TRP 219: Overcoming Pitfalls that Get in the Way of a Building a Book with Steve Fretzin

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high-stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love

[00:00:23] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Let's start with a definition. What is a book of business? It's what you have to develop in terms of clients trusting you and giving you work. And, of course, you have to do the work. You're a rainmaker. It doesn't matter what industry you work in.

[00:00:41] There are certain concepts that apply to all professional services when you're in the business of getting business. Our guest today is talking about overcoming pitfalls that get in the way of building a book. His name is Steve Fretzin. Steve's probably a familiar name to you. He's been on my show before. He'll be on my show in the future. Why is that? His ideas work. Now, if you're not an attorney, these concepts do apply. Steve does do business development for attorneys. But you know what? Check out his books also.

[00:01:10] He wrote three of them that I've read. The Attorney's Networking Handbook, Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science, and also Sales-Free Selling. If you have some time, go to his resource page, where he has his blogs, videos, other resources that are absolutely free to get some ideas on how Steve's concepts can help you grow your book of business.

[00:01:30] As always, this show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions, Legal Intelligence Suite of Products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard.

[00:01:42] And now here's my conversation with my good friend, Steve Fretzin. Thanks for listening.

[00:01:48] Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rainmaking Podcast. I've got a good friend and a repeat guest, author, speaker, consultant on business development, Steve Fretzin.

[00:01:57] Steve, thanks for joining me again on the podcast.

[00:02:00] Hey, Scott. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

[00:02:03] Absolutely. And I always love listening to you. I've read several of your books. And for those listening, I'd highly recommend that because you're a consummate professional.

[00:02:13] You're niched within business development and you understand exactly who your audience is.

[00:02:17] And you know what those pitfalls are that get in the way of a professional building a book of business.

[00:02:24] So let's kind of get into that. Let me ask you this. When we look at the top pitfalls, Steve, what do you think two or three of those are?

[00:02:32] The main things that get in the way of someone building their book of business?

[00:02:36] Well, so we consider and we'll just use lawyers as an example. They have the billable hour requirement.

[00:02:42] They have people that they need to train or manage. There's a lot of pressure for them to interact with clients and to be on call and all this stuff.

[00:02:50] And so now we're saying, hey, by the way, I know you wanted to be a lawyer or you wanted to be an accountant or you wanted to be whatever it is that you're in.

[00:02:57] And now on top of that, here's a second job that you can do called business development.

[00:03:02] You've got to go out and get clients and bring them into the firm, bring them into the company.

[00:03:05] And they didn't teach you that in law school either.

[00:03:07] And of course, that never goes without saying, right?

[00:03:11] It's always said we never learned this in law school or unfortunately at the law firm level or at the company level.

[00:03:17] They might bring in a speaker like me or you or something like that at some given point.

[00:03:22] But again, that's not the same as coaching and training.

[00:03:25] It's not the same as what I'm going to suggest here, which is to really become a student of time management and understanding how time is the most valuable asset you have.

[00:03:35] It's what you're not only billing on, but also you have a limited resource with.

[00:03:41] So that's really the biggest pitfall is just poor time management and not really understanding that like running a trial or like auditing a company for their finances or whatever it might be that you're up to.

[00:03:55] That this is a learned skill.

[00:03:57] Time management is a learned skill.

[00:03:59] Yeah.

[00:03:59] So, I mean, these are people that are looking at their watch every 15 minutes, having to be cognizant and pay attention to what they're doing.

[00:04:06] Let's kind of take it back a little bit before they're in the day to day of all the things they have to do.

[00:04:12] The matters that they're working on also having to build thought leadership, also having to be a good firm citizen and contribute to mentorship and things like that.

[00:04:20] But kind of taking it back a little bit, what do you think that partner's vision should be when they get promoted to partner or as they start realizing they need to grow their own clients?

[00:04:31] What do you think about that, Steve?

[00:04:32] Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts.

[00:04:34] And I know it's just one of the most challenging things that professionals have to deal with.

[00:04:39] And some of it might be, you know, creating a plan, having a written plan for what your priorities are and how you're going to spend your time.

[00:04:46] Again, there are folks with, you know, five, six, seven hats that they're wearing at the same time.

[00:04:52] And it's just not a realistic way to be successful.

[00:04:57] For example, they might be doing their own social media.

[00:05:00] They might be trying to do all the small stuff that, you know, maybe a paralegal or an associate level attorney should be doing.

[00:05:06] And they're being asked to do that kind of work because they don't have the proper support.

[00:05:10] Or they're just feeling like, hey, they have to interact with the client in every single moment of the day.

[00:05:16] And there's no way that they're going to separate time to do business development and to make it a regular habitual type of activity when they have all these other, you know, plates that they're spinning or balls that they're juggling.

[00:05:31] So what we want to consider is, you know, really looking at your day and tracking your day and seeing how you're spending it and say, look, if this is the day that I'm going to continue to have every week, am I really realistically going to be able to get business in the door?

[00:05:45] And the answer from many folks is no.

[00:05:47] So then it's what can you say no to?

[00:05:50] What can you start to slowly turn away?

[00:05:52] I got to stop attending this conference.

[00:05:53] I have to stop saying yes to being on the law firm committee.

[00:05:57] I have to, you know, quit a networking group that I've been in for five years where it's supposed to be business development, but you're really not getting anything.

[00:06:05] So it's either fix it or get out.

[00:06:07] And there's other activities you should be engaging in that are going to be much more fruitful.

[00:06:12] So that's a big part of it.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:14] Right, right.

[00:06:14] So there's about five things you said just now, Steve, that I want to kind of point out.

[00:06:19] And there's one thing that I wanted to kind of go down a little bit.

[00:06:22] But one of the things that you said just now, what can you say no to?

[00:06:26] Which means that the assumption is we know what we want to say yes to.

[00:06:31] We want to know.

[00:06:32] We know what we want to accomplish.

[00:06:33] We want to have that vision of what we look like in the future when we do reach those goals.

[00:06:37] The other thing you mentioned was tracking your day, understanding where your time actually goes.

[00:06:42] The other thing you said, understanding all the plates that are spinning.

[00:06:44] And then even I like this and then I want to get to what I really want to go down the rabbit hole.

[00:06:49] The one thing you said, look for opportunities to get delegate.

[00:06:53] How can you get this action item in front of somebody else where their hourly requirement isn't as high as yours?

[00:07:00] The impact isn't going to be as significant compared to what you can do if you do other things.

[00:07:05] I think that's always helpful.

[00:07:07] But then you said, I love this, have a written plan.

[00:07:10] And what do you mean by that exactly?

[00:07:12] Is this a business plan?

[00:07:13] Is this a post-it note?

[00:07:15] Is this crayons written on napkins on the back of a cocktail napkin?

[00:07:19] What is this written plan thing all about, Steve?

[00:07:21] Well, there's a number of different types of plans.

[00:07:24] The ones that I'm working on with and I work exclusively with lawyers.

[00:07:27] And the plan that we're working on is mostly focused on business development.

[00:07:33] But we also have to include in that plan, you know, what are the various hats and titles and activities that are going on?

[00:07:42] And look at them under a microscope to understand if we're going to write a plan that's focused on growth, that there's things that are going to have to be turned away.

[00:07:51] There's things there's support that's going to be needed to be put in place.

[00:07:53] There's business that's being or work, I should say, not business, but let's say there's work that's being handed to that partner that they're not getting origination credit on and it's taking up all their time.

[00:08:04] So we have to think about how are we going to start to slowly have conversations to start rejecting that business that's in saying no and explaining.

[00:08:14] I have to work with lawyers on like, here's how we explain to this equity partner, for example, that taking on this 10 hours a week on top of what else you have isn't going to work.

[00:08:25] And here's why.

[00:08:25] And even to the point where I'm working with lawyers to, for example, explain, hey, if I'm going to do this work, that's fine, but I'm going to need origination credit.

[00:08:35] And that's unheard of for most people.

[00:08:38] But today in the environment that they're in, we have to make that ask as an alternative to saying no, because if I'm going to do this work and all I'm getting paid for is on the hourly billing.

[00:08:48] And it's taking away from my ability to do business development, which is a focus for that individual, then we have to make that move or just reject it and just say, this is work that's not for me.

[00:08:59] I'm, you know, I've got, you know, and it makes sure that the firm is on board with it and all that.

[00:09:02] But it's, there's a, there's a fine line there, but it's, but it's an important piece to do because you're never going to get ahead and grow your own book of business in whatever area you're in.

[00:09:12] If you don't have that, those blocks of time built out.

[00:09:15] So the plan would affect that, but also tell the lawyer specifically, what's the objective that any professional that you're trying to accomplish?

[00:09:23] What are the various strategies that they're going to engage in?

[00:09:26] Like the two or three things that you're going to do to achieve the objective and then breaking it down into tact, actionable items that you need to do each time.

[00:09:35] That's great, Steve.

[00:09:36] Firm plans or whatever do.

[00:09:38] Yeah.

[00:09:38] I love that.

[00:09:39] That's a simple way to explain that.

[00:09:41] One thing that I've found that's helped me and other people that I've coached over the years and thinking about time, think of it as a unit of time.

[00:09:48] If you take that one hour unit of time, and if you go in the wrong direction, well, that's one hour that you could have spent going in the right direction.

[00:09:57] You would be closer to your goal.

[00:09:59] So now you've got to take that hour and backtrack.

[00:10:01] And then you're still an hour behind.

[00:10:03] So it's like a two or three hour loss if they look at it like that.

[00:10:07] What do you think about that idea?

[00:10:08] It's much worse than that.

[00:10:09] I've found lawyers, for example, that have, let's say, two hours a day that are not their best use.

[00:10:19] Right.

[00:10:19] They're surfing social media.

[00:10:22] They're making copies.

[00:10:23] They're doing paralegal level work.

[00:10:26] They're not doing the highest level work that they should be doing.

[00:10:30] So two hours a week, okay, or two hours a day over a week is 10 hours.

[00:10:35] Over a month, that's 40 hours.

[00:10:36] That's an entire week that you can get back, essentially, if you are able to delegate, automate, or figure out how to reject and say no to things that are not your best use of time.

[00:10:47] And that's very hard for lawyers to do.

[00:10:49] They won't solve.

[00:10:50] They want to be there.

[00:10:52] Any professional would say that's difficult to do, but that's what we need to do today.

[00:10:58] Yeah, absolutely right.

[00:11:00] So tell me a time that you worked with somebody and they had a fuzzy idea of what they wanted to accomplish.

[00:11:07] And you were able to help them kind of clear off all the things that are on their plate and focus on those things that matter the most in terms of serving their clients and also helping them build their business.

[00:11:20] What do you think about that?

[00:11:21] Tell me about that.

[00:11:21] How long is this podcast?

[00:11:23] I mean, Scott, we're talking about...

[00:11:25] We've got 10 minutes.

[00:11:27] It's an epidemic proportion of professionals that are not making their time structured or not looking...

[00:11:35] Again, as I go back to the beginning, they're not becoming a student of the game.

[00:11:38] They don't have a process for time management.

[00:11:40] I'm going to recommend a book that changed my life.

[00:11:43] And I'm...

[00:11:44] Scott, I'm a serial entrepreneur just like you.

[00:11:46] I'm a feather on the wind.

[00:11:47] And I had stacks and piles everywhere.

[00:11:50] Like, I was a disaster.

[00:11:51] And I read this book and I did what it said.

[00:11:54] And I've never looked back.

[00:11:55] Now, I'm not doing every single thing it says, but enough so that I'm probably the most organized person I know at this point.

[00:12:01] I don't have any paper.

[00:12:03] I have all my time managed.

[00:12:04] I only do the highest level stuff I can.

[00:12:07] And I'm training my clients to do that too.

[00:12:09] It's called Getting Things Done.

[00:12:11] A lot of people know about it.

[00:12:13] David Allen.

[00:12:14] And it's just a game changer.

[00:12:16] So, an example of clients that I've worked with, estate planning client that was making them, doing his own copies for estate plans.

[00:12:23] Now, there's a lot of paperwork involved in estate plans.

[00:12:25] So, two hours a day that just doing copies.

[00:12:30] That was not in...

[00:12:31] There was a lot more than that that we found, right?

[00:12:34] We found he was getting to work later than he should have because he was staying up late and not getting up early.

[00:12:40] So, there you're losing time.

[00:12:42] On top of that, again, just not delegating enough.

[00:12:45] You know, it's just...

[00:12:45] It's easier to do...

[00:12:46] This is the saying, Scott.

[00:12:47] It's just easier for me to just do it myself and get it done.

[00:12:50] Right, right.

[00:12:50] And that's the problem.

[00:12:52] It is in the moment.

[00:12:53] And then when you start adding that up over a day, over a week, over a month, you realize, oh my God, if I can't hand this off to an assistant, a paralegal or an associate or whatever, this is going to be a problem.

[00:13:04] So...

[00:13:04] Let me ask you.

[00:13:05] So, when you worked with him, did you look at his calendar?

[00:13:07] How did you kind of get in his head and kind of see what his day was looking like?

[00:13:11] What did you do with him?

[00:13:12] It was, again, giving a homework assignment of track your day or track two days.

[00:13:19] And the same way you're keeping track of time for billable hours, I want you to track from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for a couple days.

[00:13:27] And be honest and really do it.

[00:13:29] And when you start to look at that, you realize there's a lot more waste than there is, you know, effective time management.

[00:13:37] Yeah, right.

[00:13:38] And so, like, what would people do?

[00:13:39] Do they actually write down everything they do?

[00:13:41] Like, went to Facebook or looked up game scores?

[00:13:45] Yes.

[00:13:46] You know, things like that.

[00:13:47] Yeah.

[00:13:47] And it can be embarrassing.

[00:13:49] But, again, I have a very highly confidential relationship with my clients.

[00:13:53] And this is for their own good.

[00:13:55] It's like, you take your medicine.

[00:13:57] So, it's just they've never really thought about or tracked what was going on.

[00:14:02] And the other thing is we look at, let's say they are doing some business development activities or they are going to conferences.

[00:14:07] And I always say, like, all right, so let's look at the results.

[00:14:10] What came out of that?

[00:14:12] And first question is, is why?

[00:14:14] Is there something that we can fix with that networking group, fix with that conference that you haven't been doing that will make it better?

[00:14:21] You know, you actually draw a business from it.

[00:14:23] Or, like, I'll give you a great example.

[00:14:25] Do you have a second on this?

[00:14:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:27] I had a client years ago who was going to conferences and she was having lunch with the top GCs in the country.

[00:14:34] The GC of McDonald's, the GC of Abbott.

[00:14:36] These were all of her friends.

[00:14:38] Never gave her a lick of business, right?

[00:14:40] So, here she is spending all this time going to lunch and treating all these people and doing all this thing, hoping that business was going to come in.

[00:14:46] And I gave her an entirely different strategy of how to approach those conferences to pull out and get business, which changed everything.

[00:14:54] And so, now we're not dropping that conference.

[00:14:56] We're leaning into that conference.

[00:14:58] But if we make those changes and that doesn't work, well, then, yeah, let's get those three days back a year and more.

[00:15:04] And that's what I'm just working with clients on a regular basis is looking at what their activities are, how effective are they being, or do we need to reject them and take on other things?

[00:15:14] Absolutely right.

[00:15:15] And I think that's the benefit of working with someone like you that knows what their problems are before they even see them because you work with hundreds of people just like that.

[00:15:22] And you know what questions to ask to help them to kind of tweak it.

[00:15:25] Look at it 10 degrees this way.

[00:15:27] Oh, wow.

[00:15:27] I didn't see that.

[00:15:28] Wow.

[00:15:29] That's a pretty good idea.

[00:15:30] I like that.

[00:15:30] And I like what you said.

[00:15:31] What came out of it and why?

[00:15:34] And what can we fix?

[00:15:35] Can we approach it with a different perspective, maybe a different strategy?

[00:15:39] I think that's really smart, Steve.

[00:15:41] So, tell me this.

[00:15:42] Do you think that, and, you know, we're not talking about one type of person.

[00:15:48] We're talking about professional services providers.

[00:15:50] But you and I both work in the legal space.

[00:15:51] Do you think that it's likely or even possible that a partner's hubris, ego, can keep them from actually making these changes that you're talking about?

[00:16:01] What do you think about that?

[00:16:03] I mean, that's certainly possible.

[00:16:04] And I'm sure it happens.

[00:16:06] You know, I think the problem is a lot of these professionals are smart people.

[00:16:11] That's not the problem.

[00:16:12] It's good that they're smart people.

[00:16:14] But smart people want to solve their own problems.

[00:16:16] They want to, you know, figure it out themselves.

[00:16:20] And it's like, you know, hey, you know, I want to be a lawyer.

[00:16:23] I'm not going to go to law school.

[00:16:25] I'm just going to figure it out myself.

[00:16:26] And I'm going to try to go into a courtroom and talk to a jury and a judge.

[00:16:29] It's not going to go well.

[00:16:30] There's some things that need to be learned or there's things that need to be delegated.

[00:16:34] And that's where I think lawyers and other professionals sometimes fail is they don't realize it's hard to see the forest through the trees when they're in their own being.

[00:16:43] But, you know, look, if somebody has a huge ego and they know it all.

[00:16:48] Right.

[00:16:49] And they're just never going to seek out learning or coaching or help.

[00:16:53] You know, good luck.

[00:16:54] You know, that's not someone I would work with anyway.

[00:16:56] I work with very open minded, most lovely, intelligent people in the world.

[00:17:02] I so and you can't have a massive ego and work with a coach like me.

[00:17:07] And, you know, that's just that's just what I found over doing this for over 17 years in the legal space.

[00:17:13] Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:17:14] And I think a lot of that stems from the proper client facing persona.

[00:17:18] I have all the answers.

[00:17:19] I know where your problems are.

[00:17:21] I can then the problem is that that persona permeates other areas of their business life and kind of gets in the way.

[00:17:26] So let me let me ask you this, if we could kind of summarize this in three action steps that someone can take to get started making these positive changes.

[00:17:35] What would those three action steps be?

[00:17:38] I mean, I would say number one, and this is a bigger picture answer, which is become a student of the game, the student of of time management, the student of business development.

[00:17:48] You know, if if growing your book of business, your originations, your practice, whatever area it might be, is important to you.

[00:17:55] And you see that as the way to get control and freedom in your career, which for many people, that's the route.

[00:18:01] That's how you laterally move.

[00:18:03] That's how you go out on your own.

[00:18:04] That's how you take it with you as the value of if things go belly up, you have options.

[00:18:10] Right.

[00:18:10] So become a student and really learn.

[00:18:13] And that could be books, podcasts, direct coaching and consulting, attending events, whatever it is that you need to do to say, hey, I don't know it all.

[00:18:22] And even if I know some good things, I can still learn and still improve and have that attitude.

[00:18:27] Then then that would be sort of the first thing I would suggest people do to get ahead.

[00:18:32] The second thing would be, as I mentioned, really look under a microscope at your time and think about how it's being spent each day, even even evenings and weekends.

[00:18:44] And I know we want work life balance.

[00:18:46] But there's there's sometimes where like this weekend I knew I had about three hours of work I needed to do yesterday on a Sunday.

[00:18:53] Knocked it out, just scheduled it, knocked it out.

[00:18:55] And it's not stuff I want to do during the week.

[00:18:57] You know, it's writing an article.

[00:18:59] It's preparing for a CLE that I'm doing.

[00:19:01] It's I'm setting up a panel of four sessions, you know, where I've got to put panels together and titles and dates.

[00:19:09] It took time.

[00:19:09] But I did it on a Sunday when in the afternoon when there was really nothing going on.

[00:19:13] It's hot out.

[00:19:13] And, you know, that worked out great.

[00:19:15] So I would say, you know, student of the game, but then also really track your time and understand what's where you should how you should be spending it.

[00:19:22] What's the most valuable use?

[00:19:24] Yeah, that's great, Steve.

[00:19:26] And so I like your content.

[00:19:28] I'm a fan of all the things that you write about.

[00:19:30] I follow you on social media.

[00:19:31] But tell those people that aren't familiar with you, what are the services that you that you offer?

[00:19:36] What do you have that can help them?

[00:19:38] And we'll obviously put all your contact information and information on your books on the show notes.

[00:19:43] So everybody listening to the show, go to where you hear the podcast, look on the show notes, and you'll be able to connect with Steve.

[00:19:49] But tell us about what you do, Steve.

[00:19:51] Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to help professionals all over the world to become better at business development, managing their time and just getting ahead in life.

[00:20:00] And so my podcast, Be That Lawyer, I've got four books on Amazon.

[00:20:05] The most recent bestseller is Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science.

[00:20:09] I've started a new series where I've taken my podcast, reduced them down to what's called the Blogcast, which is a quick two-page read, abbreviated version, cliff notes of a podcast.

[00:20:19] I write for Above the Law.

[00:20:21] So if you're interested in checking out my columns there.

[00:20:23] So that's the non-paid, somewhat non-paid stuff that I do in business.

[00:20:28] But the actual services I provide, number one is I have a very robust coaching and training program.

[00:20:33] Most of the coaches in Legal, and I know a lot of really good ones, they don't provide a training component.

[00:20:39] An actual classroom of lawyers learning skills, practicing and honing skills in a safe environment.

[00:20:45] Combined with coaching, I have found to be by far the best way to help professionals get ahead over the long haul of their career.

[00:20:54] Then I take those Rainmakers that I'm creating and others that I find along the way out there that are doing a million plus and put them in my Rainmakers roundtables, which is essentially a peer advisory group for high-functioning rainmaking lawyers, essentially.

[00:21:10] So that way they can talk shop at a confidential environment, solve each other's problems.

[00:21:15] And I also bring in top experts from around the world to speak with them about time management, marketing, health and wellness, whatever it is that they want to hear about.

[00:21:24] So those are really the two main services I provide is the coaching and training peer advisory.

[00:21:29] Well, Steve, thank you for the generosity of your time and your wisdom today.

[00:21:32] I'd love to have you back on the show.

[00:21:34] And thanks again for doing a great job and sharing some great ideas with us today, Steve.

[00:21:38] Hey, thank you, Scott.

[00:21:38] Much appreciated.

[00:21:43] Thank you for listening to the Rainmaking Podcast.

[00:21:46] For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit our website at attorneysearchgroup.com.

[00:21:55] To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting or executive retreat, visit therainmakingpodcast.com.