The secret to growing a successful business isn’t just about working harder—it’s about building smarter relationships and leveraging time efficiently. I had the privilege of speaking with Steve Fretzin, a seasoned coach for professionals, who specializes in helping lawyers master business development without the pressure of traditional selling. Steve’s innovative “sales-free selling” approach focuses on building authentic connections, fostering trust, and creating systems that simplify the process of growing your business. His insights on networking, strategic planning, and personal productivity will inspire you to rethink your approach to professional growth and client relationships.

Key Topics

[03:45] Steve explains how he transitioned into coaching lawyers during the 2008 recession.

[04:45] Why “sales-free selling” resonates with professionals and builds genuine relationships.

[05:57] The value of starting a podcast for relationship-building and content creation.

[08:15] Why networking through podcasts can generate business opportunities.

[10:45] How to embrace a mindset shift from hard selling to consultative business development.

[12:15] The importance of moving prospects to a clear “yes” or “no” and avoiding wasted energy.

[13:45] Writing a simple, actionable plan to guide your networking and business development.

[15:25] How to reconnect with old contacts to jumpstart referrals and opportunities.

[17:30] The significance of asking pointed questions to qualify relationships effectively.

[19:55] Testing potential referral partners with small exchanges to gauge reliability.

[21:15] Strategies for building a network in groups aligned with your target market.

[23:00] The “know, like, and trust” factor and why patience is critical for relationship-building.

[24:45] The power of offering value to others before asking for business in return.

[26:45] Using one-on-one meetings strategically to build meaningful connections.

[28:45] How Rainmakers delegate effectively to focus on their strengths and scale their businesses.

[30:30] Why letting go of perfectionism can increase productivity and growth.

[31:15] Leveraging peer advisory groups to gain outside perspectives and solve big challenges.

[33:45] The value of accountability in peer advisory groups to drive action and results.

[34:00] Steve’s personal productivity tool, the Remarkable 2, and its role in his paperless workflow.

[38:45] Why having a “right-hand” team member is essential for long-term success.

Resources Mentioned

Books:

• Traction by Gino Wickman - https://a.co/d/ihYy76d 
• Getting Things Done by David Allen  - https://a.co/d/jlj24W0 
• Who Not How by Dan Sullivan - https://a.co/d/cAouJ2E 

Tools/Websites

• Remarkable 2 – Digital paper tablet for note-taking and organization.
• LinkedIn – Leveraged for networking and professional branding.
• LinkedIn Tutorial for Business Development - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EWfLRtUL0g 

Podcasts 

• Be That Lawyer Podcast (Steve Fretzin’s own podcast) - Focuses on helping lawyers develop business skills they didn’t learn in law school. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/be-that-lawyer/id1498488978 
• All-In Podcast - A popular podcast featuring discussions on business, technology, and investing. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-in-with-chamath-jason-sacks-friedberg/id1502871393 
• Joe Rogan Experience - Known for long-form interviews with influential figures across various fields. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joe-rogan-experience/id360084272 
• Under the Influence - A podcast about advertising, exploring the history and impact of iconic brands and campaigns. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/under-the-influence-with-terry-oreilly/id493536367 
• Modern Wisdom - Explores topics like personal development, fitness, and philosophy. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/modern-wisdom/id1347973549 
• Prof G Podcast - Hosted by Scott Galloway, covering business insights, marketing, and technology trends. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-prof-g-pod-with-scott-galloway/id1498802610 

About Guest:

Steve Fretzin is a renowned business development coach, four-time author, and the host of the BE THAT LAWYER podcast. For over 16 years, he has dedicated his career to helping attorneys achieve exceptional growth, often doubling or tripling their books of business through tailored, highly engaging programs.

At FRETZIN, Steve empowers his clients to become confident, organized, and skilled rainmakers, equipping them with the tools and strategies to excel in business development. His expertise and passion for attorney success have made him a trusted partner for legal professionals seeking to elevate their practices.

https://www.fretzin.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefretzin/ 

https://www.facebook.com/salesresults/ 

https://x.com/stevefretzin 

https://www.youtube.com/user/SalesResultsInc 

About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is a digital marketing strategist with decades of experience in the industry. As the CEO of Ten Golden Rules, he has helped countless law firms and businesses harness the power of the internet to achieve remarkable growth and visibility. Jay is also a renowned keynote speaker and author, sharing his expertise at various industry events and publications worldwide.

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The twist that I provide to my clients, and that I talk about regularly in my writing and on my podcast, is the importance of asking questions and really qualifying. Is this someone I can help and is this someone that can help me? And if so, can I test them out, like, can I say, Hey, I'm going to give you this contact, and then they're going to offer me a contact. And did they follow up? Did they actually execute on the things that they had promised? It's like the Seinfeld your Seinfeld fan, it's like the car rental company. They took the reservation, but you didn't keep the reservation. And that's kind of the most important part. There are people who are excellent at organization and following through and doing what they say. And then you start to realize there's a whole segment of the population that's really, really bad at that skill, and that skill is pretty important, because if you're looking for someone that's going to routinely refer you and that you're going to be able to refer back, you want someone that's organized enough to do it properly.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you're listening to this podcast. Thank you for being here, and welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing for Law Firms Podcast. Great guest today, Steve Fretzin. if you haven't listened to his podcast, he's awesome, and he's going to have some great stuff for us today. Before I start with Steve, I just kind of share my screen. See if this works out. For those of you watching on YouTube, you'll see our speakers for tgr live growth strategies for law firms. Event, I just want to talk for one minute about this. And for those of you who've been listening to the podcast, you know, I'm super excited. We have an awesome world class speaker lineup, Mike Morris. Mike Morris, law firm, Charlie man is going to do his $500,000 referral playbook. Andy Sievers, the founder of case status, the number one new software. Justin lovely, the AI attorneys back Jason Melton, Raquel Gomez from Staffy. Ben Glass just wrote a new book called no BS time management. I got his book right here with Dan Kennedy, who said Legend of marketing. Ed Kirk from supio, this is a super hot new AI for law firms. Greg crabt, Jeff hemp, the Ben leader. I mean, this is a amazing lineup that I'm so proud that we're going to have at tgr live without any more commercials. I hope you all can join me. You can find a link for it on our homepage at 10 golden rules.com t e n, golden rules.com and we'd love to see at the event. It's March 10 and 11th, and it's in beautiful Delray Beach, Florida. We've got an awesome location too. It's the opal grand hotel right down on the beach. So it's right down on the ocean. So if you all are watching this from somewhere up in, you know, up in the north, you're definitely going to want to join us. It's March 10 and 11. Should be the most beautiful time of the year to be in beautiful South Florida. And Delray, by the way, is just between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, so it's right adjacent to our hometown, Boca Raton. Anyway, Steve, thanks for letting me do a short commercial for that event. Everyone could see. I'm super excited about this event coming up, and if you're listening to sometime in the future, you know we'll hope to see you at tgr live 2026 so it'd be an annual event. You'll join us in a few here we go. All right, Steve, thank you very much for being here. Let me just do a quick intro. I listened to the be that lawyer podcast, and Steve and I were introduced by a mutual friend. He's also a business coach for lawyers, and he covers a wide range of topics on his podcast, and one thing he's really specialized in and really, really great at, is teaching lawyers how to generate business without selling Steve, welcome to the 10 golden rules podcast. Thank you,

Jay. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to an engaging and entertaining segment for you here. Yeah,

hey, I'm fired up. So yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey and and how you you started a podcast and your coaching business.

Sure, sure, I appreciate that. So I'm a non lawyer who got pulled into the legal space in the recession of 2008 and never thought in a million years I'd work with lawyers. I worked with everyone else except lawyers, teaching sales, free selling, which I came up with about 23 years ago, and my first book is titled that the idea being that you don't have to sell and convince and pitch to go out and develop business. There's much more relationship consultative methodologies to use that are going to make everybody feel good and bring in the business. So that kind of took off, and I ended up just starting off working with lawyers and law firms, then ended up with the pandemic, focusing working exclusively with individual attorneys all over the country and now all over the world. And podcast is almost five years old, but coming up on 500 episodes, that's been an amazing journey. I go back occasionally and listen to the first 20 just to kind of realize how far I've come from a standpoint of not only the guests that I'm interviewing, and you'll be on my show soon enough, Jay, but also the quality of the engagement. And I've just become very, very good at the interviews, and I hopefully I'm good on this side too, being asked questions, but it's a lot of fun, and at the end of the day, the goal is to help. Well, engage attorneys in the things they never learned in law school, right? The the soft skills, the business skills that they they came out. And really the most of them are just trying to figure it out through sheer force and effort versus methodologies and systems and processes, which, as we all know, are much better ways to go.

So it's less about lawyering and more about running the business when you're a lawyer. Yeah,

the podcast in my business, is all about business development and growth and just trying to find the best ways to invest time without burning through it. Because that's, that's what you know, the billable hour is, right? We've gotta find ways to be efficient with our time.

Let's talk about the podcast for a minute. Why did you start a podcast? How easy is it to start a podcast and give folks who are thinking about this format. A couple tips. Yeah,

it's really fantastic. I was on a lawyer friend of mine's podcast, and at the end of the pine I thought it was great. And then at the end of it, I said to her, I go, how much time has this taken? What are you doing with editing and production? It goes. She goes, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't do any of it. I show up. I do 30 minutes and I'm done. Everything else is done for me. And I said, Yes, please. So that was it. I was right. From that moment, I hired her production company. I've been with them ever since. I have a marketing director who does the social media side of it and the videos and the graphics. But the production's all done through turnkey podcast out of LA. Shout out to turnkey. So the beauty of it is people think it's about content creation, and yeah, that's important, but it's the relationships, the people that I've got to meet through the podcast that would never take a meeting with me because I'm just going to sell them something or whatever they think is going to happen. And instead, it's like, no, I'm going to bring you on my show. I'm going to engage you. I'm going to make you look good, and by the way, you're going to share so much value, and we're going to build a relationship during that process. And then there's next steps and things that happen that are truly amazing. But I think the combination of the relationships and the business that can be generated and the amount of content that can be used and also repurposed, it's really unbelievable. And I'm not saying it's for everybody, but if you enjoy meeting people and have the gift to gab and you enjoy talking and asking questions and trying to get the goods out of somebody, podcasting is an excellent way to go.

Yeah, I love it, and I was lucky enough to start way, way back in the early days of podcasting. I'm proud to say, I interviewed Jason Calacanis when before, he had a podcast, and he now has the all in podcast, and he's saying it's the number one podcast in the world by some measure. Interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk when he worked in his dad's wine store, and he now has this massive social media following. So I'm an OG when it comes to podcast interviews. So let's see how do

and the only way I can up one up you is I used to wrestle Joe Rogan, no, I just kidding. I gotta do

that. Good butt kicking, looking for a place to happen. There we go. That's awesome. Yeah. Rogan does some great stuff. I mean, there's some great podcasts, like long form podcasters. Recently, an eight hour podcast with Elon and the team at neurolink just phenomenal. And Rogan definitely moved the needle on the election with two, three hour podcast with with Elon and with Donald Trump and the Democrats declined to send their candidates so

well. It shows the power of social media and the power of podcasting as you can get on TV, but you're not getting the same size of an audience at a podcast, and the fact that they're hyper focused on the words you're saying and the interview that's being conducted versus I know, like, I watch people watch TV, and typically they watch TV, but then they have their phone on in front of them, so it's like a double screen. I don't know, my family's the only one that does it. Sometimes I look around, I go, What the hell is going on here? Everybody's looking at a screen through a screen. It's really and even the kids, they have, like, one thing on one half of their screen and then another. Like, it's really weird how we need all this distraction to sort of stay focused. It doesn't make sense. But anyway, but podcast is that you definitely get the full attention.

Yeah, I've got three screens here on my my setup, on my home business set up, and there's almost always something going on on this screen, a podcast or a sports game or something like, yeah, depending on how intensive work I'm doing, like, if I'm if I'm writing or or if I'm doing a presentation, I'll have classical music, and it actually helps me. And then one thing I learned from podcasting is there's a certain number of people, and those of you listening, Steve and myself were what's called auditory learners. And auditory learners about 25% of the population who'd prefer to listen to an audio book than read it, who like podcasts and get it. And then the other 75% Yeah, sure, they're going to download a few of the more entertainment based podcasts and whatnot, but those folks are more likely to read a blog or read a book to get educated than to actually go search out podcasts on a certain topic. So I like little classical music when I have a deadline. Improves my efficiency. Despite what my mom used to say when I was studying, she'd say, you know, turn off your radio. Well, it turns out that was not the best play as soon as she left. I turned the radio back on because I'm more more effective. So sales, free selling. I love that. That's a great hook. Attorney growth, tell me about your sales, free selling training. I know part of it's a class and one on one training, and it helps attorneys build strategic partnerships share the philosophy behind this approach and why it works so well with lawyers.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Essentially, this is the anti sales methodology, so people that feel like they have to go out and network to sell their services, or they have to go meet people and convince them to send them work, or whatever it is that people have in their heads that has to happen. And lawyers, quite frankly, call it, hey, I'm going on a pitch meeting, and it's right there in the sentence of what they're going to do, and it's all wrong. It's all backwards. The way that people buy and the way that people sell, they're both sort of broken models. So what this does is it says, Look, we're not going to allow people to buy from us where they just take our information, our price, our free consulting, and use us and leverage our time for nothing. And we're also not going to go in and hard sell somebody and convince them, hey, you're a square peg, but I'm going to jam a round peg through you. We need to come up with something that's going to end up being a win win, that's going to be a fit for both parties. So there's a methodology where we follow a series of steps, almost like from a bottom of a stairwell to the top, and if you touch every step, you end up with a predictable outcome. The outcome is going to be new business, and it's going to be not price driven, but emotionally generated, because we all agree there's value here, or we're going to maybe move it to a quick No. And people go, Steve, we don't want nos. Nos are bad. And I go, No, nos are great. Because if you understand why someone is a no, because they can't afford you, or because they're not the decision maker, or for a variety of reasons, the timing is off, then moving someone to a quick note could be the best thing for both parties, from a standpoint of everyone's time. So it's really about efficiency, and how do we learn and understand about somebody in a way that's gonna demonstrate that, hey, we could work well together. Let's figure it out as a team versus I'm up against you, and it's competitive, so it's really taking away all the competitiveness and the sales Enos out of any engagement you and that could go from a networking meeting to a prospective client meeting to trying to meet someone that's a center of influence somewhere.

Yeah, I love a no in sales, so like a yes better, but I prefer a no to a well, let me think about it, or send me the proposal, because that burns a lot of negative energy if you're always constantly reaching out and checking in and hey, let's say no. Let's agree to meet up again in three months, six months, and let's keep the positive energy going in the right place. So

I even share with attorneys that they should let prospective clients know, like upfront, that no is okay, that we don't have to play games and we don't have to kind of circle around the elephant in the room. If this is a fit, let's talk about next steps. If this is not a fit, let's just be honest with each other. We can stay friends. There's no issue there, but we don't have to play games, and we can just move forward. And then when someone agrees to that, it takes all the stress out of the meeting, and we can just relax and just let the system take over and figure out what's going to happen.

I love it. Yeah, sometimes people call it the upfront agreement, man,

upfront agreement. That's another great way of saying it. Yeah. Love it. What's

a tip you would have for someone just starting out with a firm? What's a great networking strategy for someone just starting out with a young firm? That's

Yeah, great question. The first thing I always try to talk to people about is just writing a simple plan for yourself, the idea that I'm going to that I'm a new at a firm, and I'm going to obviously have to learn the law and be a good lawyer, that's number one. And then beyond that, I need to develop a network. I need to develop referral partners and people that can send stuff to me, and I need to be in a position also add value for them. It's never a one way street, or rarely a one way street. So the idea that we're going to take the time to write a one or two page plan that might be all it needs to be, but in that plan, we're going to talk about, like, what do we want to accomplish as the overarching goal or objective? We're going to talk about what's the lowest hanging fruit of the ways that we should be spending our time. And then we're going to break it down into, what do we need to do each day, each hour, each day, each week, whatever it might be to accomplish the strategies that we've agreed make the most sense. So for some people, you know, they have to go out and meet strangers, and it's networking, and that's where you have to start out. Sometimes there's other lawyers where they have a significant network, and they haven't tapped into it because they really don't know how. So the idea that we're going to write a strategy talking about reaching back to all of these law firm contacts, law school contacts, friends, from intramural softball, whatever it might be, and we're going to reach out and meet with them as a way to start figuring out who's valuable, who's not. Be friends with all of them, but people have different values based on the business they're in, the role they're in, whatever it might be, and that's going to be a better use of time than networking meeting strangers, but they're both still. Event directions that someone may have to go as a new attorney.

So I was the education coordinator for my networking group for three out of the last four years. So I'm going to give you some of the basic things that I taught in my four minute educational sessions, and then maybe we'll riff a little bit on those. So one of the things I really like is people often didn't know where to start. So I would say, I forget whose it is. Now, I'll claim it's mine, the one, one and one strategy. So one, you pick one business group, maybe for an attorney, it's the Bar Association, Aja, or whatever it is, and one passion area. So let's say, God forbid, you lost a family member to cancer. So there's a cancer run that caught your interest and you participated in. They're probably desperate for someone to join the board and help with marketing or PR, or maybe you could write the legal contracts every year and look at the risk of wealth. And so you pick one business, one personal passion, and then maybe one little bit more personal. You know you're going to be on the committee for your kids soccer team or something

like, yeah, pick a score or something that you enjoy.

You play on the company softball team, and you're going to get on the committee and meet all the other softball team. So guess what? That's great for networking and for meeting other referring attorneys and things like that. So what do you think about the one business, one one passion and one personal. And just get involved once a month you're going to go to these networking groups. Yeah,

no. I mean, I think it's, it's a great starting point. The only caveat, or add on, would be, if there are opportunities to go where your targets are, that's always going to be advised. So like, for example, when I was starting my business in 2004 and I was going to join chambers of commerce, right? Because that's what I was doing at the time. There's one that I called, and they primarily were retail, and I'm B to B, and so I said most, she said, mostly people, there are retail. And I said, Well, alright, maybe that's not for me. So I think it's a good idea to talk with the person that's running the cancer group or the whatever it is events that you're thinking of going to, or groups you're looking to join, and ask a series of questions to understand, is this where the business is? Is this where the people who could refer business would be? And again, I don't think that's everything, because you could still develop relationships with people who have connections in different places. But ultimately, I think it's just, it's maybe a little bit of a shortcut than picking three that might not be as qualified with potential as others. Yeah,

no, I love that. That's a great point, because I spent a lot of time in a local networking group that was very valuable for me, for my personal home care, because I got to know a local plumber and a local air conditioning company and a local roofer. But now I'm spending a lot of time in groups like provisors, just national footprint lawyers and accountants is the majority of the members. It's great because I'm getting introduced to folks all across the country. We're looking for help with their marketing and their attorneys. Guess what? Hey, great fit for what they does,

highly targeted for folks like you and you and I. Yeah.

So the second advice that I always give, and we learned a lot in our networking groups, is that the value of one on ones, and again, for someone just starting out, or even someone who's coming back to networking trying to build their book of business, most of us are very familiar with this term, the one on one, and basically what you do is you book a coffee or a zoom if you're not in the same city, or I'd love to break bread and go for lunch and whatever is most convenient for the two partners. And just get to know each other a little bit and get to know a little bit about their business. Make sure they ask you a little bit about your business and find out what a good introduction or a good referral is for them, and the one on one is the first step towards that relationship building. So I'll let you riff on that a little bit.

Yeah. So I think there's the relationship side, and then there's the potential qualifying side, and I like to mesh them together. So I want to build a relationship with everyone I'm meeting, one on one, no doubt. Because if they're not valuable as a connector, they're valuable as a friend. And you always want to make friends anywhere and everywhere you go, and you never know what someone might run into. However, the twist that I provide to my clients, and that I talk about regularly in my writing and on my podcast is the importance of asking questions and really qualifying. Is this someone I can help and is this someone that can help me, and if so, can I test them out, like, can I say, Hey, I'm going to give you this contact, and then they're going to offer me a contact. And did they follow up? Did they actually execute on the things that they had promised? It's like the Seinfeld your Seinfeld fan? It's like the car rental company. They took the reservation, but you didn't keep the reservation, and that's kind of the most important part. There are people who are excellent at organization and following through and doing what they say. And then you start to realize there's a whole segment of the population that's really, really bad at that skill, and that skill is pretty important, because if you're looking for someone that's going to routinely refer you and that you're going to be able to refer back, you want some. That's organized enough to do it properly. So I think there's some qualifying that's going on as well in that meeting. And there's a question I want to share with you, you and your audience, that I think is really, really helpful. So let's say I'm meeting with you, and you do different things than I do in legal. And I say, Jay, you know, in an average year, this is not the first question, by the way. This is way near the end of the meeting Jay, in an average year, how often are you running into lawyers that really aren't looking for what you do, but they really need more what I do is that a lot. Is that a few times, whatever. And then, based on your answer, that might also help me understand, is Jay someone I need to grab on with both hands and hang tight? Or is Jay someone I should just be friends with? And as things kind of pass through our lives, think of each other, but it's not someone that I necessarily need to stay tight with every single month, because five or 10 clients a year is very different than Oh, I run into that maybe once every five years. So I think there's some qualifying questions that are really helpful to figure out who you want to invest more time with and maybe who you just want to see occasionally or stay friends.

Now, I ended up hanging out with a lot of personal injury lawyers. I was at a private mastermind last week with about 100 of the top PI lawyers in the country. And next week, I'll be at National Trial Lawyers speaking, and we have a booth and everything. So if you're coming to NTL, say hi, what do you say for the personal injury lawyers? Because it's a little different. Little different than attorneys who build those long term relationships and do the same kind of service and have the same kind of referral partners.

Yeah, since most personal injury attorneys are focused on marketing and SEO and pay per click and all that social media marketing, which I think is great, there's others that don't want to compete against the 1000 pound gorillas, or whatever we want to call them. So I work with personal injury attorneys to help them develop relationships with referral partners. So that could be criminal attorneys, that could be other litigators, that could be chiropractors, doctors, auto body shops, like whatever it is, where you're figuring out like again, who can send you multiple matters, larger matters a year. And maybe who can't not all lawyers and people are created equal. As it relates to running into personal injury matters, right? Like I run into a couple personal injury matters a year as an individual working within the legal space. But there are other people that run into it, 510, 1520, times a year. Those are, again, the ones that you're going to want to hold close and keep tight and make sure that you keep them safe, because they're the ones who are going to end up now helping you grow your law practice. So I do believe in business development and marketing working together, but I'm going to help personal injury attorneys more on the BD side than on the marketing side. Maybe otherwise it's a little bit of social media and content creation, but I do believe that that plays a role for many personal injury attorneys in their success. So

one last thought starter for folks just ramping up their networking and that's the concept of know, like and trust, and people have probably heard about it, but the one thing I encourage folks be as patient if you join these networking groups and you have that one on one with people. My friend Lenny Skar taught me one on one is not a noun, it's a verb. And you have multiple one on ones, and you get a chance at maybe your networking group has a cocktail party, or we went AX throwing last month, different things like that. You go to a ball game or something over time, and it takes about a year till somebody really gets to, okay, I get it. Steve's, he's a coach, and he works one on one with with lawyers, and he teaches them how to do it. Takes a couple of hits till people actually get it. They realize they like you and they trust you, and then you get those referrals. So the most important thing is a little bit of patience. What do you comment on that? I

think patience combined with, again, intelligent qualifying. Because if you're getting to know a lot of people, great, I think you can build your network wide and everybody knows you. And that takes a year. That takes time. And then there's other scenarios where, again, asking some pointed questions and proactively connecting and helping others, get them on your podcast, get them on a panel, make an introduction. Where's your son going to college? Oh, do you need an advisor, like, whatever it is that we can do to add value for others as a way of, sort of demonstrating, hey, I'm here to play ball. I'm here to be your friend, yes, but I'm also here to help you advance your interests. And if you're doing that with the right people, the right way, the right amount of times, and then qualifying them that they have the capacity and interest in reciprocating. You're just learning more about people than meeting multiple times. I mean, I used to do that, like I would meet with someone, 345, times and then never get a thing. And I wonder why? Because I was giving them a ton and it's because they didn't have the capacity. They didn't even have the mental capacity, organizational capacity, or they weren't running in anyone that would ever use me. So I think it's important to think about networking as a way to it's almost like dating, right? And if we want to look at it that way, you can go and date someone three times, but if you go on three dates and you go, you know what? Under no circumstances. This someone I'm going to marry after three dates. Okay, so you tried, and now you move on to someone else, and you start dating someone else, but you have to, you have to kind of go through the numbers to see who you want to really bring into your circle, or who you want to kind of leave out on your circle. And sometimes it takes one meeting, and sometimes it takes a year. Yeah, I've been married

for 27 years, so I can hardly remember, but I remember but I remember there used to be something about, if you one day, three days, three weeks, three months, you know that you'd hit these milestones, and you'd know, okay, maybe, maybe this is worth hitting the next milestone. Yeah. But I love that about really focusing in and qualifying the folks, at least in your head, and saying, Hey, this is someone who they did follow up on the thing they said, and and they do have the wherewithal to make some connections. And I also love what you said about asking really good questions, because you want to also help them. And if you ask really good questions, like, where's your son going to college, or you're working on any projects, or what's next for your business, and finding out where you can help, and then you can provide value. And there's incredible value in that law of reciprocity, where when you do what you say you did, then they feel like, hey, now I've got to do what I say I do for Jay

Exactly, exactly. I mean, I ran a troika this morning, and I run a very organized Troy. I teach Troy because for provisors all over the country, and I've been doing that for about a year, and the Troy could that I set was we're going to break up our talk time. We're going to really focus on how we can help each other, and then the last 10 minutes of our meeting, we're going to think about how we can add value for each other. It doesn't have to be a piece of business. I mean, we just met 20 minutes ago, like, what are we doing here? We need to give something of value as a way of demonstrating a caring and B that we have the capacity to give and the interest to give. So one of them, I gave a video that I did on LinkedIn best practices, because, quite frankly, his LinkedIn was non existent, and as an up and coming young lawyer, this is how he's being judged by the community. Is like, what's your LinkedIn? And so I just gave him a video that I thought would be super helpful. And the other one I'm like, he's a realtor. How do I help a realtor? Well, I have to look for a real estate attorney or an estate planning attorney in the DC area. And I already have reached out to a few and said, Hey, do you want to meet this great realtor? So I'm doing what I say, and I'm hoping that they're going to understand, like that's a big part of what makes this whole thing work and tick.

Now all these people are sitting on the edge of their seat. What is that LinkedIn video? So definitely send us the link and we'll put it in the show notes. Okay, yeah, and everyone can build a great LinkedIn. So thank you so much. I think we gave some great content about networking for a young attorney or someone starting up now, I want you to hit with your best advice or the sophisticated attorney that the guy who's built a large firm, what's a high end tip for a great Rainmaker?

Well, so one of the benefits of interviewing hundreds of rainmakers on my podcast, and I also run some peer advisory groups, Rainmaker roundtable. So I have that advantage of all this happening, the one thing that keeps coming across that the rainmakers and the people that are building really strong businesses is you have to have a right hand. You have to have a lieutenant. You cannot wear five or 10 hats. It's not going to work. You're not going to be successful doing it. It goes across the board. There's no one that I've met that is highly successful that's doing business development, building 3000 hours, managing a team, doing the admin right, handling the marketing. It just doesn't happen. So we've got to find a way to either say, look, I want to build a business. I'm going to delegate the work. I'm not going to practice the law like I used to. If you need me for advice or to bring me in on a high profile case grade, I've got to leverage the team. And so the people that treat the business of law as a business, and the people that can figure out how to delegate especially to that right, those are the ones that end up being the most successful, whether they're building multi, hundreds of million dollar firms, or million dollar firm, that seems to be the one thing they have in common, is their ability to say, Hey, I'm going to wear one or two hats, and that's it. Everything else needs to be moved on to other people I can trust. Yeah, I

keep referencing this book I recently read, Dan Martel's, buy back your time.

Buy back your time, yeah. What is it? Who not how? Yeah,

who not how? Dan Sullivan, yeah. The concept is that there's things that you're not as passionate about and not as good at, and when you get someone else to do it, but the one thing that I really took from Martel's book that did I just keep telling myself now over and over and over is 80% done is 100% awesome? Because when you're a perfectionist like most of us are, and you hire an assistant, or even a lot of your employees, they're not going to do it as good as you. But accepting that and accepting that 80% done times one. Assistant or 10 employees. Is it 100% awesome, because they got it done. And you can course correct if it's serious. You can retrain a little bit of if it needs to get better. But now it's released me from requiring perfection in everything that everybody touches or not or not perfection, but just doing it exactly the way I would do it, and getting it done is fantastic. As a matter of fact, Steve and I even had a little little bobble in setting up this meeting from one of our assistants. No names will be mentioned. And we got on the phone. We course corrected, and here we are with with hopefully a super valuable content for everybody listening. And as a matter of fact, if you're listening this long, you obviously liked it. So another thing that's big part of your business, and you mentioned that you do this training, and as generally, runs about a year, I guess, where you teach the folks to sell without selling, and then you move into peer advisory groups. And I love my mastermind and folks, regular listeners, have heard me talk about the power masterminds. We've done a webinar on masterminds. You gotta check that out if you haven't seen it, but talk about the the power of the peer advisory groups and how that's structured and what the benefits are. Yeah,

there's a saying I heard recently. You can't read the label from the inside of the bottle, and I think it's so true that we get into grooves, running a law practice, running a business, coaching, whatever it is, we're not my marketing. I have got an individual that I've known for a while that's gonna just spend a few hours like going and digging in at my marketing. And everyone loves my marketing. Everywhere I go, people fret. Said, You love your market. Love your marketing, great, but I'm not seeing it the way I need to see it. So the idea behind peer advisory is, look, if you have a good facilitator, and you have really good quality people in a group, and you allow them to be open and vulnerable and interested in each other, and they know it's a confidential group where it's safe and they're away from their firm, they're in a room with other very bright people that have all sort of made it in different ways. One made it on being an amazing content producer, another one made it on being an amazing Rainmaker, another one a great manager, whatever it is that they're bringing to the table, there's a lot of power in that shared knowledge and in that ability for them to work together, to solve problems, to share best practices. And so I just really, really always wanted to run Rainmaker groups, and I just held off for too long. And of course, as we all do, we all, you know, kick ourselves, but I've been doing it for about five years. I mean, 4050, members, and I'm wondering, like, when are they going to quit? Like, when is someone just going to drop out and say, This isn't for me anymore? And they just keep coming back month after month, because I think they get that family away from their firm, or family away from their family, and it's hard to leave a group where you feel so connected. And I don't know that everybody's getting that. I mean, that's not for everybody, but it is interesting that once people are in them, they really feel attached. Yeah,

there's so many questions that you don't want to ask your number two, you don't want to ask your vice president, because maybe the issue is your vice president, yeah, yeah. So the mastermind or the Peer Advisor Group becomes like your virtual board of directors, yes. And you ask a jury of your peers, my director of this, or my vice president of that, are they really working? And here's my problems, and maybe they give you a course correction, or maybe they they convince you that it's time to move on,

yeah, and be in big decisions. There are big decisions being made about scaling, about should I leave this firm and take my book and go somewhere else? Should I fire this person? I mean, there's all these big decisions, and it's not that that the answers are being given, but there's questions being asked to ferret everything out so that we truly understand what's going on behind the scenes with this individual in their situation. And then suggestions are given. And and then there's even the accountability that you're going to take a couple of those suggestions and take action between, say, now and the next meeting, and so then they have to report to the group, like, what did I do with the time that was given to me? So I actually moved the needle on something important. And it's just, I think everybody sort of feels really excited about what they're going to hear when they give advice, and then someone took it, and how that changes people's lives, like everyone gets to be a coach for a day or a coach for a year or whatever, which is fun. Yeah?

I mean, so many times the room, two or three people in the room have been through exactly what you're experiencing on the first time for your business. Yeah, give you advice. And like you said, if you come back next month or next quarter and you didn't take that advice, the jury of your peers will definitely hold you accountable. Yeah, smart people is great to have in the room. Well, awesome, Steve. I think we come to that time. And I told you many, many famous podcasters have answered these questions over the years. I call them my one liners and my quick snappers. So first one, what apps or techniques do you use for personal productivity?

For personal productivity, I love my remarkable two, I'm 100% paper free. I don't have any paper anywhere near me, and I don't think people realize how, how wonderful it can feel to have everything digital and have everything. In the cloud and saved and preserved. And so when I need to pull up a folder about a conversation I have, it's just all in one tablet. I don't have a file cabinet and all that. So I would say, for me, that's been an absolute game changer. And

the remarkably, allows you to write in handwriting, and then it types it for you. I

don't really use that because my handwriting is absolute trash, but what I do is I'm able to have folders on every client, on every conversation, every podcast that I'm able to go back to if I want to email myself a message or some things to follow up on it with the Troy. I just email that to myself. Now it's sitting in my inbox, and I can deal with it that way, and it feels like paper. So it's for me. I tried it on an iPad. It didn't take and this, you know, this is an expensive scalpel a surgeon should have,

by the way, if folks heard the term Troy cut and provisors, Steve and I are both members of this group, and provisors is a pretty advanced, pretty sophisticated networking group for attorneys and accountants and professionals. And it's very good. It's national in scope. So check it out. If that sounds like a fit for you in a Troy, because I think the only place I've heard it that term is provisors, because I use the term one on one, which I think comes out of BNI and lots of other networking groups. But provisor saves you a little time and puts three people together every month. They sort of you proactively organize a Troy cut and you have a three way lunch or coffee or zoom, and so it has a little bit of dynamic to it that works really well as well. Next question, best business books

for the small business owner, I would say traction, the Gino Wickman book is fantastic. I still to this day use many of the tools that I learned from from that book and from working with Eos, and then another one that I'm I'm a big time management fan, so getting things done. David Allen, I give that book out with all my materials to my clients with the hope that they're going to read that book, because it is a game changer from a standpoint of just winging it to actually having a process for how you manage your time, and lawyers who don't manage their time and have their time organized, it's confusing to me, because that's in many cases, how they're making money. So go figure. Yeah,

we've spoken a lot about EOS and the book traction on this show, and I always like to also share this book, get a grip, also by Gino Wickman. But if you're the visionary, if you're the founder of your firm, read, get a grip, because traction is hard to slog through. It includes all the details of the program, and that's really for your integrator, for more like the COO, Chief Operating Officer personality. So get a grip and traction. I love them, and we're running the US system. We're really, really an average blogs, podcasts and YouTube, what things do you subscribe to and and each week, when it hits your feed, you'd stop everything else and open that one up. You know,

it's just so funny that you mentioned that we might be auditory, because I I really don't read newsletters. I unsubscribe from just about every newsletter I get. And it's really about taking in content via video. And I love audio, so I would say podcasts right now, modern wisdom is really good. Prof G, and then there's one that most people don't know about that's really cool, called under the influence. You ever heard of that before? No, it sounds like it's something like around alcohol, but it's not. It's essentially about advertising, about the advertising space. And so the guy walks you through all these different products and and services and how they came to be, and how did Dr Pepper and Coca Cola and McDonald's, and he's got all these kitschy things, but it's just a really well produced show about advertising called under the influence. Really cool.

Love it. Thanks for sharing. So we're almost at the very end. What's a great introduction for you? If someone's listening to Steve and thinking, hey, this guy sounds super smart, who should they introduce to you? And who can you help with your business?

I mean, I'm international in scope. I'm working with big law firm, big law firm, lawyers and solos and every practice area. So really, what I think it makes sense is people that are in some form of transition in their life. They want to make equity partner, and they haven't been able to get the numbers up, people that move laterally, people that go out on their own, and just folks that are just they look at 2024 and they go, am I just going to do this again? Like it's the same old, same old every year. I need to get from a half a million to a million, and then to two, and then to three. And those are the folks I work with. I only work with about 20 lawyers a year, so I'm hand picking the the best and brightest as they're hand picking me. And that way we know a coach and a player that you know, Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson, however you want to put it together, that's the kind of combination I'm looking for to get the wins that I'm looking for out of the people I work with. Yeah,

I can see from your background, you're a big Knicks fan, right?

I like watching the bulls beat the next Yeah.

Michael Jordan shirt in the background, I learned a lesson from Jordan real quick. Was in Toronto, and I was the brand manager for Sprite, and so we had a bunch of tickets for the first year the Toronto Raptor. Dollars, and we drafted this great young rookie, Damon Stoudemire. So the whole first half, Stonemaier was trying to cover Jordan, and he was working his butt off, and he held him to about 10 points. And he worked so hard. But the whole first half, Jordan was driving the basket, driving the basket, driving the basket. And stone Meyer had pretty quick hands, so he held him to about 10. Second half, Jordan would fake driving to the basket, hit a fade away, and ended up with about 47

Yeah, I

learned from the master that day. And then Damon Stoudemire learned from that. He got,

he got conditioned in that first half. That didn't end up too well for him. Yeah,

if, and if you're basketball person, you could appreciate it was so funny. And last question, Where can people get in touch with you?

I mean, I'm all over LinkedIn. I'm all over the internet. If you just type in Steve Fretz, and you'll find me and my website's fretzin.com, F, r, e, t, z, I n.com and you know my goal is, is to, yes, work with 20 lawyers a year. But then my real goal is to work and help all the lawyers across the world learn the skills that they didn't learn law school through my content, podcast, books, articles, whatever I write for above the law. So you can check out my column there. But it's, it's really about, how are we leaving this industry better than we found it, and helping people to really be successful in their careers? So that's really my goal, and I know that it when I, when I do that, and I'm doing it as well as anybody, that positive things happen. Steve,

this was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, and I think our folks got some top off on some of the strategies. So thank you so much for your time, and it was great.

Thank you, Jay, appreciate you.