Are you a law firm owner looking to enhance your business development skills and build lasting client relationships? Embracing the art of ‘sales-free selling’ might be the secret weapon.
Join Darren Wurz as he chats with Steve Fretzin, a renowned author, podcast host, and advisor to lawyers. Get ready to discover proven methods and practical advice to revolutionize your law firm’s marketing efforts. In this power-packed episode, Steve unveils the essence of his ‘sales free selling’ technique, emphasizing the importance of authentic relationship-building over traditional hard sales. Through real-world examples and practical tips, he highlights the importance of developing soft skills, leveraging existing relationships, and adapting to the evolving legal industry.
Throughout this episode, Darren and Steve discuss:
- Unleashing the power of sales-free selling: Growing your law firm without feeling salesy by developing genuine relationships and focusing on client needs.
- Mastering the Art of Relationship Building: Techniques to strengthen rapport and trust through effective communication and understanding different personality types.
- Embracing Intentional Marketing: Insights into strategic marketing, time management, and business development to maximize your law firm’s growth potential.
- Navigating the Zoom World: Practical advice on optimizing virtual meetings, making eye contact, and preparing for successful Zoom interactions in the digital era.
- Adapting to the Changing Legal Landscape: Current challenges in the legal industry, new marketing platforms, and setting yourself apart from the competition.
- And more!
Resources:
Connect with Darren Wurz:
- dpw@wurzfinancialservices.com
- 30 Minute Chat With Darren
- Wurz Financial Services
- The Lawyer Millionaire: The Complete Guide for Attorneys on Maximizing Wealth, Minimizing Taxes, and Retiring with Confidence by Darren Wurz
- LinkedIn: Darren P. Wurz
- LinkedIn: The Lawyer Millionaire
- Twitter: Wurz Financial Services
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
About Steve Fretzin:
Steve Fretzin is the “business development therapist” for lawyers. He teaches everything you never learned in law school. As a bestselling author of three books on legal business development, Steve offers modern-day coaching, offering fresh ideas, precise tips, and actionable tasks that get results. He’s not just any coach; he’s the voice behind the “BE THAT LAWYER” podcast and a recognized figure in media, with features in the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s, and Entrepreneur.com, and appearances on NBC News and WGN Radio. Steve also contributes regularly to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and to prominent platforms like Attorney at Law magazine, the National Law Review, the American Bar Association, and the Illinois State Bar Association.
Transcript:
Darren Wurz [00:01:03]:
Have you ever scratched your head and thought, they didn’t teach me that in law school, business development is a skill that law firm owners must master in order to be successful. And unfortunately, it’s one of those skills many law firm owners have to learn on their own. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, where we help law firm owners master their money. Today, we have a very special guest joining us, Steve Fretsen, who’s a best selling author, successful podcast host, and coach, trainer, advisor for lawyers and law firm owners. Steve’s expertise lies in helping lawyers become confident, organized, and skilled Rainmakers a powerful combination that sets them apart in the legal industry. Steve, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome.
Steve Fretzin [00:01:55]:
Yeah, so happy to be here, Darren. I appreciate you having me.
Darren Wurz [00:01:58]:
Great.
Darren Wurz [00:01:59]:
I’ve got so much I want to ask you today. This is going to be a great episode, all about business development. Before we get into that, could you. Share with us a little bit about. Your journey and what inspired you to become a coach and advisor for lawyers and law firm owners?
Steve Fretzin [00:02:15]:
Yeah and I think it’s fair to start off by saying I’m not an attorney. That I primarily set up my business in 2004 to work with entrepreneurs, and I’ve worked in over 50 industries. And when the recession hit in 2008, 2009, some of my entrepreneurial clients said, hey, my lawyer was asking about my success and said, how are you doing all this business? And they referred it to me. So I got a lawyer, then two, then three, then a firm. And it really took off. And within about 16 months, about 85% of my business was lawyers and law firms. And what connected us primarily was my results driven focus for them to make sure they get results and keep and sustain results. But most importantly is that they never want to feel salesy, they never want to learn sales. So what I’m actually teaching them is called sales free selling, which is how do we develop business without ever feeling salesy, without ever having to convince or pitch or try to push a round peg through a square hole? So it really resonated with the legal community that they can learn this as a skill in a non salesy way. And it just really took off, and I sort of haven’t looked back and just so happy and so honored to be a part of the legal community and work in this wonderful industry. And I just work with the most amazing lawyers around the country, helping them to dramatically grow their law practices again in an ethical and comfortable way.
Darren Wurz [00:03:43]:
Yeah, that’s great. So obviously there is a demand for your service. A lot of lawyers are interested. They want to know about business development. Tell us a little bit more about what that means. Non salesy. I’m curious about that.
Steve Fretzin [00:03:58]:
Yeah. So the easiest way to explain it is lawyers regularly that go on meetings to go get business. They call it a pitch meeting. You’ve heard of pitch? Hey, we went on a pitch meeting. Well, that implies a sales meeting. That implies that we’re going to go pitch our services. We’re going to go talk about how great we are. We’re going to go talk about how much we’ve won for our clients and the success we’ve had, how wonderful our firm is. It’s a lot about the lawyers and the firm. And what I do is I flip that on its end and I say, look, why don’t we go out and identify what the prospective clients problems are, where their pain points are. Let’s ask a lot of questions. Let’s build relationship through a really positive bedside manner where they feel understood, listened to, and empathized with, and let’s qualify them to understand and ensure that there’s a good fit that everybody’s working in the same direction in a less adversarial way. And then in many cases, that takes money and rates off the table more or less. And then we’re walking a buyer through a buying decision versus, again, trying to make a pitch and convince someone, hey, this is why you should hire me. And that seems to be a much better feeling approach for lawyers than the pitch meeting, which they just kind of fall into because they don’t know that maybe another approach exists.
Darren Wurz [00:05:18]:
Yeah, and I’m betting it’s more effective. Actually, I’ve seen that in my own business development. Usually the meetings where I’m talking the least and I’m asking more questions and the prospective client is talking more than. I’m talking, those tend to be the more effective ones. And it’s usually when I’m very no. Pressure approach that people tend to do business. I found that as soon as I. Start to apply pressure, people run for the hills. It seems to be that’s kind of what I experience. What can you say about that?
Steve Fretzin [00:05:54]:
Well, there’s an old car company that’s surprisingly no longer in business back from the 90s called Saturn. And Saturn had a great commercial that essentially went like this. People don’t like to be sold to. It’s not fun to be sold to. It’s fun to buy. And so I think what we all hate is we all hate the feeling of being sold. We hate the feeling of being sold to and convinced and pushed into something. And I think anyone that’s gone out and bought a car, anyone that’s maybe dealt with a pushy insurance salesman, there’s a negative connotation there. And so what we want to consider is with an approach of building relationships and trust and asking great questions and being a great listener and essentially just stop solving and stop pitching and moving to the end of the meeting early on and just sit there and enjoy the process of understanding someone and taking it all in. And it’s a little bit like gold mining, right? You don’t find a nugget of gold and run out of the gold mine and never to return. When you find a nugget of gold, there’s probably more there if you keep digging. So I think what we have to teach lawyers is that there’s an actual methodology that you can use, a system to follow of step one, step two, step three, that’s going to not only get you a better outcome, and a better result, but it’s going to make you feel better and get you off on a better foot with that prospective client or with that networking buddy or whomever it is that you’re meeting with than just going, at it and just kind of winging it or just going off the cuff, which is just generally not a good idea for predictable results.
Darren Wurz [00:07:30]:
I love that. I love a good salesperson, someone who. Is not a pushy salesperson, but one that’s going to educate me and help me understand things. I am not really the most fashionable person, so when I go clothes shopping. I appreciate someone who’s going to help me understand. If I’m looking for a blazer, I Want to know do you think this look good on me? And don’t gaslight me, but give me your honest opinion and don’t, by the way, try to sell me ten of them. I just want one and I want To know which one you think is going to be the best fit.
Steve Fretzin [00:08:06]:
Yeah. And we buy from people that we like and we trust and that we feel understand us. And that’s not necessarily, again, something that’s taught. And again, lawyers understand that. They want a jury to like them. They want a judge to like in a courtroom. They want to have an appeal. And then in business development, they just go back to solving and selling and teaching and convincing and giving out rates and answering questions. Essentially being pushed around by buyers who just want rates and information but haven’t shared a lot about what their problems are and how deep the rabbit hole goes and how important a solution would be prior to giving that. So again, I go back to prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. And so if people can just hear that. Again, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. We’re prescribing too much and it’s not really an effective way to run a meeting or to build a trust or to understand someone when you’re just prescribing all the time. So we really need to kind of start looking at things from a different angle and that’s what I’m working with attorneys on every single day is approaches that are going to get them across the finish line faster with less time and effort and also take the transactional side, the rate side out of it generally.
Darren Wurz [00:09:29]:
Absolutely, that’s great stuff. So when it comes to business development, we know this is vital. Do you find that some of the clients you work with have they just kind of thought the business is going to come in the door and then they have this realization, okay, I’ve got to really hone in and focus and drill down has that been kind of your experience or what do you find with some of the clients you work with?
Steve Fretzin [00:09:53]:
There’s a lot of attorneys that have had great success in the past 2025 years of business and paid their bills and put away money and had a great little lifestyle and things just stopped. They’re not getting the calls, they’re not getting the referrals. Things have just stopped and they haven’t done any marketing, they haven’t done any networking. They’ve just kept their head down and done the work. And that for some lawyers, they might finish out their career that way. For other lawyers, it’s going to be a rude awakening when you hit 50 plus and you don’t have any skills to go out and develop business. And now you’re wondering how am I going to pay my bills? Or maybe I’m living beyond my means without realizing it or realizing it. So that’s one element. The other element is a lawyer that has been given hours by their team or by their practice area, group leader, whatever it might be. They’ve been fed essentially hours for years and that slows down or that spigot gets turned off and then they’re going, oh my God. Now the firm is saying, hey, go out and get business you can do, you know, whatever it might, you know, what’s the plan from there? Well, go figure it out yourself. That’s not necessarily a great place. And there’s also one other piece I’ll mention, Darren. There are managing partners and existing rainmakers that might have a million dollar book and think that that’s great. But one of my superpowers and what I love to do is meet with those folks, evaluate what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, where their gaps are. And sure enough, like clockwork, I find a massive pile of money that’s sitting on a table right in front of them and they’re walking around it all day and all week and all month and all year and they could have a two, three, $5 million book within a few years, but they just don’t realize it’s sitting there. Or they do. They don’t know how to go after it. And so having a model for methodology systems, a coach, someone that can identify that and then actually help you achieve it, it can mean the difference between great wealth and happiness and success. Or again, just kind of paying your bills, you’re paying your people and just kind of living year to year. Which is, again, maybe not a great recipe for success long term.
Darren Wurz [00:12:03]:
Yeah. So things have changed the landscape has changed for sales, for marketing is this just a phenomenon of the current internet based environment we lived in? How and why have these changes occurred where suddenly law firm owners find themselves in a place where, uhoh, I really need to actually invest in marketing?
Steve Fretzin [00:12:27]:
Yeah, so you’ve got a tremendous amount of competition where lawyers that were sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring are now actively networking, actively marketing on different platforms. And so everyone’s vying for the same piece of pie. And that makes it a very challenging marketplace, no matter what practice area you’re in. And you’re either in the game or you’re not in the game. You’re either playing the game at a high level or you’re not. And so if you look at any sport, you look at cooking chefs, you look at musicians, who’s going to excel to the top? And it’s the people that are being thoughtful about the future and where it’s headed and knowing that they have to perform at a high level. The thing that’s changed in legal is not just the competition, but the idea that you’re either learning this game called business development and you’re working it in, developing, or you’re sitting back on your heels and waiting for things to happen. And as we just mentioned, that’s not necessarily a great recipe for success. So I think with firms being bought out at record paces right now, I think there was just something in either the aba about law firms being bought out and being acquired like never before. Well, that means that some lawyers are going to get cut, right? They don’t need you on the team anymore. Right? It could be that. It could be legal tech is making things more challenging for people to compete on pay per click or for SEO, because now there’s automation on all of those things. It’s a slow moving train, but there are bumps of acceleration. And I don’t think it’s going to get easier for lawyers. I mean, even non lawyer owned law firms in certain states like Colorado, Utah, Nevada, where you’re now competing against you could potentially be competing against the top marketing agencies, the top corporate behemoths that are going to be buying out law firms and competing against you as a lawyer. That’s not going to necessarily help lawyers who are currently struggling and that haven’t put a name out there for themselves. So there’s a lot of pressures that are coming to a head right now, and I think it’s the optimal time for someone to start getting serious about marketing and business development in general growth.
Darren Wurz [00:14:42]:
Yeah, it’s so funny because there are so many similarities between attorneys and financial advisors. The old model with financial advisors and with attorneys is you join a firm and you’re the guy, you’re expected to bring in clients on your own you are in charge of business development, and it’s changing that model doesn’t work anymore in today’s world. You have to have a more cohesive marketing strategy and I’m curious about that. When we’re thinking about marketing, there’s so many directions that we can be pulled in. I mean, there’s so many different avenues that are vying for attention. Is it Google? Is it podcasting? Is it ads on billboards? How do you help attorneys kind of decide where they need to be focusing or is there a specific area that they really need to start with?
Steve Fretzin [00:15:37]:
That’s a great question. That’s a whole other show. Just to talk on that subject, but to keep it kind of brief. Again, part of the evaluation process that I put lawyers through and managing partners through is understanding what their why is. Why do they do and get up and do every day what they do? What’s their superpower? What do they do better than anybody else? Where’s their business coming from? Who are their referral partners? I want to know all that because if they’re getting all their business from other lawyers, does it make sense for them to put a billboard on the highway and then you’re targeting consumers? Probably not, right? Does it make sense for them to do pay per click ads when they’re doing general counsel and CEO work in the mid market corporate world? No. So we want to look at every aspect of them and their business and where they’re looking to go and what’s worked for them in the past and think about where that low hanging fruit is. And I’ll give you a quick example. I have a past client in the IP space, the intellectual property, and he was spending all of his time out night after night networking and meeting strangers and going out and drinking and having a great time. But from a business conversion standpoint, it was very minimal. But he did enjoy it. I mean, he was a divorce guy, so he kind of enjoyed being out there. But his name is John. I said, John, let me ask you, how many clients do you have? He said, I don’t know, maybe 500. I go, and how do they feel about you? He goes, man, they love me. They call me, we talk, we’re social. They know I’m going to handle anything they need they do anything for me. I go, and how much business are you getting from them? Well, occasionally they call me when they need something or they maybe have a referral. I go, but I said, but is that really driving your business year after? He goes, no, not really. I go, well, that’s a problem because if you’ve got 500 clients that all think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and you’re not leveraging that to get introduced to other general counsels, to other CEOs to get additional business, maybe cross marketing with your firm, to other areas, I go, that’s your year. And here’s the best part. You can still go out and have fun. I’m not going to turn that spick it off, but from a standpoint of where you’re going to invest your time for the rest of the year, it’s going to be lunches, it’s going to be coffees, it’s going to be drinks with your clients. Okay? And if you follow my direction and we talk about how to manage that and how to make an introduction without being salesy. Not making introduction, but how to ask for an introduction without being salesy, almost make it their idea. And they know that you’re good. They’re going to want to help you. You’re going to have more business than you’re going to know what to do with. And sure enough, that came through like a rocket ship taken off. And he just never really thought that’s that pile of money, that table of money I mentioned earlier, right? He was just walking around it. He wasn’t walking into it. He needed some direction and coaching to make that happen. And there was discomfort, quite frankly, with him having that conversation with his clients. So he just needed the right approach and the right language, which we can work on together. And sure enough, once he had it, then it was like autopilot; meeting, business, meeting, referral, meeting, cross marketing, more business coming in for his partners. Stuff he didn’t even have to do. He just had to bring it in and get the credit and make the money and didn’t have to do the business. I mean, there’s no better business model than that.
Darren Wurz [00:18:48]:
Yeah, and that’s actually a question I was going to ask you, and I want to explore that a little bit more are there some strategies? You mentioned a couple of things there that law firm owners or lawyers can use that will help them increase that referral rate from existing clients or other professionals.
Steve Fretzin [00:19:06]:
Yeah, I mean, that’s where I was going with this. There’s a number of different ways to approach clients to get what I call a quality introduction. I do teach that I hate referrals, but I love quality introductions. And then people say, well, what the hell does that mean? And I go, well, a referral is like Darren, if I said, hey, I’ve got a managing partner for you to meet, his name’s bob Jones. Here’s his number. Give him a call. You call him up. He goes, what do I want to deal with a financial planner and millionaire lawyer guy? That’s not for me. I’ve got a guy.
Steve Fretzin [00:19:35]:
So everything that we wanted to do and that I was trying to help you with just fell flat. But what if I met with that managing partner and I said, look, I know you’ve had some struggles with your planner recently. I’ve met a gentleman recently who I think would be amazing for you. He works exclusively with managing partners to help them develop their financial plan and create wealth, and I highly recommend him. Would you want to meet him? He goes, yeah, of course I want to meet him. Then I make an email introduction. Okay, but I need to be in a position to talk you up in order to get that meeting to happen. So I think lawyers need to have some approaches and language that allow them to have these conversations with the clients they may be talking to every day, but they’re avoiding that difficult conversation because it seems difficult. And here’s the rub. Once you get the right language and the right approach, and you use it once or twice, and you realize they’ve been waiting for me to ask, or they’ve been open to this the whole time, I’ve spent ten years not asking. That’s ten years of not getting in front of new GCs, new CEOs, new potential clients because why? Because you had head trash or because you didn’t have a simple one liner that would solve all that problem? And I hate to say that it’s that simple stupid, but sometimes it is. And then once they have that proof and evidence that it works, well, then it’s like off to the races. That’s just one of many things. But that’s a good example, I think, of where lawyers may just need some assistance.
Darren Wurz [00:21:07]:
Yeah, just getting kind of the right language that can give you so much confidence. You can approach that, you know what to say. Do you find that there is some reticence or some reluctance among clients? How do you reassure clients that you’re not going to be salesy? Probably just you have to assume that they trust you at that point do you find that that’s sometimes an objection?
Steve Fretzin [00:21:33]:
Well, so what I do is every time I meet with a new lawyer, I run them through the sales free selling model that I would be teaching them. So what they’re seeing is they’re seeing me demonstrate not only my marketing chops and the marketing chops are significant, but they’re watching me. They’re not observing it at the time. I’m walking them through a buying decision to work with me, just to give you an example. And then when they convert to a client and they start learning my process, they go, Wait a second. I remember you set an agenda for our meeting and wait a second. I remember you asked me difficult questions to get to my pain, or you asked me a qualifying question understand that my wife was actually a part of this decision and brought her into the mix as a decision maker to invest in working with Fretsen. And so I think leading by example is how I’m demonstrating to my clients that I practice what I preach. What I do for you is what I’m going to teach you to do for others. And then when they get in front of their prospective clients, it’s the least salesy way they could ever approach somebody. Where you build relationship, you set up a game plan, you focus almost all of your time asking them questions, listening to them, and so everything falls into place in a way where at the end of the meeting, it’s not your pen or mine or some trashy sales stick. The prospective client will say, so where do we go from here? Or how do we get started? I mean, there’s nothing better to hear from someone than that because you walk them through a buying decision, you see it’s a fit. They see it’s a fit, and they just want to sign an engagement letter and move on. They want to get this pain resided. They want to get this risk averted, and they know that you’re the one that can help them. So this is all important stuff that, again, wasn’t taught in law school. It certainly isn’t taught at the law firm level. And lawyers that figure it out more quickly than not are going to find themselves investing their time wisely with their business development efforts.
Darren Wurz [00:23:33]:
Yeah. In addition to the language, are there other skills, are there other strategies that lawyers are concerned about that you help them master, that are going to help them improve their business development?
Steve Fretzin [00:23:49]:
Absolutely. Dozens and dozens and dozens of skills that all work together hand in hand. But to give you an example, one that I’m teaching, so when you want to build a relationship with somebody, all right, you can just go at it and meet somebody, look them in the eye, shake their hand, and just start a conversation and just let it go where it goes. What I’m working with attorneys on is watching their body language, watching their eye contact, discing them, which is disc is the universal language of behavior. So dominance, influence, steadiness, compliance. How are you reading how they want to be communicated to? So if you read me and you realize that I’m an extrovert, which I am, and you realize that I’m very task oriented or people oriented, you can then ask me questions and relate to me differently than if I’m an introvert who can’t even make eye contact with you. So there’s some soft skills in relationship building. And what questions are you asking to draw someone into a conversation? How are you finding common ground and natural affinity? So you just went to Paris. I just went to Paris. I found that out. Now we’re talking about Paris. We find that in common. You’ve got a teenager, I’ve got a teenager. Now we’re talking about that in common. So it’s not a haphazard experience of developing relationships. It’s a learned skill that you can then own and take in your own direction your own personality. But I think adapting to someone else so they like you and trust you more quickly, and your communication is efficient and effective. And I have a friend of mine who’s an IP. I talk a lot with IP attorneys, but she is a super duper introvert. And so when I’m talking with her, I don’t make a lot of eye contact, and I don’t talk at her in a high energy way. I talk with her in a very low key way. I slow down my speech, and I know that’s how she wants to be communicated to. I try to draw her into conversation so that she can do most of the talking, which normally she wouldn’t. Right. So open ended questions. So these are soft skills, again, that are learned, but if you can build a strong relationship from the get go, that’s going to lead to referrals, that’s going to lead to quality introductions, I should say. That’s going to lead to new business or a business meeting that could generate revenue. So every little aspect of business development and marketing has the ability to be done with intention and intelligence, or it can be done haphazardly or in a style of winging it. And I think most people would agree that winging it is not a great strategy.
Darren Wurz [00:26:23]:
Yeah, that can be good sometimes, but I think it’s much better to have a game plan, for sure. And as I’m listening to these skills you’re mentioning, I’m thinking four years ago, we were doing a lot of this in person. Today we’re doing a lot of zoom. Maybe a lot of the in person is coming back, but I think we’re still doing a lot of virtual stuff. How do some of these skills translate into a virtual world? Are there some new things we need to learn? Tell us how this is changing in a more zoom centered world.
Steve Fretzin [00:26:56]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve written on that mainly back when within six months of it happening, because I think people needed to get educated on the zoom world. And I would say 80% to 90% of my time is on zoom. I’m not traveling a ton anymore. I’m finding myself. I’m working all over the country, all over North America, and I’m able to be incredibly efficient. So number one is make sure that you’re looking at the camera or putting the person’s face up near the camera, so it’s like you’re making eye contact even though you’re clearly just looking at a green dot and keeping that focus. It might be your background. Like you’ve got a very professional background. Podcast. You got your book, you’ve got things. You got a beautiful plant. I have my banner stand, my Jordan jersey, my plant. I’ve got my seinfeld isms So I’ve got things that I think are interesting and aren’t going to necessarily take away or distract significantly from me. But I think it’s a professional background that’s really important. I was talking to a client yesterday who’s out of his basement, and I’m looking at his stuff in his background, very distracting, or people that have a window behind them and it’s lights coming in a certain way, or there’s like animals running around in the back that’s going to be distracting. So I think that’s a part of it, and I think you just have to remember that it’s still better than a phone call from the standpoint of being able to read body language, make eye contact, and really connect with someone. And I think it’s more important than ever to really be prepared. So before you get on a zoom, you’ve researched their LinkedIn, you’ve researched their website, their Google. I love to find something either that we have in common or something that I really enjoyed about them or their background or their website that I can compliment them on. And just for an example, there was a gentleman I spoke to recently. He had some really strong, well produced video, and I watched a couple of them, and I right away I said, I just have to tell you before we even get into this, I loved your videos. They were super well done. They were highly educational. I really feel like I understand your business now and what you’re doing. And he was over the moon that I did it because no one had complimented him. No one had really given him feedback on those videos up to that point. And he was like, and my son did them for me, and I couldn’t have hit a stronger home run in a relationship mode than that. So I think it’s just about preparation and also knowing how to run a meeting in 15 or 30 minutes, because you don’t want a 30 minutes meeting to end in the middle. So you really have to be prepared with how you’re going to run that meeting to keep it within a time construct that both parties have agreed to so that you’re not halfway through going, oh, I know we haven’t had a chance to talk about you yet, and it’s 30 minutes or up and everybody’s got to go. So I think setting game plans and agendas and emailing ahead of time to prep someone for it, all of those things can be helpful for zoom.
Darren Wurz [00:29:55]:
That’s great. Those are some really helpful tips. Thinking about your background, thinking about eye contact, all of that stuff is so critical. Well, unfortunately, we’re coming to the end of our time here, and I just want to ask you, is there anything else that you think would be valuable for our listeners to hear that you’d like to add.
Steve Fretzin [00:30:13]:
I mean, mainly just consider that you’re an expert in law, you’re an expert at whatever it is, whatever practice, area, industry that you focus on, that’s your jam. I get it. The thing I would say is whether you hire a coach, a mentor, an advisor, become a student of the game, become a student of time management, become a student of business development and marketing, figure out who you can delegate to the stuff that you don’t enjoy. But most importantly, learn it. Because the future is going to be competing for business more so than now. And so I would recommend you can check out the books I’ve written on Amazon. The most recent one is a bestseller in four countries called Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science. And hopefully that encourages you that I’m not teaching rocket science, but I am teaching you a lot of the soft skills and a lot of the tactical things you need to do to become successful. It’s a great starting point, I think. And then, of course podcast, you know, Be That Lawyer, where I’m bringing on great guests like you, Darren, and others that can share their wisdom on subjects that are going to help you. Be that lawyer, be your best self. It’s essentially what that is. So I would say just really consider that the legal world is changing. The world is changing, and you have to adapt and work with it. And that’s going to be probably the most important takeaway.
Darren Wurz [00:31:29]:
Absolutely. And real quick, if you would, I’ve got one personal fun question for you. Would you share with us what your dream retirement looks like?
Steve Fretzin [00:31:39]:
Well, my wife and I have had considerable time to talk about this because she’s a teacher and she actually only has another, I think, seven years to go and she’s going to be fully pensioned. I don’t think I’ll ever retire. I’m one of those guys that’s driven and passionate about what I do, and I just enjoy it so much that it’s like when you love what you do, why would I stop doing that? And I hear too many stories, and my father might be one of them of people retiring too early thinking that, hey, I’m just going to walk on the beach and all this. I think it would be boring. So my brain needs to work with others and to coach and to train and to help people. So I think what I’ll do is I’ll probably slow down and travel and see more of the world. And my wife and I just got back from Amsterdam and Paris, and I could see doing a lot more of that. And at the same time, I’d also like to maybe travel around the world and maybe do more presentations and work with lawyers that are international because that’s enjoyable. So I think that’s really what my future holds. I’m 53 now, so I think I’m going to stay really aggressive with my day and how I run things for maybe another seven years and then figure out, like, at 60, how do I want to move from there.
Darren Wurz [00:32:54]:
Very good. I love it. I love it. And finally, would you share with our listeners how they can get in touch with you if they want to learn more?
Steve Fretzin [00:33:01]:
Yeah, absolutely. So the easiest way to get in touch with me is either to go to my website, which is my last name, so Fretson. Fretzin.com. You can also email me at steve@fretson.com. Check me out on LinkedIn. I’m posting two, three times a day in some instances of valuable content. I’m not selling my services really through my marketing. I’m educating and providing great content, and hopefully it’s helpful. And if at some point somebody wants to pull the trigger and take things to another level, I’ve got a couple of programs from coaching and training to peer advisory groups that I put managing partners into that allow them to get off their island and be in a room full of other smart managing partners. And I enjoy those two things, but it’s all on my website there Darren.
Darren Wurz [00:33:50]:
Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on The Lawyers Millionaire. If you want to learn more, check out our website, thelawyermillionaire.com. There you can find free resources and webinars. Schedule a one on one with me and get your copy of my book, The Lawyers Millionaire. If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode packed with useful advice and expertise for law firm owners. We also invite you to leave a review and share The Lawyer Millionaire with your friends and colleagues who might benefit from our discussions. Together, let’s empower more law firm owners to achieve even greater levels of financial success. Now take what you learned today and go make your dreams a reality. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and I’ll see you next time.