[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Thanks for joining me on the show. We've got a special treat for you today, ladies and gentlemen. Our guest is Steve Fretzin. Now, you're probably familiar with him.
[00:00:34] He's been on this show several times before. He also produces the podcast, Be That Lawyer. He also has an article for Above the Law. He's someone that's out there in terms of creating content that helps lawyers grow their practices and their books of business. He's going to talk about his latest book today called Be That Lawyer. Now, I read the book. I'd highly recommend it. It's a comprehensive guide that tells you everything about how to start and build your practice from a Rainmaker's perspective.
[00:01:03] All the different aspects related to mindset, burning out, how do you build systems and structure? Those are things that he and I dig into in our conversation today. Also, when you get his book, you'll notice that he has QR codes throughout that. That's because the content that he created came from a lot of his interviews with his guests on the show. And when you go to a chapter, you see a QR code. You can hit that thing, and it'll take you right to that podcast interview.
[00:01:28] What an innovative way to help people really understand the concepts that he's trying to teach. Make sure you go to the show notes to connect with Steve directly. Check out his resources on his website. Also, check out his podcast, and we'll also have the link where you can order his book, Be That Lawyer. And like I said, I'd highly recommend getting and reading that book. As always, this show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions, Legal Intelligence, Suite of Products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI.
[00:01:57] Push ahead of the pack with the power of leopard. And now here's my conversation with my guest and good friend, Steve Fretzen. Thanks for listening. Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rainmaking Podcast. Our special guest today is Steve Fretzen, author of Be That Lawyer. Steve, thanks for joining me on the show today. Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me back, man. Now, I'm a fan of your podcast, Be That Lawyer. And I'm a fan of this new book that you've written called Be That Lawyer. And I've learned a lot from that.
[00:02:26] And our topic today is lessons learned from rainmakers. And I want to kind of set my first question up this way. The first thing you write about in your book was not scaling, automating, building relationships with clients, getting the call. It was mindfulness. Why did you start with that, Steve? Yeah, thanks for asking. And it's a great question and one that I haven't gotten yet. So I'm excited to answer it.
[00:02:50] So I'm thinking about as I'm putting this book together, what should happen first, second, third and fourth? And I think at some point I had like leadership first. And I was like, you know what? And I'm thinking about leadership and like client loyalty and client retention. Like, let's tell a story. And where does it all begin with rainmaking? Well, it has to start with mindset. It has to start with not being stressed. It has to start with time management. Because if you can't, you know, keep everything kind of together and calm, how are you then going to network effectively?
[00:03:19] How are you going to develop your book of business? How are you going to, you know, achieve great success in client retention? So I think there's a flow to the book that I just picked up on as I started to take out these rainmakers and put them into categories of what their topics were, what they focused on. I just saw like a life cycle of, you know, birth to death, if you will, of like how this should flow to cover everything that we wanted to cover in a manner that made sense. And that was sort of well orchestrated. Yeah, that's great.
[00:03:49] And that does make sense. It's logical. And let me ask you from your work in coaching attorneys, have you seen them as they start to approach that level of burnout in their lives? Have you actually seen that happen before? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Even working with me, I mean, keep in mind, lawyers are engaging me to grow their book of business. And, you know, they've got, you know, 2,500 hours a year. They've got their family. They've got management roles. They've, you know, and responsibilities. And then they're saying, hey, business development on top, right?
[00:04:18] It's like how many things can you pile on top of somebody? So I'm in the middle of a lot of the stress that they're going through. My job is to try to work them through that mindfulness, time management skills, things delegation, and how to start to free themselves up from the stress that accompanies someone that wants to be a highly progressive rainmaker in a field like legal. That's right. And I like the fact that your book, it takes that and then it really goes into the arc of everything a rainmaker needs to know. Pretty much everything.
[00:04:48] Learning how to listen. Learning how to network. Building relationships. What does relationships-based practices mean? An introvert. The chapter called The Introvert's Edge. And then scaling it, automating it, and specializing. I mean, it's pretty much everything. What was one thing that surprised you the most, Steve, and you doing your research on this book? What's one thing that just really surprised you as you compiled all this information? It was just how we worked together.
[00:05:16] So as you may have picked up, you know, the book is based off of the podcast. And the podcast, you know, created a 30-minute, you know, work of art as it relates to a conversation. My job in that conversation, similar to you and what you do on this podcast, is to bring out the goods. Bring out the tactical, actionable things that helps people move the needle in their world.
[00:05:40] And so to take the best hits from that and put them into chapters and put them into a readable, digestible format of takeaways was incredible. So out of all of that, one of the key takeaways was just how organization is so critical that anyone that doesn't plan or doesn't have a recipe or have the processes or structure down to be successful,
[00:06:06] across the board, everyone fails or everyone makes mistakes that they wish they could have solved or they did solve. And, you know, just as an example, my 500th episode came out today with John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan. And he has processed, processetized everything, everything to make sure that every lawyer and every firm that he's running, you know, a thousand members, that they're all singing the same song, they're all playing the same game,
[00:06:33] and that he has access to see all the numbers on one screen or, you know, in a digital format. So that would be the one biggest takeaway is that winging it is not a recipe for success. Yeah. And that's something that I don't think a lot of people that are partners in firms realize until they get to a point, I really need to grow my practice. And I've had a lot of conversations, people I'd even referred to you, where I really need to be more proactive with this and make this a priority because I just don't have a book of business. I don't have options.
[00:07:02] When you have that book, you have options. And so where do you think in this book, if we were going to look at one chapter that people will go back and reread over and over again, that really is going to get a lot of attention, where do you think that one area is? Well, there's an amazing friend of mine named Walt Hampton. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He ran a firm for 30 years and raising, you know, three boys as a single father and everything else.
[00:07:30] He is one of the top executive business coaches for lawyers that I've, that in the country that I know. And it's funny, the first time we ever spoke, I mentioned him something about time management. He goes, well, how about time mastery? And I go, I go, that sounds familiar. And he goes, I go, hold on a second. I went to my bookshelf and I grabbed a book called Time Mastery by Walt Hampton. I go, holy mackerel. I never put two or two together. This is your freaking book. And I had read it a long, long time ago.
[00:07:58] And I just never put it together that, you know, I, sometimes I read the title of the book, not the author. This was one of those cases, but, you know, he really talks a lot about the importance of time mastery, the importance of delegation. And I think, you know, the, I'll just do it myself routine that lawyers go through. It's just easier to do it myself. You know, I was supposed to giving it to an associate or coming up with a system or automation or anything. And so they're just in overwhelm and there's just no way to be a rainmaker.
[00:08:25] There's no way to be successful as a lawyer in billing hours and building a book of business. If you don't have the way that you manage time, the way that you, you know, they say, oh, that's a misnomer managing. No one manages time. The way that you manage yourself around time has to be done as a system, not again as something that you're just, you know, taking a fire hose to them open mouth. Absolutely right. And tell me a little bit deeper on that.
[00:08:50] What are some things that you have seen have helped partners really gain control over how they manage their time? What are some things, if we could go a little bit more deeply on that, Steve? And this isn't just from the book. I mean, this is stuff I'm talking about and teaching every day. And again, it's nice when the people in the book have the same ideas that I have, because we know we're on the right track. I'll give you that one of the best examples is take a day out of your life. Let's say it's today or tomorrow and just track everything you did in the day.
[00:09:18] Start at 7 a.m., 6 a.m., go all the way to 7 p.m. In 15-minute increments, you're not tracking your time for billable hours. This is tracking to understand, all right, I just spent 35 minutes putting out a fire from an email I received in the middle of the day. Or I just spent, you know, an hour rewriting a brief that was given to me by an associate who didn't do it right. Or I'm surfing the web and I'm doom scrolling on Instagram or I'm getting a haircut in the middle of the day.
[00:09:43] Whatever it is that you're doing, track it and understand what of the day that you tracked are things that you should be delegating that are way, way under your pay grade, like $15 to $30 an hour jobs, right? You're at $500 an hour. What things should you be dropping and not doing at all? What things should you be knocking off and getting off your plate as fast as possible? And just having some clarity that you may think you're organized and in fact you're not.
[00:10:12] I found that every time I do that, just the fact that I'm doing that, there's an immediate correction. Because now I'm thinking about, is this the best use of my time right now? And so I found that when people do that, which is a great idea, and usually about once every six months I get kind of soft. And I'm like, you know, I'm really not as, maybe, well, once every three months. I'm getting kind of distracted by things. So I'll actually do that exercise. I'll actually print out my calendar sheet for the day and I'll just write down what I'm doing.
[00:10:40] And after about two hours, I'm better. Because now I'm thinking about the intention about how I'm spending time on this. Let me take this into a different direction here. We talk about the introvert's edge. That was the title of one of your chapters. Sounds like Adagia. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And we've had Heidi Brown on here talking about the introverted lawyer, her book. Tell me what you learned from your person that wrote this. And who was that again that wrote that chapter? Yes, Saja Rauf.
[00:11:07] Yeah, tell us, what did Saja say about introvertism, being an introvert, and actually giving people an edge? A lot of it comes down to just knowing yourself and understanding where you're comfortable and where you're not. And where you're uncomfortable, it's coming up with ways to make it as comfortable as possible. So let's say she's walking into a big banquet where there's 100 people all with cocktails. The least comfortable place for an introvert, let alone Saja.
[00:11:35] And she's figuring out some routines, an approach, a question, a way of saying, Hey, I've got to meet three people today. And I'm going to meet three people. And then I'm going to go take a break. Then I'm going to come back. She has like a system that she's created to keep herself sane and comfortable in an environment that isn't. One thing that I normally talk about around introverts is it's winging it and it's the sort of unknown that's the scary thing.
[00:12:04] And so the more prepared you can be as an introvert with a plan, language, systems of walking in. And I'll give you the best example I have. I walk into a new event. That I've already communicated with the person who runs it to let them know that I'm coming and to see if they'd be open, introducing me to a few lawyers so that I can start off and meet. Oh, yeah, sure. Steve, when you get here, I'll walk you around. So right off the bat, I'm not wandering into an event, you know, glazed eyes over like, oh, my God, what do I do now?
[00:12:32] I'm walking up to the person running it and saying, hey, nice to see you. Thanks for having me. Oh, great, Steve, you're here. Let me walk you up to a few people that I've got set up for you. Lawyers that you definitely need to meet. And that's one of a dozen or more examples of, you know, preparedness, setting yourself up for success, as opposed to, again, just letting whatever happened happen, which not a great way for introverts to be. That's such a great idea. I think that does take the pressure off when, okay, I'm going to reach out to the people that I know, stick to the warm.
[00:12:59] That's what I always say, whether it's getting referrals or anything that you do. Find people that you already know that are going to be there and see if they can introduce you to other people at that conference. I think that's a great idea. Let me take it into a different direction, kind of not so much introspective, but now building our brand. There are a couple of chapters that you wrote related to podcasting. What can you share with our listeners about that, Steve? What do you think works for lawyers in today's market to use podcasting as a resource to really push that brand out?
[00:13:29] Potentially the greatest invention for branding and marketing ever created for lawyers that they don't do. Enough of them don't do. So what's the value? So first of all, as I mentioned earlier, my 500th episode just was released with John Morgan. So everyone knows John Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Okay. This is someone who, if I had cold solicited or if I try to get in front of him, there's no way, shape or form. He's going to talk to me from Hawaii and want to connect with the sales coach guy, Steve Fredson.
[00:13:59] But reached out proactively, said, hey, it's my 500th show. If you have any goodwill in you to help me out and be my guest, I would really love it. And it was a killer, killer show. Now he knows my name. We've bonded around the podcast. And now if I want to reach out to him with a question or have him back for a panel or anything, I want to work with some of his lawyers. We have a relationship.
[00:14:21] So there's the personal relationship building side of building business and building strategic partners like you and I, Scott, where we know each other well enough that we can refer. And that's one piece of it. Then you have the entire content creation side of it of video, audio, and by the way, now written. Right.
[00:14:42] So all of the transcripts that we're getting that can be then related into what I call blog casts, which is like an article based off the interview, which we then created into chapters of a book. Now, could I take my second book, which is 101 Legal Marketing and Business Developer Secrets and Tips, and do that in six months from now? The answer is absolutely I could do that because I'm not sitting down writing this book.
[00:15:07] I just have to leverage an editor AI in my own time to get it all laid out and get all the contributors together, which, by the way, is like herding kittens. But the idea that you have this built-in mechanism for creation of content that's highly repurposable is absolutely critical. And lawyers are just sort of missing the boat. But you have to be consistent with it, too. And I'm not saying it's easy, but it's something that it's easier to do than a lot of other things that we could talk about.
[00:15:36] I think so, too. I think anything that puts you in the spotlight as a credentialed expert in your area of neuro expertise, that's going to do some good work for you, as long as people see that. And one thing, and I know you agree with this, I always look for leverageable and scalable opportunities, such as do the work once and make money off it over and over. And I don't mean like make money. I mean harvest value that serves other people and then they buy stuff. It relates to money eventually. Yeah. You know what I mean? I do.
[00:16:04] One thing I did, I actually reached out to the Trade Association of my clients, the National Association for Law Placement. Every law firm is a member. They've got 3,000 members at their conferences. 1,600 people show up. I reached out to them and said, listen, I do a show now. I just completed a show for the National Association of Legal Search Consultants, but my board timed out. I was on the board for like seven years. They gave me an extra year. I had to roll off. So I told them, I'll produce your show. I want to charge you for it.
[00:16:33] And it took them six months. They said, yes, let's do it. And so I found a way that my voice can be in front of every single client. Cost me nothing to do it, but sometimes the quality has to be there. But that's kind of, I think, a lot that a partner can do. They don't have to start their own podcast. They can be a guest on one too, right? Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. Somebody's listening. They're like, I don't have time to start a podcast, but I've got expertise and I want the world to know about that.
[00:17:01] What would you suggest that person do, Steve? I mean, think about speaking at conferences or speaking at events and how much time and effort and energy that takes, right? To plan, to show up, to do it, to follow through and everything else. And the audience is limited.
[00:17:16] However, with podcasts, right, you could be getting in front of thousands or tens of thousands of people by reaching out proactively or having someone do it on your behalf, which is, I mean, I'm probably reached out to, I'm just going to ballpark and say between six and ten times a week by people that want to be on my podcast, which is lovely. And sometimes it's spot on and the guest fits right in. And sometimes it's a little tricky and I got to decide how I want to play it.
[00:17:41] But ultimately, it's a great way to see, not only to share your expertise and demonstrate value and all of that, but it gives you a flavor of what podcasting is all about. And is it something that you could test the waters out for a year and say, you know what? I actually enjoy this. I've been on 10 podcasts and I think setting up my own and finding a good production company, finding an editor, people that can handle all the backend stuff for me.
[00:18:07] So I could just meet the guest, do the show, dish it off and have everything just done for me, which is kind of the formula that I have. Generally, people think I'm like this marketing crazy man. And it seems that way because I am, but I'm a lot of it, you know, shout out to my guy, Chris, who's in the backend, just cranking out videos and podcasts and everything. So I think it's a great place to start and get your feed wet and then decide if you want to either keep doing that or if you want to turn a corner and start your own.
[00:18:35] Um, great way to feel it out. I think that's great. Let's say somebody, let's say we got an IP partner who specializes in trademark and he's been on about five or six shows. One is let's call it the advertising podcast, the sports marketing podcast, the content creators podcast, the artist, whatever it is. And he's got maybe five or six episodes out there. What do you think that partner, what should he or she do with those episodes that could probably get him or her in front of good clients? What do you think they should do with that content, Steve?
[00:19:05] I think there's an opportunity again, to take the content and get the assets from the host. Like we have, you know, the, I could send someone the full video, the full transcript, the anything that I could break it up in a video content. We send all of our guests, all of the assets for them to promote and use how they see fit. And again, as long as they're not, you know, do anything negative, like keep it out there. And I think that's a misstep that people that are on podcasts is like, they show up, they do the podcast. Someone else promotes it.
[00:19:35] They don't even comment on the post. Like they just kind of in the back, it's in the rear view mirror. When in fact, they should be asking for the assets. They should be chopping them up. They should be creating their own story and storyline around their business. The value they provide, sending it out to the masses, building their brand. And then, yeah, it's also nice when the podcast person promotes it too. But you should be in line with that person and doing more. Absolutely right.
[00:20:01] So, Steve, as we bring our time to a conclusion here, if we could give our listeners three action steps to where they can be that lawyer, what do you think those three action steps would be for somebody just getting started and really taking a proactive approach to rainmaking? Yeah, that's a great question, Scott. Number one is I think you have to decide that business development isn't a dirty thing, that it is solving problems very similar to practicing the law.
[00:20:29] You have to get your mindset in the right direction that business development, and Scott, you know this as well as anyone, determines for many lawyers their future, their independence, their control, their freedom. When you have a book of business, half a million on the low end, million and up from there, you get to decide when your firm collapses or when you don't like your boss or when you feel like you're getting, you know, you've got 10 bosses, you know, five partners and seven companies telling you what to do and it's enough already.
[00:20:57] That you have to say that you have to go off on your own or move laterally, but you have to have the right mindset. So, that's number one. Step number two is you need to be a student of the game. If you're going to be a chef, if you're going to be a musician, if you're going to be an athlete, you need to continue to improve your game. You need to learn it.
[00:21:15] So, I would say, you know, buy the Be That Lawyer book, buy sales-free selling, listen to podcasts, like just whatever it is that's out there, YouTube, whatever your jam is, you need to spend 20 to 50 hours a year studying the game of marketing, branding, AI, time management, and become better and better at that piece of it. That's step number two.
[00:21:39] And then I would follow up step number three is you need to show up and be consistent, whether it's podcasting, posting on LinkedIn, most importantly, networking and meeting people and staying consistent with your business development efforts. You cannot be a rainmaker by waiting for the phone to ring. There is not a rainmaker I interviewed that said, you know, the way I did it, Steve, is I waited for the phone to ring and it just rang and here we go. I never heard that one either. Really? I'm shocked. But like, it's great when the phone rings.
[00:22:09] And I know for attorneys in the past, like that was a lot of how they did it. And maybe there's a few that still get it that way because they've done all the work on the front end to get that to happen. It doesn't happen because we're just a good lawyer. We have to do all the hard work in between. And that's showing up and being consistent every day with your BD. And I think what you mentioned, that's the theme I hear from pretty much every guest that is in your business of teaching people how to build their rainmaking practice.
[00:22:37] You've got to do something a little bit every day. So that's great, Steve. So tell us more about your services. What do you have? What do you do that you'd like our listeners to know about, Steve? Well, the beauty is I only do business development as a coach. I mean, there's some marketing and time management, other things that leak into it, of course. But business development, coaching and training, that's my primary business. And I'm taking ambitious lawyers that want to move laterally. They want to move to equity. They want to move out on their own. There's usually a reason they want to talk to me, right?
[00:23:06] It's not just for their health. So putting them through a class, it's an actual class with lawyers from around the world, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and all over the country in all different practice areas in all size, ways, shapes, and forms. And then that's about 60, 70% of my business. The other 30 is I run right now Rainmaker Roundtables. So these are made up of successful clients of mine and successful lawyers that are managing firms. They're making it rain as equity partners.
[00:23:33] They want to be in a family and they want to be in a group away from their firm to talk shop, to share best practices, to solve problems, to hold each other accountable. And really, those are the only two things I do. And so everything else I love to just hand out. You need marketing help here. Go talk to this person. You need recruiting here. Go talk to Scott. Like whatever it is that I don't do, I just love dishing out great referrals to great lawyers who need help in different areas. But I try to stay, you know, I try to teach, you know, how to specialize.
[00:24:02] And I think no one sort of does it well unless you're living it every day. And I feel like I am. That's great, Steve. And let me ask you about the Rainmaker Roundtables. That's a time where leaders of firms, they can kind of let their guard down and really say, hey, I'm really struggling here with industry colleagues. Is it at that level? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. They share their personal and business challenges. We work on solving. Like, let's say I had a guy the other day.
[00:24:29] He says, my biggest problem is I'm not getting engagement letters back fast enough. How do I get them back? And then all of us chimed in as a team to give him five, six, seven, ten ideas about how to get those engagement letters back faster. And then he has to then commit to what he's going to improve between now and the next meeting. So this is happening on a regular basis for these lawyers in addition to bringing in great guest speakers and just making sure that they're networking together and there's a great, very familiar feel to these groups. And I just love running them. That's great, Steve.
[00:24:58] Well, we're going to put those links to those resources on the show notes as well, as well as the link for people to buy your book, Be That Lawyer. So everybody listening, check out the show notes. You'll be able to connect with Steve directly and get his resources. Steve, thank you for being a guest on the show. And as usual, I'd love to have you back on in the future. Awesome, Scott. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to The Rainmaking Podcast.
[00:25:23] For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit our website at attorneysearchgroup.com. To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting, or executive retreat, visit therainmakingpodcast.com.