0:02: Hi everyone, it’s Evelyn Ackah.
0:05: Thank you so much for joining me on the Ask Canada Immigration Lawyer podcast.
0:10: Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Steve Fretzin to our podcast.
0:15: Welcome, Steve.
0:16: Evelyn, so thrilled to be here.
0:18: I appreciate you.

0:19: I want to tell everybody a little bit about you, so let me go through your bio.
0:22: Steve is the president and founder of legal coaching and business development consulting for lawyers.
0:29: His company and podcast are called Be That Lawyer.
0:32: I’ve been a guest on the podcast, and it’s been such a thrill for me.
0:37: Steve is a legal business development coach, which is very specific because lawyers do need help when it comes to business development. He’s an author, founder and president of Fretzin, Inc.,
0:49: a Chicago-based company that focuses exclusively on helping lawyers grow their practices.
0:55: With more than 20 years of experience coaching clients, Steve works with lawyers and attorneys across a wide range of practice areas, from solo practitioners to lawyers at large firms looking to develop their own book of business.
1:08: He helps them improve their networking, build relationships,
1:11: marketing strategies and generate new business.
1:15: Through his company, Steve provides services such as one-on-one lawyer coaching, law firm training, peer advisory groups and strategic business development consulting designed specifically for legal professionals.
1:27: As I mentioned, Steve is the host of the Be That Lawyer podcast.
1:31: I highly recommend you join and subscribe.
1:34: It’s a wonderful podcast, and he interviews lawyers, legal marketers and industry leaders
1:39: about how attorneys can build successful businesses and have happy careers.
1:44: Welcome, Steve.
1:45: That was a mouthful right there.
1:47: It was a good mouthful.
1:48: It’s very interesting.
1:49: You’ve done a lot.
1:51: I remember when I was on your podcast, you were asking me questions and I thought, I want you on mine.
1:57: How did you get into this?
1:59: How did this occur?
2:01: What was your path?

2:03: With a gun at my back, apparently. I’m working with lawyers, so take that for what it’s worth.
2:08: I’m a guy who started selling early. I was mowing people’s lawns and babysitting around the neighbourhood when I was a kid, and I sold shoes when I was 16 at Kinney Shoes, the great American shoe store.
2:24: I got out of college with no other purpose than to go into sales and have a career in sales, and I moved up the food chain.
2:32: I ended up in franchising,
2:33: working around the country, around the U.S., selling franchises and supporting around 50 franchisees. I really learned not just about selling high-ticket items like a business, but also how to support all of these franchisees
2:52: in building their businesses, maybe selling their businesses or maybe buying another one. I became more of a businessman, in addition to just being a sales guy, and I knew at that moment that I was going to run my own business.
3:06: It was really a matter of what.
3:09: I also had a weird relationship with sales.
3:11: I always felt bad about the managers and owners I worked for and how they made you throw sales down people’s throats with icky sales tactics and ways to close business.
3:28: I was like, this doesn’t feel right.
3:29: I want to be the nice guy that people like and want to work with.
3:33: So I came up with a philosophy called sales-free selling, and I started my own business working primarily with entrepreneurs in 2004.
3:43: I had the pleasure of working in over 50 industries, with really interesting businesses: a Caribbean medical school, a local carpet cleaner, a website developer, an accountant and all kinds of interesting companies.
3:57: In 2008, when the recession hit,
3:59: all of these successful owners that I had helped started referring their lawyer friends to me.
4:05: I think it took about 16 months, and then everything let loose. I found myself working with lawyers and law firms for about 80% of my business.
4:16: I was talking to one of my clients about specialization.
4:19: He said, “Why aren’t you specialized?”
4:21: I thought, oh man, he’s calling me out.
4:24: I’m an opportunist, right? But niche, niche, niche.
4:27: So I said, all right, fine, and I made everything lawyers. That’s been 18 years and it’s been an absolute blessing because what lawyers don’t learn in law school or at the law firm level,
4:41: combined with the fact that they all hate sales and never really wanted to be in sales, means that learning a model like sales-free selling, where it’s more relationship-driven and consultative, is a great fit. You’re not really selling, pitching or convincing anybody of anything.
4:55: It really made a great fit.
4:57: That’s how I got pulled into this, and it’s been an absolute blessing.
5:00: I work with the most wonderful, smart, delightful people in the world, and every day I thank my lucky stars that I got into this.

5:10: Yeah, and I think it’s great that you followed your passion and also listened to yourself because you’re right. There are some people who feel like sales is like being a car salesman—pushy, aggressive, cold-calling constantly. I think what you teach, and what I love, is that sales-free selling is really about relationships. It’s about being there, being responsive and giving value.
5:35: When you first started working with lawyers, Steve, what surprised you the most about how they approach networking and building business?

5:43: What surprised me most was this: when I would work with an entrepreneur or sales team, if you can imagine a whiteboard scribbled all over,
5:52: you’ve got five or ten different systems and things going on all at once because they’d been through all these weird trainings and had read and studied so much. That was their profession, and they had to be successful in getting business.
6:05: When I started working with lawyers, what I found was essentially a clean whiteboard.
6:13: They’d say, “I don’t know anything, so I’m just out there. I have no system to follow. I’m just winging it, putting in the hours and hoping things work out.”
6:23: And I was like, that’s not how we do things.
6:28: I wouldn’t towel off after a shower without a system. You’ve got to work top down.
6:34: So they were really hungry for a system.
6:39: That whiteboard that’s totally clear allows me to insert my systems, my language and the things that are proven into their world.
6:48: They don’t have to erase all that junk.
6:50: They just absorb it, which is exciting.
6:54: They start fresh.

6:55: I love that. As you said, lawyers don’t learn sales, business development or even how to start a business. None of that.
7:03: We learn the law and then we come out and have to figure it out.
7:06: How do you get attorneys that you work with to reframe their thinking around what sales and business development are? Tell me a little more about the sales-free selling model because, as I said, sometimes people feel like it’s icky or aggressive, or they think they’ll just sit and wait for the phone to ring. In this day and age, that’s not enough. It’s great if we get a lot of referrals, but you can’t build a business on what might happen.
7:32: How do you develop that shift in mindset so they reframe sales from something negative to something positive?

7:40: That’s a great question.
7:41: I think it starts with flipping their thinking around the idea that we’re not actually selling.
7:46: What we’re doing, and lawyers are very comfortable with this, is solving problems.
7:51: There’s someone with an M&A deal, an immigration matter or a litigation matter.
7:57: You’re not there to sell. You’re there to uncover what’s going on with them, where their problems are, where their pain points are, and to see if you’re a fit to help solve those problems and whether everything aligns so you can get a win-win outcome.
8:12: So getting their minds wrapped around the idea that we’re not actually salespeople, we’re not out there to present, pitch, sell or convince anybody.
8:19: We’re there to meet people, ask questions, be active listeners, demonstrate understanding and empathy, and identify whether there’s a clear fit and motivation.
8:29: It goes a lot deeper than that, but that’s the basis of where it starts.

8:33: The other thing is lawyers talk a lot.
8:37: There are two reasons for that.
8:40: One is they love to solve.
8:41: They’re some of the best problem-solvers in the world.
8:45: The second is that they’ve never had a system to follow that allowed them to ask questions.
8:50: When you’re asking questions, you’re not talking, you’re listening.
8:54: I think the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle, applies here, and that’s new to them.
9:00: The easiest way for me to get through to a lawyer is to say that prescription before diagnosis is malpractice.
9:07: I have some pretty crazy examples of that.
9:11: I recently hurt my arm.
9:14: I went into the doctor’s office.
9:15: The doctor took one look at me and said, “What’s the problem?”
9:17: I said, “I hurt my arm.”
9:18: He said, “No problem,” and he took out a machete.
9:22: I said, “What are you going to do with that?”
9:23: He said, “I’m going to cut your arm off.”
9:23: I said, “Wait a second, I like my arm. It’s useful.”
9:29: That was a prescription without a diagnosis, and that’s malpractice.
9:33: So we’re trying to slow lawyers down from the pitch.
9:37: We’re trying to slow them down and say, look, you can follow a process that will deepen the relationship, allow you to control the meeting, allow you to ask questions, understand and demonstrate empathy.
9:49: Then, when you do eventually solve, help or present, you know exactly what to solve and present because they’ve already told you everything you need to know to prepare a better presentation.
10:03: Often, what they thought the issue was turns out to be only 25% of what it actually is.
10:06: There are a number of things that I insert that really flip the switch for a lot of the attorneys I work with, showing them there’s a better way.

10:13: I love that.
10:14: I think more and more lawyers are looking for professionals like yourself because we know what we don’t know.
10:26: If people are out there acting like they know, they’re going to make a lot of mistakes.
10:26: Before I started working with professionals like yourself, I made all the mistakes everybody makes, and they’re expensive mistakes.
10:33: You’re stopping that before they go down that rabbit hole.

10:37: What is one example, Steve, of a simple action lawyers can take that will lead to a stronger long-term client relationship?
10:46: I love that you work not just for solos, but also for people in big firms who are trying to create their own book of business.
10:54: What is one example of a simple action lawyers can take to build stronger client relationships?

11:01: It’s funny that you asked that question.
11:04: I was on a call an hour and a half ago with one of my best rainmakers.
11:08: His name is Casey.
11:10: He left the big firm to go to a smaller firm, and then he kept in touch with all of his big-firm friends and partners.
11:19: They all left the big firm and went in-house.
11:22: What he did was stay in touch with them.
11:25: He dripped content on them.
11:28: He stayed in touch with lunches, coffees and regular contact.
11:31: He just got what could be a million-dollar deal because he kept in touch with someone literally over seven years, with nothing to show for it for seven years, and now the floodgates have opened.
11:45: He’s going to end up with all this business.
11:47: Some people would say, “I’m not waiting seven years to get business.”
11:50: Keep in mind there’s some business that happened in month one.
11:54: There’s some business that happened in month three.
11:56: It’s dozens and dozens of people that he’s staying on top of.
12:00: Some opportunities happen now, some happen later down the road, but the point is that he recognizes that by staying in touch with your law school friends, your law firm colleagues, your strategic partners and your clients, and adding value for them over time, you become the one who is doing that when other lawyers aren’t.
12:18: That’s why they’re going to come to him versus anyone else.
12:21: That’s why he’s got such a big book and why he’s more focused on business development than just billing and practising law.

12:30: One thing I learned when I worked at big firms, and I remember this as a senior associate, was that you’re as valuable not just for your hourly rates or what you’re billing. For me, I really focused on marketing myself within the large national law firm from coast to coast, so the people you work with know what you do.
12:45: What was so valuable was that by the time I was done, I had built my own practice.
12:58: I was able to take it with me and go and start my own firm.
13:08: I think people in big firms don’t always think about the importance of being a business developer.
13:11: They’re just being fed from the top down.
13:13: But I think junior and mid-level associates have to start thinking, this is my own little practice, right?
13:18: I’m here to market to my own colleagues, just like you said, my friends, people I went to school with, but even my bosses and people across the firm, because those are the ones that give you those opportunities.

13:30: What about client retention?
13:32: I know that you also work on that because some files, like with immigration, involve the work permit, permanent residence and citizenship.
13:40: It can be a long relationship of five, six or seven years, plus the referrals that come from them.
13:45: How do you focus your clients on how to retain clients, not just do the one-off?

13:53: That’s a fantastic question.
13:54: There’s this old saying about client loyalty: if you give them a fair rate and do good work, they’ll stay with you.
14:03: That’s absolutely not the case.
14:05: That is a myth.
14:07: In today’s day and age, there are lawyers and law firms hitting up your clients all the time, so you have to be someone they can’t leave.
14:15: So how do you do that?
14:16: Number one, you’ve got to be a great lawyer.
14:18: If you’re not, you’re out.
14:20: But if you are a great lawyer and you’ve gotten great results, the best that can be achieved, that’s table stakes.
14:28: That’s just the beginning.

14:30: Then I also practise what I preach.
14:32: When I work with my clients, I give them so many connections, so much content, and so much above and beyond what they expected from me that the depth of our relationship becomes very strong.
14:46: I would say building a social relationship is one thing.
14:51: Another is the giver mindset.
14:54: You think they just want the matter done and the work completed.
14:58: Ask them, “What else can I help you with? I’ve got a big network. I’ve got lots of resources. What else do you need?”
15:04: Maybe they say, “My daughter’s trying to get into Harvard and I’m struggling to help her get there.”
15:09: Maybe you know someone.
15:12: Maybe you can at least make an effort.
15:15: From a personal and business perspective, what can you help somebody with that adds value to the relationship and to their life?
15:27: Then ask yourself how you are providing content.
15:30: Maybe you’re presenting to that GC and that GC’s group on new laws, on what’s changing in AI, or on what’s changing in employment law, because that is always evolving and you need to stay on top of it.
15:41: How are you making them better as a team?

15:45: It’s really about that extra mile, the extra effort that most people don’t think about or don’t make part of what I’d call a client loyalty plan.
15:56: It doesn’t mean you have to spend millions of hours.
15:59: If you’ve got five or ten top-level clients, your A clients, they get the bulk of your attention.
16:06: Then you’ve got some smaller matters and some nice clients—those are B clients. They get a little bit less, but they still get attention.
16:12: Then maybe the C clients are getting newsletters from you, seeing you on LinkedIn and meeting with you once a year.
16:18: There are ways to do it where it doesn’t take up all your time, but most lawyers struggle with follow-up and loyalty.
16:27: Having a plan that ensures you get it done and that you’re doing the right things for your clients is going to pay big dividends when someone tries to steal your client and they say, “I wouldn’t leave Evelyn in a million years for any reason.”
16:40: That doesn’t happen just because you helped them on one matter.

16:44: That’s true, and I think clients often become personal relationships.
16:51: Often they’re my friends.
16:52: You go through life events with them. They have babies, they get married, we send things, we talk about life.
16:58: It’s not just the business side of it.
17:00: I love it when clients say, “You’re not like lawyers that I know. You’re not like any lawyer I know.”
17:05: It’s been like that for a long time, but I really appreciate that because it shows that I care.
17:09: I want to know what’s happening, how their kids are doing, what sports they play, where they went on vacation and all those things.

17:19: So let’s talk about networking.
17:21: I was just saying to you earlier that I attended an event this morning for professionals. You walk in and there’s always this question of how to make the best use of that opportunity. Sometimes even for me, they can feel intimidating.
17:35: We had government officials and others there.
17:37: What are a few things that lawyers, or any businessperson, can use when they’re networking face to face, not just on Zoom?

17:47: Sure.
17:49: I talk a lot about this using the idea of a story.
17:53: Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
17:56: I know what happens when my wife comes down and I’m watching something and she’s 20 minutes late.
18:02: Then the questions start coming in: “Who is that? Why does he hate her? What’s going on there?”
18:07: I have to hit pause and take her back.

18:10: In networking, we want to make sure we have some planning elements before we attend.
18:15: That could be the attendee list.
18:16: That could be a conversation with the person running the event to get the lay of the land, ask some questions and understand how we should prepare our infomercial, what we’re trying to accomplish and what we want to get out of it, as well as what questions we’re going to ask.

18:34: Then when we’re there, that’s the middle of the story, and that’s the execution.
18:39: How are we executing to meet new people, move around the room productively, and qualify whether we should keep talking to someone for more than five minutes, or maybe cut bait because they’re just trying to sell us life insurance and we already have life insurance?
18:52: Do we want to be sold to at a networking event?
18:54: So we need to have some ways of exiting.

18:57: Then there’s the last piece of the story, which is the ending, or the follow-up.
18:59: We meet a number of quality people that we should have coffee with after the fact, and then we don’t.
19:06: We let those cards get stale on our desk, we get busy, and we don’t follow through.
19:10: That’s the end of the story, and it’s not a happy one.
19:13: So having good planning, execution and follow-through is really important.

19:18: I’ll share one thing: when you’re in the meeting, one of the greatest things you can do is ask questions.
19:26: Find out what brings that person there, how long they’ve been part of the group, what type of business they’re in, what they’re trying to accomplish this year, and what challenges they’re having in accomplishing that.
19:41: It may be that they need your help.
19:43: It may be that they need other resources.
19:45: But you’re learning things that can help you pay it forward and start showing that you’re a giver, that you care, and that this is a great way to start a relationship, versus pushing cards and pressing flesh.
20:03: People are really tired of any salesy approach at networking events.
20:08: There needs to be a system that you’re using to be successful with networking, otherwise it can come across as insincere or like you’re just wasting time moving around the room until you decide to leave.
20:20: Then you think, what was that?
20:22: You just wasted all that time.

20:22: I love that you mentioned The Go-Giver because I love Bob Burg and his books and that whole mentality that it’s about giving, not giving to get, or focusing on what you can get.
20:39: It’s about being forward-looking, proactive and authentic.
20:44: People can smell inauthenticity.
20:46: The people who have the most success are usually just authentic people.
20:48: They care, and they go above and beyond.

20:52: I’m interested in your coaching.
20:54: What are you seeing that lawyers should be doing now that they weren’t doing 10 or 15 years ago? Or even business owners generally?
21:03: We all have websites, we’re all on social media, but what do you think is different now that people should really be paying attention to, but they’re not? What are people missing, other than maybe your clients, who are really doing it?

21:18: We’re living in an interesting time.
21:21: Up is down, down is up and the world is uncertain.
21:24: There’s really nothing we can count on.
21:29: So what we want to count on is ourselves.
21:33: What does that mean?
21:33: It means you can keep your head down as an entrepreneur or as a lawyer and just deal with what’s in front of you—billable hours, doing work for other lawyers, whatever it might be—or you can say, look, the world is uncertain, I need to step up and take care of myself.

21:50: For most lawyers, they understand that if you don’t have your own clients, if you don’t have your own book of business, if you’re not producing for yourself and for the firm, then you’re at the whim of everyone else, and that’s an unsafe place to be.
22:07: So control, freedom, independence, lateral moves, going solo, your firm going under, your firm getting bought, your hours dropping—whatever it is—you have to be in control.
22:19: I would suggest that, number one, we all need to become students of the game of business development and networking and take action.
22:29: More now than ever, I’m seeing lawyers come out of the woodwork and say, “I’ve been kicking this down the road for a while, and now I see what’s going on. My eyes have been opened, and if I don’t get my act together, this could end badly.”

22:45: The other thing is AI.
22:48: I was going to add that in addition to business development, marketing, branding and building your own base of business, whether you’re an entrepreneur or just trying to have a bigger, more stable client base and protect yourself, you also need to start playing around with AI.
23:11: You need to get comfortable with it.
23:13: It’s like the people who were late to LinkedIn or the people who were late to learning how to leverage email.
23:21: The people who start using AI now, become regular users and get more advanced with agents and automation are going to become the efficient people who get a lot more done and stay ahead of the curve, compared to everyone who says, “I don’t really like AI,” or is doom and gloom about the whole thing.
23:42: Those are the two main things I’d put out there.

23:49: Those are really big.
23:50: For me this year, when the firm had its annual retreat, the whole theme was AI.
23:54: I want everybody to be trained and proficient, to see how they can improve their jobs, not to take their jobs, but to help them do them better and more efficiently.
24:10: That’s a core value this year that we all have to focus on.
24:12: So I think it’s great that you mentioned it.

24:12: One thing I was thinking about, because I was at a conference recently with lawyers and law firm owners, was how in the States law firms are being owned and bought by non-lawyers now in different jurisdictions.
24:23: That’s a whole other challenge coming up, where venture capital is moving in and buying, acquiring and partnering.
24:35: Lawyers are needing to think differently.
24:35: Have you seen any of that yet? I know it’s early days, but have you experienced that or had to start thinking about it?

24:42: I haven’t seen it directly, but it’s happening.
24:47: I know KPMG is getting into the legal space, right?
24:57: So now you’re a law firm in Arizona and you’re competing against KPMG, who knows everything about how to run a successful business and dominate in their space, and now they’re in your space.
25:11: Or you have people who are heavily into marketing, who’ve been getting leads for lawyers for 20 years, and now they have their own firm.
25:18: They’re not going to be giving you leads anymore. Those leads are going to go to their firm as they build their own thing.

25:23: When you look at the potential death of the billable hour, or at least the reduction of it, and you look at AI, competition, more people going solo and building small firms, and on top of that non-lawyer-owned firms, there’s a lot going on.
25:40: There are a lot of antennas that should be going up for lawyers to lift their heads off their desktops, look around and say, “The way things are today, I’m fine. The way things are tomorrow, I don’t know, and maybe I need to start preparing for tomorrow.”

25:58: Yeah, and how to insulate yourself, honestly.
26:02: In Colorado, I was talking with a lawyer from that jurisdiction, and these things are happening not just in Arizona.
26:08: We’re not there yet in Canada, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s next.
26:13: I feel like, as business owners, we always need to think about the risk management perspective and what else we can do, what else we can offer that’s going to set us apart before these VCs come in and buy up everything and then we’re retired.

26:29: A lot of times lawyers say, “I’m just too busy to do that.”
26:33: So it becomes this cycle where they do some business development and then they stop, and then they look up and ask, “Where’s the work?” because they finished the work they had.

26:47: You’re talking about the roller coaster ride, right?
26:50: Lots of work or lots of business development effort, then I stop, and it goes down.
26:58: It’s this big wave.
27:00: Something I really believe in is that I refuse to coach, teach or tell people to do things that I haven’t done myself.
27:12: I have to be the example, otherwise I would feel like a hypocrite.

27:17: I became an expert in time management about 20 years ago when I recognized that I had stacks of business cards, stacks of files, paper everywhere, 1,500 unopened emails and more.
27:33: I said, “This is not sustainable. I’m a feather on the wind, blowing this way and that way. I’ve got to get organized.”
27:37: So I really studied time management and some of the top books and top people in that space, and I got myself together.
27:42: Since then, I’ve been teaching lawyers time management, how to reduce their inbox, how to manage their day, how to say no to things, and how to automate.

28:04: I have the auto-scheduler so I’m not going back and forth with people.
28:07: That’s the basic thing people should have.
28:09: I now have an automated email AI tool that allows me to automate responses to emails.
28:20: People say, “How does it know what to respond, and how accurate could that be?”
28:23: Well, it has read every email I’ve ever received, and it’s read every email I’ve ever sent.
28:28: I think it’s pretty accurate in knowing my writing style because it sees everything I’ve ever done.
28:32: So when someone responds and says they want to sponsor my podcast or network with me or whatever, I look at the auto-response and think, yes, that’s it—send.
28:43: That’s five minutes saved, 30 times a day or whatever.

28:49: We need to start thinking about how to become students of the game of business development.
28:54: Time management is not off the table, and learning how to let go, automate and delegate things is really at the heart of what lawyers—and really anyone—need to do to be successful.
29:06: Otherwise, you’re just going to be buried in the minutiae.

29:10: Totally.
29:10: I love that you mentioned that.
29:12: I started using something called Seraf AI because, while I do have an assistant and a virtual assistant who is amazing and knows everything, the inbox is crazy and the calendar is crazy.
29:34: So it’s that extra little bit of support to help draft responses, and once you train it, it’s amazing.
29:39: That alone lets you focus on the real high-quality work, client work, not just all the potential things, but the things that are actually going to convert or that you already have to do.
29:50: I also love calendar links and just getting people to schedule on their own.
29:55: I really feel like lawyers and all businesspeople need to look at technology and systems as a friend and not a replacement.
30:03: It’s something that can help us.

30:06: I think delegation is a big issue for lawyers. Usually we’re very control-oriented because we know the risks out there, bar associations and all the rest.
30:12: How do you train, teach and guide your clients to really delegate with confidence and not fall into the mindset of “I have to do everything by myself”?

30:22: There’s an underlying question, which is what do you enjoy doing, what is your area of brilliance, and what are you getting paid for?
30:32: If the answer is immigration work and it’s $500 an hour, then that’s important.
30:37: Then you ask what you do not enjoy and what you are not making money on. There are all these other things you would write down if you were keeping track.
30:44: It may not be something where you have to do it all at once, but maybe you start by looking at what is really eating up your day and your week the most, and what you dread.
30:51: It could be bookkeeping, chasing after money, invoicing or managing your inbox for seven or eight hours a day.
31:02: There could be someone else clearing out the clutter and responding to the basic things, or an automated tool like I mentioned.

31:14: Ultimately, you need to separate your priorities, where the money is for you, and where your brilliance is, from all these other things, and then slowly start chipping away, moving things out and finding good talent.
31:25: That’s really important.
31:26: You’ve got to have trust in the talent, and if you don’t, that’s why people try to figure it all out themselves.
31:31: Hire a company that will help you recruit a VA.
31:36: I tried to hire a VA on my own. It worked out a little bit, but maybe not forever.
31:43: When you have someone do it for you, they really understand how to make the connection and put it together.
31:48: Maybe there’s a guarantee.
31:50: Maybe they background check and reference check.
31:53: They do all these things that you just don’t have time to do.
31:58: And yes, it’s going to cost money.
32:00: But if you did the math on how much money you’re wasting by doing everything yourself, even recruiters that charge 25% of a salary make sense.
32:10: People freak out about it, and I get it. It’s a lot of money on a $200,000-a-year lawyer.
32:14: But what does it cost you not to have that lawyer, when they could be making three or four times what they cost?

32:23: This has really been great, Steve.
32:25: So tell me, what is the ideal lawyer or attorney for you?
32:31: For people listening to this, or family members listening, who might think, “I know someone who needs your expertise,” is there a range or a level of experience they need to be at?
32:42: Brand new lawyer versus senior lawyer—do you have an ideal client profile?

32:50: I hope I do, otherwise I’m in trouble with my business.
32:54: I’m going to give you three categories.
32:57: Number one is highly ambitious attorneys, from big law down to solo, who are not looking to figure it out anymore.
33:05: They need a coach and a trainer who’s going to give them proven methodology so they can double, triple or quadruple their books.
33:13: I work with about 20 lawyers a year in that program.
33:16: So that’s one: highly ambitious, motivated attorneys.

33:20: Second is managing partners and top rainmakers, whom I put into my peer advisory groups called the Rainmakers Roundtables.
33:29: That could be someone managing a 50-person firm.
33:34: If you’re managing a 2,000-person firm, I don’t think this is the group for you.
33:37: But if you’re a rainmaker or equity partner who wants to be in a confidential environment with 10 other brilliant people talking about growth, that’s a great fit.

33:45: On April 15th, I’m launching the Be That Lawyer community.
33:49: I’m making that announcement here for the first time anywhere.
33:53: This is for the broader legal community—not only my community, but junior associates, partners and anyone who wants my content and resources.
34:00: They can network, ask questions, attend live events and join coaching sessions with me in a group atmosphere.
34:12: All of that and more is happening at a very low price point because it’s a subscription model.
34:18: That launches April 15th to the masses.

34:21: Excellent. I love that.
34:23: I love that you’re covering all the bases.
34:25: You covered them all.
34:27: I think you and I will have to talk too, to see what I need, because I’m always trying to keep myself on track.
34:36: For lawyers, we’re always a little easily distracted. They say shiny object syndrome, and it’s true.
34:43: Having somebody who’s going to coach you to stay focused on what you said your business plan was for the quarter or whatever, I think that’s so valuable.
34:49: I think what you’re doing is amazing and so necessary.
34:54: You’ve probably saved a lot of people a lot of time and wasted money by giving them a proven system instead of having them try to figure it out on their own.

35:04: I want to thank you so much, Steve, for being here with us, and I’m looking forward to continuing to follow your podcast, Be That Lawyer.
35:13: All the coaching and all the information about Steve Fretzin will be available in the show notes.
35:20: So for listeners, if you want to reach out to Steve directly with any questions, if you are a lawyer who is starting out or a seasoned lawyer like myself who may need a little more coaching and to get back on track with goals for 2026, feel free to reach out to him.
35:35: I’d like to thank you so much, Steve, for joining me on our podcast.
35:39: It was great.
35:40: Thank you.
35:41: You’re wonderful.
35:42: Thank you so much.