and relationship and trust, asking great questions, being an active listener, identifying people’s problems and pain points, qualifying that there’s a fit to work together, demonstrating empathy. Those are not skills that are convincing in pitching and selling. Those are. Those are more consultative, therapist, lawyering type of skills. But they’re not being used in the process, which is a tragedy.

[00:11:37] Heather: It is. I like to tell my clients when they’re going out, like, treat them like they’re already a client. Like, stop thinking of them completely separately. Like, I have to sell them. No, start treating them like, okay, they’re already my Client. What questions would I ask them about what’s going on here? What would I need to know so that I could actually help them or give them a piece of advice that’s like, change your entire mentality around that so that you can, your approach will be different. And that’s what I think I hear from you, is sales. Free selling is about putting yourself into a different pair of shoes and just kind of approaching them as, okay, well, how can I actually help you?

[00:12:18] Steve: Right, well, and here’s, and here’s the thing. So let’s, let’s, let’s take two scenarios.

So I’m going to see a therapist. And I go to see this, this therapist. They’ve got degrees all over the wall, Harvard, et cetera, et cetera. And that therapist spends the next hour telling me about why he’s so great or she’s so great and kind of like, you know, thumping the chest and trying to sell me to be the patient, right? To be their client or patient for the next, you know, number of years or whatever it might be. Is that the therapist I want?

Or do I want to walk in and someone greets me and is warm and asks me a bunch of questions and why are you here today? And what, what, what are you hoping we can accomplish? And, and tell me about, you know, you mentioned that, you know, you’re, you’re having trouble with your teenager, what’s going on? And, and then, you know, an hour later, I’m bawling and stuffing tissue in my face. I don’t think at the end of that meeting, I’m going to say, I feel so much better for talking to you and letting all this out. Next week I’m going to go find someone else. Right. I don’t think that’s how it works.

You know, my sister’s a therapist. Nobody leaves my sister. She’s got claws in them so deep, the trust is so thick that they’re never going to go anywhere. And that’s the way we need to act and be around new potential clients. Because to your point, treat them like they’re already a client, like they’re already your friend. Like be, you know, be there for them. And that doesn’t involve selling in a traditional sense of convincing and talking and pitching.

Why Introverts Can Be Great At Selling

[00:13:41] Heather: Absolutely. And I wanted to point out something else that you said earlier. This whole introverts versus extroverts.

The vast majority of lawyers I’ve known are actually more introverted, yet they all look at the few extrovert lawyers and say, oh, my God, I have to be more like that, which I’ve always found fascinating and very interesting. And I have to say I was that person at one point. And it’s interesting that you said you got started with lawyers after the crash. That’s when I made partner.

And every bit of business I had was gone by the end of that year. And I remember looking at my numbers in January of 2009 from the year before and they were so truly dismal. I’d never had a year like that in my life. And I was looking forward and going, it’s going to even be worse this year, so what do I do about it? And I knew, okay, I have to pivot into a new practice area because I was one of those lawyers who did the work that caused the crash.

It was gone. That work we did structured finance of interesting things. But that, that stuff was gone and I had to pivot and figure out what am I going to do and how am I going to sell myself? Which was the wrong place to start, right? How do I sell myself? But I remember being scared to death thinking, I’m introverted, I don’t know what to do here. It takes me forever to build relationships and all this stuff. Now funny enough, fast forward two years and I had a million dollar book of business because I just decided I can’t do it like everybody else. I have to figure out a way that works for me that feels good and kind of leaned into slowly building relationships and talking and asking questions and all of that. So I just, I think people falsely assume they have to be some extroverted person. And that is not true. And I found, like you, the introverts actually do better.

Do you have. Yeah, yeah. Thoughts about why that is?

[00:15:39] Steve: I mean, so, you know, both have their advantages and disadvantages. Extroverts are more comfortable walking into a room full of people and talking and glad handing and going through that lampshade on the head at the party type of thing. The problem with extroverts is they are typically highly disorganized. They don’t follow process well. They’re the ones turning in their timesheets later than anybody wants them to and they just want to be them and do them. And again, for some that works and for many, they just, it’s just, it’s a lot of unproductive time.

And introverts, on the contrary, are, you know, they’re, you know, shy and sheepish and they don’t want to go talk to people. And mostly it’s because they need to find something that’s comfortable for them and they need to find an approach that’s comfortable for them. So it’s a one on one meeting is going to be more comfortable than maybe a large group. So, okay, we can focus on that. And having a plan that outlines what you need to do each day to get to a certain result. Well, that resonates with introverts very well. And then breaking it down into what do I actually need to do today, this week, this month that’s going to produce for me, what are the steps I need to follow? Like there’s a step like sales-free selling, just as an example.

It’s a stairwell leading to a door at the top. And you touch step one and then good things happen. You touch step two, good things happen. As long as you don’t skip steps, one of two things are going to happen. You’re going to either end up with a positive result of getting business or a new relationship or whatever it’s leading towards, or you’re going to disqualify yourself or someone else out and get that time back. You’re not going to keep investing time with the wrong people. So one way or the other you’re going to win and move people forward or move people out. But with this, with a process and steps and language, introverts can come out of their shells and they can really enjoy business development as a learned skill because they’re now seeing the fruits of the labor that they’re putting in versus I put in all this time and effort and I’m not getting anything. I’m just going to go back to the billable hour.

[00:17:42] Heather: Oh yeah, no, I agree with that. I also, I have found. So with my more extroverted folks, their biggest problem is that organizational piece. And so they don’t follow up at all.

[00:17:54] Steve: Yeah.

[00:17:54] Heather: And it’s interesting because I used to look at all the extroverted people who had huge books of business. They were also the people that gave up their entire lives for their practice because they didn’t keep up with stuff and took a lot more of their time to get out there and they were fine with that because that’s who they were. But they did spend an inordinate amount of time.

So the ones who come to me who are more extroverted, who want to spend less time, that’s where they need the most help. Right. Is in that organizational piece, in the follow up and so that they can be more intentional, strategic and not have to spend so much time. The introverts are the ones who assume they can’t do it. And then quickly, if they follow a good process like you’re saying, find out they’re actually very good at it because they are much more focused on strategically building relationships. And they’re very good at it and they stick to the follow up a lot better because they care more about that. Right. That an introverted person wants to deepen that relationship more. So I found that definitely to be true. And it’s, it’s just so interesting to me that we all assume it’s the extroverts that are the rainmakers, and that’s not necessarily the case.

Why Lawyers Don’t Get The Help (They Clearly Need)

[00:19:06] Steve: Yeah, it’s a pretty good mix nowadays with lawyers who are taking charge of becoming a student of the game, the marketing game, the business development game, books, videos, podcasts like ours, hiring coaches. They’re the ones who are learning processes where the other lawyers aren’t. So they’re just, they’re getting ahead and other people are being left behind. And so I think, you know, it’s not a plug for you or I, but it’s a plug for the industry to realize that the only real security you have in your career, to your point, 2008 9, is to have your own book of business. Whether you’re on your own, whether you’re with a firm, and how can you get there more quickly and efficiently is going to happen through learning from people who know better than you. Right.

Like, I’m not going to go into a courtroom and start doing a trial because I’ve seen my cousin Vinnie and some law and orders. I don’t think that’s how this works. Right. I’m probably going to get in a lot of trouble. So, you know, what would I do? Well, I would go to law school. Right. So this is why, you know, education in this area is so important. However, I don’t know if you’re finding this, Heather, but I still find it’s a very small percentage of lawyers who are ambitious enough to sort of recognize how to search out and find help and invest in themselves. And I’m. Maybe we could talk about that for a moment because that’s just an interesting dynamic. I don’t understand a couple of things, but yeah.

[00:20:32] Heather: And I think it depends on the individual. But what I have found.

So there’s the class of lawyers who think they shouldn’t have to get help.

[00:20:42] Steve: They should just know it and they’re.

[00:20:43] Heather: Smart enough that they need help because lawyers are a special breed of people who are put up on a pedestal and they’re the gold star, always high achiever. Everybody’s told them they’re great. So it’s really, really hard to admit, I don’t know this, I don’t know how to do this, I’m failing at this. And they don’t like to admit it to themselves much. Like less out loud to somebody else. Yeah, so I think there’s some of that that’s going on. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know why this is but I have found that there’s also a very big differentiation in like the generations.

I think the younger generations are starting to be much more willing to admit when they don’t know, to be willing to get help and to pay for that help.

I’d say my generation, the Gen X people, they’re more willing to admit it, they need help, but they don’t like paying for it. And I don’t get that. They don’t like making the investment in themselves. The generation just below me seems to be fine with paying for it. And I find that very interesting. And I don’t know, do you, do you ever work with big law or former big law lawyers?

[00:21:54] Steve: Yeah, quite a bit.

[00:21:55] Heather: Okay, I will tell you this and I do think this is a, I don’t know if this is based on a personality tweak or a personality trait that then gets developed further in big law. Big law pays for everything for them. Right? It pays for and it, they provide internal in house training that sometimes is good, sometimes is not.

But big law lawyers are not used to investing in themselves at all. And I have definitively found that unless they’re of a much younger generation in big law, if they’ve been around a little bit and they’re in their mid to upper 40s and on, they have a hard time spending money, their own money on helping themselves.

[00:22:35] Steve: Well, and the interesting thing too is we get paid for what we do. But ultimately the lawyer is investing in him or her, him or herself. Right. And they’re the ones that are going to make the million dollar 2 million, $3 million book of business if they execute properly on the investment. Yes, we actually take the money and put it in our banks. But ultimately is there a better investment than in yourself? You can put it in the market and get your 8% or whatever, depending on your whatever. There’s a lot of different ways to invest in real estate and things that you have to deal with. But is there a better investment for lawyers than to say, hey, I’m going to put this into myself and my future? I don’t think there is. And I’m not sure why they don’t see that.

[00:23:19] Heather: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a lot of it has to do with just never having had to do it. And then that ego piece. And I can tell you, and I’ll just say this very honestly, I struggled with it when I first started this practice. Right. So when I came out initially, big law, client development, I was very good at, but I didn’t know online, social media, all that stuff. And it took me a couple years to figure it out. And I was trying to do it all by myself initially and finally broke down. I was like, I gotta pay somebody else to teach me this crap, because this is just gonna. Yeah, can I figure it out? But why. Yeah, it’s gonna, it’s gonna take me longer and cost me a lot more. But I went through that and a lot of it for me was admitting that I didn’t know. Not, you know, not wanting to be seen as a failure for getting help. It’s not even so much an ego thing. But is what are other people gonna think of me? Because I do think that lawyers care a lot more than people realize about what other people think of them. And they assume incorrectly that getting help is a weakness and others will see them as weak.

[00:24:29] Steve: Right. Which is not the case. I mean, every, every profession, athletes, chefs, I mean, you know, mentorship, coaching, everyone that’s successful, give or take, has, has had help. Very rarely does someone do it all on their own. And yet it’s seen as somehow a negative that, you know, paying for help or getting professional help in an area. And I feel like it’s, it’s, you know, especially in the last 10 years, that’s turned a corner quite a bit, especially with the word coach and getting coaching. There’s a lot of more coaches now than there were 10 years ago.

[00:25:05] Heather: Yes.

[00:25:05] Steve: And even 20 years ago.

But I just wanted to make that point that it’s really a sign of intelligence and a sign of caring for oneself to get help, whether that’s to lose weight, get in shape, eat healthy, be successful in business, and as soon as you as a lawyer can stop thinking about it as a negative and is what people are going to think of me, the sooner you can get on with focusing on yourself and your future and not worrying about what everyone else is thinking because they’re not thinking about you, they’re only thinking about themselves anyway.

[00:25:38] Heather: That’s right, they aren’t. And it’s interesting to see that transformation of the lawyer who does get themselves help and then starts to really, you Know, I always call what we do a fast forward button, right? It’s a fast forward button to get. Getting you to where you want. And then all of a sudden people are asking you, how did you do this and why did you know and why did you do it this way? And they want to learn from you. And it’s empowering and a great thing, not a negative. Yeah, okay, interesting. I want to go back when you were talking about sales Free selling earlier. It seems like there’s two sides to it.

The Components of Sales-Free Selling As A Lawyer

This is how I would categorize it based on what you said. So you tell me how you do it, but what I heard from you was the one side is the skills, right? Listening, asking good questions, having empathy, that kind of a thing, the soft skills. And then the other side of it is you have to put that together with good processes.

Can you speak to that a little bit more to kind of get into exactly how do you define what sales pre selling is and what are the different kind of categories that you put into there?

[00:26:48] Steve: Thank you for the question. It’s really good.

There’s a lot goes into this. The title of my first book is Sales Free Selling. That covers a lot of this question and answer that I’m going to provide, but I’ll keep it brief.

It’s essentially, there’s processes that I’ve developed by being coached myself and reading and studying and really becoming a student of the game of business development, where I put together a model for networking, a model for client development, a model for client loyalty and retention. And all of these are done utilizing steps that put the client first, that put the prospect first, that allow for a natural conversation to happen that’s going to identify, is this a fit and do we want to keep going or is this not right and should we end it, you know, quickly and stay friends or something like that.

So there’s a series of steps that have been created for all these different things that lawyers might find themselves into, like attending an event or running a networking coffee or meeting with a prospective client. And how do you walk them through a buying decision? And those are the processes.

And along with those processes, you also have to have the soft skills about how you’re coming across warm and empathetic and interested. Because if all you’re doing is talking about yourself and coming in like a bull in a china shop or whatever the case might be, you’re not really connecting with people the same way. So it’s a combination of the steps in the language in conjunction with how you’re making someone feel the soft skill of listening and repeating back what someone says as a skill?

Asking a deeper question. So you can ask me a question, I can answer it, but then are you asking me even a deeper question to get further down? Peeling that onion away again, thinking of it like a therapist. What’s the bedside manner? And how are we getting to the root of people’s problems to see if their urgency is there to change, it’s there to engage. I was talking to a lawyer this morning and could double, triple, quadruple his book of business. And in order to get someone to commit to an investment of coaching, for example, we need to know what’s going on under the surface.

We can’t just find out that they’ve got these issues. It’s what’s beneath there, what’s the cost and the impact if this doesn’t change? How much further along could this person be if they do make a commitment and make a change and, and commit to a program or something like that and getting them to share examples. And lawyers don’t realize this, that at the heart of getting someone to say yes and leave a 10 year relationship with another firm, they need to feel totally understood, listened to, empathized with and believe. You don’t have to tell them you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. They should believe it because of the way you ran the meeting and the way that you held yourself and conducted it. And that’s the disconnect that lawyers have with traditional sales model and what they could be doing using a model like sales-free selling.

[00:29:59] Heather: Yeah. I love this because it’s got the practical, tactical, which is how lawyers think, right? Like give me the steps and I’ll follow the steps. But layered in there is this, these other pieces. So my question for you, so as a, as a coach, a trained coach, I also help my clients with those pieces, right? That. How do you dig deeper? How do you get, you know, empathy building, all the, like the EQ kind of stuff, awareness and, and all of that. But it sounds like your steps aren’t just about steps, they’re also about how do you go deeper, how do you develop these skills? Is that correct?

[00:30:38] Steve: Yeah, it’s, it’s really helping a lawyer internalize steps that they can follow and get better as they go. So for example, in my class that I teach a class every Tuesday morning, I’ve got a dozen lawyers from around the world that are in there and we teach them a skill.

Let’s say it’s a step like step two, which is like setting a game plan for a meeting. We don’t just teach them that. What I do is I put them into breakout rooms and I let them practice the skill and get feedback. So now they have had an at bat or two and they’re ready then when they go out on the street to actually use that particular step in a meeting to see how it advances the ball forward. And then they can call me after the meeting and say, steve, I did this in the meeting. It didn’t quite go as I had hoped. Here’s what happened. Or it did go. And I’m so happy that I did it. So there’s a debriefing which allows for learning and improving. It’s like a football team losing terribly and not watching the game tapes.

That’s sort of a mistake. People just do things and move on, do things and move on. We don’t want to do that. We want to do things, follow a process, see what went right or wrong, and then learn from it and improve. And that’s what a lot of coaching is. It’s about how do we get incremental improvement using a process to polish it off to the point where it becomes internalized. And then you don’t need as much coaching. Right. You can really limit. Because now you could coach. I mean, theoretically, if you have internalized systems, you know, it. The lawyer speaking, he could learn this stuff and then teach the associates. And I never have to work with them. He could teach them if he wanted to. But that’s, that’s, that’s what I really think is at the heart of, of what we need to do is learn, learn these skills and then hone them and internalize them so we have them and own them for the rest of our career.

[00:32:23] Heather: Okay, so you make such a great point there.

Coaching is not, you know, something that you do and you do forever. It’s one of my biggest issues with, with people and the way they view it also with therapy, because I don’t think therapy is typically. Should be where you go and you need that person forever. It’s about developing having somebody side by side to help teach you what you need to know that you don’t, but also help you develop those skills so that you can then self coach and then teach those that you lead as well.

[00:32:54] Steve: Yeah, exactly. So, for example, I have a form that I give my clients called a debriefing form. So when they get done with a meeting of, let’s say it’s a full prospective client meeting, all right. It’s an employment matter, they run the meeting. They can then sit down and fill out a form that says, did you establish rapport and did you build trust? And you know, then, you know, takes them through all the steps. They can call me and they can fill out this form or they can fill out the form and then call me. But either way, the idea is if you never make the same mistake twice or a third time, how much better can you be? I mean, think about that in a trial, in a courtroom, if you learn every time you leave a courtroom something that’s going to make you a better lawyer, how good are you going to be in a few years? My father was put on his first two years in law. He did more trial work than some lawyers will do there in their entire careers. And he learned so much that he never had to look back. He was always running circles around other lawyers because that experience and that learning transformed him into a top notch litigator that was successful for the next 38 years. So I think we just want to look at this from a business development and business perspective that if you learn skills, hone the skills, and then you have them and own them, what’s the potential for your career?

[00:34:10] Heather: Absolutely. The other thing that you’re highlighting here, but I don’t, I want to make this clear because I don’t know if people realize how important this is to understand.

You already have a lot of these skills that you utilize in your day to day. You’re learning things as you, as you learn in the law. You’re learning how to relate to your already clients. Right. And there’s a lot of these skills that for whatever reason we lawyers, it’s like we cut them off when we look at selling and marketing and we think of that as a completely different beast. And what we’re really saying is they’re transferable into that. And in fact, that’s really how to sell and market in a way that feels good, that is more effective, you know, and so stop like making this line. I feel like they put this line, this like invisible barrier in between, well, lawyering versus that other stuff. And there’s no reason for that to be there.

[00:35:05] Steve: Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, look, it’s the business of law. Whether you’re running your own firm or whether you’re a lawyer at a firm, it’s you Inc. Right? You’re the one that needs to produce for yourself. And look, when 2008 and 9 came around and you lost all the business that you had built, look, we’ve got a lot of Changes happening in our world right now. What are you doing as a you Inc. Entrepreneur at your firm or whatever to protect yourself if the world is turned upside down in the next six months? You know, what do you have to rely on if hours get cut and companies, you know, get shut down or leave or cut their legal spend. Lawyers have never been busier. Right. Than they’ve ever been right now. Is that going to be the same in six months? You don’t know either do I. But what, what’s the one thing you can do to protect yourself? It’s build up clients.

[00:35:56] Heather: Yeah. And I guarantee there’s always ups and downs. You will. If you haven’t experienced a down yet, you will. I mean it just happens and it happens at the the usually when you least expect it. Like the pandemic caused a lot of issues. Right. For people initially then law firms took off because there was a lot of legal work, but initially they didn’t know that that was going to impact them in that first four to six months. Really they didn’t have as much to do.

I had a like one and this was a big lesson I learned very early in my career. When I was a baby lawyer, there was this partner in my firm, very senior partner, had a couple of huge clients and he did energy lending work. And one of the banks that he did probably 50 plus percent of his work for decided to get out of the energy lending business one day out of the blue and then another one. It was politically not as like liked back then. Right. And still it isn’t, you know, so another one started to cut back and laid off a bunch of people. And none of this was expected by him. And so he went from being one of the biggest like rainmakers in the firm to having very little business. And it took him like two years to rebuild. But the thing was he knew how to business develop and he didn’t freak out and he got back to it and he expanded into non bank lenders and some other types of energy lending, not just the traditional oil and gas. And so he diversified more. Right. But this is the power that you have when you think in those terms. It’s you Inc. As you said.

[00:37:35] Steve: So it’s again, you know, there’s, there are people that have no books of business. There are people that have two or three clients that they rely on and if one left they’d lose 30 or 50% of their of their book of business, their control and power within the firm and the dynamic that they’re currently in. So again I’m not saying business development is for everybody. There are people that are never going to do it. They’re going to just be a great worker bee and they’re going to get through their career and maybe unharmed. And there’s others that are going to find themselves in a bit of a predicament. So, you know, whatever the case might be, whether you hire a coach or don’t, okay, think about it. Become a student of the game. Read, watch, listen, learn, do, do something to stay on top of it. Because at some point, you either, you may need the. You might need to call an audible or to change things up in a way you maybe you’re not thinking about right now.

[00:38:28] Heather: That’s. Yes, I go further, having practiced, and I have yet to meet a lawyer who says they don’t want more control over their lives or their practice. They all say that.

[00:38:40] Steve: Yeah.

[00:38:41] Heather: And my first response is, do you have your own book? And the vast majority who say this do not, or they kind of do, but they’ve done it in a way that’s not really fully theirs or with the clients they don’t really enjoy. Right. So I’m like, no, no, no. You’re. You’re key to control and feeling the way you want to feel is to actually develop your own book and make sure you’re developing the right book. Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:07] Steve: Well, and the other thing is, like, it’s, it’s like they’re busy. And it’s like, how do I do business development when I’m already busy? I’m building, you know, 1800, 2000 hours. Now you guys are saying, hey, go build this book a business. I have a family, I have other obligations, all this thing. But that’s what they don’t understand is that that’s why they need us, because the efficiencies that they’re going to learn through us and the things that they’re going to be doing right and getting better at every single day are going to give them the time back and the ability to delegate, work down and do things in a way that allows for them to have a life. But there is a sacrifice. There’s no question that there’s a sacrifice of time and energy that needs to be put into it. But you can either do that on your own and blow through hundreds of hours of unproductive time potentially, or you could do it in a more productive way. That’s your choice. But these are the, these are the options that lawyers have and the decisions they have to make.

[00:39:59] Heather: You’re right. And I, and I want to reiterate, it does take time, energy and money to do this. However, if you’re willing to put that time, energy and money in with the right person, that can help you again. It’s, it’s a, it’s a fast forward button because you’re going to get those efficiencies and you probably will put more time in initially, but it will give you back time at the end of the day and it’s worth it.

Yeah, that’s my.

[00:40:27] Steve: You have to have belief in yourself if you don’t believe in yourself. And we can, we can help create belief in yourself. I have a model that I talk about where it’s behaviors, beliefs and attitudes and there’s a cycle, a positive cycle or a negative cycle. And you know, is it that you don’t believe in yourself or you have a negative attitude? We can sometimes fix those or improve those based on giving you positive behaviors to follow. So picking up the phone and getting a meeting, putting a plan together, executing on a social media post that you never would have done, things that start to change how you believe in yourself and change how your attitude is through positive behaviors.

It’s like if you eat right, if you start eating right, then how you feel about food and how you feel about yourself and your potential to lose weight or to get healthy goes way, way up. And this is, this is, this is a cycle that we can, we can help you with that you may not be able to do on your own.

[00:41:24] Heather: That is so true. And the thing that comes to mind there is don’t knock small things. These small, simple things add up and I think we discount it way too much. Our brain wants to discount. Oh, that’s not going to matter that much. No, it really does.

[00:41:38] Steve: Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s incremental. That’s the thing, like it used to be. You have to set a big, a big nasty, gnarly goal for yourself. I’m going to do $10 million or something. And that’s what all the top like sales trainers and like motivational speakers would talk about. Well, today it’s changed. The philosophy is more atomic habits and small incremental change and improvements that are going to over time add up to those results. So we don’t have to think about the million dollar book. We can think about, hey, can I get out three emails today for coffees? O when I meet those people, what can I do differently that I would yesterday to get more results or more benefit out of those meetings? Right. How can I do a better job of helping others to get the reciprocation that I’m looking for. So I think that’s been more of the philosophy of breaking it into day to day weekly actions rather than thinking about a big, nasty, gnarly goal that’s too scary to deal with.

[00:42:34] Heather: Absolutely. And those daily actions don’t actually take up as much time as you think on a daily basis either. And yet it all adds up.

[00:42:42] Steve: Yeah. And there’s no reason that time management and organization can’t be a part of a program of helping you with business development. Because quite frankly, if you don’t have good organization and time management skills, we can teach you that. Because if you. Because that’s what allows for business development to happen. If you’re, if you’re getting crushed by administrative and billable hour work and you can’t literally go to the bathroom, let alone, you know, get on, get, go out for a coffee, how are we going to help anybody? So we have to address the elephant in the room. That is, how do we help you get organized so that you can get out and do bd? And sometimes that’s, you know, just the inbox alone could be a game changer. You’re dealing with 300 emails a day and you’re just living out of your inbox on someone else’s agenda. Well, that’s got to, we got to address that right away.

[00:43:30] Heather: Yeah, I would say that’s a big piece of it. And also prioritization, like a lot of lawyers don’t realize, they’re not prioritizing very well at all. And they’re prioritizing things that aren’t even that important.

[00:43:46] Steve: Right. So, you know, but these are the kinds of things that, that, you know, keep people from achieving the goals they want to achieve in any part of life, not just, not just in business. So anyway, I mean, I think, I think at the end of the day, what we’re really covering here is that there are process systems, methodologies, and ways of internalizing things that help you just live a better life and have a better career. But ultimately it’s up to you, the lawyer, to make a decision to change something. Otherwise nothing changes.

[00:44:15] Heather: Absolutely. Okay, so that is a great place, I think, to stop.

But before I let you go, why don’t you let people know how they can connect with you?

[00:44:25] Steve: Absolutely. So first of all, check out my podcast, Be that lawyer. We’re 470 episodes in. I bring on amazing guests like Heather and others to help you to be that lawyer. And then I’m all over LinkedIn posting just about every day or multiple times a day. So Steve Fretzen on LinkedIn. You can also check out my website fretzen.com, so everything Fretzen related. It’s a unique name. You might find a couple dermatologists there too. But other than that, it’s typically me. And so again, my goal is to help people directly, but even more so, it’s really to help the industry start to turn the corner on business development, marketing, and living the best lawyer life. And so my content really reflects my interest in helping the industry. I want to leave this industry better than I found it as a non lawyer, believe it or not, I’m saying that so there’s a legacy for my for my late great lawyer father and for myself. That’s our hope.

[00:45:19] Heather: Well, and I think today’s conversation is definitely another step in that direction. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:45:24] Steve: Thank you, Heather.